Open World Conference of Workers
In Defense of Trade Union Independence & Democratic Rights
Preparatory Documents for the International Labor Conference in Defense of Public Education
[Note: Following are presentations or prepared texts submitted
to the International Conference Against Deregulation and For Labor Rights,
held in Berlin, Germany, in February 2002. They are reprinted here as
preparatory documents for the International Labor Conference in Defense of
Public Education, to be held in June 2003 in Paris.]
*****
Paul Nkunzimana
(Burundi)
President of the STUB
Sisters and Brothers,
I am the dean of the Psychology and Educational Sciences Department of the
University of Burundi; president of the Union of University of Burundi
Workers, and the president of the Strike Committee of the University of
Burundi Workers.
Deregulation means war against the workers, youth and the people of the
world.
In Burundi, it is translated into privatizations, stripping the country of
its wealth, by the lack of schooling for children through the raising of
scholastic costs. Poverty in this country is such that, according to the
Minister of Agriculture and Farming, 20% of the population is starving and
65% is malnourished. The scarcity of medicines and the medical attention,
in conjunction with the restoration of autonomy for the hospitable
management regimes, necessitates that patients be forced to renounce
treatment. Given this situation, the sick, in order to be able to pay the
costs of their hospitalization, have to sell their land, which increases
the numbers of country people without land. It also increases the number
of children who, according to the terminology of the NGOs and the
government, are "street children." According to official
statistics, 70% of the hospital beds are occupied by AIDS patients.
In the sector that corresponds to me, in the University of Burundi, the
current government wants to begin a project of destruction of the services
provided by the University and the public universities, gradually reducing
university residences. Thus it is that, during the present year, they want
to do away with one thousand residences , the objective being to transform
all of the university residences into auditoriums and classes for the year
2004. The same occurred with the regards to the cafeterias and student
housing, because the government wants students to pay for those university
services with their scholarships.
The University of Burundi has been on strike since this past February 12th
. All of the personnel in the institution (professors, administrative
personnel, coaches, scientists and librarians) have mobilized a strike to
demand the maintenance of university and social services.
As part of this process, the strike committee has reinforced itself with a
crisis commission which includes strike committee members and student
representatives, with the aim of creating a university community within
the University of Burundi. This strikers movement is supported by the
registered unions in the country and by the associations of alumni
parents. I will request that you sign and vote, before the end of the
Conference, a motion of support for the struggle of the workers of the
University of Burundi to safeguard public universities in this country.
********************
Noarmadjal Gami
(Chad)
General secretary, SET
The theme of our conference, "International Conference Against
Deregulation and For Labor Rights for All", allows me to outline the
dramatic situation that the workers of Chad in general, and their
organizations, especially those of professors, are suffering.
This situation, with few exceptions, is the same as all African workers.
In effect, the assault of globalization on the workers of Chad is marked
by the reforms of the Labor Code and General Statute of Public Sector
Workers. These two texts, imposed from the outside by the World Bank with
the technical support of the International Office of Labor, constitute a
reversal with respect to the conquests achieved by workers.
As such, the new Labor Code determines that the labor contract is an
exclusive contract between employer and employee, without the
participation of the union and that all contracts are of a limited
duration.
With respect to the General Statute of Public Sector Workers, in addition
to re-establishing a selection competition for working in that sector, it
imposes merit-based raises which have already been criticized in some West
African countries, especially in Benin. What's more, the points necessary
to achieve a raise are worth half or less than under the previous Statute.
These reforms are being applied after other experiments disgracefully
practiced and imposed in the name of structural adjustment plans, such as
hiring freezes and then the reduction of 10% of personnel in the public
sector.
As you can see, globalization and its corollary structural adjustment
plans simultaneously strike those who work and young people with degrees
who are at the doors of the labor market.
In order to put into practice these damaging reforms, the government and
its sponsors pretend to go through a process of negotiation with the
social agents (NGOs and unions). Nevertheless, as they know the real
answers can only come from the unions, many times they dilute the unions
with NGOs, which are more numerous and on occasion have a preponderant
vote. The NGOs, which have important resources, are in fact created by the
government to impose its policy.
Sometimes they even sow discord among the unions, or maintain artificial
oppositions or dismantle them into very small organizations. All that is
done to deny the representativeness of the strongest unions.
This general situation is heightened even more in education, the sector
for which I am a spokesperson. In effect, foreign interference in national
educative systems, characterized by the Yonitien Conference (Thailand) in
1990, called the "Education Conference for All in the Year
2000", has materialized in Chad. And the evaluation conference held
in Dakar in April of 2000 showed a negative balance sheet: the percentages
of unschooled and illiterate have increased, the number of students per
professor and students per classroom has increased, just as has the number
of students per book. We have reason to ask if foreign interference in
matters of education does not seek exactly the opposite of eliminating
illiteracy and increasing schooling.
In the case of Chad there are two facts that justify this question. The
government and the organisms that distribute funds, which insist that
their priority is education, continue recruiting community teachers for
the primary grades and civic service volunteers for the secondary grades.
These community and civic service volunteer teachers, who represent 57%
and 25% respectively of each type of teaching, are teachers in a
precarious situation, they are not certified and they are badly paid (they
earn a salary equivalent to between 30 and 60 CFA Francs annually).
Everybody knows that without qualified and motivated professors you can
not have quality education. With respect to higher and technical
education, these are sectors that do not interest the organisms that
distribute funds. Why? Only they know.
The union of professors of Chad (SET), in order to defend the simple logic
of quality education, is constantly in confrontation with the government.
They struggle together with the parents organizations (although in the
case of the latter, the international financial organizations provide all
of their supply needs, their operational expenses and their personal
expenses. With what objective? It is for hope that the parents
organizations will leave the unions in the near future.
