Teacher Strikes in Mexico: A Brief Chronology Made of Articles Compiled From August 23, 2013 to October 2006

Posted by HCN on Tuesday, September 3, 2013
Teacher strikes in Mexico remindful of the one in the final weeks of August 2013, are not a new form of event in the region, a number of strikes go back to the popularly known Oaxaca strike in 2006.

Here are excerpts, in some cases the entire or bulk, of articles about teacher strikes that occurred in Mexico, in chronological order starting with most recent of article date, along with excerpts from the 'about to' pages of websites cited that state they are socialist or communist themed.

Thousands of protesting teachers bring chaos to Mexico's capital
By Tracy Wilkinson
This post has been updated. See the note below for details
August 23, 2013, 1:22 p.m.

MEXICO CITY — Thousands of striking teachers have invaded this capital, shut down both houses of Congress, forced changes in the route of an international marathon and generally created mayhem at levels not seen in a long time in what is always a chaotic city.

The teachers, part of a so-called dissident union that routinely opposes government actions, are demonstrating against a proposed education reform that, among other components, would require mandatory evaluations of teachers’ skills.

On Friday, several thousand teachers were marching down a major city highway en route to the airport, authorities said.

Below picture caption in orginal article:
"Teachers block access to the Mexican Senate in Mexico City on Thursday to protest education reform legislation. (Omar Torres / Agence France-Presse / Getty Images / August 22, 2013)"


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Mexican Teacher Strike Turns Violent As Political Party Offices Attacked
Published April 25, 2013
Fox News Latino

ACAPULCO, Mexico –  After the state legislature failed to meet their demands, striking teachers in Mexico's Guerrero state on Wednesday attacked the offices of four political parties and a building of the state's education department.
Dozens of teachers carrying sticks and stones smashed windows, spray-painted insults at President Enrique Peña Nieto on walls and destroyed computers and furniture. They set fire to the state headquarters of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party and another building.
No injuries were reported as the teachers, some masked, ran wild after a protest march in the state capital of Chilpancingo.


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April 23, 2013 11:50
Teachers strike in Mexico against sweeping education reforms

For the first time, Mexico's teachers are required to be evaluated by a body independent of the teachers' union and can be fired if they fail that evaluation. Mexico's teachers' union is not happy about this.

So thousands of angry teachers are skipping class and instead taking to the streets. The protests have been going on since last week, when tens of thousands of teachers, some armed with Molotov cocktails,  marched in Guerrero's capital. 


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South Mexico teachers threaten indefinite strike
Published November 24, 2012
EFE

A section of the SNTE teachers union threatened to call an indefinite strike in all the schools of the southern state of Oaxaca if the regional government does not return to them the centers that it awarded six years ago to another local of the same union.
"If the government continues with the stupidity of knocking us around, of letting Local 59 take over, we're going on an indefinite strike," Cesar Martinez, a member of the center for press and advertising commuications at SNTE Local 22, told Efe.
The warnings came after more than 74,000 teachers took part in a day of blockading 37 highways in protest against the aggression suffered by a group of teachers, Martinez said.
Last Thursday, five teachers were seized and presumably attacked while imposing a blockade on a highway near the municipality of Mitla to protest the taking over of some 60 schools by another local of the union, one that is backed by the state government and SNTE leader Elba Esther Gordillo.

On Sunday the teachers plan to stage a "megamarch" in the state and afterwards will hold an assembly to decide if they will again call an indefinite strike.


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Mexico: Teachers End Strike
By ELISABETH MALKIN
Published: September 30, 2011

Teachers in Acapulco have agreed to go back to work on Monday after more than a month on strike in protest over crime. Thousands of the city’s teachers have stayed home after receiving extortion threats demanding half their salary. Leaders of the teachers signed an agreement with the state government late Thursday that lays out increased security measures around schools.


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In June 2011, the World Socialist Web Site posted an article; before the cut-copy-paste of the excerpt about teachers protesting, is a cut-copy-paste of excerpts from the World Socialist Web Site about page:
From their about page:
"About the World Socialist Web Site
The World Socialist Web Site is published by the International Committee of the Fourth International, the leadership of the world socialist movement, the Fourth International founded by Leon Trotsky in 1938.
The WSWS aims to meet the need, felt widely today, for an intelligent appraisal of the problems of contemporary society. It addresses itself to the masses of people who are dissatisfied with the present state of social life, as well as its cynical and reactionary treatment by the establishment media.

The World Socialist Web Site and the international working class
The financial crisis enveloping the entire world economy poses sharply the need for the international unification of working people. Transnational production and global financial markets have changed the face of capitalism forever. In the past two decades the limited social safety nets in the advanced countries have been torn up, while workers have suffered wave after wave of layoffs and an erosion in their real income.

The International Committee of the Fourth International
The World Socialist Web Site arises on the basis of a powerful political history. It represents the historical continuity of the political and theoretical struggle initiated by Leon Trotsky in 1923 against the growth of the Stalinist bureaucracy in the Soviet Union. After playing a central role in the Russian Revolution and Civil War and the rebuilding of the economy, Trotsky emerged as the leading figure in the socialist opposition to the bureaucratic caste that arose in the 1920s, and the nationalist orientation of this emerging elite."


