Setback for Universities for Well-being: Injunctions granted to dismissed teachers

MEXICO CITY (apro) .- In the midst of a four-year legal battle, in which they had the support of civil and union organizations, a group of teachers fired from the Universities for the Well-being of Benito Juárez García (UBBJ) obtained three injunctions that recognized their employment relationship with that organization.

The protection opens the door to reinstatement, payment of lost wages, and regularization of employer-employee payments.

The decisions of the collegiate courts, issued in early June, instruct the Federal Board of Conciliation and Arbitration to issue new rulings on the dispute between professors and UBBJ, considering that there is an employment relationship between the two, asserted attorney Juan de Dios Hernández Monge.

At a press conference, the lawyer recalled that "the federal government and the local governments of the currently dominant party decided that UBBJ workers weren't workers," and lamented that the program is "rotten from a labor perspective."

"There are still three cases pending resolution," emphasized Professor Omar Rivas, who urged the judges to resolve the pending injunctions "as soon as possible," considering that the agency designed contractual clauses that are "harmful and a simulation of rights."

Teachers at the UBBJ (University of Buenos Aires University), created by former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to establish campuses in areas excluded from university services, face a peculiar situation: the organization led by Raquel Sosa Elizalde, a loyal supporter of the former president, maintains that the teachers are not workers but beneficiaries of a social program, which deprives them of all labor rights.

To join the institution, teachers had to sign educational service agreements, which present more than 20 grounds for termination, proof—according to the lawyer—of the employment relationship between the UBBJ coordinating body and the teachers.

"They gave us work schedules, we were under some supervision from members of the organization, and we received a recurring salary. All of this constitutes an employment relationship," Professor Rivas insisted.

The precariousness of the teaching staff came to light in the summer of 2021, when nearly 120 teachers were notified of their dismissal by email. The shock was enormous, as several of them had been founders of the program and had developed the curricula; Sosa's team later told them they did not meet the institution's required profile.

Initially, the now-defunct Federal Board of Conciliation and Arbitration No. 11 ruled in favor of the UBBJ, but an attempt at conciliation, supervised by the Secretary of Labor and Social Security, Marath Bolaños López, failed due to the impossibility of reaching an agreement.

A group of nearly 40 teachers who worked at campuses in Oaxaca, Guerrero, Tabasco, Sinaloa, Tlaxcala, Veracruz, and Tamaulipas then embarked on a legal battle to gain recognition of their employment relationship and reinstatement.

Attorney Hernández reported that, during the trial stages, Sosa lobbied former employees to drop their claims and influenced the Ministry of Labor to obtain rulings in his favor.

Sosa was confirmed in her position as head of the UBBJ by President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, and continued hiring teachers from the program as subsidy recipients.

"The next step is to see how we're going to reinstate them, because Raquel Sosa said she won't accept anyone's reinstatement," lamented Juan de Dios Hernández, who points out that the question remains as to what the government will do regarding the current UBBJ workers. "Will they recognize them as workers, or will they have to sue?" he asked.