To close I would like to illustrate for you two paradoxical situations in
which we are living in Chad: one concerns the attitude of the directives
and the other that of the international unions:
1. The verbal confrontations that we have with the representatives of the
international organizations, in many occasions occur in the presence of
the directives and not the less important employees (DG, directors,
technical consultants). But these directives, who are able and loquacious
in the corridors and during the breaks, keep amazingly mute during the
debates. It is it a policy of uneasy stomachs? Does this phenomenon only
occur in Chad or is it observed in other places in Africa? I fear that
globalization primarily alienates our directives.
2. Owing to this desire for solidarity, the majority of our organizations
are affiliated with international unions which, faced with globalization
and neo-liberalism and its consequences, express their divergences
unclearly and never deal with the root of the issue. The affiliated
organizations are invited follow that same policy and collaborate. For
many of us it is a paradoxical situation. I hope that the ILC, while
maintaining its principle of not interfering in existing organizations,
can determine strategies for its members that will let them leave the
beaten path of globalization and neo-liberalism.
Thank you.
********************
Marie-Edmonde Brunet
(France)
Educator
As an educator and trade unionist, I have spoken in the International
Women's Conference about the fact that in France we have had to hold, on
January 19th of 2002, a session of the International Independent Tribunal
Against Child Labor for minors under 16. Yes, in France, the country of
Victor Hugo, Emile Zola, Jean Jaures, the country in which the first
secular teachers struggled together with workers to take children out of
the mines, factories and fields, in France, where the working class
initiated one of its most beautiful conquests, the school of the Republic.
We, trade unionists, supporters of democracy, have held this session
because on January 19 th of 2001, Chirac, President of the Republic and
Jospin, Prime Minister, and his government assumed, with the endorsement
of the members of parliament, the immense responsibility of legalizing,
through a decree, the fact that children under 16 years of age return to
work in the factories, in businesses, instead of staying where they should
be, in school. They have assumed the immense responsibility of turning
back more than a century of history, as the first law that prohibited
child labor in France was passed in 1892.
Now, everyone knows the prohibition of child labor and academic obligation
are linked inseparably. So then why such a measure in a country where the
school system has permitted tense of generations of children of the
working class to continue their studies and to qualify for college? Why
such a measure in a country in which the schools constitute a model, a
universal reference and point of support in the struggle waged everywhere,
on an international scale, for the abolition of child labor?
In the first place, because the French government, like all other
governments, has shamefully capitulated once again to the dictates of the
World Trade Organization, the IMF, the World Bank and the multinationals,
for whom wages continue to be too high. Thus, there is no doubt: under the
farce of alternate courses, the supposed discovery of a lifetime for the
businesses gives those companies labor power that is free and exploitable
at their discretion, in circumstances of the most complete deregulation
and, in addition, in place of job openings they would have had to create.
But there is another issue to which I would like to call your attention,
brothers and sisters, because it could have catastrophic consequences not
just in France, but on an international scale. The French government,
acting in this way, directly and frontally attacks the system of secular,
obligatory, public education, one of whose pillars is precisely the
academic obligation for all children under 16 years of age, insuring the
equal right to education throughout the country, whatever the child's
origin may be.
The avalanche of measures that strike the schools of the Republic clearly
indicate the direction in which the French governments want to go in the
service of the financial markets. They pursue two essential objectives.
Firstly, to reduce budget expenses in the application of the European
directives which, for national education means the massive elimination of
class hours, elimination of classes, of statutory positions, school
closures, and the closure of sections of professional instruction, all
with total disdain for the interests of the students to whom the state,
which presents itself as democratic to the eyes of the world, has an
obligation to instruct. The second objective is even more frightening.
They need to destroy the national diplomas because, recognized by the
collective bargaining contracts, they guarantee employees a level of
compensation that constitutes a real obstacle to the unbridled search for
the generalized decrease in labor costs by triumphant capitalism, or which
at least imagines itself triumphant.
And so the government, and particularly the national Ministers of
Education, men and women politicians, all college graduates,
polytechnocrats, all coming from the major schools, put into effect a true
war machine against education, knowledge and learning. In order to hide
their infamy, they lie, and they never stop talking about the formidable
social advance which learning throughout life will constitute. Why, they
say, should we oppress the student with facts, especially boring ones,
that impede his development, that he will soon forget, if he can learn for
the rest of his life? School will no longer be school, a place to transmit
knowledge, but instead, according to the OCDE, and "educative
place" in which the student will receive a minimal education, a
"cultural survival kit", as they say. Leaving the rest to
distraction, to awakening, to discovery. What child, brothers and sisters,
can discover grammar, multiplication tables, the division of the
continents, the Pythagoras Theorem, on his own? No program, no diplomas,
everything destroyed. In order to do this, the National Minister of
Education in France is literally persecuting qualified teachers who have
completed their studies and passed tests in order to teach their
discipline.
Yesterday afternoon, I had the honor of presiding over a roundtable on
education, which, for my part, I believe would have been better named
"about teaching" to such an extent is teaching in danger today.
Education and knowledge are emancipation; ignorance and illiteracy are
barbarism.
Thank you very much.
********************
Jon Ander Carrera Oliveira
(Spain)
Student, Bilbao
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Firstly, we are happy to be participating in this conference. We believe
that our situation is not isolated, that the economic reality -social
reality, in other places, is unfavorable to the people and to workers. The
events of September 11th have served as an excuse to impose the
destructive policies of the multinationals. In Spain, at the beginning of
the 2001 school year, the government wanted to impose the "Law of
University Organization".
Their plans have had to be postponed. The students, professors and
administrative personnel have demonstrated against it. This law means the
privatization and delivering of the University to the banks, to the
interests of capitalism.
Thus, they deregulate university employment, which become temporary, with
contract labor. We, the students, have gone into the streets with our
demands, and this past December 1, more than 300,000 students, professors
and University workers took to the streets in unity. Nevertheless, all
kinds of forces are implicated in the destruction of the public
Universities. We want all these plans to be abolished. This would be
possible if there was unity among the organizations. But the organizations
are preparing for the new academic elections in the framework of the new
law. We are going to fight for the boycott of these elections, because
they are indispensable to applying the law in the different universities.
