Demonstrating outside the Ministry of the Interior, students, professors and workers from the National School of Anthropology and History (ENAH) called on the authorities to set up inter-institutional negotiating tables to avoid calling a strike.
Since the first week of 2022, after the publication of a letter from the campus director, Hilario Topete Lara, in which he expresses his concern to the director of INAH, Diego Prieto, about the prohibition on rehiring 60 temporary workers, teachers, and administrative staff, the community of the ENAH undertook demonstrations at the institute’s headquarters and at the National Palace demanding an end to the precariousness of the school and asking for a larger budget for the institution.
Anthropologist Prieto declared to this newspaper on January 5 that “the tidal wave” at the ENAH was a “resolved” problem. But on Wednesday morning, a contingent of protesters decided to station themselves in front of the Covián Palace, in Bucareli.
“Today, members of the ENAH community demonstrated in front of the Ministry of the Interior to request more budget for our school, proposing the immediate installation of inter-institutional tables as a route for dialogue and solution,” they said in a statement made public. yesterday afternoon via Twitter.
They reported that the protest “was carried out without major inconveniences,” and that a commission was received for 30 minutes by officials Juan Carlos García Ascona, from the Directorate of Social Coordination, and Manuel Cuevas Peña, from the Government Unit of said agency. .
They indicate that they were given a document stating their claims. Among the key points of the document, they point out the requirement to set up inter-institutional negotiating tables, “that allow us to address the different problems that our School is going through and those of the National Institute of Anthropology and History itself, where authorities with the resolution capacity of the Ministry of the Interior participate ( as coordinating and convening body) the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit, the Culture and Cinematography Commission of the Chamber of Deputies, in dialogue with the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) and the National School of Anthropology and History (ENAH), since -they argue- “our demands are structural problems and that in various ways exceed the powers of INAH and the Ministry of Culture itself.”
They rejected that the negotiating tables be headed by the director of INAH, Diego Prieto, who -they state- has breached the previously agreed agreements, and they propose that the dialogue be held from next February 1, in accordance with the sanitary conditions.
Likewise, they demanded that the negotiating tables be public, “that is, that they be allowed access to the media so that public opinion can witness what is discussed and agreed upon in these spaces.”
They announced that in the following days they will promote a national campaign in defense of ENAH, INAH and the cultural sector, and will hold a political-cultural festival with the slogan “More Budget for ENAH.”
The General Assembly of the ENAH indicated that Segob officials promised to respond to the document in a week, but they did not rule out calling a strike “as the last way and resource of struggle,” they maintain.
