Mexico City residents are fed up with protestors who have blocked roadways and lawmaking chambers and swamped public squares in an attempt to kill a government plan for education reform, says a survey undertaken by newspaper El Universal. About half of those surveyed said the rash of marches and sit-ins have affected their normal lives, with a large majority (84 percent) saying they were opposed to a march staged on the main routes to the capital's airport last Friday. 82 percent said they didn't think the protests should be permitted, while 79 percent indicated that they believed protestors should be removed from roadways.
The protests have been led principally by two national teachers' unions, the National Education Syndicate (SNTE) and the National Educational Workers' Union (CNTE), and have seen thousands of educators from across Mexico arrive in the capital to stage a public rejection of a plan to overhaul the country's education system. On Friday, some 4,000 of them blocked main roads to the international airport, halting their march to the airport only when lawmakers agreed to sit down with union representatives to discuss a compromise.
Mexico City police have largely taken the tactic of trying to contain protestors instead of clearing them out of public spaces. And Mexico City Mayor Miguel Ángel Mancera has stressed their right to protest. "Let's avoid confrontation. Let's avoid violent conflict," the mayor said at a press conference last week, in which he called for dialogue with the teachers' groups in order to continue on "the same path we've stayed on, which is the path of respect for their protests". 60 percent of the capital's residents said they disapproved of Mancera's actions. Another 62 percent also showed disapproval of how Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto has handled the situation. Peña Nieto says the teachers simply don't understand the reform, which "will give them exactly what they don't have".
But union representatives who accuse his government of seeking to privatize education have won considerable concessions from lawmakers. The overhaul bill was passed in December, but senators and representatives are now debating additional legislation specifying how to implement it. One of the most important of the original bill's provisions, which would have made it illegal for retiring teachers to sell their position - a common practice in Mexico - and make it easier to fire those who underperform, has been discarded amid union pressure. According to El Universal, the reform is quite popular in Mexico: 66 percent favor it, while only 10 percent are against it.
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