Mexico: this is how the teachers national strike looks like
Hereby we publish an unofficial translation of an article published in Periódico Mural.
On the past 15th of May the national strike of the national teachers organized in the CNTE started. A great mobilization which has an army of 200 thousand educational workers mobilized in different parts of the country and has put the Mexican State in a tight spot. Precisely this same day, the president of the republic, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, announced for the teachers a payment raise of a 10% which was immediately rejected by the educational workers, considering it a mockery.
On 15th of May, the day of teachers, this combative working mass took the streets of the capital of the country and several capitals of the republic, and it repeated the same slogans which for four decades have given identity and pride to the CNTE: “From Chiapas to Sonora, Coordinating”, “Here and now with the Coordination”, “Alert, alert, alert teachers, we will set fire to the charros [Translator’s note: Mexican word for yellow unionists, corrupt leaders, etc.] and traitors”. The teachers are demanding the repeal of the EPN-AMLO’s education reform, a 100% increase of the payment, the repeal of the USICAMM, the repeal of the Law of ISSSTE, that the education workers fired shall be re-hired, the stop of the administrative repression, the spreading of uniforms and school breakfasts, construction and equipment of schools in the countryside neighborhoods and areas, etc. Moreover they demand also the liberation of the political prisoners, the presentation of disappeared ones and the punishment to the authors of repression against the people of Mexico.
To these demands are added the lively slogan of Total Boycott to the electoral farce! and the call to Do not vote, organize and struggle!, along with the removal of election propaganda from all the parties, the seizures of the INE’s offices and of the headquarters of several parties.
Along with the teachers, several democratic and revolutionary organizations have joined and called to make of this strike a teachers and popular National Strike.
Hereby we share some images of these protests.