We are going to fight to achieve unity in order to end this law. We ask
the organizations to organize against this law. This with regard to the
University.
We also think that young people have a right to dignified employment. With
Aznar's labor reform, youth will only have the right to temporary work,
part-time work, odd jobs. And all this at the mercy of the employers in a
totally illegal fashion. We are all conscious that it is not just a
problem in Spain, this is why we are in solidarity with all youth.
We should organize ourselves on an international scale because we have the
same goal.
As youth, we have a right to education, to higher education for all, the
right to work for all. We fight for a just and peaceful world. We want
peace for the whole world.
Thank you very much.
********************
Maria Jose Favarao
(Brazil)
Education, Osasco, Sao Paulo
I'm speaking as the delegate of the "Movement for the reversal of
the municipalization of education in Osasco".
For decades, we have managed to have rules and standards instituted, which
impose a course on the economic and social life in our country. The
majority of workers' conquests and rights is the result of struggles, some
of them being of historical importance. It is the case for the 8-hour
day's work, the right to one paid day off a week, declared work and, among
others, the conquest of state education for all.
The 1988 federal constitution establishes the levels of responsibility for
the different government authorities in the field of education in Brazil:
"[C]hild education" (from day nursery to first year infants
classes) and teaching adults to read and write comes under local
responsibility; the town council has to invest 25% of its yearly budget in
it. As for the State, it is first and foremost responsible for "basic
education" (primary and secondary schools), then for high schools,
and it must use 25% of the state budget for it. The federal government is
responsible for upper education, with an 18% investment. The 14
Constitutional Amendment of September 12th, 1996 is a measure of
deregulation which fits these responsibilities to the government's
economic interests, namely by concentrating the resources in order to be
able to go on paying the external debt. So, the Fernando Henrique Cardoso
government, with the 14/96 Constitutional Amendment, hands the responsibility
for basic education over to the local authorities through two mechanisms:
1) The freezing of 15% of the funds stemming from the transfer of five
taxes: the local participation Fund; the states' participation Fund; the
"ICMS"; the IPI and the Fund for the preservation and
development of basic education -- all this being achieved through
procedures difficult to count.
2) The transfer of the funds for basic education, which was formerly under
state's responsibility, to the local authorities -- the budgets being
redistributed according to the number of registered pupils.
Such an orientation led the local authorities to lose a part of their
budgets while it compelled them to make partnership agreements with the
state governments in order to be given back the budgets they were deprived
of. Note that it does not mean an increase in the budget of education. it
is an accounts operation to suppress and decentralize the same budget.
In a situation where we all know that the problem of state education is
low investment, it is only a matter of transferring responsibilities
without any budgetary compensation. We can also note that the local
authorities have actually undergone a decrease in the investments for the
levels of education they are responsible for (according to the CF/88). It
implies that besides child education, they have to assume basic education.
And all this happens in a situation of budgetary constriction of the local
authorities which can even get worse with the fiscal reform required by
the central government.
Deregulation expresses itself in our city through three ways :
1) In relation to employment: the contracts are made according to
political criterions which suppress the job security that hundreds of
state teachers enjoyed, questioning for example the detailed account of
teaching time and the criterions of classification. Through lack of public
competitive examinations, the contracts have become precarious for a few
years, which has thus led to redundancies on account of pregnancy and the
disregarding of people's right to stop working when they are ill. Even in
the cities where the public competitive examination was maintained, it was
not followed by job creations because it was actually a selection process,
so that the power to hire teachers can be kept in the hands of secretaries
for education or the mayors.
2) On a pedagogical point of view, there is a splitting up of basic
education by the development of unequal and disrupted local networks
imposing differentiations between the cities within a state and between
the states of the country. We can also see the introduction of interests
which lay outside education : some municipalized schools do external
activities and ask the parents to pay different fees for each one of them.
3) The worse damages provoked by municipalization can be seen on the level
of public school users with the freezing of the number of places offered
in day nursery and preschool services. Moreover, we can see a decrease in
the number of registrations for basic education and secondary school.
In the first stage of restructuring the geographic network, thirty-seven
evening courses were closed, i.e. about three hundred classes, which
besides the brutal closure of classes led to the redundancies of teachers
and state employees. The principle which consisted in having schools of
different levels in all the districts, in order to make it easier for the
children to have access to them and attend them, was given up.
Here are the consequences for the 1999-2000 years :
1) The number of children and young people registered in schools has
fallen from 189,173 to 189,079.
2) The preschool places offered in private schools have increased by
17.02% against 4.7% in the public sector, whereas in my city, Osasco,
there are 57,081 children aged from 0 to 4 and 59,141 from 5 to 9
according to the local statistics.
3) There is a decrease in the number of pupils registered in basic
education (minus 3.9%) as well as in secondary schools, together with a 1%
growth of private initiative to the detriment of public networks.
4) An increase in the registrations for specialized courses in state
schools.
5) An increase in the number of young adults at schools, which can be
interpreted as a consequence of their being cast outside the system when
they were of school age. If we examine the number of schools between 1993
and 1999, according to the information given by the office of Sao Paulo
Secretary of State for Education, what is quite obvious is the increase in
private initiatives: the number of private primary schools has more than
doubled and there was a 100% increase for secondary schools whereas the
local network was increased by only 16% (including the three primary
schools which are being repaired). It offers only 4,700 places whereas
there are more than 50,000 children old enough to be there. The figures
connected to secondary schools show that the needs are far from being
filled by the supply : there was neither the building of new secondary
schools nor the creation of new places. There was only a transfer of
pupils in accordance with what was forecast.
It is totally legitimate to conclude that the municipalization process
does not solve the problem of places and the quality of public education,
that it was only an accounts operation consisting in transferring
responsibilities, which is made worse by the fact that the Constitutional
Amendment gives ten years to dispatch the budgetary envelops and five
years to readjust progressively the contributions to the FUNDEF; which is
likely to lead to a lack of responsibility, as it is showed by other
experiences of municipalization.