About the ICFI
The World Socialist Web Site is published by the International Committee of the Fourth International, the leadership of the world socialist movement, the Fourth International founded by Leon Trotsky in 1938. The ICFI consists of Socialist Equality Party national sections throughout the world.
To contact the ICFI, click here, or u se the contact information on the right column.

Access the ICFI/Marxist Library for documents on the history of the ICFI.


[the WSWS.org article:]
Mexican teachers vote to end strike
By Rafael Azul 
2 June 2011
On May 31, striking teachers in the southwestern Mexican city of Oaxaca voted to suspend their protests and return to the negotiating table with state authorities. The vote was hastily organized in the wake of a new monetary offer by state authorities. Out of the 73,000 strikers, just 28,844 voted to return to work. There were 13,793 votes to continue with the strike.
The teachers’ union, Section 22 of the National Union of Education Workers (SNTE), has announced it will end its occupation of the city’s central square on June 3, and that classes will resume on June 6.


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Mexican Teachers Strike, Protest over Test-Driven Education
May 31, 2011 / Dan La Botz

Seventy thousand teachers in the Mexican state of Oaxaca struck May 23, demanding better funding for their students. The strike began with a march from four different points to the city’s square, where the educators rallied and then spread out to put pressure on both government and business.

Teachers blockaded government offices and private companies, closed major intersections, and “liberated” the toll booths on the privately owned highway to Mexico City. They also attempted to shut down the airport.

original article: http://www.labornotes.org/2011/05/mexican-teachers-strike-protest-over-test-driven-education

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Striking Mexico teachers see jobs as things to inherit, sell
For Mexico's teachers, jobs are things to inherit or sell, and they're on strike to keep it that way
Standardizing gets tested
MARION LLOYD, Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle Foreign Service | October 13, 2008

CUERNAVACA, MEXICO — Tens of thousands of teachers are blocking highways and seizing government buildings across Mexico to protest a federal education reform ending their longtime practice of selling their jobs or giving them to their children.

In central Morelos state, where opposition is centered, about 20,000 teachers have been on strike for more than 50 days. Though a few thousand children study in cantinas and makeshift classrooms, nearly 500,000 others have yet to start the school year.

Since the strike erupted in Morelos in late August, protests have spread to at least a dozen other states and are threatening to go nationwide. In Baja California, about 700 teachers in Tijuana lay down on the world's busiest border crossing and blocked San Diego-bound traffic for hours. In Mexico City, protesters set up a sprawling tent city near the federal Education Secretariat, which oversees the country's public education system.


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Directly below the about page excerpts about Libcom.org, is an article they posted on their website, which appears to have been posted in or near the beginning of June 2008.  Libcom.org is a site which says,
"The name libcom is an abbreviation of "libertarian communism", the political idea we identify with. Libertarian communism is the political expression of the ever-present strands of co-operation and solidarity in human societies. These currents of mutual aid can be found throughout society.
...We identify primarily with the trends of workers' solidarity, co-operation and struggle throughout history, whether they were self-consciously libertarian communist (such as in the Spanish revolution) or not. We are also influenced by certain specific theoretical and practical traditions, such as anarchist-communism, anarcho-syndicalism, the ultra-left, left communism, libertarian Marxism, council communism and others. We have sympathies with writers and organisations including Karl Marx, Gilles Dauvé, Maurice Brinton, Wildcat Germany, Anarchist Federation, Solidarity Federation, prole.info, Aufheben, Solidarity, the situationists, Spanish CNT and others..." <http://libcom.org/notes/about>

[the Libcom.org article:]
Mexico: teachers' strike spreads up the Pacific coast while Oaxaca cautiously holds firm
[posted sometime near June 2008[?]]

The annual teachers' strike in Oaxaca has been bolstered by soldarity strikes of other sections of the Sindicato Nacional de los Trabajadores en la Educación (SNTE) stretching up and down the Mexican Pacific coastline, while in Oaxaca itself, occupations and blockades continue apace in support. Most analysts however have already doomed the strike to failure.

On Friday 30th, the strike by the Oaxacan SNTE local (Sección 22, around whose strike coalesced the 2006 revolt) entered its 12th day, with more motorways blocked, more tollbooths closed down and more education buildings occupied throughout the state. Teachers have also managed to close down various shopping malls throughout Ciudad de Oaxaca itself, while the occupation of the Zócalo (central square) is maintained.


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Teacher Strike Shuts Down Oaxaca, Mexico
by LOURDES GARCIA-NAVARRO
October 03, 2006 1:00 PM

A months-long teachers strike has brought the southern Mexican city of Oaxaca to a standstill. The teachers are calling for the governor to resign, and he in turn is calling for troops to quell the unrest. The governor and strike representatives prepare to meet with the federal Mexican government this weekend.


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end of compilation

Next post: Acapulco Storm...

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