On Aug. 21, striking teachers and their supporters in the southern city of Oaxaca, Mexico, occupied 12 radio stations and two television stations and blocked the city’s four main entrances. The action followed a police attack against the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (APPO), in which one teacher was shot in the leg. The police operation had been coordinated by state and radio television. (People’s Daily News, Aug. 22).
On Tuesday, a group of about 15 men in three cars, one with a logo of the city police department, sprayed one of the
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Approximately 70,000 teachers went on strike on May 22 in a struggle for salary increases. The government’s meager counteroffer—less than one-tenth of the raise requested by the teachers—was an outrageous affront to the educators and their valuable work.
On June 14, facing the unrelenting militancy of the strikers, the government launched a raid on a teachers’ encampment in downtown Oaxaca. The attempt to crush the strike backfired and the APPO—a coalition bringing together the militant teachers and numerous progressive organizations and individuals—was born.
Since then, the teachers’ demands have assumed a much broader political character. Demonstrators are calling for the resignation of Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), and the APPO is seeking recognition as the official governing body of Oaxaca. (Houston Chronicle, Aug. 21)
The demonstrators’ militancy has grown as well, and their tactics now include shutting down government buildings, burning vehicles, and barricading key points in the city. Despite the continued violence from government forces, the seizure of radio and television stations this week shows that the people are unwilling to surrender.
The state government of Oaxaca blames teachers for preventing 1.3 million students from returning to school this month at the beginning of the semester. The feigned concern for students is nothing but an effort by government officials to pit students against teachers and deflect attention away from themselves. The government revealed how much it truly cares for the students’ well-being on July 22, when state forces shot at the student-run radio station at Oaxaca’s university for supporting the APPO’s demands.
Despite the government’s divisive tactics, students have joined women’s organizations, Indigenous groups, and other progressive forces backing the APPO and the teachers’ struggle. The announcement of an indefinite work stoppage by the Union of Workers of the Secretariat of Health on Aug. 16 shows that solidarity is on the rise.
The capitalist class has been quick to accuse the workers and their supporters of breaking the law and instigating violence. In reality, however, the capitalist state has carried out violent attacks on the striking teachers and their supporters.
The increasingly radical tactics employed by the Oaxacan people are a product of capitalist oppression, but also of growing class consciousness itself. The contempt of the government, the bias of the courts, and the brutality of the police have shaped the consciousness of the workers and their forms of struggle. Independent, militant action is not an arbitrary choice but rather the logical outcome of a system whose institutions block all other avenues to the liberation of the working class.
