“When the heads of establishments get involved, it means that the time is serious”
Mireille Ventura, principal of a Martinican college, smiles as she watches the group dressed in the blue colors of SNPDEN-UNSA, the majority union of college and high school management staff. Union banner in one hand, mobile phone in the other for “ensure continuity of service” in her college, she wanted to be present in the Parisian procession for this sixth day of mobilization. “We must mark the occasion, that the government hears that even the staff who rarely go on strike are against this reform”she explains.
Gathered in a national trade union council, representatives and activists from all the academies came to carry the voice of these national education personnel, usually not very visible in the processions. “For us, who cannot enter the profession without a baccalaureate + 5, the postponement of the retirement age and the extension of the contribution period necessarily mean retirement at 67, or else a departure with a large next to “emphasizes Bruno Bobkiewicz, general secretary of the union.
There are several around him not to hide their “bitterness” faced with this reform carried out ” urgently “, “without debate”and in a “high inflation environment”. The question of pensions crystallizes a lot of frustration and resentment among the heads of establishments, burned by the “governance of the last five years at national education” and still marked by the management of the health crisis in schools, in which they were on the front line. “Our workload is constantly increasing, we are constantly being given new missions, we are being asked to do and undo according to the reforms, often without sufficient means…, list Guillaume, principal of a high school in Guyana. To what extent can we be asked to do more, for longer, and without recognition? »
For lack of figures, it is difficult to assess the degree of mobilization of school heads. But Dominique, now retired, assures her: she has “rarely seen that”. “When the heads of establishments get involved, it means that the situation is serious. The government will have to think about it”she says.