Head of Mexico Teachers Union Forced to Quit

The self-described “moral guide” and leader-for-life of the National Education Workers Union resigned Sunday under pressure from tens of thousands of dissident teachers who have been on a wildcat strike for the last week.

Carlos Jonguitud Barrios, head of the teachers union for more than 15 years, is the most important head of an official union to depart since the government jailed powerful Oil Workers Union boss Joaquin Hernandez Galicia in January.

But while President Carlos Salinas de Gortari gladly took the initiative that removed the troublesome oil union leader, he was forced by the striking teachers to get rid of Jonguitud. The resignation is a concession from the government, which refuses to meet the teachers’ demand of a 100% pay increase.

Jonguitud’s departure, announced by Salinas’ spokesman, appeared timed to stave off a national teachers’ march scheduled in the capital today. The Mexico City bus drivers union has announced it will support the teachers with a daylong work stoppage that is likely to make chaos of the already traffic-snarled capital.

Luis Hernandez, a spokesman for the dissident teachers, said that the march would go on as planned and that striking teachers would not obey an order by the Federal Arbitration and Conciliation Board to return to work today.

‘Great Union Triumph’

“The removal of Jonguitud is a great union triumph, but it does not solve the fundamental problems of a salary increase and union democracy, particularly in (Mexico City) where we (the dissidents) are a majority and have no representation,” Hernandez said.

Teachers earn an average of $150 per month. In addition to the pay raise, the dissident faction, called the National Coordinator of Education Workers, is demanding authentically free union elections to replace the rest of the union leadership controlled by Jonguitud.

Jonguitud was head of the official Revolutionary Vanguard faction of the union and a permanent adviser to the full union’s executive committee.

Negotiations Broke Down

Negotiations among the two factions and the government broke down Friday night. The striking teachers have rejected a government offer of a 10% pay boost.

The strike and Jonguitud’s resignation present a difficult situation for the Salinas government, which is trying to hold inflation under 25% this year and to rebuild the battered Institutional Revolutionary Party. The union belongs to the PRI, as the ruling party is popularly known.

“Salinas has played a negotiating card (with Jonguitud) because he cannot afford to concede any more on salaries,” said Carlos Ramirez, a labor and economics analyst with the newspaper El Financiero. “If he does, it will throw his whole salary policy out of whack along with his agreement with the International Monetary Fund.”

The government must renegotiate a national wage-and-price-control pact with business and labor by the end of July. The latest accord kept wage increases to 10% for the first seven months of the year, and the government reached a loan agreement with the IMF based on these pacts.

Will Try to Keep Control

Meanwhile, the government will try to keep control of the teachers union without Jonguitud. As leader of the union, Jonguitud served as a pillar of the PRI. For decades, the union has kept strikes from happening and functioned as a machine at election time, turning out votes for the PRI and allegedly assisting in electoral fraud where necessary to deliver an edge for the party.

In the Oil Workers Union, the government installed its chosen leader after jailing Hernandez Galicia and several of his allies on charges of illegal weapons possession, tax evasion and murder.

Unlike the Oil Workers Union, which also belongs to the PRI, the estimated 850,000-member teachers union apparently turned out for Salinas in last July’s presidential election, in which a leftist opposition candidate won an unprecedented 30% of the ballots and Salinas polled the lowest vote ever cast for a PRI presidential candidate. Jonguitud won a seat in the Senate.

Dissident teachers charge that Jonguitud is corrupt and has run his union with gangster tactics, ordering the killing of scores of teachers who opposed his rule. They accuse him of stealing millions of dollars of union money, selling union jobs and assigning his cronies to school administration and inspection positions.

Denied Charges

Jonguitud has repeatedly denied such charges publicly. At a press conference last week that may have sealed his fate, the union boss sported a gold Rolex watch and a silk necktie and announced that any teacher “can aspire to what I have if he is involved in national life as I have been.”

Dissident union leaders and some labor analysts believe that Jonguitud can continue to exercise power over the union through his handpicked section chiefs and that his resignation was, as one observer said, “a mere formality.”

But labor specialist Raul Trejo noted: “In Mexican politics, form counts for a lot and appearances are part of daily political life. Such a high-profile resignation, such an important resignation, because it was demanded by the teachers, cannot be only cosmetic.”

The government has not said what it will do if the teachers ignore its order to return to work, but the law says they may be fired after four days of unauthorized absence from the job.

So far, the teachers seemed determined to hold out for their other demands. Many teachers interviewed last week said they used to be able to live reasonably well on the salaries they earned from one job. Now many say they hold two teaching posts and still cannot support their families.