By Liz O'Brien Last week, yet another union of educators has made demands that reach Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, while pointing to the corruption and resource drain that the pueblo of Oaxaca continues to experience and resist. The Union of Workers and Employees of the Autonomous University of Benito Juarez (STEBUAJO) launched a strike that began on August 17th, demanding compensation for underpaid wages and an explanation with respect to funds that have disappeared from the University. The strike demands the auditing and ousting the President of the Autonomous University of Benito Juarez (UABJO), Francisco Martinez Neri, and a string of bureaucratic workers beneath him. Neri’s response, labeled "a string of lies" by the union, was to accuse the university sub-secretary, Joaquin Rodriguez Palacios, of propelling the strike. The strike affects 36 thousand university students and costs the university about a million pesos (approximately $111,000) per day of inactivity. The STEBUAJO workers, however, have been receiving extremely low wages; they demand a total payment of approximately $310,000 immediately. One of the most astonishing examples of under-pay includes that of professors: STEBUAJO has published that UABJO professors are paid less than 3-4 dollars per hour. The union is comprised of professors, janitors, gardeners, librarians, health clinic workers, secretaries and many other professions. STEBUAJO demands a public auditing of Francisco Martinez Neri and others, for the purpose of exposing to the pueblo of Oaxaca that resources are again being leaked to the top of institutions at the expense of workers and students. In the last paragraph of the release to the Pueblo of Oaxaca, STEBUAJO demands that Ulises Ruiz Ortiz (URO) fulfill the true responsibilities of Governor and resolve the matter immediately. Unfortunately, the true responsibilities of University president do not appear to lie with education, as URO’s priorities are clearly not in line with reason or justice. As a result, Oaxaca is yet again seeing a mobilization that demands the right to resources and justice for workers who are standing up to institutional corruption. After more than a week of the strike, bargains were successfully reached on Friday, August 23rd. STEBUAJO received a sum of money towards compensation for underpaid wages and unaccounted resources, and another step was taken in exposing the wide-spread corruption and poor distribution of resources in state institutions throughout Oaxaca.

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