MEXICO DOSSIER: CFT President on Violence Against Educators in Mexico; Report on 6/22 Rally at Mexican Consulate in San Francisco; Additional Background Articles
The Organizer <
[email protected]> Thu, Jun 23, 2016 at 1:15 PM
STATEMENT BY CFT PRESIDENT JOSH PECHTHALT
From: Joshua Pechthalt
Sent: Wednesday, June 22, 2016 3:13 PM
Subject: Violence against educators in Mexico
CFT Leaders and Staff,
Dear sisters and brothers,
We are extremely concerned about the rising wave of killing and violence faced by our sisters and brothers - our colleagues who are the teachers of Mexico. In the last few weeks these attacks have become bloody and violent:
--- On Sunday, June 19, Federal police shot and killed at least four teachers and students in Oaxaca, who were peacefully protesting the government's corporate education reform program. Dozens more were wounded.
--- The three top elected officers of Oaxaca's teachers union, Seccion 22 of the National Union of Education Workers - Ruben Nuñez, Francisco Villalobos and Aciel Sibaja, have been illegally imprisoned in the Federal penitentiary a thousand miles from Oaxaca.
--- Over three thousand teachers have been fired for striking, and thousands more for refusing to administer the standardized tests for students, or to take the standardized tests for teachers, that are part of the Federal government's corporate education reform.
--- The Federal government has threatened to close the teacher training schools (the "normal" schools) that have developed generations of teachers, especially from poor families. An attack on the Ayotzinapa school in Guerrero two years ago led to the disappearance, and possible murder, of 43 students.
The National Coordination of Education Workers (CNTE), the organization of progressive Mexican teachers to which the unions in Oaxaca, Guerrero, Michoacan and Chiapas belong, says: "We will defend free education and our freedom of expression, and we demand a process for the democratic transition in our country."
Teachers in Mexico deserve and need our support. We are all facing the same attacks. The same corporate interests in both of our countries seek to privatize public education, undermine our ability to function as professional and socially responsible educators, and end our right to unions and collective bargaining and action.
Please write two letters.
Write one to your local Mexican consulate, with copies to the Mexican President. In that letter, ask the Mexican government to:
--- Stop the killings of Mexico's teachers.
--- Free the Mexican union leaders in Federal prison.
--- Stop the attacks on teachers and students protesting corporate education reform.
Write one to your local Congress member, and ask that U.S. financial support for the Mexican police and military be ended until these attacks, which rely on that support, have been halted.
The addresses of the consulates and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto are on attached sheet. I'm sure you know how to reach your Congress member. Please send me a copy of the letters so that we can continue to use them to gain further support for our Mexican colleagues.
You can find more information about the situation of teachers in Mexico, and their opposition to corporate education reform, in these two articles:
http://www.thenation.com/article/why-are-mexican-teachers-being-jailed-for-protesting-education-reform/
https://www.thenation.com/article/us-style-school-reform-goes-south/
There are ongoing protests at Mexican consulates throughout California. We encourage you to participate and make your voice heard.
In solidarity,
Josh Pechthalt, President
California Federation of Teachers
- - - - -
Josh Pechthalt, President
California Federation of Teachers
2550 N. Hollywood Way, #400
Burbank, CA. 91505
818-843-8226 (w)
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STATEMENT OF DELEGATION TO MEXICAN CONSULATE IN SAN FRANCISCO ON JUNE 22, 2016
[Note: As a picket line was held outside the Mexican Consulate in San Francisco on June 22, a four-person delegation met with the Deputy Consul inside the Consulate. The four people on the delegation then reported back to the labor and community activists on the picket line. They informed the activists that the Deputy Consul made the commitment to send the statement below to the authorities in Mexico City. They were also told that the Consulate did not have any information on the situation other than what has been printed in the mainstream media, but the Deputy Consul added that the Mexican government had agreed to sit down and dialogue with the leadership of the CNTE without preconditions. The four people on the delegation were Tim Paulson, executive director of the San Francisco Labor Council; Lita Blanc, president of United Educators of San Francisco; Ted Lewis, Mexico Desk Director at Global Exchange; and Francisco Herrera, member of AFT Local 2121.]
