Teachers want much more than a salary increase

12/05/2026

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Today is the first of the 17 days of strikes that teachers have called. Their stoppage not only impacts students and families who are left without classes: at a quarter past seven in the morning, the striking teachers have cut off traffic in places like Mataró, Manresa, Vic, and especially, at the entrances to Barcelona, very particularly on the Ronda de Dalt, and then in the city center. Among teachers there is the conviction that it is now or never, that they have been holding up the educational system for a long time, that they do not have reinforcements in classrooms, that they are increasingly complex, and that salaries are low considering the responsibility they have, and that while the salaries of the Mossos have been reviewed, those of teachers have not.Regarding this, today we publish this interview with the spokesperson for USTEC, Iolanda Segura, with a very clear headline: “With 400 euros per month we could talk about raising the protest”. Pay attention, however, to a couple of details. First, the nuance. The spokesperson says: “If it is scheduled that 200 euros are already this first year and then the rest in two or three more years, we could finish negotiating and see what the collective tells us. But what is non-negotiable is 200 euros in four years, which everyone knows perfectly well that it neither places us at the forefront of salaries in the rest of the communities nor reverses the salary loss”. And the other detail is that it's not all about salaries. What else could provoke the protest? The union leader says: “Regarding staff numbers, the agreement includes a series of measures that we negotiated ourselves, such as reducing ratios and providing resources for educational centers and for inclusive education. We are talking about figures that are both labor and teaching, special education educators, integration specialists, TEEI (specialist technician in early childhood education) and psychopedagogues”. It is important to note, therefore, that teachers are demanding improvements that go beyond economic ones. I say this because the polarization, for and against teachers, without nuances, which mixes things like having two months of vacation, has reached the dozens of comments the news has received.I believe it is fundamental that we look further, and of course, do so without starting from likes or dislikes. It may be annoying that they block traffic or demand more money, but teachers are focusing on a core problem, that of education. A problem means what is taught, how it is taught, and what educational and future job value for students the content taught in Catalan schools has. If we talk about education, for a long time now no one here is happy: the Government wants to reverse the results of the PISA report, we have concluded that the teaching career is neither sufficiently demanding nor sufficiently recognized, the postal district weighs heavily on the students' school reality, the job market cannot find well-prepared people... And it's not new, it's been a long time that with all kinds of governments, teaching has been fertile ground for the dissatisfaction of its protagonists. And thus, as a society, we cannot continue. And the Government, even less so. What a mistake it was to bring the spotlights and cameras to the signing of an agreement with unions that were not the majority ones, as if to say that everything is fine, madam baroness. Well, no, it is not, and we will hear about it during 17 days of strike, three of which are general education strikes, between now and the end of the school year.Good morning.