After a four years' implementation for the primary school classes in
Osasco, and with the threat of its being extended to secondary school
classes, it is clear that the municipalization of education not only does
not solve the problem of the number of places for pupils and school
attendance, but also prevents local authorities from satisfying the huge
demand for day nursery and primary school places, which are essential to
the child, parents and community. They all know the importance of school,
of education, in the making of one's personality.
The municipalization of education brings nothing good, not even the
so-called "popular participation" which would be accepted by the
local councils for education and by the management boards of the FUNDEF
credits.
The legislation of municipalization deals with "management
democracy", "decentralization" and particularly of
"partnership and co-responsibility". Such recommendations are
made by the World Bank, since the problem is to integrate popular
organizations to the "reform of the state" whose aim is to take
away governments' responsibility in the field of public services, thus
freeing them in order to pay the bankers, while the citizens' rights to
public education and other public services are neglected. The popular and
workers' movement, including the "Councils of Citizens", becomes
a co-applicator of this policy, whether they want it or not, which disarms
the people for the recovery of their rights.
It is also in these councils that the trade unions and other independent
organizations, based on the representation of their members lose their
importance and put themselves on an equal footing with the employers, the
NGO and the town council and local authorities representatives.
Violence or life in secondary schools? The violence in secondary schools
has increased very much since the restructuring of basic education. Until
1986, the youngster entered a secondary school and attended it till the
end. With that system, he could make friends with his school mates, the
management and teachers, in the frame of a school community making it
easier for good relationships between everybody and a harmonious
friendship, less aggressive.
With the restructuring/municipalization, this harmony has gradually
crumbled away because school is not a reference any more for the
youngster, hence an increase in aggressiveness and violence.
How does the privatization of public education happen?
1. Thanks to the attempt to convince that the state is incompetent, that
it is a spendthrift and has got no money to do what must be done.
2. Thanks to the compensatory political programs which create no rights
and lead to the dismantling of public services.
3. Thanks to the confusion created between the aid programs (uniforms,
school stationery, transports) and public education. The state must assume
its role in answering all the population's needs.
4. Thanks to volunteer people. "The friends of school",
"The partners of the the future", "Adopt a student".
The gross encouragement to being a volunteer helps to destroy the social
state aid.
5. Thanks to the subcontracting of labour and services, as we can see it
more and more in the canteens in the city of Sao Paulo.
As far as the energy crisis and the FUNDEF are concerned, the energy
crisis is one of the elements which puts the municipalization agreements
directly into question. The decrease in consumption mainly stemming from
the suppression of jobs, will lead to a decrease in the taxes which
subsidize the FUNDEF. If these taxes go down, the consequence will be the
reduction of the credit value for a child and for a year, with a reduced
credit endowment for the towns at the higher expense of the quality of
education, on a pedagogical as well as structural point of view.
********************
Hendrik Lange
(Germany)
Student, Halle
Hello:
My name is Hendrik Lange and I am an elected representative of students at
the Martin Luther University in Halle-Wittenberg.
I am grateful to be able to say something about developments in the higher
education sector, and I am certain that these developments are connected
with worldwide ones in the education sector generally.
Germany is preparing itself actively for the upcoming deregulation and
privatization of higher education. This is happening with the consensus of
all political parties. It already began under the liberal-conservative
regime and the current federal government of so-called social democrats
and Greens is driving these developments onward.
Only the Democratic Socialist Party (PDS) seems to act as an opposition on
the federal level, but on the local level in the provincial governments it
plays along with the others -- more consciously than not.
What has happened so far?
Participation in state-supported higher educational has been limited by
the Regulations on the Periods for Study (Regelstudienzeiten). These
regulations are enforced by compulsory expulsions from the university, and
also through payment of penalty fees of 500 Euros [approximately $500 each
for students having to re-sit]. In many provinces, continuing studies as
well as supplementary studies are now chargeable to the student. These
fees -- including the penalty fees -- are designed to gradually open the
way to general fees for studies.
These student fees will hinder equal access to the opportunity to get an
education. At this time, about 33% of children from socially disadvantaged
families take the Abitur [the high school finishing exam]. Of this number
only 13% continue their studies. Student fees will worsen this negative
trend since many families will ask themselves whether they can afford or
want the education of their children. The point to be made is that there
are no socially-just student fees. The regression of social offerings
shows the instability of the systems of social security. Across Germany
there is a drastic reduction of university personnel.
Outsourcing of so called service jobs, like resident or dorm heads or
janitorial services, is part and parcel of this trend, as well as the loss
of permanent positions for scientists. The number of short term contracts
has increased in tandem. These days, many people have precarious working
conditions. Together with this, the number of slots for educational
opportunities in Universities are greatly reduced.
To provide an example, I might take my own university in Halle. Within the
last year 500 working positions have been abolished here. Over 400
co-workers have been affected. This happened within an overwhelming
consensus.
Officially these reductions were to be completed by 2004. An agreement
with the trade unions GEW and Verdi, which provided for the establishment
of a company to help those affected find new positions [Auffanggesellschaft],
allowed these reductions to be completed already at the beginning of this
year. We students are the only ones who have organized any opposition, for
example, through demonstrations. We have taken part in an EU (European
Union)-wide strike under the slogan "Public Education is Not For
Sale." The trade unions on the other hand have gone along with the
destruction of working positions. This is a fundamental problem in
Germany, where the leading strata of the unions generally have
party-members cards of the ruling political party, and they therefore
carry out the interests of the party before those of the members. The
trade-unions must once more become an opposition outside of parliament and
the impulse for this must come from the grass-roots.
All over Europe the anti-student Declaration of Bologna has been put into
action. So, in Germany as well, massive political pressure has resulted in
the introduction of terminal degrees for the Bachelors and Masters levels.
