Teachers and the Struggle for Democracy in Spain, 1970-1985

T. Groves

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781137323743
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Modern History
• Index: History

The book shows how teachers struggled to liberate their country's education system from the legacy of dictatorship, combining a general evaluation of the phenomenon with intimate glances at the people who drove it forward. By vindicating the importance of democratic professionals it illuminates the Spanish transition to democracy from a new angle.

1

Representation Put to the Test: The Teachers’ Movements and the Creation of the Sindicato de los Trabajadores de la Enseñanza

Leafing through professional teaching publications from the end of the 1974–1975 and the start of the 1975–1976 academic years, one gets a strong sense of nonconformity and protest: “Expectation, worry and extreme anxiety” and “Protest, nonconformism and disillusionment” were two pessimistic descriptions of the situation.¹ Week after week, professional journals printed protests about the continuous and unjust discrimination against Educación General Básica (EGB) teachers in comparison to other state-employed teachers. Although the two major publications, Escuela Española and El Magisterio Español, agreed about the difficult situation in which EGB teachers found themselves, and the obvious feeling of bitterness, they favoured different ways of remedying this situation. El Magisterio Español stated that, despite past experiences, it had full confidence in dialogue between teachers associations and the authorities.² When Juan Carlos was proclaimed King of Spain, in the wake of General Francisco Franco’s death in November 1975, the journal expressed its hope that the young king, Franco’s heir, would provide a degree of recompense for teachers.

You are two different generations, but with almost identical languages ... . O Majesty, let not our cause be forgotten ... . But above all, choose ministers who will help you in an honourable and honest fashion. Let no cause be side-lined for the sole reason of favouring others. Let help always come to those most neglected and forgotten.³

As El Magisterio Español saw it, the solution to the teachers’ situation lay in the hands of the political leaders. In complete contrast, its competitor, Escuela Española, published the following regarding teachers’ difficult situation:

Presence and participation for EGB teachers when drafting the country’s educational policy is, therefore, the first thing we ask of the highest academic authorities ... . Then, genuinely effective and representative means of participation are the second request ... . From a high political platform, Spain’s transition from an era of obeisance to a new one, of participation, has been proclaimed.⁴

Escuela Española also petitioned the authorities, demanding improvement of the teachers’ situation. In this case, however, the demand was not for temporary aid, but rather to change the political arrangements which limited educators’ participation in the taking of decisions relating to education. The journal demanded the creation of a genuinely representative and effective organisation for teachers. It called upon the government to keep its promises to increase citizen participation in political life. It referred to the authorities’ pledges, and requested that they be applied in the field of education. Thus, it forged a direct connection between the political crisis sparked by the dictator’s death and teachers’ aspirations for better working conditions. As part of its efforts to promulgate these demands, the publication encouraged a debate about “Channels of participation,” which included interviews with people related to education. One of those interviewed was Antonio del Molino, an EGB teacher. The choice was not accidental: del Molino was already fairly well known among EGB teachers in Madrid for his fight for teachers’ rights and financial demands. During the interview, he declared that the existing teachers organisations did not deserve to be recognised as such, as they did not allow teachers to take part in their running. Therefore, he affirmed, it was necessary to seek alternatives to these organisations.⁵

The organisations which were supposed to represent the teaching body and act to improve its working conditions were part of the dictatorship’s paternalistic workplace arrangements. With the establishment of the dictatorship, at the end of the 1930s, workers unions were abolished and replaced by a state-run union. This organisation was supposed to harmonise the interests of workers and employers. In the education sector, the old teachers unions were gradually substituted by professional corporations, intended to exercise ideological control over teachers. The education system suffered one of the harshest campaigns of ideological reprisals waged by the Franco regime in its earlier years. Teachers who were associated with the vanquished Republic were executed, imprisoned, exiled, or fired. Those educators who were allowed to continue in spite of their political tendencies underwent rehabilitation programs, and new teachers were recruited from the ranks of the most adherent supporters of the new Regime.⁶

