The student and teacher unions are gathering this Thursday in front of the Madrid Assembly, in the context of the indefinite strike for public education against the cuts by the Government of the Community of Madrid, presided over by Isabel Díaz Ayuso. The mobilization began at 10:00 a.m. this morning and will last until 2:00 p.m., under the slogan: "We defend the public, we defend the future".
UGT SP Madrid Enseñanza already rejected, in statements to ElConstitucional.es a few days ago, Isabel Díaz Ayuso's attacks against the teachers who support the strike for public education. The union questioned the president's linking of the protests with violence and defended that teachers exercise a constitutional right to demand labor improvements.
In that response, the organization also denounced that the Ministry of Education and the regional Government had not responded to a negotiation request made two months earlier.
The union spoke out after Ayuso stated on Monday, October 19, coinciding with a concentration in front of an event she was attending in Madrid: “The education of everyone's children is in the hands of people this violent who do not even respect the right of children to go to school”.
UGT considered that these disqualifications affected all teachers, not just those participating in the strike. “From UGT SP Madrid Enseñanza, we strongly reject the erroneous and premeditatedly harmful classification that Isabel Díaz Ayuso has made of the Public Education teachers of the Community of Madrid who are supporting the strike, and by extension, of the entire teaching collective”, it conveyed to this newspaper.
The organization recalled that the workers were making use of “a constitutional, legitimate and fundamental right (that of exercising a strike)” to defend labor conditions that, it denounced, had been deteriorated by the decisions of the regional Executive.
“This is a strike in defense of labor rights”
In those statements, UGT also rejected Ayuso's attribution of a political character to the call. “Furthermore, we totally repudiate the classification she makes of this strike; according to her words, of a political nature”, it stated.
The union thus explained the reasons for the mobilization: “This is a strike in defense of the labor rights of public education workers, which urgently need to improve, and a request for improvement of Madrid's non-university public education”.
Among the demands are fewer students per classroom, reduction of teaching hours, salary improvements, and more educational resources.
UGT also defended the willingness of the convening committee to negotiate: “The negotiating attitude of the convening strike committee is beyond doubt”. As it explained then, two months earlier, a good-faith negotiation on the points of the strike's argument had been requested from the Ministry and the regional government, an offer they kept open at the time of those statements.
The organization denounced that, until that date, it had not received a response: “An offer, on the other hand, that to this day has not received a response from the Ministry of Education and the Regional Government”.
