Cuts, protests and actions in the centers: first day of mobilizations in public education

BarcelonaThe education sector launches a new cycle of mobilizations in defense of public education. On the eve of Thursday's strike day in nurseries (0-3) - the first of seventeen called for next month in all educational stages - teachers have staged various traffic disruptions, protests, and actions in schools since early morning.

In L'Hospitalet, for example, about thirty professionals have blocked traffic on the access to Sant Rafael street, at the height of Isabel la Católica avenue, shouting "public and quality education", "more resources and fewer speeches", and "educational strike". In statements to ACN, Maria Samper, a teacher at a high school in the city, emphasized that the day is intended to inform the public and students that a new calendar of strikes is opening and to explain the reasons. "If the Government decides to negotiate, we will change and the course will end normally. And it will not be like this if the department is unmoving", she concluded.

Protests with this message will be repeated throughout the day across the territory. In schools such as CEIP Cavall Bernat in Barcelona, Montserrat Solà school in Mataró, or La Pallaresa institute school in Santa Coloma de Gramanet, a manifesto has been read at the school gate, just before the start of classes. In some schools, however, actions will take place during break time, while others plan to protest at midday by taking tables and chairs to the street or forming human chains. And in Igualada, for example, a packed lunch has been organized in the Town Hall square.

The majority opposition within the sector has joined the struggle of the educational community to improve working conditions and resources in schools a few days ago against the deployment of Mossos in schools and institutes to "guarantee school coexistence", as announced by the Govern. In this regard, about fifty people gathered this morning in front of the Joan Sallarès i Pla school in Sabadell, one of the first 14 centers that will host plainclothes police officers as part of the Generalitat's pilot plan.

The protest calendar, called by the majority union Ustec, Secondary School Teachers, CGT, and Intersindical, includes three system-wide strikes on May 12, May 27, and June 5, as well as a series of mobilizations extended throughout the territory and called according to the educational stage. In total, each educational center will be affected by five strikes in the coming month.