WE DENOUNCE KILLING OF TEACHERS BY GOVERNMENT FORCES IN OAXACA
We are representatives of teacher unions, labor, religious and human rights organizations here at the Mexican Consulate to protest the police attacks since Sunday that have killed more than eight and wounded more than 100 teachers and their supporters in the Mexican state of Oaxaca.
On June 19, federal armed forces fired on teachers and supporters in the town of Nochixtlan, killing at least four people and wounding 30 more. More police shootings have followed as protests continue.
The teachers were protesting the imprisonment, in early June, of the top two leaders of the Oaxacan teachers union and the Oaxacan governor Gabino Cue Monteagudo's imposition of a new federal education code. The changes to education law include requiring tests to qualify as teachers. Teachers -- most of them serving in indigenous, bi-lingual classrooms -- say the test do not reflect the needs of their students and are an unwelcome intervention by a hostile federal bureaucracy.
We have delivered a letter to Consul General Andres Isaac Roemer Slomianski calling for an end to the killings, lethal attacks and repression against teachers and their supporters. Demands also include release of the imprisoned union leaders and others detained in the protests, reinstatement of teachers fired for striking, and national negotiations without conditions with the teachers union, the National Coordination of Education Workers (Spanish acronym CNTE).
We also are sending a message to the U.S. Congress to suspend military aid to Mexico until the Mexican government stops these massive abuses of labor and human rights.
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Mexico: Oaxaca Teachers' Murders Protested In SF -- "Massacre Made In USA"
https://youtu.be/4RrK-S3Q9qs
4RrK-S3Q9qs
The massacre of the striking CNTE Mexican Independent teachers' Union, community people and supporters of public education in Oaxaca Mexico was protested in San Francisco on June 22, 2016. Teachers including from the UESF, AFT 2121 and Tim Paulson, the head of the San Francisco Labor Council and labor activists condemned the massacre by police and military who have been supplied by the United States. Protesters also connected the privatization and corporatization of education in Mexico with the charters and the attack on public education in the United States. The use of the military and police on the striking teachers is bringing a growing anger and those unions in San Francisco that participated demanded that the US government cut off military weapons to Mexico. Al Rojas, a founder of the United Farmworkers Union of America also attacked the so called comprehensive immigration reform that according to Rojas will further militarize the border and also expand the use of "guest workers" that will be used as cheap labor by Driscoll and other US corporations. He further charged that the UFWA is setting up broker offices in Mexico in cahoots with the Mexican government to bring in these indentured workers to the US and make them union members. Other participants pointed out that Hillary Clinton and her husband Bill Clinton were responsible for NAFTA and continue to support this reactionary trade bill that has enslaved the Mexican people including unionists and peasants and is forcing the privatization of education backed up by the US supplied military and police.
Additional media:
https://youtu.be/xu4qLP_O3Sk
xu4qLP_O3Sk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nr0snX6OqQg
Nr0snX6OqQg
http://youtu.be/QVw_g87oeCY
QVw_g87oeCY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuVDgT9GDlY
ZuVDgT9GDlY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnuu1Javuv8
wnuu1Javuv8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYYv9sLaFjk
GYYv9sLaFjk
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/06/22/the-cntes-battle-for-education/
Production of Labor Video Project
www.laborvideo.org
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STATEMENT BY SACRAMENTO CHAPTER OF THE LABOR COUNCIL FOR LATIN AMERICAN ADVANCEMENT
"El Consejo Sindical para el Progreso de los Latino Americanos"
"La Voz Unida" AFL-CIO
Lic.Enrique Peña Nieto President of Mexico
[email protected] Private Secretary Erwin
[email protected]
Lic. Luis María Aguilar Morales President of the Supreme Court of Justice Mé
[email protected]
The Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (LCLAA), AFL -CIO, Sacramento California USA, is an organization of trade unionists that fight for justice, democracy and peace. The teachers from the Coordinadora Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación (CNTE), who work and struggle for a just, democratic, and peaceful Mexico, remain repressed, persecuted, and imprisoned by the violent Mexican state forces that protect the economic interests of the United States and Mexico. The Mexican government's physical and ideological violent response to the democratic demands of the CNTE teachers proves that the government's political stubbornness is in reality the continuity of the neoliberal project to further privatize and dismantle the educational system at the expense of the worker and the impoverished people of Mexico. With this resolution, the Sacramento chapter of Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (LCLAA), demands a halt to the persecution of leaders of the CNTE, freedom for imprisoned teachers, constitutional guarantees for all Mexican citizens, and the development of democratic proposals to resolve the conflict.
