The USTEC union, the primary representative of public school teachers in Catalonia, will begin a series of meetings with opposition parties this week to increase pressure on President Salvador Illa’s government to fulfill its education pledges.
USTEC will meet with CUP deputies on Friday 2 October, followed by Junts on Tuesday 6 October and ERC on Wednesday 7 October. The aim is to build a shared strategy and urge these parties to push the executive to turn announced commitments into concrete, budgeted actions, the union said in a press release.
The union will present proposals on funding, inclusion, staffing, infrastructure, and language policy, demanding that promises, such as investing 6% of GDP in education, be backed by verifiable budgets, timelines, and monitoring. USTEC insists this investment must be exclusively for the public system.
We wonder if public education needs yet another debate.
USTEC has rejected the government’s proposed national education debate, which is being channelled through the Council of Education of Catalonia. The union’s coordinator of union action, Andreu Mumbrú, called the initiative a move to “deactivate mobilization and dilute the voice of professionals in the centres”.
The union also criticised the government for attempting to sideline the Sectoral Table and shift monitoring to a commission limited to unions that have agreed not to mobilise further. USTEC maintains that the government cannot choose its negotiation partners based on political convenience.
At the start of the academic year, USTEC set five priorities: achieving 6% of GDP through annual budget increases, reviewing class sizes, improving working conditions, launching a school refurbishment plan, and safeguarding the use of Catalan in classrooms. These issues, the union says, require formal negotiations, which the government has not yet scheduled beyond routine meetings.
The union warned in late September that it may call new strikes in November if no verifiable progress is made, following the rejection of a pre-agreement signed in May. The PISA results and ongoing teacher dissatisfaction were central during Illa’s recent parliamentary appearance, where he ruled out dismissing Education Minister Esther Niubó.
Earlier this month, Illa announced the creation of two parliamentary working groups, one on the national debate and another on the 6% investment goal, but USTEC says these do not replace the need for binding negotiations with union representatives.
Reported by elmon.cat, en.ara.cat.