Previous terminal degrees like the State Exams and Diploma certificates
are on approximately the same level all over Germany. These were
guaranteed by the state's framework test protocols.
With Bachelors and Masters degrees things are already deregulated, since
framework protocols for them do not exist. Each university and each
department has its own termination rules. These are merely inspected by
mostly private state-certified accreditation agencies for qualities that
are mostly oriented towards the requirements of the economic community. At
the same time, studies have been divided into modules. Students therefore
find it very difficult to remain within the normal constraints of the
regulations for the periods for study. Students are thereby being
converted into flexible human assets that do not criticize and are ready
to be utilized by the economic system.
At the next GATS round of the WTO in 2005, the deregulation of the
educational sector is due to be driven onward. Major trusts like the
Bertelsmann company, which are already propelling trade in the
knowledge-sector, are conducting latest-trend studies which would make one
believe that the population generally supports the payment of student
fees. The Boell Foundation, which is close to the Greens, has even
developed a "social contract" model for fees.
One talks about a transition from an Industrial Society to a Knowledge
Society. That implies that there is money to be won through trade in
knowledge. Politicians see in this an opportunity for greater economic
growth. At this time there is a line of thought towards positioning
universities like business-concerns in a so called educational market.
Democratic structures, which are supposed to guarantee co-determination by
groups of all concerned with Universities, will be replaced by a type of
professional management. The universities will offer a service and the
students will become consumers.
The cultural-value "education" will thereby be corrupted into a
freely tradable commodity, which only people with money will be able to
afford. A monopoly of knowledge will come about while the poor will take
no more part in the educational process and will therefore be relegated to
the social status provided for them.
Therefore as student representatives, we demand:
Education must not become a commodity, but remain a cultural value; A
general Ban on student fees; Full financial support for public education;
Free access to education and the democratization of the universities. We
will continue to fight together with progressive groups and people against
all forms of deregulation.
We will not allow capital to determine how the society in which we live
will be. We are the People!
********************
Heiner Becker
(Germany)
Trade unionist
Dear Colleagues,
My name is Heinrich Becker and I am a member of the district board of the
Union of Teachers and Scientists (GEW) in Frankfurt am Main and a delegate
of my union to this conference. Our delegation is made up of three people.
Our mandate comes from the struggle for job security, especially in the
area of further education (about 80% of employees work for private
employers), and the struggle against the privatization of primary
education (local governments are increasingly putting kindergartens in the
hands of churches and other private contractors). In the meantime, in the
area of secondary education, we are confronted more and more with attacks
on the conditions of education and the status of teachers.
If we compare our situation with that in other, so-called poorer
countries, we must say that we stand only at the beginning of a planned
implementation of deregulation and privatization. The colleagues from Peru
reminded us yesterday evening at the "Forum on the University and
Youth" that the World Bank and the IMF have long been demanding and
pushing through the privatization of all education wherever they can.
Anyone can see the consequences of these "structural adjustment
measures" in Ecuador, for example, or in Nicaragua: the laying off of
teachers, the closing of universities and schools, the introduction of
tuition and fees. Because qualified teaching and education is not
affordable for broad sectors of the population, illiteracy is growing
fast.
Many colleagues who have spoken here in the past days have shown that the
strategies for the destruction of hard-won social gains in all areas can
take the most varied forms. These strategies are often disguised to make
them harder to recognize for what they are. In January 2001, we learned
through a letter of the "Education International" to teachers
unions worldwide that the U.S. delegation to the GATS (the agreement on
trade and services) negotiations, that all educational institutions at all
levels in every member country of the World Trade Organization (WTO) must
be opened to the "market." Therefore, all obstacles in the way
of an exclusive "liberalization" of the market in educational
assets must now disappear! In essence, this is nothing more than putting
into question the entire system of public education: Education and
training should be transformed into commodities and freely
"marketed" worldwide.
This is the same plan that the OECD already tried to implement under the
title "Multilateral Agreement on Investment," but which failed
especially because of the resistance of trade unionists all over the
world.
What do we know about the results of the negotiations of the GATS in Dohar
in Qatar at the beginning of November 2001? Has there not been a news
blackout? And don't we have grounds to fear an attempt, behind the backs
of the union membership, to draw the leadership of the workers'
organizations into participation and co-responsibility for this policy of
deregulation?
The speaker for the students, Hendrik Lange, reported an example from
Germany: the shortening of the instruction time and the cutting of
educational standards for the greater part of the students, and the
introduction of a new, inferior diploma. I share his assessment and
publicly declare here that the consent of the leadership of my union, the
GEW, to these deregulation measures is just scandalous, and for the
additional reason that they haven't stood beside students in their
defensive struggle against this.
What our colleague Patrick Hebert said earlier about the necessity for the
independence of the unions is impressively confirmed through this example,
and I thank him for his remarks.
Our delegation represents that part of our union which unconditionally
defends public educational institutions. But another part also exists, one
which maintains that we must help with the "modernization" of
education and training or, through participation in the
"decision-making processes," at least try to prevent the
"worst" of the "structural adjustment" by pushing for
social minimum standards. That explains how, at the GEW congress last May,
a resolution was passed against any form of privatization of the
educational institutions -- and a few hours later a completely
contradictory resolution passed, supporting elements of deregulation. Such
a conflict between resistance to and adaptation to deregulation can't
exist in a union indefinitely -- no union can stand that.
Now I must turn your attention to the dangers to public education coming
from the OECD. Maybe the PISA study doesn't play such a large role in your
countries as it does in Germany. PISA stands for "Program for
International Student Assessment" and is part of a long term strategy
of the OECD to adapt public education to the concepts of "life-long
learning" and "civil society." Naturally, the OECD managers
don't constantly and loudly proclaim that since 1987 they have assumed the
political tasks of the World Bank. But they clearly indicate in their
publications that the ministers of education in all the OECD countries,
from 1996 on, should systematically work toward a depreciation of public
educational institutions and the University degrees which they give,
thereby depreciating the chances for the trades and professions of coming
generations. You can read this in "Analysis of Education Policy,
2001," a document in which the replacement of public schools through
a so-called network of learners and teachers is openly proposed. They also
say, however, that teachers and their unions, who refuse this
"radical change," are the biggest obstacle to progression.
