Thursday, March 28

Ayuso tries to retain Madrid teachers, the lowest paid in Spain, with a salary increase

The teachers of the Community of Madrid have started the 2022-2023 academic year in the group of the lowest paid in the national geography. Depending on the educational level that is taken as a reference, they occupy the last, penultimate or third position from the bottom, according to union calculations, which compare with embarrassing results the educational salaries of the richest region of Spain (in terms of GDP) with those of other communities.

According to a study by the UGT union published last March, a secondary school teacher in Madrid earns an average gross salary of 2,513 euros. The same professional enters 3,019 euros in the Basque Country or 2,700 in the nearby Castilla-La Mancha. Only in Aragon, with 2,462 euros per month, he has worse conditions than in Madrid.

In this context, the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, announced this Monday during the debate on the state of the region a salary increase for professors and teachers. For the former, their monthly salary will increase by 90 euros, while for the latter the increase will reach 75 euros. An increase that will come from January 1, 2023 in the autonomous section -which has been frozen since 2006, the unions warn- and that will be added to the one decided by the State for all the communities.

With the increase announced by Ayuso, Madrid Secondary School teachers will advance their salaries to those of five other communities, although they will still be far from the majority of Spanish regions, with another eleven that offer higher salaries. The following graph shows all these figures.


Díaz Ayuso follows with this announcement the example of Moreno Bonilla in Andalusia, who last May, before the elections, promised a rise of 49.5 euros per month for Secondary school teachers and 43.5 for Primary teachers and Children from this September 1. The amounts will increase progressively in the Andalusian community until the year 2024, until reaching a monthly increase of 165 euros. In the case of the Madrid president, the rise reaches only part of the current course, at the moment.

The unions celebrate Ayuso’s intentions, although they are cautious about their development and compliance. In principle, the rise will increase gross annual salaries by 1,260 euros for teachers and 1,050 euros for teachers. The extra expense that the measure will entail for Madrid has been estimated at 120 million euros and the benefit will be obtained by both public education teachers (61,041 workers) and concerted teachers (25,348).

“It is a victory for the teaching staff, the objective is equal pay with other autonomous communities”, explain CC.OO sources. consulted by this newspaper, who are still waiting to know how they are going to award another 20 million euros in salaries, which the Ministry of Education wants to distribute as salary supplements, encouraging payrolls for its most productive workers, which enrich “the offer education in the region and attention to students”, explains the regional Executive.

Lack of teachers in various stages

The news of the salary increase comes with the beginning of the course in which Education is desperately looking for teachers for Madrid, in view of the fact that classes have already started and many places are still unallocated, pending to be delivered to interim teachers. In some subjects they will not be filled, since there are more vacancies than educators. “There is a lack of teachers in Secondary, Baccalaureate and especially in Vocational Training, where the situation is very extreme in areas such as Computer Science”, the general secretary of Education in CC.OO confirms to Somos Madrid. of Madrid, Isabel Galvin. Dozens of places have been left unfilled in this subject and others have not even been offered yet.

Teachers have worse working conditions in Madrid: their teaching hours are longer and the ratios are higher

Low salaries have led professionals from technical branches such as the aforementioned Computer Science or subjects such as Mathematics to seek accommodation in better-paid productive sectors or in regions where they receive more salary for teaching their classes, point out the Workers’ Commissions. “Teachers have worse working conditions in Madrid: their teaching hours are longer and the ratios are higher, so they have to take care of more students,” Galvín points out.

In addition, there are the educators hired part-time by the Community of Madrid for the entire course and that in the case of Primary they do not reach mileuristas, indicate the same union sources, who denounce the precariousness suffered by part of the group.

CC.OO. figure in 4,714 the number of teachers that Madrid needs to face a reduction in the teaching load and thus equip other communities. And 3,647 professionals to achieve the lowering of the ratio. In addition, it estimates that 1,310 more would be needed for support and reinforcement, 1,509 counselors and 1,216 welfare coordinators. In total 12,216 more workers (about four for each public center). The Ayuso Government highlighted this Monday that it has incorporated 1,266 new teachers and that it maintains the 2,120 hired on an exceptional basis during the pandemic as reinforcement. At the moment, with these figures, the reduction in ratios only reaches the first years of the Infant stage.

From CSIF they remember that “the Community of Madrid is one of the most expensive to live in” and in which “the cuts in purchasing power that we have suffered in recent years have been most noticeable”. “This increase is far from alleviating the consequences of rising prices,” they point out in a statement, in which they also demand the convening of a Sectoral Table in which to address “an ambitious schedule of increases that allow teachers in our community match the rest of the national territory.

“The educational reality in Madrid is that we have the lowest investment per student in the entire State, that our public network is the lowest and family spending on education is the highest in the country”, they abound from UGT, who add as other priorities “the drop in ratios at all levels, the increase in teaching staff, the air conditioning of the centers and their removal of asbestos”, in addition to modifying “the scholarship policy so that they serve to alleviate inequality in the most unequal Autonomous Community in all of Spain”.

The announcement of the Government of the PP comes at a key moment for a sector that has just started the course: in a few months it will have to deal with the Ministry of Education the negotiation of the new collective agreement, between attempts to return from the Green Tide, the movement that has already caused important headaches for Esperanza Aguirre. The previous agreement, which dates from the time of Cifuentes, ends its validity this year and from the unions they assure this medium that the salary increase was one of the objectives of the group, for which they welcome Ayuso’s willingness to increase remuneration. Until they see the advance salary increases this Monday, they remain suspicious: “The main problem is that this announcement becomes a reality and does not keep dust in a drawer like so many announcements by the Díaz Ayuso government in educational matters,” they warn in CC .OO.





www.eldiario.es