It was not the salaries

Arrogance, dismissiveness, and haughtiness are terrible tools in any negotiation. They can give a false sense of security, but they often backfire on those who use them. Both Generalities, the Catalan and the Valencian, can apply this to the standoff they are having with teachers. Also —in the case of Catalonia— unions that thought they had a representation of the teaching collective that has been proven they did not. It also applies to journalists who present a fundamental civil right —the right to strike— as little less than an antisocial act. All of them —certain politicians, certain unions, certain journalists— have fallen into the error of taking for granted that the strong, deep mobilization of teachers in public schools and in Catalan (two things that go together) was reduced to a salary increase. There are variables that certain people in power do not take into account because they do not know them. For example, the vocation for public service. For example, dignity.Be that as it may, the reactivation of protests in Catalonia, and the continuation of the indefinite strike in the Valencian Country, have shattered the plans of the rulers to whom, in the first instance, the demands of teachers and professors were addressed. Fragile and inconsistent plans, as demonstrated by the fact that the rulers in question —consellera Niubó in Catalonia, president Pérez Llorca in the Valencian Country— have fallen into the error of saying, or implying, that the teachers were actually seeking “other objectives” than those that in theory had led them to strike. Hidden, veiled, unconfessed objectives. Who knows if unconfessable.Pérez Llorca, who as the successor of the unfortunate Mazón is a loudmouth and a reckless person, accused teachers of going on strike which had "a political component": the strike —with its corresponding loss of job and salary, as they like to talk about salaries— is always one of the most profoundly political acts a citizen can undertake in a democracy, an act as committed, conscious, and decisive as voting. Of course a strike has "a political component". Niubó, for his part, spoke of these suspicious "other objectives", as if what teachers really wanted was to destabilize the government. Mistaking the adversary and their objectives is a fatal error.Of the tasks that fall to those who assume government responsibilities, few —or none— are more important than taking care of public pensions, healthcare, and schools, which in the case of Catalonia, the Valencian Country, and the Balearic Islands are in Catalan (we should also applaud the gesture of the teachers in the Balearic Islands, who have donated one hundred thousand euros from their common fund in support of their Valencian and Catalan colleagues). Many years of bad decisions, abandonments, non-compliance, and partisan and/or ideological manipulation maneuvers have accumulated in public schools. Intelligent and audacious elites would see an opportunity to roll up their sleeves and shine with good work planned in the short, medium, and long term. Mediocre ones see a war against an enemy that seems incomprehensible to them.