WHEREAS, there has been international media coverage of the disappearance and probable murder of 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Teachers College — a progressive rural college whose graduates teach in poor rural areas of the State of Guerrero — with the direct complicity of the mayor and the police of the town of lguala (e.g., Los Angeles Times, “Mexico Reels, and the U.S. Looks Away,” 11/16/2014); and

WHEREAS, there has been widespread condemnation and tumultuous street protests throughout Mexico against this outrageous act of state repression against young teacher trainees intent on transforming civil society through their work in poor communities; and

WHEREAS, participants at the first regional gathering of the “Workers Economy” organization of North America held in Mexico City on November 7-8, 2014, unanimously adopted the following eloquent statement of solidarity:

We, workers, activists and academics from Mexico, the U.S.A, Canada and other countries,  wish to express our pain, dignified rage and condemnation of the forced  disappearance of 43 student teachers of the Ayotzinapa teacher training college, which was perpetrated  in lguala, in the state of Guerrero, on Sept. 26 last, by the Municipal Police of Iguala and Coculca and by an as yet unidentified  “group of civilians,” which could be members of the Guerreros Unidos drug cartel and/or of the Mexican military ...

We express our solidarity with the struggle of the families of the disappeared students and of the persons murdered by the security forces of the Mexican State and our support for their demands for the return alive of the 43 disappeared students, for the revelation of the full truth on what happened and for the punishment of those responsible for these heinous crimes of State at every level of the Mexican government, including if necessary, of the chief of the Mexican security forces, President Enrique Pena Nieto ...

Finally, we wish to express our support for the struggle of the Ayotzinapa social movement made up above all of millions of students and youth in Mexico and around the world who share the same demands, and our solidarity with those who have been unjustly repressed and arrested and who must be immediately released.  “Alive they were taken, alive we want them back!”

therefore be it

RESOLVED, that the UFT endorses the above solidarity statement of the Workers’ Economy conference in Mexico City and will send copies of this resolution to the relevant authorities in Mexico and the United States, as well as to the faculty and students of the Ayotzinapa Teachers College.