Above Photo: Teachers from the National Coordinator of Education Workers hold a rally after their march opposing educational reforms in the state of Michoacan, Mexico, May 19, 2016. | Photo: CNTE
Mexico’s secretary of education said Thursday that more than three thousand teachers from the states of Guerrero, Oaxaca and Michoacan would be fired for missing three consecutive days of work without justification, despite the fact the teachers have missed work as a result of being on strike over a series of reforms forced upon them by the federal government.
A spokesperson from the National Coordinator of Education Workers, a leftist breakaway from the national teachers’ union, said they would keep their strike going despite the threat of dismissal.
“We are on maximum alert. If the federal government insists on maintaining its policy of closed-mindedness, we too will refuse to quit,” said the spokesperson.
Teachers had been holding a sit-in protest in front of the offices of the secretariat of the interior but left after the Federal Police threatened to remove them by force.
The teachers then set up a camp in front of the secretariat of education but were forcibly removed by the police in the middle of the night on Friday and placed on buses.
Link To Video Here
“We tell federal authorities that today, more than ever, the National Coordinator (of Education Workers) is getting further organized and we have to take to the streets,” Ruben Nuñez, secretary-general of local 22 of the union, told Proceso magazine.
Nuñez said they were not intimated. A press release from the union demanded the immediate release of those detained.
Teachers are seeking to open a new round of dialogue over a series of reforms, which the union vehemently opposes.
The union says the reforms constitute an attack on labor rights and threatens their job security.