We are aware that the protests continue in the capital and other states in Mexico. We will endeavor to inform the trade union movement in the United States of the anti-democratic actions by the Mexican government and allocate resources to show solidarity with the democratic teachers of Mexico.
The Sacramento chapter of the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement Labor AFL- CIO, USA CC: CNTE, Trinational Coalition in Defense of Public Education, and Sacramento Central Labor Council denounce the following:
DISMISSED: In Mexico more than 4,000 teachers have been dismissed for participating in the strike, adding to the 3,360 already fired for missing punitive evaluations, which has culminated to an estimated 8,000 teachers being fired to this day.
JAILED: The seven leaders of Section 22, OAXACA jailed. The two latest arrest of professor Ruben Nunez Gines, the Secretary General of the Section and professor Francisco Villalobos, Secretary of Organization section who were arrested June 11th and June 12th. The professor's relative's homes have been plagued with great violence after leaving a General Assembly of the CNTE in city of Mexico. After their arrests both were sent to a high security prison to Hermosillo, Sonora, about two thousand kilometers from the city Of Oaxaca. The teachers have been falsely charged and imprisoned for funds of illicit origins. The Mexican government's goal is to discredit the Secretary General of the Section and Secretary of Organization by profiling them as criminals; when in reality, they are political prisoners of conscience.
THE EVICTION OF THE SIT-IN TEACHERS IN THE CITY OF MEXICO: On two occasions, during the early morning hours, thousands of police officers evicted teachers who were peacefully sitting in in protest in the Secretary of Public Education's office in the city of Mexico. On the last occasion, the government deported the demonstrators to their states in buses specifically hired for it. Teachers returned, settling in another public space, but with worse conditions.
PREVENTING TEACHERS FROM REACHING THE CITY OF MEXICO OR LEAVE THEIR STATES. Thousands of federal police officers equipped with military weaponry have blocked entrance roads to Mexico City. This blockade has prevented the arrival of buses with teachers from Michoacán, Guerrero, Tabasco, Oaxaca and Chiapas on four occasions when the teachers were summoned for demonstrations in the capital. Today, federal police officers have tried to prevent buses carrying teachers from Oaxaca from leaving their state of Oaxaca.
PREVENTING TRANSIT IN MEXICO CITY: Police operations have encapsulated the contingent of teachers marching in the city to address points of protest.
KILLED: Adding to already hostile situation, in the last three years, following the imposition of educational reform, teachers have been murdered or killed by impacts which were recorded during police repressions, not forgetting, of course the 43 student from the rural teaching college who are missing.
Presidencia de la República Enrique Peña
[email protected] Residencia oficial de Los Pinos, Molino del Rey s/n, Col. San Miguel Chapultepec, Distrito Federal. C.P. 11850 Teléfono: 5093 5300 Atención a la ciudadanía: 01 800 080 1127 Presidencia de la República Secretaría de Gobernación Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong Correo:
[email protected] Abraham González 48, Col. Juárez, Ciudad de México. C.P. 06699 Conmutador: 5728 7300 Teléfono: 50 93 34 00 Procuraduría General de la República Mtra. Arely Gómez González Correo:
[email protected] Dirección: Paseo de la Reforma 211 - 213 Cuauhtémoc, Guerrero, 06300 Ciudad de México, D.F. Teléfono: 53 46 01 08
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The CNTE'S Battle for Education
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/06/22/the-cntes-battle-for-education/
JUNE 22, 2016
by ANDREW SMOLSKI
The Coordinadora Nacional de los Trabajadores de la Educación (CNTE) has been consistently disrupting the normal, foul functioning of Mexican politics, with the Local 22 from Oaxaca taking the lead. The CNTE is a dissident union that broke off from the corrupt Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación (SNTE), whose ex-leader, Esther Gordillo, is in jail. They have been occupying, striking, and struggling against the education reforms that do little to address the severe inequality and structural deficiencies in Mexico's education system. Those reforms are part of Enrique Peña Nieto's "Pacto por México", which continues the decades long attack on the Mexican working class and labor organizing.
