Portside

Striking Mexican teachers are fighting for justice in the classroom - and against Mexico's violent neoliberal order. The violent repression of striking teachers in 2006, ordered by the state governor, launched a social movement - called the "Oaxaca Commune" by supporters - that grew to encompass much more than the local teachers' union. The teacher's movement is also more widespread than in 2006.

They're peacefully resisting US-style neoliberal measures intended to crush the unions-a backbone of Mexico's social-justice movements. Taking union leaders hostage, murdering unarmed teachers and students, firing thousands, and closing one of Mexico's most progressive institutions are serious violations of human and labor rights, and of the rule of law itself. Now, 200,000 doctors to join teachers in Mexico national strike.

Low pay, abusive conditions, no union representation - employees are fed up and fighting back. About 255,000 people work directly in Juárez's 330 maquiladoras, about 13 percent of the total nationally, making Juárez one of the largest concentrations of manufacturing on the US/Mexico border. Almost all the plants are foreign-owned. Eight of Juárez's 17 largest factories belong to US corporations,

Congress’s 1965 decision to limit immigration from Latin America and the Caribbean coincided with an increase in that immigration—largely, as a result of U.S. policies, including support for vicious dictatorships in many countries, the funding of civil wars in Central America, and the promotion of neoliberal economic programs throughout the region. The result is our current undocumented population of about 11.7 million, including some 8 million workers.

Mexican labor unions and workers are, overall, in the worst situation in decades. President Peña Nieto has succeeded in passing a series of so-called reforms - education, labor, energy, and communications - that will have devastating effects on an already weakened labor movement. The Mexican government has controlled unions since the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1920, but it was in the 1930s that the system of one-party state control over the unions was fully developed.