THE 2019 STRIKE AND ITS IMPACT ON THE FUTURE OF THE MEXICAN UAM

Abstract

The strike that started on February 1, 2019 and that has lasted more than 48 days at the Mexican Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (UAM) [1] might greatly impact its future. There are two demands of the UAM syndicate (SITUAM) of administrative staff and faculty: one such demand is related to the salaries of the SITUAM administrative staff and part-time faculty and the other claim is concerning violations to the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) between the SITUAM and the UAM (the employer). The SITUAM is asking for an increment of 20% to the salaries of the administrative workers and part-time faculty. The second set of demands are the violations to the CBA which includes that the UAM hires extra personnel of confidence as part of its administrative staff and with higher wages than those of the unionized workers and that the UAM has not created 400 new job positions agreed in former negotiations. To settle the lengthy strike the UAM authorities have proposed, on the salary side, an increment of 3.35% to the salaries of the SITUAM administrative workers and part-time faculty as well as an increment of 3% to the salaries of administrative workers by upgrading the wages of current job positions (job reclassification). On the violations to the CBA the UAM offers the creation of 93 new staff positions for the SITUAM. The federal government has increased the 2019 budget of the UAM by 3.39% and most of the strikes this year in Mexican universities have settled with increments of 3.35% to the salaries. What the SITUAM claims during this long strike is that at UAM the personnel of confidence obtains disproportional economic bonuses and incentives. The SITUAM workers ask as part of the solutions to settle the strike that the personnel of confidence reduces its economic bonuses and incentives and transfer that amount to their salaries. The authorities refuse. The difference in wages between a directive and a SITUAM worker is abysmal. At UAM there are 3882 administrative workers (47%), 1262 personnel of confidence (15%) and 3090 faculty (38%). However, the salary budget is distributed as follows, 29.37 million US dollars (21%) for the administrative workers, 42.60 (31%) for personnel of confidence and 65.92 (48%) for faculty. This shows a great income inequality because the personnel of confidence are the 15% of the UAM working force and obtain 31% of the salary budget, while the administrative workers who are the 47% of the working force obtain only 21% of the salary budget [2]. Also, the last report on salaries at UAM of the year 2018, shows that there are 85 persons who earn more than the Mexican President (net 5572 US dollars monthly): 52 are tenured professors and 33 are personnel of confidence. As the federal budgets allocated for the next few years might increase only by inflation, the UAM has to drastically reengineer its budge to secure its future. In this paper the causes, outcomes and long-term effects of the strike for the UAM future are analyzed.