Schools have not yet started on the Balearic islands (Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza and Formentera) as 6,000 teachers have gone on indefinite strike. The teachers are protesting against cuts, which have increased working time from 35 to 37.5 hours per week, reduced salaries by 25% and left them with 1000 teachers less than last year to educate the same number of children. The strike, however, is further fuelled by a language reform which downgrades the status of the Balearic language (a version of Catalan) to the same level as Spanish and English in the school curriculum. University lecturers have walked off the job to support their colleagues in primary and secondary education.
English: http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/55002
For more information, please contact the editor Jan Cremers, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) cbn-aias@uva.nl or the communications officer at the ETUI, Mariya Nikolova mnikolova@etui.org. For previous issues of the Collective bargaining newsletter please visit http://www.etui.org/E-Newsletters/Collective-bargaining-newsletter. You may find further information on the ETUI at www.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net.