More of the same

Things appear to be getting uglier.
from the LAHT

A section of the SNTE teachers union threatened to call an indefinite strike in all the schools of the southern state of Oaxaca if the regional government does not return to them the centers that it awarded six years ago to another local of the same union.

“If the government continues with the stupidity of knocking us around, of letting Local 59 take over, we’re going on an indefinite strike,” said Cesar Martinez, a member of the center for press and advertising communications at SNTE Local 22.

The warnings came after more than 74,000 teachers took part in a day of blockading 37 highways in protest against the aggression suffered by a group of teachers, Martinez said.

Last Thursday, five teachers were seized and presumably attacked while imposing a blockade on a highway near the municipality of Mitla to protest the taking over of some 60 schools by another local of the union, one that is backed by the state government and SNTE leader Elba Esther Gordillo.

On Sunday the teachers plan to stage a “megamarch” in the state and afterwards will hold an assembly to decide if they will again call an indefinite strike.

I still think that at some point, these protests will cause a significant backlash.  Years ago, people might have been sympathetic to some of the teachers demands, but those days are gone.  The negative impact these blockades and marches have upon peoples' lives and livelihoods is just too much to take for much longer.  Yes, there is a right to protest and oaxaqueños honor that right as well as exercise it passionately, but as I said in yesterday's post, things are changing and people want to move forward, not continue the old arguments that seem to go on forever.  If los maestros continue to shut down the economy, to prevent people from getting to work or doing business, to prevent the free flow of goods and people within the transportation system, well, what would you?  What should the government do?

Meanwhile, the kids experience yet another year, in which they do not get the education they and the state so sorely need.