The National Coordinator of Education Workers (CNTE) protesters call them “temporary road blockades,” but for the affected business people the frequency and duration of the blockades have become a dead end.
Near bankruptcy in the states of Oaxaca, Chiapas, Michoacán, Guerrero and Mexico City, thousands of small business owners cry for justice to a federal administration that seems busier playing politics with the problem than coming to a bona fide solution to the protests against President Enrique Peña Nieto’s Education Reform.
Top echelon business organization representatives — Business Coordinating Council (CEE) and The Employers Federation of Mexico (Coparmex) — are tired of the negative effect the unabated number of protests are having on their businesses.
“Our patience is over” says Coparmex president Gustavo de Hoyos, blaming the federal authorities headed by Interior Secretary Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong in dealing with the CNTE protesters who, in his view, have driven the economies of the above mentioned states into total chaos.
The protests not only stall main staple perishables on the blockades — causing them rot — but also cause many of the teachers to go rogue. Through the months of 2016, dozens of small business have been looted by teachers.
A word that irks the business leaders is the “temporary” nature of the blockades. Some last three or four days. On many occasions the blockaders let only private vehicles pass by, and hold back trucks, particularly “those owned by trans-nationals.”
“We can’t abide with partial openings of the roads that only perpetuate affectations,” says a press release Tuesday by the CCE, adding that there have been multimillion peso losses to business with particular damage done to small businesses that depend on rapid inventory movement. Also tourism venues are empty and people don’t want to go to those places.
“Peaceful cohabitation and the social mood have been upset and intensely deteriorated in these regions,” says the CCE bulletin.
What is not justifiable is that “a handful of people are holding hostage an entire society” and that the CNTE movement has been maligned and permeated by politically radical groups “that have nothing to do with the concerns of the teachers.”
As CEE and Coparmex are institutionally and politically correct chambers of commerce type organizations, they only hint that the three levels of government (municipal, state and federal) are very much to blame for the, at this point, abusive imposition of this minority — regardless of whether their cause is right or not. But, at no moment have authorities tried to put an effective stop to the social abuse by CNTE members and cronies.
Both Coparmex’s De Hoyos and the CCE press release agree that Tuesday’s agreement to set up permanent talks between the Interior Secretariat (Segob) and CNTE representatives may be a way to stall the political situation. Yet on Wednesday, the CNTE continued their business intrusive marches in Mexico City and the aforementioned states’ “business as usual” daily disruptions of traffic and commerce.
The blockades, says CCE, are unacceptable and violate the law and the rights of millions of people who “want to work, move freely and coexist in peace and who are being affected by protests that have nothing to do with them.”
As a final comment it must be said that in their deal to set up permanent talks, the Interior Secretariat made it clear to the teachers that the Education Reform will not be part of the discussions and that its implementation will continue unabated.
The CNTE representative, whose objective is the derogation of the Education Reform, will talk to the authorities not to negotiate an agreement, but to have a “dialogue” with authorities, telling Secretary Osorio Chong that “if the Education Reform is not stopped, the conflict will continue.”
That means very bad news for the business people of the affected states where the “temporary road blockades” will continue permanently.
And where is the constitutional right to free transit?
Fine, thank you.
