Just before Christmas, 1.400 foreign English language teaching assistants in Valencia, Spain, who hadn’t paid since the school year began in October, were still waiting for their wages. This is the third year in a row that the auxiliares de conversación, as they are known in Spanish, working in the Valencian region, have faced severe delays in receiving payment, according to The Local Spain website.
The auxiliares, who are generally recruited from English-speaking countries outside the EU, such as Britain and the USA, are expected to work in local state schools for 16 hours a week and should receive €1,000 as a tax-free government grant to defray their living expenses. Since non-EU citizens have no right to work at other jobs, many have been forced to return home.
Spain’s main trade union, UGT, has taken up their cause. “It’s urgent and necessary that they are compensated for their services, which began on October 1st and will end on May 31st 2023,” UGT said in a statement published in La Información newspaper.
“They move from their countries, and as they don’t have full residency and work rights here, they find themselves in an unacceptable and precarious situation for a democratic society,” a UGT spokesperson told the paper.
