Teachers Need Communism, Not Unions
MEXICO CITY —In a recent gathering a teacher asked an ICWP member what they thought of the election of the new president, Lopez Obrador. She saw how those who he had called the “mafia of power” congratulated him: Salinas de Gortari, Vicente Fox, former president Peña-Nieto. She knew that the Secretary of Education will be Esteban Moctezuma, president of the capitalist media conglomerate TV-Azteca Foundation.
“Yes,” the comrade replied, “capitalism continues. The same discredited politicians of previous governments joined MoReNa to continue feeding from the public trough. Does anyone believe they will stop being corrupt?”
“And what do you in ICWP think about the Education Reform? In the Union of the Colegio de Bachilleres they said that now nothing can be done against it since it is already a decree. Now they have begun to try something. Apparently, they don’t want to lose control of the teachers and their dues.”
In fact, the alliance of the SNTE (teachers’ union) with candidate José A. Meade was catastrophic. They lost control of the collective vote that allowed them to negotiate political positions in the governments of the PRI and PAN. SNTE leaders used to get millions to promote education reform.
For education workers the SNTE continues to be an openly bosses’ union, lacking legitimacy to represent them before the new government. It is part of the corruption that never went away when Peña Nieto promised to retake control of the Ministry of Education. The SNTE kept selling labor contracts, collecting percentages in managing bank loans, controlling huge budgets granted by Aurelio Nuño supposedly to train teachers, acting as hit men and thugs in the union sections where teachers tried to elect democratic representatives.
The CNTE is a national movement of education workers in opposition to SNTE. Its declarations make it appear to be a counterweight to the right-wing, a group that will not go along with the PRIista regime.
It questioned the alliance of Lopez Obrador’s left-right “Together We Make History” coalition with a group affiliated with the discredited former SNTE leader Elba Esther Portillo. It objected to the appointment of Esteban Moctezuma as the head of the next Ministry of Education. It exposed the ambiguity of the education proposal that on the one hand promises to cancel the reform and on the other proposes elements to reinforce it, give it continuity or simply do not completely touch it.
However, promoting nonpartisanship, reform, and nationalism (as CNTE does) disarms the working class and leaves it at the mercy of the capitalists. The working class needs a society in which education and production are only to meet the needs of the masses: communism. No union or reform group can or will fight to destroy capitalism and build the communist world we need.
Teachers need to organize themselves in the International Communist Workers’ Party, not in unions. They need to join the ICWP!
Lopez Obrador’s agreement with the economic oligarchy is to transfer public resources through apprenticeships to young people in the private companies. His victory is not a victory for the working class. It is a dispute over which group of capitalists are the dominant power. The bourgeoisie has not left. It is leaving its representatives in the educational and teaching institutions to guarantee the continuity of capitalism.
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