In the sphere of private education, the authorities created the Sindicato Nacional de Enseñanza (National Education Union; hereafter SNE). It belonged to the regime’s union. By the end of the 1960s, its members were taking part in union elections and in collective negotiation over their salaries. In public education, given that state employees were not allowed to belong to the state-run union, the Servicio Español del Magisterio (Spanish Education Service, hereafter SEM) was created. It was the successor of the Corporación del Magisterio (Teaching Corporation) created by the Falange (Falange Española de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional Sindicalista, a fascist movement that supported the 1936 rebellion against the Second Republic) in 1936. The SEM, similarly to the state-run union, acted under the auspices of the only political party in Franco’s Spain, the Movimiento Nacional. In the early 1970s, similarly to other governmental organisations, the SEM went through a process of reform. Its declared guiding principles during that time were: volunteerism: the members chose to belong to the organisation – although of course, they had no real alternative; participation: this principle reflected the attempt to present the organisation as open to teachers’ initiatives. However, as we have seen, this undertaking was not successful; information: providing members with all the data concerning teachers’ professional lives; election: as a result of the organisation’s reform, members were allowed to elect candidates to certain positions (however, it must be pointed out that the provincial and national leaders were still appointed by the authorities); autonomy: the intention was to give autonomy to each of the organisations which made up the federation; and the defence of members’ interests: improving their salaries and working conditions.⁷ From the end of the 1960s, the SEM adopted a discourse of flexibility and participation in accordance with the regime’s effort to present a liberal façade. Nevertheless, it was still an authoritarian organisation that failed to convince growing numbers of teachers that it was capable of representing their interests.

We see that shortly after the dictator’s death, two interpretations emerged with regard to solving the problems of the teaching profession. On the one hand, there were sectors, represented by the journal El Magisterio Español, which harboured the hope of resolving the injustice inherent in the existing schemes, through the SEM. These sectors saw teachers’ problems as being professional in nature and having no political ramifications. On the other hand, voices were heard which not only criticised the SEM for its lack of representativity, but questioned the whole political system that sustained it. These sectors, which enjoyed the support of one of the most widely distributed professional journals in the education sector, Escuela Española,⁸ were not convinced by the changes to the regime’s official organisations. Although the teachers’ situation was primarily a professional one, they drew the connection between this situation and the broader issue of lack of participative channels under the dictatorship. In the face of the ambiguous political reform initiated by the dictator’s successors, they assumed an active role in bringing about change in their own workplace. The solution they proposed was basically a political one: to transform the existing representative schemes. However, it was not a political solution which involved breaking with the past, as the opposition parties were demanding at that time; instead, it involved forcing the government to fulfil its own promises of progress and liberalisation. Thus, we can see that in 1970s Spain, there were sectors that were not affiliated with the opposition to the dictatorship, but which still exerted pressure towards more democratic arrangements. It might not have been an out-and-out attack on the regime, but it was undoubtedly an attempt to change the political workings of their own professional context.

EGB teachers join the cycle of protest: first signs of collective activity in primary education

Already in the late 1960s, there were local efforts to pressure the authorities into improving teachers’ working conditions, especially in the private sector. Using the state-run union, teachers demanded an increase in salary, and at the beginning of the 1970s, we also see a coordinated protest by secondary teachers in the public sector. Many secondary teachers were taken on as Profesores no numerarios (PNNs). These were teachers with temporary contracts, employed by the administration in order to cover the rapidly expanding needs of state schooling. At the beginning of the 1970s, they started to organise and fight for stability and better working conditions. A delay in their salaries in the academic year 1970–1971 triggered their first strike, with the participation of schools in Madrid, Barcelona, and Valencia. In the subsequent years, nationwide coordination emerged.⁹

