CNTE’s Mobilization: Changing Frames in Educational Counter-reform in Mexico

• In Event: Protest, Pedagogy and Politics

Proposal

Key words: CNTE, educational reform, frames, collective action repertoire, social movements, cycles of contention

The CNTE, Coordinadora Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación (National Coordinator of Education Workers in English), is a powerful labor union in Mexico that represents teachers and other education workers. This organization was created in December of 1979 and has since been involved in numerous mobilizations that uphold a vast array of demands gravitating around keeping public education free and improving the working conditions of its members. CNTE runs its activities in parallel with another, more pro-government and larger union, the SNTE, Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación (National Union of Education Workers in English). CNTE’s mobilizations tend to be more left-leaning and rebellious than those of its SNTE peers, a position that has earned them both the contempt of the middle and upper classes and some legitimacy with left-leaning politicians and voters.
In recent times, CNTE’s role in education has been intertwined with the repeal of ex-President Enrique Peña Nieto's 2013 Educational Reform and the incumbent President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s mild counter-reform of 2019. The main policies of the 2013 reform consisted of implementing a new teacher evaluation system, introducing a new curriculum, granting more autonomy to schools, increasing investment in education, and enhancing accountability. Not only did the reform advance the centralization of teachers' payroll, thereby thwarting union leaders' aspirations for greater control, but it also imposed a new career system on teachers that many found inconvenient.

The CNTE used a variety of tactics to oppose the 2013 reform, including strikes, protests, and blockades. In 2015, the CNTE organized a nationwide strike that shut down schools across the country. The strike lasted for two weeks and forced the government to make some concessions to the CNTE. The CNTE has also been successful in influencing reform through the political process. In 2018, the CNTE was able to block the appointment of a new education minister who was seen as being too close to the reform. As a result of the CNTE's opposition, the 2013 reform was significantly modified –some even speak of repeal— by incumbent President López Obrador's party, MORENA (Movimiento de Regeneración Nacional in Spanish).

CNTE's political strategy has been described as a dyad of "mobilization-negotiation-mobilization" (Hernández, 2017). This strategy resonates with Charles Tilly’s concept of the collective action repertoire since it incorporates a wide variety of tools that meet the many requirements of this concept: this repertoire is learned, shared, limited, dynamic, strategic, and consequential (Tilly, 1995). However, CNTE's strategy appears as a sui generis mechanism to articulate a social movement given its ambiguous agenda-setting process and never-ending installment of sit-ins, boycotts, strikes, and occupations. In this sense, CNTE's protest history deserves a second thought from the perspective of Sidney Tarrow’s theory of the emergence of social movements since CNTE's leadership has always shown to be concise about opportunities and mobilization capacities, and strategies but enigmatic or at least unclassifiable about framing their demands (Tarrow, 2011). CNTE's discourse has relied very little upon a common understanding of Mexico's public education problems, ranging from the hyper-political ghost of privatization to the more intricate and bureaucratic matters of incentives for the teaching career.

In this working paper proposal, the authors will analyze how frames for collective action appear as volatile in contexts where unionism is subject to strong chiefdoms and intricate networks of stakeholders whose interests overlap, thus giving rise to bizarre contention cycles that ultimately contribute to educational policy immobility.

The proposed approach to analyzing the internal dynamics of CNTE's influence on large-scale educational reform processes in Mexico will be developed empirically through the analysis of cases in the states of Oaxaca and Michoacán. The authors of this working paper will draw on their direct experiences working with grassroots educators, community leaders, and organizers from this community to delve deeper into the culturally embedded manifestations of the theoretical approaches cited earlier. In doing so, three tensions will be of foremost interest: the nature of the relationships between CNTE and SNTE, between CNTE and national and local governments, and between CNTE and members of low-income public-school communities.

The proposed working paper holds significant social and political importance, given the current state of education in Mexico, particularly as the country faces a new presidential election process. Shedding light on the complex dynamics between CNTE and other relevant stakeholders is crucial to anticipate and mitigate potential instabilities following the upcoming presidential transition. Furthermore, studying CNTE's mobilization repertoire can be of international interest for countries seeking to capitalize on the disruptive effects of the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity to drive large-scale changes in their education systems.

References

1. Hernández, S. (2017). Movimiento social y coyuntura: La Sección XXII del SNTE y la reforma educativa en Oaxaca [Social Movement and Context: Section XXII of the SNTE and Educational Reform in Oaxaca]. Revista Mexicana De Estudios De Los Movimientos Sociales, 2(1).
2. Tarrow, S. G. (2011). Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics (Rev. & updated 3rd ed). Cambridge University Press.
3. Tilly, C. (1995). Contentious Repertoires in Great Britain, 1758-1834. In M. Traugott (Ed.), Repertoires and cycles of collective action. Duke University Press.

Authors

• Antonio Villalpando-Acuña, Mexicanos Primero

• Gustavo Rojas Ayala, Mexicanos Primero

• Alejandra Arvizu Fernandez, Mexicanos Primero, Visión 2030 A.C.