Unió Docent and SIAU demand that Education prioritize dismissed temporary workers over others with more points.

PalmThe Unió Docent collective, made up of temporary teachers from the Balearic Islands and established this September, has filed an administrative lawsuit against the Ministry of Education over the rules and resolutions published in the process of allocating teaching positions for the 2025-2026 academic year, led by lawyer Pablo Alonso de Caso. The main cause is the prioritization, according to their complaints, of dismissed temporary teachers for a vacancy over other teachers with higher scores in the temporary teacher pool, which they consider a violation of the basic principles of equality, merit, and ability that govern access to the public service.

The decision to give priority to dismissed temporary teachers in the selection process was approved by the Sectoral Roundtable, the negotiating body between the Ministry and the unions representing workers in the education sector. This fact, according to Unió Docent, does not justify applying a criterion that clearly disadvantages other teachers with higher scores and experience.

The lawsuit, filed on September 30th before the High Court of Justice of the Balearic Islands and supported by the SIAU union, challenges both the rules for the temporary employment pool published on July 10th and the decision to allocate positions made during the month of August. According to Ginés López, spokesperson for Unió Docent, "the Administration has attempted to redress an alleged wrong caused to a very specific group of dismissed temporary employees, but this attempt has caused much greater and more widespread harm that has affected thousands of teachers."

The group regrets that this change in criteria has been implemented without a broader prior debate, without a clear legal basis, and without objective criteria that guarantee transparency and equal opportunities. "The legitimate and legal order of the awards has been altered, disregarding the scale and the scores accumulated by teachers who have followed the procedure correctly and who meet the established requirements," explains López.

Errors, yet another year

This conflict is part of an award process that this summer has been marked, once again, by errors. The platform reports repeated problems such as computer system failures, errors in the published provisional lists, the publication of up to four awards in a row, and a lack of transparency and communication from the Regional Ministry. All of this has fueled discontent among the temporary staff. In response to this situation, Unió Docent organized a massive petition through the Change.org platform to demand an external audit of the process and political and technical accountability to clarify and correct the process. In a short time, it garnered hundreds of signatures.

Another complaint from the group has been the lack of response from the Regional Ministry to their formal request for a meeting, processed on September 12. Despite three weeks having passed, the Regional Minister of Education, Antoni Vera, has not responded. López assesses this: "We have organized through legal and institutional channels, but have only encountered silence."

In addition to the main demand, Unió Docent denounces other irregularities and discrimination. For example, the lack of official recognition of tutoring positions. In this regard, López recounts specific cases: "I know of a teacher who was a tutor for six months and was not recognized as such, neither financially nor formally, despite having a certificate from the school director. It's a lack of respect and recognition that also affects many other professionals." Unió Docent also criticizes the fact that positive discrimination for people with disabilities has not been respected in this process, as in some cases up to 450 teachers without disabilities were awarded positions ahead of candidates with disabilities.

Another mobilization

Unió Docent was created this summer as an organized response to the growing discontent within the teaching community, which until now had no representative or structured platform. Currently, it has around 40 active members (because they wanted trustworthy people), but the spokesperson assures that the group is open to incorporating more professionals from the education sector who share its goals and that it is working for a fair, transparent, and merit-based hiring system.

The group does not rule out continuing with new legal actions, mobilizations, and awareness campaigns if the Regional Ministry does not rectify and guarantee a hiring process that "respects" teachers' rights. Those affected by the hiring decisions have denounced that all of this has highlighted "the need for a profound and transparent reform of the selection and placement processes in the Balearic Islands to avoid conflicts, insecurities, and injustices that directly affect the quality of the education system and the professional lives of teachers and temporary professors."