The first time that EGB teachers in the public sector were involved in a large-scale mobilisation occurred in 1973. Teachers demanded the authorities to improve their salaries, in accordance with the promises made in the 1970 educational reform. The reform sparked a series of changes aimed at redesigning the role of teachers of primary education (which, thenceforth, was called EGB, covering the educational needs of children between ages 6 and 14). As part of the reform, the Escuelas Normales (teacher training colleges) were integrated into the universities. In addition, most of the traditional content, which consisted of Catholic dogma and nationalistic-inspired pedagogical ideas, disappeared from their curricula. Also, every teacher had to choose a speciality such as social sciences, Spanish language, or foreign language. In the new curricula, a great deal of importance was given to didactic and psychological perfection, as part of what was labelled as pedagogía tecnocrática (technocratic pedagogy). This approach was inspired by behavioural psychology and the attempt to organise scholarly activity in a scientific manner. So it was that the maestro – primary teacher – came to be called profesor de EGB, like secondary school teachers, and also taught what would, in the past, have constituted the first two grades of secondary education. The reform also stipulated that EGB teachers should earn a similar wage to their counterparts in the public sector.¹⁰

The improvement of teachers’ image, the promise of a higher salary based on professional training, and the emphasis on didactics promoted a new role for teachers: no longer was the teacher seen as the apostolic educator serving his/her god and his/her country as before, but rather as a specialist, responsible for the success of the reform. However, the failure to get funding for the reform and the restrictive authoritarian political context resulted in the government’s failing to fulfil its promises. EGB teachers received no salarial recompense as promised, and naturally this damaged their commitment to the reform. The internal contradictions in education policy towards the end of the dictatorship had a direct influence on the body of educators, whose faith in the law was dashed.¹¹

The conflict broke out at the beginning of 1973 with the publication of EGB teachers’ salary supplements, which were considerably lower in comparison with those of other state-employed educators. The daily and professional press carried information about assemblies of teachers all across the land – most though not all of them organised by the SEM. Some of these assemblies grew to gargantuan proportions – in Granada, for instance, where according to published figures, over 2,000 teachers attended the meeting. In Madrid, 1,500 teachers took part, and in Barcelona – where the number of participants reached 4,000 – the SEM issued a statement explaining that the assembly had been dissolved because the high number of participants was preventing the most urgent issues from being discussed.¹² This event represents a general trend whereby the SEM lost control of its own initiatives. The organisation failed to channel the teachers’ agitation to reinforce its own leadership, and instead found itself fielding public criticism of its functioning.

In most provinces, teachers’ collective actions were not limited to huge assemblies, and there was talk, for the first time during the dictatorship, of EGB teachers taking part in massive strikes. No clear data exists on the number of strikers, and media coverage was very partial, but all indications are that the strikes took place on a national scale.¹³ As a result of these strikes and protests teachers received a considerable increase in their salaries. However, this was a temporary remedy to civic unrest in the education system. In addition, the SEM’s ambivalent behaviour did nothing to help its popularity among teachers; instead, it bred mistrust towards the organisation.

Frustrated by the SEM’s inability to actively lead their struggle for better working conditions, teachers set up alternative types of professional associations. Unions were illegal, so other formulas were found. The most common type of organisation set up was the Asociaciones de Antiguos Alumnos de las Escuelas Normales (Associations of Ex-Students of the Teacher Training Colleges). By 1975–1976, these associations already existed in many provinces...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Introduction
• 1 Representation Put to the Test: The Teachers Movements and the Creation of the Sindicato de los Trabajadores de la Enseanza
• 2 Educational Revolution from within: The Movements for Pedagogical Innovation
• 3 Rehearsing for Democracy: Union Agitation in Madrid
• 4 Liberating the Classroom: Pedagogical Innovation in Madrid
• 5 Recovery of Civil Society at a Local Level: The Teachers Movements in the Province of Salamanca
• 6 Back to the Village: Teachers as Agents of an Alternative Culture
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Sources and Bibliography
• Index