This PISA study is of great significance in Germany because it is being
used to attempt to force this change. When it is noted that the reading
ability and the knowledge of math and science of 15-year-old German
students lays far below the average of young people of the same age in 31
other countries; when it is documented that 33% of those who start school
do not finish with a certificate or degree and are therefore excluded from
qualified training for a trade or profession; when it is known that these
young people are thereby condemned to precarious jobs and a lower standard
of living; when it is now clear that those the most affected by this come
from immigrant families and from parts of the working class, then we must
conclude that this is an indescribable scandal! But everyone occupied with
educational issues knew this even before the publication of the PISA
study: Germany's structured school system is highly selective; that is in
fact its very foundation!
For more than a hundred years many educators, including many in Germany,
have demanded the implementation of a unified, integrated school system,
as has successfully been established in many countries. And the demand for
smaller classes is just as old. Not quite so old are the results of
research concerning group dynamics. But researchers and practitioners know
that any group, including public school students, larger than 15 is beyond
effective control. For more than 30 years German unions have been
demanding that students should not be instructed in classes of more than
25. When classes today are made up of 30, 33, and even 35 students, this
is nothing less than a crime against the right of every child to the
optimal development of his or her personality. How can a teacher in a
class period of 45 minutes take notice of every single child in such large
groups, and see how each is doing and acknowledge the work, and help and
evaluate each.
In western Germany the conditions for learning have steadily deteriorated
for over 20 years as a result of the austerity policies of the state
governments. After the unification of the country, the considerable
accomplishments in eastern Germany of child care and primary and secondary
education have been erased, and the educational institutions have been
brought in line with the lower level of western Germany.
And today, those responsible for this policy are going on the offensive
and slander the country's teachers as "lazy bums" (with
Chancellor Schroeder taking the lead). Because they won't even consider
improving learning conditions, the PISA study comes at an opportune moment
as support for even sharper greater inequalities in educational
opportunities.
We teachers have the grounds and the duty to reject the change being
proposed by the OECD, toward their concept of "life-long
learning" and their concept of humanity. I refuse to treat children
and young people as "human resources" needed by the
profit-economy as raw material to be exploited. Our social contract of
education demands from us that we refuse to comply with this logic of
profitability.
Thank you for your attention.
***********************
Defense of Public Education in the United States
By JIM HAMILTON
[Note: Following is a statement prepared by Jim Hamilton for
the Education Workshop of the International Conference Against
Deregulation and For Labor Rights For All, which took place in Berlin,
Germany, in February 2002. Hamilton is Vice President for Political Action
and member of the Executive Board of Local 420, American Federation of
Teachers, AFL-CIO, St. Louis, Missouri. This local represents 4,000
workers in the bargaining unit: teachers, secretaries, social workers,
security guards, teachers and teachers aides, and office workers in the
education sectors.]
In the early centuries, all education in America was private. Parents had
to pay tuition money of their children's education. Most schools were run
by religious institutions, largely Protestant. Only a few wealthy males
received a good or higher education. Females had little education and in
some states, such as in my state of Missouri, it was strictly forbidden by
law to teach Blacks (whether free or slave) to read and write.
After the American Civil War, free public education for all began to
develop. The St. Louis Public Schools were the first free public schools
west of the Mississippi River. Under the influence of exiled German and
European progressive political refugees, the St. Louis public schools were
once a model for excellence in public education for all. Despite this,
racial segregation was the legal standard until the1950s.
Legally education is still considered the responsibility of each of the50
states, although there is some Federal national funding of special
programs. The state governments certify teachers' credentials and local
school districts. The state government has the right to disband a local
school district if it is not functioning correctly. Public education is
placed in the hands of locally elected school boards which must finance
most of the schools' budgets from local property taxes mostly. Thus
districts where rich people live have a high income tax base. There are
also many more financial resources for education in upper middle class
districts than in working class and poor areas.
Teachers are paid by local school boards and hired and fired by them. And
there is a great difference of pay between teachers doing the same job in
different districts.
In the United States there is a growing wealth and income gap between the
classes.
Rich people tend to buy expensive homes in exclusive suburbs. Working
class people tend to live in the inner suburbs. The poorest people --
especially Blacks, Hispanics and immigrants -- live in the inner city or
older and more run-down areas.
In the poorest areas, there is little money for education. Classrooms are
over-crowded with few resources such as modern libraries, computers and
internet connections. Children often come from dysfunctional, often
single-parent families where parents work long hours for low wages. The
social upbringing of these children is often neglected at home. There is
much crime and alienation among the youth, causing frequent disruptions
and discipline problems in the classrooms, which is an obstacle for
quality education.
Right-wing elements and religious reactionary fundamentalist groups in the
U.S. are attempting to use this deterioration of public school conditions
to destroy public education in general.
They claim that private schools are better run than government-run
schools. Today, about 90% of students in primary and secondary education
in the U.S. go to free public schools, which are open to all students who
live within a "certain" school district. This means that schools
are imposed according to geographical residency.
Private schools have small classes, better-paid teachers; they don't have
to accept students with handicaps and may deny access based on religion.
They don't have to follow government standards for curriculum and test
scores. They can teach whatever religious ideas they want. They can
exclude students based on religious, race, sex, language, class, test
scores, special needs (psychological or physical disabilities). Because of
their high tuition costs, in practice, these schools are mostly restricted
to white students from wealthy families.
