Education union reps reject sectoral talks and refuse to meet separately with minister

Unions leading education strikes last week will not attend the sectoral table on Thursday morning nor will they meet separately with the Minister of the Presidency, Albert Dalmau.

Instead, the trade unions USTEC, Secondary School Teachers, CGT, and Intersindical have informed the government that they will present themselves jointly at the meeting on Thursday afternoon.

They have also demanded that Dalmau present concrete proposals at this meeting to improve teachers' working conditions, and demonstrate a clear will to reopen negotiations beyond the pact reached with CCOO and UGT, which they see as invalidated after last week's demonstrations.

Representatives have threatened new strikes in the third quarter of the year should the minister fail to bring these points to the meeting table.

The unions went to the University of Barcelona building on Tuesday morning, rejecting the call from the government to meet to reopen negotiations after last week's strikes, instead lamenting the "contempt" of the administration for not sending any member of the executive to the talks.

In addition, Iolanda Segura, a leader from the USTEC union, assures that the individual call for meetings on Thursday afternoon aims to "fragment unity." Instead, they have told the government they will meet conjointly. 

They also criticize that the afternoon meeting calls do not have an agenda set, and they do not know what the executive wants to talk about.