We are publishing passages from a letter sent to some French comrades written by a Mexican comrade, who works in a school. He describes, albeit briefly, the climate of severe repression that has affected the struggles of school workers, who have been violently attacked - not only verbally - by the media, and by sections of the so-called civil society (including the sub-proletariat and petty bourgeoisie) politicians as well, of course, but also by plainclothes police. On June 19, in Oaxaca state, police attacks resulted in more than ten dead and a hundred wounded. The struggle stems from the rejection of school “reform”, reform - it would be better as always, to call it the exact opposite – aiming as it is at the savage privatisation of the education sector, and raising the costs to working-class families and, in general, the lower middle class. The idea is to make the workplace more precarious, more submissive to the power of school managers, to link wages to "educational performance", assessed according to very questionable criteria in both method and worth (as trade unionists would say .. .).

It does not take much to understand, for those who know a little of the situation, that it is the same logic that has driven previous reforms that have devastated the world of so-called public education internationally. Meritocracy, greater efficiency, adherence to the needs of families and young people are shameless deceits to cover the policy of brutal cuts in resources allocated to all sectors of education. This entails bovine submission to the needs of companies, the formation of a competitive mentality among children, who are taught individualism, stratification, and unquestioning obedience to authority. It is a natural or divine emanation of the world of business, that is, of capitalism, the only "cultural" horizon possible, with all that follows from it. It is no coincidence that many students even accept with enthusiasm, or at least a sigh of relief, unpaid internships, real ideological indoctrination _–_ as well as practical experience of exploitation the bosses, of which, for the most part, have no consciousness - in whose presence the nightmare of Orwellian society seems like a no-brainer (fact).

Once again, the upheavals that have affected and affect education are rooted in the crisis of the world capitalist system of accumulation, which began a few decades ago and has now exploded dramatically with the bursting of the subprime bubble in 2007. Robbery of indirect wages extracted through taxation (taxes, dues) of the proletariat (and part of the petty bourgeoisie) to support firms operating in the "real" economy and financial speculation, as well as profound changes in the production process are more than enough reasons in the eyes of the bourgeoisie, to drastically change the structure of the school, as we have often noted in other articles. As wages have come under attack internationally as the crisis has deepened, so too has the social wage - health care, social provision, and education are all being hacked back. Privatisation has been seized on by the ruling class internationally as a way of both increasing the costs of social provision for workers (and all social provision is already paid for by us by the extraction of profit from our class) and of disciplining the workforce. In the UK we can see this latter effect in the introduction of performance related pay, the growth of the academy and free school system, the political and media campaigns to denigrate teachers and strip away what limited status and autonomy they once had, and the explosion of bureaucracy that now micro-manages and disciplines all staff.

For the moment, UK capitalism has succeeded in carrying out its attacks without the resort to naked violence our class brothers and sisters are facing in Mexico - Britain’s sophisticated and long established web of social control (unions, social democracy, media etc) has effectively prevented workers such as teachers from recognising their class interests and the global nature of their worsening conditions. For now, all too often, UK workers internalise the effects of the bosses’ _attacks - in stress, anxiety, insecurity, alcohol and drug consumption etc. The attacks on Mexican teachers attempting to defend their working conditions are a sharp reminder that capitalism is a system predicated on violence, and that violence will be used against us too when social control in the future proves inadequate._

Yet again there is another noticeable element, namely the dramatic absence of a political body which knows how to be a focus for the deep and widespread social unrest, which understands how to give a coherent political lead to the anger and determination of the protest movement so that it takes on an anti-capitalist direction, so that the school workers’ struggle does not limit itself to opposing yet another set of "neo-liberal" reforms, but takes on the revolutionary perspective of overthrowing capitalism. A body which knows how to draw on the most determined, most capable, more aware participants in the struggle and amalgamate them into a collective political effort: in short, into a truly communist party.

Letter from Mexico

[...] I want to just tell you that at this time the attacks against the employees of the school sector are reaching new heights, because the government has developed a scheme which would lead to the privatisation of the education sector.

The problem is that most of the teachers, like the rest of the population, don’t see the manoeuvres and lies of the government, whilst amongst a few teachers, parents and people in general who are aware of the government’s aim to privatise the education sector, there is a desire to fight.

I have also to tell you that the conditions for struggle here are extremely difficult, because when there are mobilisations (demonstrations etc.), the city is completely militarised, on the one hand, and, on the other, executives-managers and other authorities incite teachers who do not agree with the struggle to deal with the teachers in the struggle, as well as parents opposed to the fight. All are incited to oppose and attack the parents of students who are taking part in the struggle. These acts are not just carried out by school administrators, radio stations, military veterans, from the neighbourhood underclass, by gangsters, shopkeepers who insult us; municipal authorities turn up with gangs of thugs to try to break the strike, the majority of broadcasters have developed a fierce campaign to make the teacher's union illegal and against all those who reject this reform and support the struggle of the teachers.

I've never been good at writing, but believe me I have many things to tell you; I want to be fair to say that in the place where I participated in the struggle, there are young people who have never taken part in a struggle to create a movement. I do not agree with the union official in the school, but they agree with the coordination that leads the movement. They reject the right-wing and left-wing political parties, including those people who while belonging to parties supporting the movement. It has been ‘a bit difficult’, but believe me, I have not missed any opportunity to explain the role played by each of these organisations, when you have to fight together and when it is necessary to delimit the ground to people of different political views and parties.

I'll tell you that though the repression against the teachers of Oaxaca, Chiapas and Guerrero [three states of Mexico, ed] was very hard, because they were tear gassed, inundated by the jets of police water cannons, more than a dozen were killed and over a hundred injured, but none of this has bent them.

We, for the most part, have had a lot of fear, but when we cease to be afraid we will not only liberate ourselves, but we rid ourselves of the arrogance of our tyrants, or we'll all die.

Greetings

V.

The caption on the picture above says "The Bosses' School"