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Dissident Mexican teachers on strike for the past three months in the southern state of Chiapas remain firm that they will not go back to their classrooms for the start of term next week if the government doesn’t agree to put “serious and concrete” proposals on the table in a so far “fruitless” negotiation process that continues Tuesday.
OPINION:
Mexico's Neoliberal Education Reform is Being Imposed with Bloodshed
In a nationwide meeting Sunday of more than two dozen union locals, representatives of the National Coordinator of Education Workers, or CNTE, accused authorities in the Ministry of the Interior of working to “manage” the conflict without offering clear solutions and “dragging their feet” in the face of teacher demands to overhaul the public education system, La Jornada reported.
“The grassroots are demanding signed agreements,” said members of the Oaxaca section of the CNTE, criticizing weeks of empty talks, according to La Jornada. “There’s still nothing concrete.”
But despite the impasse, the Ministry of the Interior continued to insist that controversial neoliberal education reforms, the main issue for the striking teachers, are still not on the negotiations agenda, El Proceso reported.
Chiapas teachers have said that their decision on whether to end the strike and go back to classes for the start of the school year on Aug. 22 will depend on the outcome of talks with the government Tuesday afternoon, scheduled to begin at 6:00 p.m. local time in Mexico City.
The latest round of negotiations comes after two CNTE leaders from Oaxaca, Ruben Nuñez Gines and Francisco Villalobos, were released Friday after being jailed for two months. The movement claims that their freedom was the result of “pressure and enormous mobilization” on the part of the union and its supporters, La Jornada reported.
OPINION:
CNTE Teachers Strike 'Belongs to the People of Mexico'
Mexican politician Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador — who ran against President Enrique Peña Nieto in 2012 with the PRD before founding the Morena party — accused the federal government of inventing the charges of aggravated robbery and money laundering against the two prisoners, according to Prensa Latina. He also called on the government to embrace dialogue, rather than repression and impunity, as a way out of the conflict with striking teachers.
Nieto's education proposals are widely viewed by teachers as a pretext for weakening the teachers' union, and include diluting teachers' input on the hiring process, eliminating teachers’ ability to pass down a position to their children, enablnig administators to more easily fire teachers who miss work, and limiting the number of union positions paid by the state.
Dissident teachers have been on strike since May 15 to protest the contentious education reforms, introduced by Peña Nieto in 2013, that they claim fail to respond to unique education needs in rural and Indigenous areas. They also slam the mandatory teacher evaluations for unfairly penalizing teachers.
The CNTE union argues that the reforms should be cancelled in favor of developing a new approach that will guard against encroaching privatization in public education.
The strike reached a fever pitch in mid-June when clashes broke out during protests in Nochixtlan, Oaxaca. At least 10 people were killed and dozens injured when police violently cracked down on demonstrators. Human rights groups have argued that the Mexican government is to blame for the so-called “extrajudicial killings,” among other human rights abuses in Oaxaca.
While negotiations with the government continue, striking teachers plan to continue to ramp up protests, including highway blockades in Chiapas and Oaxaca, to demand that the education reforms be canceled and justice be served to those behind the fatal violence in Nochixtlan.
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