Double Strike in the Canary Islands: Doctors and Teachers Walk Out on the Same Day

Salvador Vizcaíno teaches viola. Temporary contract. For over 30 years. He is 62, and he does not know whether he will still have a job next school year. On Wednesday he stood outside the Delegación del Gobierno in Las Palmas, alongside a few dozen colleagues, chanting something you hear increasingly often in the Canaries: "No somos de usar y tirar" — we are not disposable.

A few kilometres away, between Plaza de Las Ranas and Parque de San Telmo, more than 200 doctors marched through Triana that same afternoon. With batucada drums, so people in the side streets might look up from their phones for a moment. On their placards: "Sin médicos no hay sanidad" — without doctors, there is no healthcare. And: "Consejería de Sanidad, asume tu responsabilidad."

Two demonstrations, one city, one day. 30 April 2026 is the date both strikes converge in the Canaries — the national doctors' strike against the reform of the Estatuto Marco enters its final day of four, and the regional CESM strike against the Servicio Canario de la Salud (SCS) begins. At the same time, the teachers' strike from the previous day still reverberates, after INSUCAN shut down schools across the archipelago.

The Doctors: Two Unions, Zero Progress

The picture is messy because two strike movements are running in parallel — overlapping but pursuing different goals.

At the national level, doctors have been on strike since 27 April against the planned reform of the Estatuto Marco — the framework law governing working conditions in public healthcare. Their demand: a separate negotiating framework for doctors, distinct from the rest of health service staff. It sounds like a luxury problem, but it is not. When nurses, administrators and doctors are lumped together at the bargaining table, the largest group sets the pace — and that is not the doctors.

At the regional level, CESM Canarias — the Canarian Medical Union, which describes itself as the largest doctors' union in the archipelago — has called two additional autonomous strike days: 30 April and 4 May. The reason: since February, CESM has been negotiating with the SCS management over pay improvements, open transfer procedures and career reform. On 6 April the union presented a package of minimum demands with a seven-day deadline. The deadline passed. Nothing happened.

"The absence of real progress forces us to take a further step. This strike call responds to the need to improve the working conditions of our profession and to safeguard the quality of healthcare in the Canary Islands." — CESM Canarias, press release 16 April 2026

As if that were not enough, a second union — Semca, the Union of Medical Employees of the Canaries — has extended the strike to the entire week plus 4 May. The trigger: a meeting with SCS Director Adasat Goya which, according to Semca, lasted exactly two minutes. Two minutes. It was over before it began.

Doctors' Strike — The Numbers from 29 April

The gap between the official 13.68 per cent and the 59 per cent claimed by CESM is striking — and typical of Spanish strikes. The Consejería counts only those doctors who formally registered as striking. The union counts everyone who did not show up. The truth lies somewhere in between, but closer to the union figure than the government would like to admit.

The Teachers: 30 Years of Viola and No Permanent Contract

The teachers' strike has a different origin, but the same underlying problem: a state that systematically keeps its own employees in precarious conditions.

On 14 April 2026, the Court of Justice of the European Union handed down its ruling in the Obadal case (C-418/24). In short: Spain's treatment of temporary public servants — the interinos — violates EU law. Existing measures against the abuse of fixed-term contracts are insufficient. The court demands effective sanctions, and the most obvious sanction would be: permanent employment.

In the Canary Islands, according to union estimates, around 30 per cent of all teachers are interinos — 12,586 people. The target rate is 8 per cent. That means: thousands of teachers have been working for years, sometimes decades, without a permanent contract. Every summer they wait to find out whether they will be needed again in September.

INSUCAN — Docentes de Canarias — called a nationwide school strike for 29 April, with rallies outside the Delegación del Gobierno in Las Palmas (6 pm) and the Subdelegación in Santa Cruz. 769 teachers followed the call, according to official figures. The union, as usual, counts differently.

"I have been a teacher for 30 years and at 62 I will probably end up out on the street. The conservatory is about to begin a competitive selection process that could leave many teachers with 20 or 30 years of experience without a job." — Salvador Vizcaíno, viola teacher, interino for over 30 years. Speaking to Canarias7, 29 April 2026

Evelin Díaz, coordinator of INSUCAN, puts the problem in terms that are hard to argue with: the last so-called stabilisation process — which was supposed to give interinos permanent contracts — ended up making civil servants of people who had not been subject to contract abuse, while long-term interinos were left out in the cold. More than 42 per cent of the permanent positions went to applicants from mainland Spain. The result, as Díaz puts it: "Todo se ha liado un poquito más todavía" — everything has got just a bit more tangled.

Two Conflicts, One Diagnosis

At first glance, a viola player with 30 years of experience and a hospital doctor frustrated by stalled negotiations have little in common. At second glance, they share the same frustration: they work for a state that needs what they do, but is unwilling to provide reliable conditions in return.

The doctors' strike is a distributional conflict — who negotiates with whom, and who is entitled to their own bargaining framework. The teachers' strike is a justice conflict — how can it be that someone works for the state for 30 years and still has no permanent contract.

That both happen on the same day on the same islands is coincidence. But it is a coincidence that makes something visible: public services in the Canary Islands are creaking in several places at once. And the people holding them together — the doctors in the ambulatorios, the teachers in the conservatorio — are tired of waiting for someone to hear the creaking.

The next doctors' strike day is 4 May. The teachers reserve the right to further action. And Salvador Vizcaíno will probably keep teaching viola. For as long as they let him.