Protests

15 Jan 2012

I haven´t had time to write about this yet. However, since it´s Sunday, I have some time to catch up on what´s been happening at school.

There´s been a lot of uproar at school in the last week since the Valencian government announced that it was going to be making cuts for all funcionarios--government employees.

For teachers, this means that their salaries are getting cut.

In the US, this would probably mean that teachers would be fired. Here, teachers´ salaries will get cut almost to the point where you would be better off not working but receiving unemployment benefits.

In the Community of Valencia, teachers get a pay increase for every 6 years that they work. In order to receive this pay increase, they have to take some enrichment courses or be doing something to make themselves better teachers--just as you would in the United States.

However, in order to make 271 million euros in cuts, the government has decided to get rid of these pay increases.

Basically, when it´s all said and done, teachers will end up making less than they did 10 years ago!

Of course, teachers are upset about this! It´s the topic of conversation nearly every day during recess!

They aren´t taking it lying down. They´re organizing and protesting.

As a first step, last week, all of the schools protested at the door of their school at 12:30 for 5 minutes--just to make people aware of the situation.

This seemed ineffective. So this coming week, teachers from schools in the area will congregate on the street Miriam Blasco in order to protest. This Saturday, there will be a big manifestation with teachers from every school in Alicante in the city center.