Vox says it 'understands the outrage' of striking teachers in Spain

Vox urges Ayuso to pay teachers more and shore up public schools

A region that boasts of being the richest in Spain and, at the same time, one of the worst-paying for its teachers. That paradox underpins the challenge launched by Isabel Pérez Moñino, Vox's spokesperson in the Madrid Assembly, on 15 October 2026: her party 'understands the outrage' of the teachers taking part in the strike and demands solutions to 'protect public education' so that it works as 'a genuine social ladder'. A party usually comfortable with tax-cut rhetoric is now siding with the workforce and calling to 'pay them better'.

What exactly Vox is asking for Madrid's public schools

Moñino did not stop at sympathy. From the Assembly, outside the plenary session, she placed teachers alongside health workers and other public servants: they must be 'paid better and their demands listened to', many of which are 'legitimate' for improving the service. She added the diagnosis she says prevails in staff rooms: classrooms with ever more pupils, 'some of them from other countries, many of whom do not even speak our language'.

The fiscal picture she painted is the classic one of the angry taxpayer: Spaniards pay 'more taxes than ever', with a 'very high tax burden', and in return receive 'increasingly poor public services'. Hence her prescription: pay teachers and doctors better 'so they don't leave', look after public transport and build public housing. All at once, without breaking a sweat.

The contradiction of cutting taxes and raising wages at the same time

There lies the knot. The same political force that demands keeping the tax burden in check promises pay rises in health and education. The sums are no small matter in a region which, according to industry figures, ranks among the worst payers of its teachers despite being the richest and most expensive. The full calculation, with pay differentials across Spain's regions, reveals a gap that surprises anyone who only looks at regional GDP.

Some read it as a tactical pivot: understanding the protest without committing to a specific figure. Because empathising with the outrage is one thing, and putting the 500-euro raise some are demanding on the table is quite another. That detail — the amount — is precisely the one that is missing.

Teachers do not vote as a bloc

Another cliché is worth dismantling: the idea that the staff room is a homogeneous left-wing body. There are plenty of right-wing voters in education, and the pogre bias fades as you move up the education levels. Indeed, according to one debate participant, the union with the most representation in the sector is ANPE, with a profile close to the PP and Vox. The strike, therefore, is not an ideological snapshot: it is a labour claim with cross-cutting support.

What Ayuso has at stake over teachers' pay

The challenge puts the Madrid regional government in an awkward position: if it ignores the demand, Vox hands it the narrative that public education runs on precarity; if it meets it, it will have to explain where the money comes from without breaking its fiscal narrative. And underneath it all, the warning that the crisis will not be long in coming and that, if it comes to it, the roles will be reversed.

How long can the low-tax rhetoric hold when the bill for public services starts landing on specific pay packets?