Honduran Teachers Win Month-Long Strike In Defense of Public Education

Honduran teachers won a month-long strike this summer that involved massive demonstrations, violent confrontations with police, arrests of union activists, and accusations that teacher “terrorists” were attempting to destabilize the government. The teachers struck to defend public education, their union, and their contract from policies being shaped not only by the government of President Ricardo Maduro, but by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and foreign corporations.

The strike, which took place in June and July, was prompted when Maduro decided to cut teachers’ salaries, he said, in order to balance the national budget to meet the IMF’s demands. But the conflict between Maduro and the country’s teachers began long before.

100-DAY STRUGGLE, 30-DAY STRIKE

“We had a struggle that lasted 100 days, and a strike that lasted almost a month,” says Edwin Oliva, Secretary of Social, Cultural and Environmental Affairs of COLPROSUMAH, a Honduran teachers’ union. “During the strike no teacher worked and all schools were closed until the last stage when we opened them for our own reasons.”

The Federation of Teachers presented the Honduran government with a five-page set of demands on March 24, 2004. The document argued in defense of the existing Teachers Law, past practices, and the proposed budget which included programmed raises for teachers.

During April, May and early June, Honduran teachers throughout the country engaged in meetings, marches, and protest demonstrations. While an official strike was never declared, teachers began to stop work and close the schools around June 14. At that point demonstrations became more militant, as teachers occupied the nation’s public squares, blocked streets and highways, and took over toll booths.

The teachers movement happened to coincide with the “Second National March for Life,” dedicated to protecting the environment and saving national forests. On June 25, some 20,000 teachers and hundreds of environmentalists and other activists converged in the country’s capital, Tegucigalpa. Police in riot gear used tear gas and night sticks in a failed attempt to break up the marches and demonstrations. The police arrested half a dozen teachers, charging them with disorderly conduct.

The Maduro government and leaders of Congress made wild accusations that the teachers were receiving money from Cuba and Venezuela, that they were attempting to destabilize the government, and accused the strikers of being “terrorists.”

The public—especially parents—became frustrated with the strike, which kept children out of school for almost a month. Toward the end of the strike, to reestablish close contact with parents and students and draw them into the struggle, the union permitted the schools to open.

On July 9, union representatives and congressmen reached a 12-point agreement that restored the teachers’ programmed wage increases and benefits. In return, teachers agreed to extend the calendar so students would have 200 days of school this year.

The teacher’s victory inspired others. In June, interns and residents at the nation’s hospitals struck for an increase in stipends while they study. And in July workers at the National Autonomous University of Honduras marched and demonstrated for wage increases.

UNITY AND ORGANIZATION

Oliva explains how the teachers pulled it off: “We held general meetings in all of the cities, and everywhere we raised money through selling things such as food or by making collections.

“We had a strike fund, but we used that mostly for people who had suffered illness and had medical bills, or for a family that had a house that burned down. We received support from the churches in each community, especially from the Catholic churches (though not so much from the evangelical [Protestant] churches). We got this support from the bottom up. We had support from the local parish priests. The Jesuits also played a good role.

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“We also had support from other groups, such as the National Coordinating Committee of Popular Resistance. This is a new group, only about one year old, but it has united lots of movements throughout the country.

“We responded through the media. I say, we broke the silence. When the government accused us of causing the deficit, we made our counter arguments.”

MADURO ON THE ATTACK

President Maduro’s relations with Honduran teachers were strained well before the strike. When Maduro was elected in 2002, he began an attack on the teachers unions.

Ignoring past practices, he appointed party loyalists to the boards that run the educational system, bypassing the competitive examinations that all board members are supposed to complete. These political appointment of board members soon led to political appointments of teachers, including ghost workers who never taught, but picked up paychecks.

Teachers were also angry that Maduro ignored proposals for educational reform that the teachers unions had helped to develop. Maduro turned instead to foreign advisors and presented his own educational reform proposal, completely ignoring the work of the teachers and other Hondurans.

In January 2003, President Maduro’s National Party and the Christian Democratic Party joined together to pass a new budget which froze teachers’ pay increases.

As the union’s contract expiration approached, the Maduro administration, pressured by the IMF, argued that the teachers’ salaries and programmed raises were the cause of the Honduran government’s deficit and a cause of the country’s stagnation and poverty. To maintain fiscal responsibility, the government would have to overturn the Teachers Law, deny the programmed wage increases, and prevent further raises in teacher salaries.

GOVERNMENT POLICIES CAUSE STRIKE

The real causes of the deficit, Oliva argues, were the government’s own pro-corporate policies and widespread corruption. “Many private businesses do not pay taxes, a total amounting to 10 billion lempiras,” says Oliva. (One lempira equals 5.5 cents US.)

Oliva continues, “We investigated corruption in education, and we found that in the large departments of the country as much as one million lempiras was lost in each department through corruption. For example, when a teacher becomes pregnant, someone is supposed to be hired in her place as a substitute. But the heads of education in the departments (who were illegally appointed) do not make such appointments, they simply leave the position unfilled. When the parents come to complain that their children have no teacher, then they are asked to donate to pay another teacher, though there are funds set aside for that.

“The government argued that the teachers’ salaries were the cause of the deficit and of poverty,” Oliva explains. “We argued that there were other causes of poverty, that the small farmers had not received economic assistance, that there had been no advances in agrarian reform, and that we have an over-centralized government, a huge government which is inflexible and unresponsive. Those are some of the causes of poverty.”

Dan La Botz teaches Latin American Studies at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio. He is the author of several books about labor in the United States, Mexico and Indonesia. He also edits Mexican Labor News and Analysis.