Seven weeks of strike. The workers of the municipal nursery schools in Madrid, on strike since last April 7, gathered again this Monday in Plaza de la Villa to demand salary improvements and criticize the extensions of the tender contracts for these centers, coinciding with the meeting of the Social Policies, Family and Equality Commission in the Cardenal Cisneros building.
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During this month and a half, the Madrid City Council, despite the workers’ mobilizations, has renewed contracts with the concessionary companies to maintain two salary scales depending on the validity of the tender specifications.
Pot-banging and shouts
During the protest, the educators, dressed in yellow and with whistles and pots, chanted slogans such as “0-3 can’t make ends meet” or “less ratio more salary” to demand better working conditions.
Also, during the morning, representatives of the Nursery Schools Labor Platform (PLEI) filed 19 appeals against the extensions of the tender contracts of several municipal nursery schools.
One of the PLEI spokespersons, Lucía Martínez, explained that the workers gather once again to show their “disagreement and rejection” of these extensions which, she points out, “only reveal the little political will there is to take us into account.”
Martínez stated that the platform considers that “it is being consciously hidden that the suspension of these extensions was already requested a year ago when the last collective agreement was signed.” This agreement, in her opinion, “was already discriminatory because it has two salary scales depending on the tender and one salary or another is paid, doing exactly the same tasks.”
Support from Rita Maestre
She also lamented “the institutional abandonment that exists in the first cycle of early childhood education” and assured that the workers will continue with the mobilizations.
According to the platform’s complaint, that collective agreement was signed by the unions FSIE, FEUSO, and UGT a year ago.
For her part, the spokesperson of Más Madrid in the City Council, Rita Maestre, who supported the protesting workers on strike, accused the government of José Luis Martínez-Almeida of “lying” about the extensions.
“The reality is that over almost a month and a half, the PP government here in the Madrid City Council has lied. Almeida and his Social Policies delegate (José Fernández) have repeatedly stated that the extensions were signed, that they could do nothing, that their hands were tied,” she said from Plaza de la Villa.
Maestre assured that “while these brave women began to organize and went on strike, the PP signed one extension after another, up to a total number of 17.”
They earn 300 euros less per month
In her opinion, this means that “during the last month and a half Almeida has continued condemning these workers to keep earning 300 euros less per month than they deserve.”
The Más Madrid spokesperson also argued that the City Council acts this way to “save 3 million euros” on the salaries of nursery school workers and, with “the other hand,” spends “the 400 million euros on the works that no one asked for from the Formula 1.”
“It is a political and conscious decision of the PP,” criticized Maestre, who reiterated her group’s support for the appeals filed by PLEI so that the municipal government “reverses” the extensions and works on “new contracts that can guarantee the workers the salary they deserve.”
This week’s mobilizations
Meanwhile, the collective’s mobilizations continue this week in the capital. This afternoon they will hold an Assembly at 6 p.m. Tomorrow, Tuesday the 19th, they will gather at the Congress of Deputies. On Thursday, a meeting with the Education Counselor, Mercedes Zarzalejo, is scheduled at 4 p.m., but at the same time they will gather to express their discontent. The person responsible for the area has not met with the platform since the strike began. She has only met with the major unions.
And on Saturday the 23rd, a state demonstration is planned at 12 p.m. from the Atocha area to Puerta del Sol, where colleagues from all over Spain are expected to arrive to support the mobilizations.
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