Public education teachers have the need and the right to update and improve the work agreement that has not been renewed in fifteen years. For this, we should be immersed in a real negotiation, but the reality is deplorable. In a negotiation, the agreement of all parties must be based on trust and generosity in order to reach a specific goal. In this case, the attitude of the Department of Education does not help to reach the objective: they do not comply with what they say verbally, the proposals they send are partial, they also send late, and what they offer itself is offensive to anyone who wants the Basque Public School to be a reference.

In January several groups of Public Education launched mobilization dynamics with a large majority of these unions. All collectives together, each with its own space: teachers, childcare workers and educators of the consortium, and cook-cleaners. Each group has had its own journey, and today the only thing left to solve is the conflict of work of the teachers.

In the teacher sector, the unions have had several contacts with the Department of Education. In January and February, the STEILAS, LAB, ELA and CCOO unions agreed and carried out strike calls to resolve the labor dispute, since it is clear that strikes are the only tool that moves the administration. Thanks to these strikes, the negotiation has taken a certain course that has not existed in the last fifteen years. We could say that the real and material starting point was what was offered in the early hours of March 25, although in the early hours of the morning the Department of Education unilaterally broke the negotiation. In addition to the massive strikes in January and February, which we have added five days of successful strikes in March, the members of the Basque public school community have offered broad support to our demands, and yet, contrary to all this, the Department of Education is stressing the drift of the negotiating table to the point of gravity.

With the latest offer from the Department of Education in hand, the shortcomings and pitfalls in all the blocks of negotiation are evident: setbacks in the rejuvenation plan, a tiny conditional increase in salary, scarcity in terms of resources everywhere; in general, the puppy of the dog!

The STEILAS union takes full responsibility for negotiating the agreement on the work of teachers in public education, as the same situation demands it. Although we are operating on the basis of generosity and trust, the Department of Education, we do not take seriously the union that we are the first force in the sector, and we have a feeling that it is laughing and mocking us.

The negotiations are really making us cry. On the one hand, the anger and the impossibility of moving forward give way to the misery, but on the other hand, these tears also fuel the passion and strength to carry out new dynamics of struggle: in May we have called the teachers to strike for the whole week. The STEILAS union has a clear willingness to negotiate, but also to fight. It is clear that the teacher of the Basque Public School needs a new and updated labor agreement, not fifteen years of obsolescence. They already have detailed and detailed proclamations of the unions. For this reason, what they lack is the will to dignify the Basque Public School. We urge the Department of Education to take steps to overcome the labor dispute.

Yolanda Porres, Haizea Arbide and Javi Kerexazu, representatives of the STEILAS union