The largest number of parochial schools are Catholic. There is a sharp
class division among Catholic schools (with rich Catholic schools and a
large number of poor schools). Catholic school teachers have often been
denied the right to form unions and are grossly underpaid. For example, in
St. Louis, Cardinal Regali, a close personal friend of the Pope's, has
refused to substantially increase the pay of teachers and even recognize
or negotiate with their trade union, which was formed years ago. (These
teachers waged a big campaign, picketing the central Cathedral during
religious events.)
The idea of right-wing groups is to give money --"vouchers" or
tax credits -- to parents to pay for their tuition there.
Three attempts/roads to privatization of Education in the U.S.
There are three basic approaches to privatization of education in
the U.S. today: "vouchers", "tax credits" and
"charter schools".
"Vouchers": The idea is for parents of school-aged children to
receive vouchers from the government (national, state or local), which
they can then use to fully or partly pay the tuition at any private school
they choose.
"Charter schools" (publicly financed schools, not under the
direct control of School Boards or government authorities) are officially
public schools which receive their money based on the number of student
hours that they teach.
Parents can transfer their children to Charter Schools that have openings.
Many Charter Schools are sub-contracted to private management companies,
even though they are "nominally" chartered/initiated by
government institutions. They are exempt from many of the regulations and
rules that govern many public schools. Charter Schools are often managed
by for-profit companies such as the Edison corporation or foundations with
right-wing religious agendas. Many of them are fly-by-night, shady
financial, here-this-year-and-gone tomorrow operations. For example, in
St. Louis, a charter was granted to a family business which was later
revealed to be run by people who had long criminal records and shaky
financial accounting. This is, in a sense, a form of deregulation that is
part and parcel of this drive to privatizate education. In a dangerous
move in the Fall of 2001, the Edison Company was give administration of 60
Philadelphia public schools after the Pennslyvannia State government took
them over.
Despite their claims, the records and test scores of most Charter Schools
are no higher -- and usually are worse -- than that of public schools with
similar populations. A recent study of test scores in Missouri by the St.
Louis Post Dispatch showed a high correspondence between the
social-economic background and income of students' families and their
academic achievement, rebuking the claims made by Charter School
proponents.
"Tax credits": Parents can get tax deductions for sending their
children to secondary private or parochial schools. Also, tax payers can
contribute funds to private schools and get a tax deduction for this
contribution.
In practice, these programs mean that large sums of public funds intended
for education are siphoned off for private and parochial schools. The
quality of public education deteriorates -- just as the class, religious
and racial divisions between schools would grow.
Trade Unions Oppose Privatization Drive
Trade unions, particularly teachers' unions, have opposed these attacks on
public education. In the United States, there are two major teachers
unions, the AFT (American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO) and the NEA
(National Education Association). The larger NEA tends to represent
teachers in suburban and rural areas, and the AFT (2.2 million members) in
the inner-city schools and community colleges. Teachers in private schools
have few unions and labor protections. (There have been talks about the
two unions merging).
Politicians in many states are pushing Vouchers and Charter Schools. The
Bush Administration as well as right-wing Democratic Congressmen and
Senators, such as Senator Joe Lieberman, former Democratic
vice-presidential candidate, have put forward numerous legislative
proposals to encourage Charter Schools, Vouchers and tuition tax credits.
In the last national elections of elections 2000, in California and
Michigan, labor-backed coalitions defeated by large margins state ballot
referenda for Vouchers. Many unions, like my own, have documented the
failure of these private schools. My union, the AFT, has done a lot of
research which shows that private voucher schools don't really give a
better education. Many don't have to meet state test-score standards or
curriculum standards. Most lack programs for students with learning,
physical and psychological disabilities. They don't have bilingual
education or programs for Youth with Limited English Proficiency.
There is a big attack on bilingual education. One such attack occurred
with the victory of ballot Proposition 186 in the California elections
about two years ago. In my school district, we will lose substantial
public funding for many bilingual teachers in the next school year. This
is taking place in spite of the arrival on our school district of numerous
families from the Balkans, as well as Afghani and Kurdish refugees and
undocumented Latino children. (Up until now, all children in my state have
the right to free public education, whether their parents or documented or
not).
Details of the fight-back against vouchers and privatization may be found
on my union's website: www.AFT.org
The fight is particularly sharp in the states of Wisconsin and Connecticut
(the home state of Joe Lieberman). In New York City, Republican mayor
Giuliani is pushing for Vouchers. Parents in a recent special election
there voted-down a voucher program. Meanwhile, the New York City teachers'
union has come to a bargaining impasse with the school board. There have
been big teachers' strikes for better schools and salaries in recent
months in Detroit, Washington State and Hawaii. There was a serious threat
of teachers' strikes in Los Angeles and St. Louis last year. In many
states such as Missouri, public employees such as teachers cannot legally
strike and if they do, they can lose their jobs, their teachers'
certification and union leaders could and have been jailed and fined.
Preventing public workers from striking is against basic ILO conventions,
which the United States has not recognized.
In Montana and Minnesota, massive rallies have succeeded in gaining
increases in state public education budgets in the face of cuts proposed
by state politicians -- whether Democrats, Republican or, in the case of
Minnesota, so-called independents like Jesse Ventura.
For the past few years, in the city of Cleveland, Ohio, there has been a
Voucher program where parents receive money to pay for the tuition of
their children in private schools. 90% of these schools are run by
religious denominations.
Public funding of religious organizations is against the doctrine of
separation of Church and State which is written into the First Amendment
of the U.S. Constitution. In the Cleveland case, the teachers' union,
together with some civil liberties organizations, took this law to Federal
Court, where fortunately a district judge ruled this program
unconstitutional and ordered it stopped. Such fight-backs have put pushed
back attempts to generalize voucher programs. In their place, there have
been various attempts to get around such legal obstacles to privatize
education, like Charter Schools, etc.
Free public education in the U.S. is a right for all children, won by hard
fights by the working class and their unions over decades. It is now
threatened by privatization and deregulation. These proposals are
supported by politicians in both the Democratic and Republican parties.
The labor movement and the new, small Labor Party in the United States are
leading the fight not only to save public education but to improve it for
all.
