Catalonia: Rebellion in the classrooms
Catalan education workers are leading a great fight. We talked with Eduard Baeza, Professor of Technology at the Eugenio de Oros Institute in Hospitalet de Llobregat and activist of the class union Coordinadora Obrera Sindical (COS).
The education fight is strong. How did you start and what are your goals??
The fight for public education arises from the reality we live in educational centers. We must keep in mind that we have been listening to speeches from the Government about inclusive education for many years., There is a decree that sets objectives so that all the diversity present among our students has a place in the classrooms.. Nevertheless, These speeches remain in words and then the necessary resources are not allocated to make them a reality..
Because, All education workers do a real juggling act to compensate for the lack of resources.. evidently, this is absolutely unsustainable. We have reached a point where all this discomfort and all this anguish that we experience daily in the classrooms has been transformed into an organized fight and rage directed towards the different governments that have managed the Department of Education in recent years., not only from the PSC but also from Esquerra Republicana, to demand solutions.
All of this was accompanied by debate and socialization of the main demands of the educational community.. There is a salary issue, Of course, This was the aspect that received the most media attention from the elites and the media.. Nevertheless, our demands are much broader.
We want a reduction in ratios, an increase in staff, the professional reclassification of colleagues who today occupy categories lower than those to which they correspond, the internalization of personnel who currently work with precarious contracts through private companies, investments to improve infrastructure and air conditioning of centers. In winter we die of cold and in summer of heat. We have a campaign in which we have installed thermometers connected to the network that allow us to measure the real temperatures of the classrooms: Every day we see how the recommended limits are greatly exceeded and temperatures of 35 O 36 degrees in numerous centers throughout the territory. It is impossible to teach in these conditions. The only answer of as far as they can has been to distribute some fans.
We have overcrowded classrooms, more than 25 O 30 students. All this is what we demand. The problem is that, Finally, in a pre-agreement signed by the union leaders, without taking advantage of all the assembly organization that exists in the territory, An attempt was made to close the conflict by offering only some concessions.
Why did some unions sign the pre-agreement with the Government and the bases reject it??
The deficiencies that we denounce come from many years ago. Because, The consultation carried out with the entire educational community was a true exercise of collective dignity and finally allowed the agreement to be stopped.. At present, practically every center has a workers' assembly. These assemblies are coordinated territorially and then participate in an educational assembly of Catalonia. Some unions left aside this democratic decision-making capacity and signed an agreement that offered certain salary improvements—one of our legitimate demands—trying to buy social peace through economic compensation.. But all other demands remained unresolved..
I believe that the signing of the agreement occurred, in some cases, because certain union leaders were tired after a long cycle of mobilizations. Nevertheless, when an organization is really structured in an assembly-based manner and the decision-making power resides in the assemblies, Decisions cannot be made solely from the union leadership.
Regarding the secondary school teachers union, the situation is different. It is a corporate union that exclusively prioritizes the interests of secondary school teachers., even when these conflict with the interests of primary school teachers, of early childhood education 0 a 3 years or from other educational sectors. It is not a class union, deeply corporatist bell, of concertation that, when you have the chance, sign social agreements, just like CCOO and UGT usually do.
The fight is becoming much more than a union conflict...
Yes. The idea that is being worked on from the assemblies is that the unions return to being what they should be: tools at the service of the working class, useful for calling strikes, promote mobilizations and defend our rights.
I think that the victory in this consultation and the defeat of the story that stated that we were only mobilizing for salary issues has been a turning point.. The media campaign that tried to reduce our demands to an economic issue has been completely discredited. There was already significant social support, but now it has multiplied.
Many sectors have shown their solidarity with this fight. We must remember that all people go through the public educational system: either we are professionals in the sector or we are users of this. That's why this fight affects us all.. We have received support from the firefighters, of subway workers, of metal, from the port; now universities and librarians are also on strike.
We are facing a conflict that widely transcends the educational sector and that challenges the entire working class.. It can become a seed to move towards something broader.. There is a campaign to bring together labor unionism and the housing movement with the aim of calling a general strike, something that hasn't happened for many years.
We want to put on the table that exploitation no longer occurs only in the workplace.. It also occurs through the cost of living and, especially, of the home. That is why we must stand. We have to remember that if everything continues to work it is because we contribute our work, and that when we want we can stop everything and try to force changes to defend our rights and our freedoms. It is very important to achieve this victory to demonstrate that the working class has the capacity to defend its own interests..
It should also be noted that this fight is not limited to the Principality. Important mobilizations are taking place in the Valencian Country. Contributions have been made from the Balearic Islands 50.000 euros for the Catalunya resistance fund and others 50.000 euros for the Valencian Country.
Therefore, We are talking about a struggle shared throughout the Catalan Countries, based on mutual support and solidarity. We have common struggles, common objectives and a language that unites and coheres us. We will maintain that unity in the face of a regime that attacks both the working class and the oppressed nations within the Spanish State and the French State..
The colleagues from Catalunya Norte also suffer from policies that marginalize the Catalan language and culture in schools. In the same way, We have always tried to show solidarity with Palestine and with those who risked their integrity by participating in the Freedom Flotilla, being later attacked, detained and mistreated by the Israeli State. We try to link all these struggles because, in the background, They are all part of the same fight: the defense of the working class.
What happens with the implementation of the Mossos d'Esquadra in educational centers?
The proposal to introduce Mossos in the classrooms is part of a broader trend that could be defined as the militarization of our lives.. It is part of a set of policies that include increasing the salaries of the Mossos, expand your workforce and improve your working conditions. They are political decisions that reflect certain priorities. From our point of view, The objective is to reinforce the control and repression mechanisms in the face of the growing social unrest caused by the deterioration of public services.. When social conflicts arise, power tries to manage them through police forces and judicial structures. I believe that social problems do not arise by themselves. Insecurity and many of the current conflicts have their roots in policies that push sectors of the population towards precariousness., poverty and social exclusion.
Thus, We believe that not only the consequences should be addressed, but the causes. A safer society is one where working families have access to decent housing, to adequate nutrition and decent living conditions. Capital cannot solve these problems because it is precisely one of their causes.. That is why we insist on combating speeches that seek to normalize police presence in educational spaces.. The social function of the police is to manage and repress the consequences of social inequalities. That is why we maintain that the police should not be part of the classrooms and that we must oppose these policies and narratives.
An indefinite strike is planned…
The CGT registered a notice of an indefinite strike to have all the necessary dates available in case it was decided to call it.. For the moment, The only confirmed strike day is the one scheduled for Tuesday, coinciding with the Pope's visit. The rest of the dates are still being debated and must be ratified by the assemblies.. The intention is that everything works in a democratic and assembly-oriented manner.. The Educational Assembly of Catalonia is the space where proposals are discussed and where unions are sought to act as instruments at the service of collective decisions.. The idea is to take advantage of the remaining weeks of the course to carry out mobilizations and concrete actions, and prepare now for the start of the next course based on the proposal that obtains greater support in the assemblies.
Do you want to add something else?
We have shown that there are many ways of acting and thinking as a working class. During these weeks we have carried out very diverse actions. We have pointed out the tourism model and the policies that favor it, because they enrich a minority while harming the majority of the residents of our neighborhoods. It is an economic model that drives up rental prices and transforms neighborhoods to meet the needs of tourism instead of guaranteeing the rights of those who live and work in them.. That is why we have carried out actions in front of Casa Batlló, the Sagrada Familia and Montserrat. We have linked the defense of the right to education with the defense of the right to housing. We must remember that without guaranteeing decent housing we will not be able to guarantee quality education either., because living conditions directly influence learning processes.
