Mexico: Fighting for the Right to Steal
27th July 2016
Earlier this month the government resumed negotiations with the CNTE (education union). The negotiations are not working and this is not a surprise. CNTE is not really a union. Rather it is the armed wing of the SNTE (national teachers union). For decades the national union has been criticized because it had become corrupt and anti-education. Parents saw SNTE as an obstacle to their children’s education because too many teacher jobs were not for teachers but for whoever could afford to pay a bribe to get a no-show job. You were paid but you did not have to teach or do any work. That was a job worth fighting for. The state-supported schools had become useless and the CNTE would be called out to stage violent protests whenever local or national governments tried to change this. CNTE claims to have popular support but beyond the families of teachers the CNTE is hated and feared. Open criticism is often violently suppressed. CNTE and SNTE supported whichever political party would help them and was part of a larger corrupt system that most Mexicans want gone. The current reform effort by the federal prosecutors centers on former SNTE head, Elba Esther Gordillo Morales. In 2013 she was indicted on embezzlement and theft charges and arrested. Gordillo allegedly embezzled $160 million in union and education funds and was notorious for her luxurious lifestyle. The government is now trying to clean up the union. To aid with that the government passed a law that gives the federal government control over education. Who had controlled education policy before that? The teachers union did so, with minimal government oversight. Based on the embezzlement scandal, there was also minimal financial oversight. Until the new law was passed, the SNTE determined who was hired and fired. The new law says hiring will be based on qualifications and merit. The teachers union has been one of the most powerful (and allegedly most corrupt) unions in Mexico. It has around 1.5 million members and most of them are not qualified to be teachers. Currently the union maintains roadblocks in Oaxaca state and threatens widespread protests throughout Mexico. The union continues to demand that the government repeal the 2013 laws that required routine evaluations of teacher efficiency. The union also want the government to free two union leaders currently under arrest.