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Tens of thousands of Costa Rica’s teachers to strike… over everything

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APSE strike

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April 16th, 2015 (InsideCostaRica.com) More than 30,000 schoolteachers from across the country are promising to cancel classes and take to the streets of San Jose on Friday, April 24th in protest against what union leaders and activists are calling the introduction of “neoliberal” economic policies in the country.

 

The Association of Secondary School Teachers (APSE), which has spent the last two weeks organizing the strike along with grassroots leaders throughout the country, say that economic policies put in motion by the Solis administration threaten the rights and living standards of workers.

 

In a press release, APSE said that the strike would be the “beginning of a struggle” against a number of grievances, including “the anguish felt by thousands of workers to see their jobs and salaries in danger;” […] “corruption, dirty business, impunity, tax evasion, loss of sovereignty, environmental damage, repression, privatization of basic services, loss of labor rights […] all as a result of the application of neoliberal policies.”

 

Some of the specific policies to which the union is in opposition include the Public Employment Act (which defines a single wage for each employment role for public employees), Labor Procedure Reform (which unions believe will affect their right to strike), an initial exclusion period for CCSS insurance, and draft amendments that would reform income and sales taxes.

Teachers’ unions will also take to the streets of San Jose the following Friday, May 1st, on International Workers’ Day (Labor Day).

 

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  • disgusted

    Teachers teacher I de clair.. I see someone……… taking bribes. The government pig trough is drying up because those at the top get it all, huge salaries , consultant fees as a way to hide bribes, better benefits than any Central American country and almost on par with USA/Canada. The unions here is all about them now and how they keep their salaries high . They too are in bed with the government as well. Corruption everywhere I de clair. and using you as pawns. Okay solution more taxes right?

  • Ken Morris

    This strike is so indefensible that I favor firing all the participating teachers and starting the hiring of new ones immediately.

    Teachers, like other workers, have every right to strike when they have specific, legitimate and correctable grievances that can’t be satisfactorily resolved through negotiations. However, when they strike against a nebulous political-economic creed, they provide the administration with no way to meet their demands. This kind of strike isn’t even a strike, but an acting out by immature employees.

    Worse, teachers have no right to strike against or in support of any political-economic ideology. As citizens and on their own time, they are of course free to oppose or support any ideologies they choose. As classroom teachers, especially in the social studies, they are also fully entitled and even encouraged to responsibly criticize any and all
    political-economic ideologies. However, as teachers their calling is
    the higher and nobler one of remaining above the fray and guiding
    students in the critical assessment of all political-economic creeds, not promoting one or the other.

    The day teachers take a collective stance on general political and economic issues is the day they are no longer fulfilling the duties of their calling and deserve to be fired.

    And I say this as an opponent of neo-liberalism too. I’m glad that many teachers agree with me. Even so, it is a grave abdication of their professional responsibilities to strike against any ideology, including this one.

    Meanwhile, the dirty little secret is that teachers in Costa Rica are part of the problem. Beginning teachers are arguably underpaid, and all teachers deserve better working conditions, but the pay increases that automatically accrue with seniority have resulted in bloated salaries followed by bloated pensions for a lot of medicore teachers who are just going through the motions.

    At the same time, there is actually a glut of college graduates with teaching licenses who can’t get jobs. It may smack too much of neo-liberalism to mention something as harsh as supply and demand, but the fact is that there is an ample supply of qualified and eager potential teachers who can’t get jobs because the positions are locked up by unionized deadwood.

    And I don’t give a flip if the teachers and their supporters say that I don’t understand a culture in which these kinds of nonsensical strikes are acceptable. My rejoinder is that the culture needs to change. Unprincipled slackness and bratty acting out on the part of teachers, who should know better and if they don’t need to learn for the sake of the students for whom they are role models, is a recipe for a long term Third World future.

    I therefore say fire them all and start hiring on Friday morning.

    • SDPUS

      I agree and echo much of your sentiment, but rarely is “fire them all” a rational solution. A much more pliable solution would be to “break” the leadership that promotes this type of needlessly aggressive social action. I support strong unions. But unions can swing the pendulum too far too.

      Likely a closer look will show that union leadership and political leadership are more tightly intertwined in Costa Rica than what the media will acknowledge.

      I too say this, as a left leaning educator, who has background and has worked from each of these perspectives. Education is and should be about kids first.

      In Costa Rica (and elsewhere) too often it is simply about leadership corruption. In this case, I believe neither the teachers nor the politicians are putting kids first. They each are looking out for their own self-interests first. And that is just plain wrong!

      So Ken, in summary, I believe that much can be fixed by changing leadership positions. Firing everyone is not a reasonable possibility. And most people are just sheep anyways….

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