Teachers In the Streets
All the teachers’ demands are justified, and repeal of the ISSSTE would not just benefit all public sector workers, but all workers, says teacher Ángel Custodio Guadarrama in this interview.
All the teachers’ demands are justified, and repeal of the ISSSTE would not just benefit all public sector workers, but all workers, says teacher Ángel Custodio Guadarrama in this interview.
The Morena government is refusing to fulfill its campaign promise to repeal Calderón’s 2007 ISSSTE Law and is seeking to confine the issue of pensions, handed over to private banks under the predatory Afore model, to a weak and very provisional scheme.
Striking teachers burned photographs of controversial union leader Alfonso Cepeda Salas, head of SNTE, who was last year appointed a plurinominal Senator by the Morena government, which is negotiating with striking teachers.
Teachers have been occupying Mexico City’s Zócalo for over 20 days, seeking to finally end neoliberal education reforms and privatized pensions.
The CNTE maintains the Mexican government is refusing to negotiate, making the same proposal over and over again to striking teachers.
The national strike, initiated by the CNTE but joined by other public workers, is not a mobilization of workers against a political party, but against the neoliberal model that is still unfortunately in good health.
The government’s offer to striking teachers did not include repealing the 2007 ISSSTE law, although today President Sheinbaum found time to meet billionaire Carlos Slim, who this week proposed scrapping the pension system and retirement age.
The document presented to the CNTE includes a declaration in which the federal government expresses its respect for their organization and methods of struggle.
Teachers’ pensions provide private banks massive profits in the form of commissions, they fund the investments the banks make in their own businesses, and the profits the banks make from usurious activity with other people’s money. What public benefits would there be if the system was de-privatized?
Mexican teachers face the enormous power of finance capital and a neoliberal retirement system, owned by major banks, the true right wing of this country, which the government refuses to touch with even a single tax.