That assault has occurred primarily through legislation, but also through direct repression of dissent by Mexican security forces. The recent assault by the Policía Federal on teachers protesting in Oaxaca, with several dead and multiple injured, along with the arrest of CNTE leaders, demonstrate the Mexican government's willingness to repress through any means necessary, even torture and assassination. These events lead to Paco Ignacio Taibo II's question; who gave the order?
What is at stake in this pitched battle between the CNTE and Mexican government is the fulfilment of Article 3 of the Mexican Constitution. Under Article 3 of the Mexican Constitution, all Mexican citizens have the right to an education up to the high school level enforced by mandatory attendance. It also stipulates that education must be supplied by the government, whether it is federal, state, or local level government.
The present reforms to Article 3 are based on privatization of Mexico's education system and breaking union power, a direct attack on teachers and students. The reform utilizes Article 3's first paragraph mandating the State's guaranty of quality education to enact a teacher evaluation system, which will "demonstrate" compliance or non-compliance. The reform is also retroactive, stating that "all income and promotions will be null that were not given in conformity with the law."
However, the arguments put forward defending this evaluation system follow the US's neoliberal, corporate-driven model. They are the same, tired formula of standardized testing and union busting implemented in Gringolandia through policies like No Child Left and Race to the Top under the guise of "accountability" and "teacher performance". Chicago public school teachers have been in the streets fighting the same reforms and cuts!
Primarily, the reforms are targeted against the unions by seeking to undermine their collective bargaining power through atomization and control. EPN's reforms are based on what his administration consider failures related to the provision of education. In a document submitted to the Mexican Congress, the reforms are stated to be based on what EPN considers "undeniable", that "teacher performance is the most relevant factor in learning".
Yet, this ignores the lack of resources, especially in rural, indigenous areas of Mexico. This lack is so extreme in some instances, that teachers themselves have built schools with only the resources they had available. Only with public investment did improvements come. According to the OECD, in 2012 Mexican public education graduated about 70% of students at 15 years old, up from 58% in 2003. After that, it is estimated 49% of the population will receive an upper secondary education, up from the estimated 33% in 2000. From the year 2000 to 2011, enrollments of 4 year olds have gone from 70% to almost 100%. From this perspective, México's education system has been improving in terms of access and graduation rates without EPN's reforms.
Much of this can be traced to increased investment in public education, where from 1995 to 2005 spending on education went from 5.6% to 6.5% of GDP. Amazingly, if you invest money in something, it appears to do better; a truism. Public investment has gone down in recent years to 6.2% of GDP, similar to the OECD average of 6.3%. That trend of Federal de-investment will continue under the reforms. From 2012 to 2013, during Peña Nieto's first year in office, federal public investment in education saw a 2.2% decrease.
In terms of average annual expenditure per student as part of per capita GDP, México is well below OECD average of 28%, sitting at 20%. Per student México spends a lot less than other countries, typically less than half the OECD average. This translates into worse teacher-student ratios. OECD average is 14 to 15 students per teacher, in México it is 25 to 30 students per teacher depending on the level (pre-primary, primary, secondary). And while being decried as lazy in Mexico's corporate media outlets, like Televisa, México's teachers work longer hours than other OECD countries. By fallaciously attacking the teachers, the government hopes to collapse wages a large part of educational expenditure and continue the drive to privatization through de-investment.
The CNTE has been supported by MORENA, but largely they've relied on the support of civil society to advance their struggle. In this way, they've followed a Zapatista-style path that seeks to leverage national and international solidarity networks and their power to force the government to negotiate. Part of that political strategy relies on protecting the decolonial advances in education. The education reforms are an attack on indigenous cosmologies that involve comunalidad and intercultarildad, that do not follow the instrumental reason of a quantified, capitalist society. These politico-cultural concepts of living in common and pluri-ethnic consciousness are part of a democratic seed that the Mexican government and transnational capital want to suffocate.
EPN's government, the Secretary of Public Education, Aurelio Nuño Mayer, and the Secretary of the Interior, Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong, have repeatedly stated they will not negotiate about the reforms. The Policía Federal have evicted the CNTE occupiers from their encampment in Mexico City, with the teachers returning and restarting the resistance. The corporate media demonizes them, and the middle class blames them. But, these teachers are the brave, defending the right to know. The simmering conflict in Mexico burns stronger again. Will change comeŠ
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Andrew Smolski is a writer and sociologist.
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