The unions Comisiones Obreras (CCOO) and Unión General de Trabajadores (UGT) have announced the call for an indefinite strike in non-university public education centers in the Community of Madrid, coinciding with the start of the next 2026-2027 school year. The union organizations have designated the summer period as the only available window for negotiations with the Ministry of Education, warning that teaching and educational support staff will not return to work in September if concrete prior commitments are not met.

The protest measure will coincide with the return to classrooms for over 800,000 students in the region, directly affecting hundreds of thousands of families. The Confederation of Associations of Mothers and Fathers of Public Schools in Madrid (CONFAPA) has expressed its explicit support for the mobilization, directly linking the working conditions of teachers with the quality of student learning.

The decision stems from what the convening union centrals describe as a sustained deterioration of labor and pedagogical conditions in the region. Key reasons underpinning the conflict include the low salary levels of Madrid's public teachers, classroom overcrowding, a high teaching load exceeding the average in other autonomous communities, excessive administrative burden, the lack of a clear structural framework in Vocational Training, and cuts in funding for the public education system.

To prevent the strike from starting in September, CCOO and UGT condition the withdrawal of the protests on the immediate opening of a dialogue space that addresses firm commitments in six specific areas: progressive salary equalization with the national average, reduction of the weekly teaching hours, effective decrease in classroom ratios, design of a regulatory framework for Vocational Training, a plan to reduce bureaucracy in schools, and structural budgetary investment in the public network.