The National Educational Workers Union (, SNTE) is a trade union which represents teachers in Mexico. Its current Secretary-General and President is Alfonso Cepeda Salas.
With over 1.4 million members, it is currently the largest teachers' union in the Americas and the largest union in Latin America. Formed in 1949, the SNTE is composed of local sections in each of Mexico's states. For much of its history, the SNTE has been a corporatist union allied with the long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and has been accused of having government-appointed charro leaders and anti-democratic tendencies. This resulted in a movement in the late 1970s and early 1980s in which sections from several states began demanding democratic reforms in the union structure. This movement resulted in the fall of SNTE leader Carlos Jongitud Barrios in 1989. He was replaced by Elba Esther Gordillo as president, a position she held until her arrest in late February 2013.
History
Origins
The SNTE has its roots in the struggle of teacher unions during the presidency of Porfirio Díaz, which violently suppressed all opposition. Teachers strikes in May 1919 and the strike of Veracruz in 1927 and 1928, established the need for an organisation. Both movements affected the construction and strengthening of the Mexican Confederation of Teachers.
With the building of opposition to the government, 1932 saw the formation of the Mexican Confederation of Teachers, and in 1934, the League of Education Workers (under the leadership of the Mexican Communist Party), the Workers' University and the National Federation of Education Workers. By 1935 the United Front was formed from the National Education Workers, culminating with the creation of the National Confederation of Education Workers, during a period of a huge boom in worker, peasant and popular union associations.
The SNTE began to consolidate from 1939, with the formation of various regionalised trade guilds and unions that were adhering to the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM), which in turn served as the labor sector of the PRI.
In 1936 the CTM supported the creation of the Union of Education Workers of the Mexican Republic (STERM Inter). From its foundation, it began to form the basis of a national educational system. But due to internal and external conflicts, the union began to splinter, forming the Revolutionary Front of Teachers (after the Mexican Union of Teachers and Education Workers).
A crisis created the emergence of SNATE, which also later created FRMM, STERM and FSTSE. Véjar Octavio Vazquez tried to unite the teachers from the top, but only managed further division. In April 1942, he agreed to a unity pact between SMMTE, SUNTE and STERM which created one national guild. With the support of CTM, the SNTE was created under the leadership of Luis Chavez Orozco, who remained in office for a year.
Corporatist era
During the administration of Adolfo Lopez Mateos, during the largest teachers strike in the first half of the 20th century, the government suppressed the strike, and consolidated all teacher representation under the SNTE. It was during the 1970's as well that archaeological site guards began to join the SNTE.
In 1974, SNTE elected Carlos Jonguitud Barrios as its general secretary. A former elected member of PRI, whilst also serving as general director of the Institute for Social Security and Services for State Workers (ISSSTE) from 1976 until 1979, he promoted trade unionism through regular strikes. As the union became more militant, in an audience with President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, the President demanded his resignation in 1989.
Leadership of Elba Esther Gordillo: 1989 - 2013
The President appointed as new SNTE general secretary Elba Esther Gordillo Morales, who after struggling under her successor Ernesto Zedillo as president, under the successor governments to the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) was able to wield the power of SNTE nationally far more effectively for the gain of the SNTE, and her own enrichment.