Costa Rica’s government is moving to dock a day’s pay from education workers who joined Wednesday’s march against cuts to public education, after the Ministry of Public Education (MEP) counted 36,994 staff absent from work. The figure, released by the ministry on Thursday, represents more than a third of the MEP payroll. The ministry said 175 school dining halls did not open and some 800 schools reported problems with cleaning or security during the protest.
President Laura Fernández declared the strike illegal at her weekly press conference on Wednesday. She said the government would deduct the day’s wages from those she described as vagabonds who had gone out to demand things that do not exist, and she called union leaders leeches.
Education Minister Leonardo Sánchez said the ministry had already coordinated with the Attorney General’s Office to ask a Labor Court to declare the strike illegal. The MEP sent its report to the Attorney General’s Office on Wednesday night, and a Labor Court will decide whether the walkout was lawful.
Costa Rican labor rules treat the loss of pay for days not worked separately from disciplinary sanctions. Sanctions require a court ruling that a strike was illegal. Thousands of teachers, university students and union members marched through downtown San José on Nov. 11 to demand more money for public education. Their demands included payment of seniority bonuses and pending salary increases, settlement of the state’s debt to the teachers’ pension board, known as Jupema, and changes to the transition to a single global salary scheme.
Marchers also rejected the proposed 2027 education budget, which equals 4.9% of gross domestic product. The Constitution sets 8% of GDP as the target for public education spending. The 2027 national budget includes a cut of 19.23 billion colones, about $42.9 million, to the MEP. Public universities joined the march to protest reductions to funds the government had agreed to return to them after the pandemic.
Sánchez rejected the unions’ arguments, saying the government had met and exceeded the agreements it reached two years ago. He pointed to an increase in the sector’s budget during a period of deflation and falling enrollment, without comparing that figure with GDP. The minister also criticized union proposals to raise the MEP budget from 2.8 trillion colones, about $6.2 billion, to nearly 5.8 trillion colones, about $12.9 billion. Fernández said she had held two working meetings with education union leaders during her first six months in office.
The National Association of Educators (ANDE) sent a statement on Thursday to Fernández and Sánchez objecting to the pay deduction and asked the president for a public apology. The Association of Secondary School Teachers (APSE), whose president is Dennis Solís Cruz, defended teachers’ participation and said that taking to the streets is a way to defend labor rights and public education.
The unions maintain that the strike was legal. Many teachers also responded on social media, posting messages about the demands of their work and rejecting the president’s description of them. The dispute comes as the 2027 national budget remains on hold. The Constitutional Chamber has barred lawmakers from holding the final vote on the spending plan before Nov. 29 while it reviews challenges tied to funding for the Judiciary and public universities.
The Labor Court will now decide whether the government can treat the walkout as illegal. The budget vote at the end of the month will set how much money public schools and universities receive in 2027.
