The unions consider the latest remuneration proposal from Education insufficient

BarcelonaNew –and third– consecutive key day on Barcelona's Via Augusta. This Friday at noon, education unions met again with a new proposal from the Department of Education on the table, but the meeting did not end with an agreement and positions have moved further apart again. However, the Government and trade union organizations will meet again on Tuesday. Upon leaving the meeting, the spokesperson for USTEC, Iolanda Segura, said that the proposal presented to them by the department "is not an acceptable proposal" and that they had already rejected it. Segura complained that the offer had not been framed within the negotiation framework that the unions presented on Thursday and once again issued an ultimatum:

At the meeting, the Department of Education brought a new proposal after receiving that of the unions on Thursday. Education continues to frame its offer within singular complements, even though the unions had insisted that they wanted a salary increase for all teachers, regardless of their position. In fact, this Friday before the meeting, the Minister of Education, Esther Niubó, had already warned that the proposal for a general increase of 500 euros for all teachers is "out of reach" of the department's possibilities.

Given this, this Friday, the Government offered the unions to increase by 50% the amount of the existing complements –tutor roles and digital coordinators– and to create three new ones: a co-tutoring role for secondary school teachers, a complement for all teachers in centers of maximum complexity, and a complement for directing research work (TR). This move would mean a salary increase for about 104,000 teachers in the public and subsidized systems, which represents around 85% of the staff compared to the 121,000 teachers in the Catalan system.

salary increase of about 500 euros by 2029 for all teachersRegarding the increase in staff, Education has once again offered the 2,300 new positions it had already put on the table, half of which would be to strengthen inclusive education. Again, a figure far from the 6,400 positions that union forces had demanded.

“It is a balanced proposal”

At the end of the meeting, the Secretary of Educational Improvement, Ignasi Giménez, defended that the Government has presented a proposal that impacts seven benefits and 100,000 teachers. “We understand that it is a balanced proposal that allows us to address some of the teachers' demands and at the same time contribute to the improvement of the system”, he pointed out. Giménez insisted that his proposal involves “incorporating” 78 million euros more and recognizing “essential tasks”. He also admitted that they will look to see if there are “other elements to generate consensus” and that they will continue to sit at the table “to defuse the situation”.

This Thursday, the unions presented a counter-proposal that, among other things, demands a salary increase of around 500 euros by 2029 for all teachers –478 for primary school teachers and 544 for secondary school teachers–, 6,400 new staff positions (a significant part should be to strengthen inclusive education), payment for overtime for school trips, and negotiation of school curricula.

Possible mobilization with the Pope's visit

Before the meeting, the USTEC union – the majority in the sector – had redoubled pressure with a video on social networks in which it hinted at the possibility of a mobilization coinciding with the visit of Pope Leo XIV to Barcelona.

In the video, images of teacher demonstrations from the recent general strikes are interspersed with an image of the Pope, as well as an image of the protest action that unions carried out this week to block the entrance to the Sagrada Família. The video ends with a warning: "We are preparing".