Breathe
By Nurit Martínez
The action-negotiation-mobilization tactic of the National Coordination of Education Workers (CNTE) is underway and this social movement against the government of President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo is just beginning.
The dissident teachers and their allies go for everything and everything means the demands accumulated in the last quarter of a century, so they pretend that the government of the second floor of the Fourth Transformation solves that, which now causes Sheinbaum's team not to find a way to stop the monster created from the ISSSTE by Martí Batres.
It is hardly credible that the president's team, and in particular with the political skills of ISSSTE director Martí Batres, would overlook a political strategy of the CNTE that has been profitable for that group and its leaders for more than 45 years: action in the schools with organization and presence in the public square to then pressure any local or federal government to initiate negotiation.
As in most cases, the initial response of any government does not satisfy them (since no one in their right mind will accept a one hundred percent salary increase for more than 1.7 million workers automatically) and this becomes a fruitful breeding ground to convince the rank and file that the government in office is ignoring the teachers.
Indeed, it is a profitable flag, but the formula has been used by governments of any political color in the country: red, blue, green, orange and, just as they applied it to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, they intend to apply it to the President, whom the same Moreno political class has many doubts about.
Action-negotiation-mobilization is the infallible formula for threatening, pressuring and putting any government on the ropes, and the CNTE knows this and that is the reason for its additional demands to the salary increase: to reverse the ISSSTE reform, not only the Batres initiative but also that of 2007, that is, to request that retirement be possible at 56 years of age for women and 58 years of age for men.
This means that after 28 years of service in the public administration, women will be able to retire and men after 30 years of verifiable service.
The other demand is to end the equivalent retirement in UMAs and return to the equivalent payment in minimum wages. In educational matters, that their educational proposal be considered as an alternative policy in educational programs, as if what they have practiced in Oaxaca and Guerrero had produced citizens and professionals with the best results in the country.
They are also asking for an end to the current system of admission, promotion and advancement in the teaching ranks, because for the CNTE it is better to inherit the positions in the basic education schools, that every graduate of the teacher training colleges should have a job automatically and that the promotion in the school ranks should be based on points for participating in marches, sit-ins, pushing and shoving and confrontations against the local police, as they have done in the last 45 years.
The president, her team and in particular the director of ISSSTE, Martí Batres, overlooked this negotiation strategy that has been tested with all governments and exacerbated in Enrique Peña's administration in 2012 and at the beginning of 2013 when they choked Mexico City with blockades similar to those of last week in order to put an end to the educational reform. Only that Morena took advantage of the teachers' discontent and achieved the electoral mobilization and political alliance to win, six years later, the presidential election, local governments and state congresses.
But that did not put an end to the CNTE's ambition and strategy, as it did not achieve everything in its demands, despite the spaces and perks in the local governments where it has the greatest presence: Oaxaca, Chiapas, Guerrero, Michoacán, Sinaloa, it managed to pressure President López Obrador in Chiapas on August 7, 2021, by preventing him from arriving at his morning conference at the headquarters of the armed forces.
The president responded with indifference for years to the pressure of the CNTE, but in the new government and with the questioned leadership of the president, the Coordinadora puts Sheinbaum to the test and there the dilemma arises: whose side are we citizens on? Whose side is best for the teachers? Whose side is best for education and for Mexico?
For now, he pronounced himself on the side of legality, to build an educational project that raises the performance of teachers and students, that provides the necessary infrastructure to schools and better salary levels for teachers in front of groups, to put an end to the abuse of the SNTE and the CNTE, as well as to build a unionism of rights and defense of workers. Perks must be a thing of the past. Education and political interests must be separated, just as López Obrador ended the business-political link.
As if that were not enough, there are those within the government who believe that the first social conflict of this government is not a coincidence but a bet by the director of ISSSTE to negotiate a greater presence in the federal administration, among others, that his sister "the people's minister", Lenia Batres, will be favored with the presidency of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation.
Subscribe to read the full column...
