Canarian teachers have suffered a "significant" loss of purchasing power from 2010 to 2024, which has been exacerbated by inflation and the continued effects of the 2008 economic crisis, as denounced this Wednesday by the STEC-Intersindical Canaria union.
Thus, it is increasingly difficult for Canarian teachers to accept a position in Lanzarote, where there are almost no rental properties and those that exist have higher prices than in most of the archipelago.
In a telematic press conference, the union detailed that secondary school, language school, and art school teachers - with an average seniority of 13 years - have lost more than 53,000 euros in this period between monthly salaries and extra payments, but those who have been in practice for 35 years may have failed to receive nearly 70,000 euros.
According to the STEC-IC union representative in Gran Canaria, Emilio Armas, they will try to negotiate with the regional administration to recover part of this loss of purchasing power, noting that ideally, in the coming years, the salary increase for teachers should exceed the value of the CPI.
However, he admitted that, "given the current political situation" in the country, they are not very optimistic that this salary increase can occur, since due to the absence of general state budgets, they have had their salary frozen since 2023.
"It will be necessary to demand some remuneration from the Ministry, not to return the lost amount, but to end this bleeding that is increasing year after year," Armas explained.
This loss of purchasing power with respect to salaries and supplements that depend on the State is added to that caused by the lack of updating of the supplements that depend directly on the autonomous community.
The STEC-IC union representative on the island of Tenerife, Gerardo Rodríguez, lamented that these supplements that depend on the Ministry of Education of the Canary Islands have not been updated since 2018, the year in which they began to be paid, despite repeated requests from the union he represents.
Thus, they receive 35 euros per month for the tutoring supplement, or 30 euros for those of occupational risk coordination, information and communication technology (ICT) coordination, or classroom coexistence.
"It seems to us that they are well below the benefits provided by teachers," criticized Rodríguez, who added that there are other supplements such as heritage or welfare that are not paid in the Canary Islands, while the six-year terms "have become obsolete" and are not even charged in the same month in which they are completed, but you have to wait until January of the following year.
The unionist delved into the fact that these supplements need to be updated and "raise their income level to what corresponds to them by the Canarian CPI," but also taking into account that access to housing in the archipelago is difficult in certain stressed areas, so he has asked that it be taken to the negotiating table.
Regarding the specific supplement, STEC has reproached that it is not charged at 100% in the case of Canarian teachers, but only at 78%, a situation that has been dragging on since the previous economic crisis, at which time it was frozen.
For all these reasons, and if there is no progress in the negotiation tables or in conversations with the Ministry of Education, the union has not ruled out carrying out mobilizations to demand the rights of teachers.
Mobilizations, yes, that would be coordinated with the unions of the rest of the country once the results of this report on the loss of purchasing power in the rest of the autonomous communities are presented.
