A total of 13 English conversation assistants from Lanzarote faced the Ministry of Education this Wednesday, in a trial held by the Social Court number 3 of Arrecife, after the regional Executive decided to dispense with their services for this course.
These people had been working for years in public schools and institutes on the island, within a project that the Ministry of Education launched to provide support to teachers, to improve their linguistic skills". "People who were native speakers were sought to accompany teachers in the classrooms at certain times," explains Georgina Molina, general director of Educational Planning, Innovation and Promotion of the Government of the Canary Islands. In total, 323 throughout the Canary Islands provided their services, before their withdrawal.
It was the CEP who was in charge of certifying the hours that these conversation assistants worked. "We paid them the part that corresponded to them for their hours of work plus the proportional part for the IRPF withholding," says Molina.
The teachers were registered as self-employed, because the Ministry required them to do so, but the problem came, according to Molina, when one of them, a worker in Tenerife, understood that he was not self-employed, but rather performed teaching functions and decided to file a complaint at the end of last year's course to the Ministry.
Fine from the Ministry
This was joined in time to a fine that the Ministry of Labor and Immigration imposed on Education, requesting the payment of more than 400,000 euros, in concepts of Social Security contributions, for these workers, understanding that they were not self-employed, but rather had "an employment relationship" with the Government of the Canary Islands. A fine that has been appealed by the regional Executive. "Taking advantage of this and the economic crisis, that there is no money for anything, we decided in the summer to withdraw the service, understanding that the teachers already had to be trained".
Then, says Molina, many of these native teachers "raised hell and decided to file a complaint". "They sued us because they consider that they have to be workers and personnel of the Ministry, when many of them do not even have a degree. That in the first place. Then, to enter to be a member of the public service you have to have an accreditation and an opposition", points out the general director of Educational Planning, Innovation and Promotion of the Government of the Canary Islands.
Lawsuit in Lanzarote
And the same thing happened in Lanzarote. "In August, seeing what had happened with the issue of the fine, they informed us that we would not join on September 1 and that we would not do so until it was resolved," he says. But seeing that time was passing, explains this teacher, they decided to file a claim for unfair dismissal in November. "We claim compensation for this and for the contributions we had made as self-employed, because they say that there was no employment relationship, but rather administrative and that we were for the teachers and not for the students, but it is a lie", he says.
The judge, he says, dismissed the unfair dismissal considering that it had "expired". "He considers that we did not present them in time, because the Ministry was not clear with us and kept us on hold waiting and until November we did not present the claim," he says.
However, the door remains open in the plane of being able to be compensated for the contributions they made to Social Security and we will have to wait for a sentence to be handed down for it.
