EXTEND SOLIDARITY TO PERUVIAN TEACHERS

WHEREAS, the American Federation of Teachers has a long-standing commitment to the rights of working people, the professionalism of teachers and the right of all children to an education; and

WHEREAS, in July 2007 the teachers of Peru waged a 14-day strike demanding the abrogation of a law that would make it easier for the government to dismiss teachers without cause and demanding that government spending on education rise from its present 2.4 percent of GNP to at least 6 percent; and

WHEREAS, in response, the government threatened mass arrests and passed a law similar to New York’s Taylor Law prohibiting the 350,000 teachers in SUTEP, the Unified Education Workers’ Union of Peru, from striking; and

WHEREAS, the SUTEP teachers, with parent and student supporters, as in the massive 2006 teachers’ struggle in Oaxaca, Mexico, replied with militant demonstrations, blocking a major highway in southern Peru and occupying an airport and other government buildings in other areas; and

WHEREAS, we in the American Federation of Teachers have much to learn from our colleagues in Peru in their fight for better conditions for themselves and their students and wish to extend them our solidarity; and

WHEREAS, on the heels of this strike and repression, the people of Peru were hit by an earthquake that devastated a number of towns in southern Peru, killing at least 540 people, injuring thousands and leaving tens of thousands homeless, the heaviest damage occurring in the poorest areas of Peru where 80 percent of the population is already impoverished, including towns with large Afro-Peruvian populations; and

WHEREAS, in the places that were hardest hit, like Pisco, relief agencies report that most of the schools either were destroyed or are unstable, and this in the middle of the school year, so that teachers and others had to scramble to find space, rebuild schools, stock supplies and help those who lost loved ones, including breadwinners; and

WHEREAS, in the devastated towns in Peru, teachers are often at the center of these relief efforts, having seen their students killed or injured, their schools lying in rubble; and

WHEREAS, the Peruvian government, like the U.S. government after Katrina, did little to help the poorest communities, forcing teachers to rely on their own efforts and prompting the international secretary of SUTEP, Claridad Montes, to ask teacher unions internationally for material support:

RESOLVED, in the spirit of the American Federation of Teachers’ prior support of teachers in Colombia and Mexico, and in the knowledge that teachers’ struggles have no borders, that the American Federation of Teachers extend solidarity to the teachers of Peru in their time of need; that the executive council consider donating an appropriate amount to SUTEP.