General strike ends in Peru

Peru's teachers' union, which has been giving the Alan García administration its worst headache, decided to suspend its protests after 15 days of violence that resulted in three deaths and dozens of wounded across the country. But its battle with the government has barely begun. "We will have ongoing and uninterrupted dialogue from today," Education Minister José Antonio Chang said on July 20, after launching negotiations with the public school teachers who went on strike on July 5. They are protesting a new law on teacher education, which they regard as a move to "privatize" the sector. "The strike is temporarily suspended until our claims are met in these talks," Luis Muñoz , general secretary of the Unified Trade Union of Education Workers of Peru (SUTEP), told IPS, after meeting with the prime minister and president of the ministerial council, Jorge del Castillo. Muñoz confirmed that a truce had been granted to the García administration by the more than 160,000 teachers who participated in the strike, who make up 72 percent of the teaching establishment, according to official reports. Muñoz stressed that the first point tabled for dialogue by the teachers is that the state reverse its intentions to deducting their pay for the period of the strike, and cancel the administrative and legal sanctions that had been announced. The government said on July 17 that it would not pay teachers for the days they were absent from classes because of the strike, and began administrative procedures against 300 striking teachers. Several leaders were arrested by the police, and although they were later released, they are still under investigation. Without going into details, Minister Chang ruled out the pay deductions as an issue for negotiation, but said that dialogue about the administrative procedures against some teachers is taking place. Contrary to the position taken by the executive branch, several of the heads of the country's 25 regional governments, who have acted as mediators in the conflict, announced that they would pay teachers in their jurisdictions in full, in accordance with the right to strike enshrined in the Constitution. "The teachers are prepared to make up for lost class time and to discuss the national and regional education plans, which is a big step forward. And we have to support them," the president of the north-western region of Lambayeque, Yehude Simon, told IPS. However, on July 18 the comptroller general of the republic, Genaro Matute, warned that the regional authorities would be risking prosecution for using public funds in contravention of the central government's decision. The negotiations began in a climate of high tension. Dialogue between the SUTEP leadership and Prime Minister del Castillo was taking place in the capital on July 19, while police were putting out a fire near the landing strip at Cusco international airport that had been started by the strikers. Some journalists were attacked by strikers outside the airport terminal. In the circumstances, all flights in and out of Cusco were cancelled. Union leader Muñoz confirmed to the news media that classes would resume on July 20 for more than eight million public schoolchildren, and promised that lost class time would be made up, while at the same time leaders in the regions of Arequipa, Ayacucho and Cusco, in the south of the country, vowed to continue the strike. Robert Huaynalaya, the most radical SUTEP leader, disregarded the agreement to end the strike, and met with his union members until the early hours of Friday to analyze the new situation, IPS learned. "There are always some people who want to take a more radical position, who say they have been betrayed, but this decision was taken by teachers' delegates, and the majority will carry out what we've agreed," Muñoz said. The talks, which have resumed after several false starts, are on shaky ground. The government's decision is to implement the new law at all costs. Teachers regard it as an attempt to "privatize education," while according to the executive branch, the law seeks to improve the quality of education by training teachers and instituting pay increases based on merit. Nicolás Lynch, who served as education minister in the Alejandro Toledo administration (2001-2006), told IPS that he thought it was a positive step for teachers to have to undergo continuous assessment. "But it's important for the government to guarantee that it can fund the training and the salary increases, not just for a year, but for at least eight or 10 years, in order to give teachers a sense of security," he said. Fulfilling the teacher education reform law will require $443 million dollars a year for the salary incentives. But teachers doubt that the incentives will be put into practice. The previous law provided for promotions and pay rises every three years, but they were never implemented. There are teachers with more than 25 years of service who are still paid $315 a month. "We have to make it clear who will carry out the assessments and what instruments they will use, so as to allay the teachers' fears, and so that they don't feel that this is about punishing them," Hugo Díaz, one of the authors of the controversial law and a member of the National Education Council, told IPS. The union's leadership has indicated that it will file a case against the law, claiming it is unconstitutional because it was approved without a second vote in Congress, as standard procedure requires. Over the past weeks, the conflict has spread beyond the teaching profession to include other workers and campesinos (peasant farmers). The General Workers' Confederation of Peru is demanding that the government enforce labor laws, eliminate outsourcing of services, tax high mining profits, revise the free trade agreement with the United States, and give workers the freedom to opt out of the private pensions system, among other actions promised by García during his electoral campaign. "The government has acted in an arrogant and bullying way in this social conflict, bragging of an economic prosperity that the majority of the people don't feel," sociologist and professor at the Pontificia Universidad Católica, Carlos Reyna, told IPS. On July 19, in effect, García said that economic growth had begun to reach the Peruvian population, as indicated by increased consumption of electricity and cement in the middle and lower income strata. The president forecast that per capita gross domestic product would rise to $4,000 a year by the end of his mandate, in 2011, and that the country would attain $100 billion in private investment. But Reyna says that as long as the free-market economic model is in place, social unrest will persist because "it's a model that encourages the breaking of labor laws and drives down the cost of labor." Demands from the regions, exacerbated by the present tendency towards centralization, are another source of discontent. "The provinces are calling for protectionist measures because this economic model has outworn its usefulness," Reyna said. The Broad Civic Front of Arequipa (FACA) is demanding subsidies for various kinds of gasoline, an increase in the contingency fund for fuels, liberalization of flour imports and an end to tariffs on imports of wheat and maize, staple foods that the country depends on and that are commanding high prices internationally. In the central Andean province of Andahuaylas, farmers are demanding lower taxes on fertilizers. Although the Agriculture Minister, Ismael Benavides, went to the area and was able to put a stop to the regional agricultural strike, latent conflict continues there and in other parts of the country.