Coordinadora Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación

The Coordinadora Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación (CNTE) is a teachers union in Mexico founded on December 17, 1979, as an alternative to the Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación (SNTE). The union is most active in the southern states of Mexico. The CNTE was originally formed out of the SNTE in response to the political relationship between unionization and government. The CNTE pushed against the bureaucratic tendencies of the SNTE, favoring Maoist and Marxist ideological values for education and reform. They disagreed with the state-sponsored or “official” unions of the SNTE, opting for a less systematic union organization with government separation. Leading up to its creation, those who would become a part of the Coordinadora Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación (CNTE) faced subversion by the Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación (SNTE), threatening and terrorizing the union leaders into submission in the early attempts and improving wages and equality, a fight fought by the more dissident of the teachers' movement. Attempts to subdue the most outspoken of the union leaders were spearheaded by Carlos Jonguitud Barrios, leader of the SNTE until 1979. He focused his power as the leader of the SNTE towards terrorizing dissident union leaders by firing them from their positions and reportedly escalating aggression to physical violence to keep leaders in line. Due to the alleged aggression experienced by these leaders, the CNTE finally budded into existence. Beginning as a caucus within the Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación, the CNTE developed into its own entity as a result of these aggressive actions, as well as the developing relationship between the state of Mexico and the SNTE, leaning the organization’s status towards a more ministerial conduct within the Mexican political system. The new organization was primarily composed of women, in alignment with the traditional gender roles of women as educators. These women were often from Indigenous regions centered in or around Chiapas.