Below are three resolutions which will form the basis of the MSF’s campaigning work in 2015. These were discussed and voted on at the MSF conference in February 2015. If you’d like to get involved with our campaigning work, or bring our campaigns to your school or university, get in touch with campaigns@marxiststudent.com
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Solidarity with Mexico
Mexico is in the middle of a humanitarian crisis; since 2006, at least 22,000 people have been forcefully disappeared and in roughly 40% of these cases there was no criminal investigation. One recent disappearance was of 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teaching School on the 26th of September 2014 after they were attacked by local police. It is clear that the students were abducted by the police and handed to criminal cartel organisation. New evidence has emerged pointing at the complicity of the federal government and the Army. HSBC were fined $1.9 Billion for their part in laundering money from the drug trade. What has emerged is a complex web of links and collusion between the state, big business, the drug cartels and the main political parties.
The attack on these student teachers was politically motivated and has not gone unnoticed. This incident has acted as the catalyst to nation wide protests against the corruption of the Mexican government, state repression, privatisation and lack of funding in education. The struggle of the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN) students and the work of the Rural Teachers are an inspiration for the labour and student movement world wide.
2015 is “The Year of the UK in Mexico”. This will be used by the Mexican regime to offer the country for sale to multinational companies as well as projecting the image of a modern, democratic and above all “business friendly” country.
We must push for the NUS to take a decisive stance in support of the students and all those joining the struggle in Mexico to fight for a better world. We must also urge the NUS and local trade union branches (UCU, Unite and Unison) operating in universities to seek out the practicalities of affiliation and forging links with the students movement (including that of the IPN) and democratic teachers unions in Mexico.
We must build support for and join the protests schedued for 3 – 5 March 2015 against the visit of the Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto to the UK. We must continue to strengthen our links with Mexican students in Britain and the differentMexico Solidarity organisations all over the country.
An injury to one is an injury to all!
Justice for the Ayotzinapa 43! They took them alive, we want them back alive!
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Justice for blacklisted workers!
The Marxist Student Federation condemns the blacklisting of workers by construction companies and gives full support to the call from the TUC for a full ‘Leveson-style’ inquiry into blacklisting in the UK.
The Marxist Student Federation calls on the Universities to refuse to grant construction contracts to any company which is known to have participated in blacklisting. The Marxist Student Federation acknowledges the Procurement Advice Note issued by the Welsh government in September 2013 and calls on the Universities to put effective measures in place to ensure that nowhere on their campus or halls of residence is tainted by blacklisting.
