Within 10 days at most, the National Coordinating Committee of Education Workers (CNTE) will file an appeal with the appellate labor court ... for a review of the recent denial of amparos [orders of protection, i.e., injunctions] against the education reform, which had been submitted by thousands of educators.
Following a meeting with leaders of the group of dissident teachers, Eduardo Perez Saucedo, one of the lawyers for the coordinator, warned: "We won't stay with our arms crossed".
He charged that "there seems to be a higher authority involved" in the ruling of the inadmissibility of the amparos, which is
"incongruous with the earlier ruling that gave us a definitive suspension and now that is dismissed [of the petitions for amparo] because the evaluation of the teachers has not been performed and the regulatory laws have not been published."
MV Note: In April, judges in the same appeals court granted provisional amparos, temporary injunctions, protecting the teachers from layoffs if they failed the evaluations mandated under the reform. This was pending a decision on a judgment of amparo [protective injunction] as to whether their labor rights were being violated by the reform. The judges refused to suspend the reform, itself, which became constitutional amendments in February, and also refused to enjoin implementation of the evaluations on which teacher retention will depend.
In this week's denial of the amparos, the court also stated that it cannot analyze whether [part of] the Constitution [the new amendments] is unconstitutional. It stated, "There is binding precedent from the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation that says judges cannot review the constitutional reform process. This precedent is binding on this court,"Perez Saucedo said that the CNTE will go before the Supreme Court to ask it to address its demands, analyze them and make a final judgment, through case law, regarding the protection of labor rights of education workers, in terms granted by the district court.
Perez Saucedo said the definitive suspension first granted to the CNTE was still valid and enforceable, because a final ruling has not been made, as this will happen only when the appeal process ends.
He said the word 'permanence'- a concept used by the education authorities with the intent to fire teachers--has been part of the law for 39 years ... However, the meaning given to it previously is very different from that used by the government of Enrique Peña Nieto.
MV Note: 'Permanence' refers to teachers holding their jobs for life. The Mexican Constitution granted them this labor right. The new constitutional amendments make 'permanence' in their positions conditional upon their being evaluated by an exam and several other criteria.Meanwhile, the leader of Section 9 of the teachers union, for the Federal District [Mexico City], Francisco Bravo, said that although the Supreme Court has issued rulings against workers, such as that against the electricians union, legally there is no other path [than appeal to the Court].
"We have to follow it, because it is the ultimate authority."He warned that, in the political arena, there is always the possibility of an indefinite work stoppage. This has not been forgotten. "It's A weapon with many possibilities," he said. Spanish original