NEWS Teachers ABDUCT Coca Cola employees in Guerrero Protesting Mexican teachers abduct Coca-Cola employees
Mexico City, Feb 19 https://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/agencia-efe/150219/protesting-mexican-teachers-abduct-coca-cola-employees Teachers in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero are holding two Coca-Cola employees at their protest camp in the main square of Chilpancingo, the state capital, local media reported.
The incident began Wednesday afternoon when police arrested three purported trainee teachers accused by the beverage company of looting its trucks, according to the reports.
After learning of the arrests, some 40 teacher trainees riding in pick-up trucks went to a nearby Coca-Cola plant and removed two employees by force. Some media reports said the employees were high-level executives.
The employees were taken to the camp the CETEG teachers union set up several months ago in Chilpancingo's main square to press demands for better benefits.
Riot police tried to rescue the abducted employees but after violent clashes involving rocks, firecrackers and tear gas they withdrew without achieving their objective.
The CNTE, representing a third of Mexico's public school teachers, has mounted numerous protests against President Enrique Peña Nieto's 2013 education overhaul, which subjects teachers to a comprehensive regime of evaluation.
The union says it does not object in principle to teacher evaluation, only to the "punitive" scheme devised by the government, seen by the CNTE as setting the stage for massive layoffs.
CNTE activists also have joined protests over the case of 43 teacher trainees who were kidnapped on Sept. 26 of last year in Iguala, Guerrero, after coming under attack by police.
Federal authorities say corrupt local cops handed the students over to drug-cartel enforcers who killed them and burned their bodies at a dump.