On July 18th 2013, the GUATEMALAN UNION, INDIGENOUS AND PEASANT MOVEMENT –MSICG- created the UNION CENTRAL OF THE TEACHERS OF CHIQUIMULA –CETRAMACH- with hundreds of teachers taking part on its launching, committed with the democratic principles of unionism and the promotion of a free, high quality and inclusive education system that allows to break with the social exclusion gaps that dominate the country, as well as solving the grave labor precariousness faced by teachers.

CETRAMACH is also the answer of responsible, honorable teachers to the kidnapping of their social interlocution by the Government of Guatemala, and it should be highlighted that as a first measure, the leaders and affiliates of CETRAMACH denounced and condemned before the General Director of Labor and social prevision that their names and information were used, as is the case with thousands of teachers, by the Government, through its related union, the so-called UNION OF EDUCATION WORKERS OF GUATEMALA –STEG-, to be incorporated into this organization’s registry roll with the intention of imposing both the teachers and the country’s working class the leaders of this union as interlocutors in all dialogue spaces, where they have supported measures promoted by the Government and the private sector in order to attack the interests of the Guatemalan working class, making social exclusion deeper.
 
As an example of this, the teachers denounced the Memorandum signed by STEG and the current Government to guarantee impunity for the State of Guatemala in the frame of a request for an Inquiry Commission against it; its support to an education reform that privatizes the right to education of the country’s excluded population; and its role before the International Labor Conference held on June in Geneva, Switzerland, in which the Government took JOVIEL ACEVEDO, secretary general of this union organization, to say that there is no antiunion policy in Guatemala, and to defend the aforementioned Memo.

This is how CETRAMACH says ‘we’re here!’ in the struggle to dignify the interests of the country’s majorities, and to defend a free, autonomous and class unionism, thus starting a very necessary process of union renovation in the teachers guild, recovering the workers’ legitimate and autonomous interlocution.

MSICG hopes that the government will immediately cease its policy of envying Access to union freedom and obstructing processes of constitution of autonomous unions, and it informs that it’s requested the destitution of the General Director of Labor, MARIO IVAN ALFARO VILLELA, in the light of article 218, paragraph c) of the Labor Code.

MSICG welcomes CETRAMACH to its family, and announces political and legal actions at both national and international levels to stop the privatization of education promoted by this government.

GUATEMALAN UNION, INDIGENOUS AND PEASANT MOVEMENT
–MSICG-