Teachers from the Community of Madrid are taking to the streets this Tuesday and will join a strike to demand the regional government to reduce teaching hours, reduce ratios and equalize salaries with those of other communities. Groups that bring together teachers from across the region, such as the Less Lectivas Assembly, regret that Madrid is “the only community that has not yet begun to reverse the 2011 budget cuts.”
The unions of the Education Sector Commission (CCOO, UGT, ANPE and CSIF) convened these meetings to demand an improvement in their working conditions. The march will travel through the capital, from Neptuno to Sol, and will include the participation of professionals from the Less Lectivas Assembly. One of its spokespersons explains to this editorial staff that Madrid teachers feel overwhelmed by the daily workload.
“We are asked for individualized attention, which we completely agree with, but without having the necessary means to do it,” explains Fernando, a primary and early childhood teacher in a school in the south of the region. .
They demand a “shock plan against bureaucracy”
Madrid teachers, according to teachers and union leaders interviewed, feel overwhelmed by the bureaucratic tasks assigned to them. This is also one of the points included in next Tuesday’s mobilization, with teaching organizations demanding “a shock plan against bureaucracy”.
The head of education at CSIF Madrid, Miguel Ángel González, assures that they spend the day writing “papers for one side” and “papers for the other”, but ultimately all these documents – and the investment of time needed to prepare them – “stays in a drawer.” He believes, in the same spirit, that he would “take off his hat” if these reports had a clear objective, but he insists that “bureaucracy is worthless”.
In the workplace, the promoters of the strike demand from the Ministry of Education that teachers “recover” the teaching schedule of 18 hours per week in secondary education, vocational training and the special regime and 23 hours in early childhood and primary education. Currently they have two more hours per week after the change that occurred following the approval by the PP of Royal Decree 14/2012, which imposed reductions and increased the hours of the teaching day. More than a decade later, and taking into account that in other communities the workload has been reduced, the educational community is asking the government of Isabel Díaz Ayuso to move in the same direction.
“We need to understand that education is an investment and not an expense, but what this community understands is that education is a business,” González says. His colleague at the Union Table, Esteban Serrano, organizing secretary of ANPE-Madrid, adds that there is “enormous discontent” among regional public education teachers because they see “how in Other communities conclude agreements that improve remunerative working conditions, while Madrid is left behind.
Meeting Thursday with the advisor
With the call for a strike already made, the Minister of Education, Emilio Viciana, summoned the unions to a meeting to present a proposal, although he did not advance the content of this working document. The trade union organizations and Viciana will meet on Thursday at noon for a meeting that worker representatives have been demanding since September 12 and about which some of their participants, like Teresa Jusdado, of the UGT, do not have “much ‘expectations’. .
In the Workers’ Commissions, Isabel Galvín, president of the Madrid educational federation, assures that they expect “a massive follow-up” to the demonstration and the strike. Furthermore, he states that “he doesn’t think the call” from the counselor is “serious” because it comes two months after classes started and because he doesn’t have an agenda.
From the Education press office, it is assured that the Ministry “has always reaffirmed its desire to continue working together” and recognizes that the reduction of school hours “seems to be a reasonable proposal, but it must be done gradually”.
Some groups, such as the Less Lectivas Assembly, consider Ayuso’s educational policy to be a list of measures announced only to make headlines, with which she seeks to “distract” and “confront”. His latest proposal was not well received by teachers’ organizations. The president recommends that all new public early childhood and primary schools built in the region have a compulsory split day and teach in the 1st and 2nd years of compulsory secondary education (ESO). ).
Despite the announcement, the inclusion of first cycle ESO classes in schools is prohibited by educational law, in particular against the provisions of Royal Decree 132/2010, of February 12, which establishes the conditions that secondary schools must meet, as published by elDiario. es.
“We will try to analyze everything legally, we even threaten to appeal the laws if they violate a higher standard,” says González, who in turn regrets that the ministry pilloriizes his “working conditions”. “Madrid has launched a crusade against public education teachers,” he believes. For its part, the Less Lectivas Assembly regrets that these proposals seek to “confront teachers and families”, as well as to promote the idea that “the school is a parking lot for children”.
