23/11/2019
Solidarity with students and teachers of Colombia
In a peaceful manner, students and supporters closed major highways in cities like Bogota and Medellin. Colombian students lead nation-wide protest closing major roads
Approximately 500,000 people in Colombia participated in a nation-wide protest Wednesday, to demand a COP$4.5 billion raise to the budget for higher education and the liquidation of prior debts, in cities like Pereira, Florencia, Bogota, Medellin, Cali, amongst others.
This is the second of such protests led during the month of October, while more demonstrations are expected toward the end of the month.
The “imbalance” in the higher education budget is historically entrenched, as the Ley 30 (an education law enacted in 1992) stipulates an increase on the budget on a yearly basis, set according to consumer price indicator – a measure of inflation.
While spending has increased by 284 percent from 1993 to 2016, the budget has only grown by approximately 70 percent during that time-frame.
The Colombian government is promoting a series of anti-workers’ measures aimed at further privatizing of social Insurance and Healthcare, while imposing more flexible labor relations with victims primarily the young workers. The anti-workers’ policy of the Colombian Government is combined with repression, persecution, assassinations of workers, trade unionists, people’s militant.
The World Federation of Teachers’ Unions, Member of the WFTU, expresses its solidarity with the students, teachers and with the people of Colombia and the November 21 General Strike against the anti-labor measures of the Duque government.
THE SECRETARIAT
