Declaration of Sole Principles – Sole Union of Education Workers (1971)
Return to Peru
Declaration of Sole Principles and Sole Program 1
Union of Education Workers
Sole Union of Education Workers of Peru (SUTEP)
Declaration of Principles
SUTEP, which groups all the country’s managers without distinction of levels, is based on the following principles, which have the character of principles and are the Magna Carta of all the levels without exceptions:
- Doctrine constitutes the spirit, the thought, the vital center of every organization. Without doctrine there is no organization.
- The doctrine is the organization’s compass. It is a guide for action. Without doctrine there is no correct practice, no authentic program and no joint action.
- In the whole world, in our homeland, there are only two doctrines, antagonistic and irreconcilable. One, of the workers; the other, of the employers.
- In our homeland, the doctrine of the workers is the Thought of José Carlos Mariátegui, based on the universal principle of the struggle of the classes.
- The current unique union is the result of the reconstitution of the old unions by levels. It means to retake the class-conscious unionism in the organizational aspect and to meet again with and to meet again with those initial moments of 1930 when the teachers’ organization was born as a single union.
- The SUTEP is a sign of the culmination of a long stage of organic fractioning, advocated and sustained by opportunism. At the same time, it signifies the beginning of a new stage in which a new class unity is being forged and the masses are preparing for a tenacious and prolonged struggle.
- SUTEP is a fighting organization of education workers – primary, secondary and university – for the defense of the solidarity and equal interests of all its members; of their political, social, professional and economic rights.
- SUTEP is a teachers’ organization of a united front where the recognition and application of the class principle is demanded, but where there is no discrimination based on political ideas, religious beliefs, race, sex, origin, ethnicity or any other reason.
- Because of its organizational structure and its regime of government and administration, it is an institution based on democratic centralism:
- Because of the selective character of its leaders in a systematic and permanent way, who are then ratified in assemblies and congresses.
- By the system of collective management and individual accountability adopted by its governing bodies.
- By the regime of conscientious discipline based on fidelity to the principles and strict adherence to the norms established in the Bylaws and Congress agreements.
- The SUTEP by its class nature, is an organization that is governed by the principle of class unionism-struggle of the class whose content is:
- Independence and self-decision (programmatically)
- Democratic Centralism (organizationally)
- Worker-Peasant Alliance (nationally)
- Proletarian Internationalism (internationally)
- The teacher is a worker of education, who works with the most delicate and noble raw material: Man (child, youth or adult). His production is the culture, which is the spiritual force that impels the general progress of the homeland. As a worker, he is not free from exploitation. To defend himself from this situation, he has to fight in an organized way against his class enemies and their agents within the trade union organizations.
- The teacher is an educator and as such not only knows the theory of education but also practices, applies and creates it. Consequently, he fully understands the education that our people need and demand. The teacher knows that Peru requires a new type of school, unique, scientific, popular and democratic, based on the system of study and work, but that this will not be achieved by mere decrees or laws, but in the process of the anti-imperialist and anti-feudal struggle itself and as the people liberate themselves and achieve their sovereignty and independence.
- The Magisterium is a means and not an end. It is a means of connection with the popular masses, of orientation, study and investigation of the socio-economic problems of the people of Peru. For this reason, the teacher knows the semi-feudal and semi-colonial reality of Peruvian society and fights to transform it.
- The teachers will not achieve victories or these will be ephemeral if they fight in isolation, if their concern is the teaching profession in itself and for itself. Only by uniting or identifying themselves with the working people and contributing to forging the worker-peasant alliance, will they resist the bosses’ arrest and achieve basic demands.
- The teacher belongs to the dispossessed of our society. He has no property other than his labor power. Through struggle he will wring some concessions from the bosses. But this situation will only really come to an end through the development and culmination of the long anti-imperialist and anti-feudal struggle in which our country is engaged.
- SUTEP categorically rejects the “apoliticism” advocated by the bosses and their agents as anti-scientific. Man is a political being by nature. Teaching is a political function. School curricula have a political content. Therefore, the euphemism of “apoliticism” is nothing more than the vertical imposition of the official policy of the ruling classes (bosses) to prevent at all costs the teacher from practicing a correct class policy.
- SUTEP is an organization that advocates class solidarity with other national and international labor organizations.
- SUTEP defends the inalienable rights of Peruvian children, youth and women.
1 Footnotes