********************
In Defense of Mexico's Public, Secular Schools
By GEMMA LOPEZ LIMON *
"Education will be secular and, therefore, be maintained
completely separate from any religious doctrine."
In the great struggles to consolidate the nation in the 19th century, the
Mexican people had to confront a church which occupied the space that
corresponded to the state in the economic, political and social life of
the country.
The formation of a secular state came to be considered indispensable
through the conviction that secularity was an indispensable condition for
the free development of society. As a result of this, the clear separation
of church and state was established, which implies the necessary defining
of the civil and religious spaces. Today, in the framework of the
decomposition of global capitalism, we again see a belligerent church with
great influence on political power, which occupies space in the civil
terrain with which it intends to destroy the principle and practice of
secularity.
This attack from the darkest forces represented by the Catholic Church is
being raised with more force than ever on the educational terrain.
Fox and Religious Education
The Catholic Church has played an undeniable role in the political
trajectory of Fox; this is an issue that could be seen with great clarity
during the presidential campaign, when he made a series of political
commitments to the Catholic Church to gain support in the 2000 elections.
Fox, after a meeting with Archbishop Rivera Carrera, declared that
"public schools should open up to religious values." (Pablo
Latapi Sarre "Secularity in Schools As a Problem", Processo
No. 1224, April 18th, 2002)
When he was governor of the state of Guanajuato, he distributed a
controversial pamphlet titled "How to Educate Guanajuato" in
which he advised applying corporal punishment to students and imparting
religious values.
Now there is a "Parent's Guide" distributed by the foundation
"Viva Mexico", the country's largest non-governmental
organization (NGO), which is run by Martha Sahagun de Fox and which has
been denounced on repeated occasions as a beneficiary of public funds.
According to a leader of the SNTE, the guide has a "strong penchant
toward conservatism", especially in dealing with themes of sexuality
and the instruction of values (La Jornada, August 16, 2002).
Constitutional Article 3 and Secularity
As a fruit of the great struggles of the Mexican people for a secular
state, Article 3 of the Mexican Constitution defines clearly the
secularity of education while indicating "Guaranteed by article 24,
freedom of belief, this education will be secular and, therefore, will be
maintained completely separate from any religious doctrine", and in
another section confirms: "The criteria that orients this education
will be based on the results of scientific progress, will fight against
ignorance and its effects -- servitude, fanaticism and prejudice",
impossible tasks to achieve when religious instruction is given.
To understand what would happen with religious instruction, one need only
to remember the position of the Catholic Church in demanding that the
government prohibit the film "The Crime of Father Amaro", with
the pretext that the movie contained attacks on religion and was
sacrilegious, when the hundreds of thousands of us who saw it understood
that in reality, what worried the ecclesiastic hierarchy was the exposure
of the corruption that corrodes it from its foundations, its hypocrisy and
its preference for the powerful.
The Church and the "Social Commitment to the Quality of
Education"
The Catholic ecclesiastic hierarchy placed its signature on Fox's
Social Commitment to the Quality of Education, and its presence will be
felt on the National Institute for Educational Evaluation (INEE), at least
with its inclusion on the Board of Directors of two letterhead
organizations of the parents of ultraconservative families: the National
Federation of Associations of Parents of Families and the National Union
of Parents of Families, together with a representative of the Commission
on Education in the business sector.
As the analyst Jose Blanco said, [I]in the internal discussions of the
decision-making meetings, time and time again the secular character of
Mexican education will be called into question" (La Jornada,
August 13,2002). The NGO Mexican Transparency and Citizen Observer of
Education will play a role as well.
"There will be an opening up to religious instruction: the Diocese
of Tijuana"
In the weekly Presencia, edited by the Diocese of Tijuana, it
is stated that "there will be an opening up to religious
instruction" (La Jornada, August 25, 2002).
For his part, the priest, a member of the Secretariat of Education and
Culture which edits that magazine, declared that the opening up would be
the fruit of the "Social Commitment to the Quality of
Education".
This priest calls for the establishment of a dialogue with the educational
authorities, at the same time that he questions the parents of the
families because they allow the state to "impose the way in which
their children should be educated", and adds that it is they who
should choose the type of education the children should receive.
The new education, he adds, will be "family, school and parish",
an education which, according to him, demands the experience of values,
among which "love of God", "respect for life starting from
conception (Š)", "religious freedom and the instruction of
it", are emphasized.
It praises the "social commitment" of Vicente Fox.
The pastoral letter from the Diocese of Tijuana proposes to "foment
and promote the progress of the pastoral in the Catholic institutions and
in formal and informal education, as well as the unity of Catholic
educative thought, in addition to establishing contacts with official
education and its institutions.
This pastoral runs through everything, establishing as imperative to
"organize activities in which teachers of all levels are integrated;
unify and integrate the Catholic schools of the Diocese: have an apostolic
presence of teachers and lay people in official schools, as well as to
organize conferences, events and activities for college students,
teacher's assistants and professors."
For his part, "Ramon Godinez, president of the Commission of Mexican
Episcopal Education, declared that he trusted that the current government
would fulfill one of the greatest yearnings of the Catholic hierarchy:
include religious values within the educational system". (Guadalupe
Loaeza, La Jornada, August 15, 2002)
But the destined commitment goes beyond breaking with secularity, it goes
to the destruction of the unions and their conquests, to the privatization
of the public education system, to turning education into a commodity.
Nevertheless, these intentions will confront an obstacle -- the resistance
of the population and the men and women professors.
The failure of the Catholic Church to prevent the showing of the film
"The Crime of Father Amaro", demonstrates that resistance
exists, what is necessary is to organize it. The leadership of the SNTE
and the sectoral leadership have a serious responsibility before these
facts. It is necessary to rouse in the entire union the necessity to
defend education that is public, secular and free.
---
(* Gemma Lopez Limon is a senior researcher at the Autonomous
University of Baja California in Mexicali.)
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