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As revealed by Canal N and seen on the Transparency Portal, Cruz received three leaders of the Fenate in his office on Wednesday, July 15. They are Mauro Concha Villegas, Segundo Vásquez González, and Walter Licla Zamora. The meeting lasted 50 minutes.
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Although the meeting took place on Wednesday, July 15, from 5:15 to 6:08 pm, the entries of the three leaders were only incorporated into the system on Thursday, July 16, under the condition of “late registration.”
As is known, the union organization is trying to reverse the administrative decision that annulled its registration three years ago.
This newspaper sought to gather comments from the head of the MTPE, but there was no response by the close of this edition.
The meeting took place a few days after Cruz did not rule out the possibility that Fenate could regain official recognition. Asked by RPP about a possible new registration of the union, the minister stated that it will depend on meeting the requirements established by the regulations.
“We would have to see. If all the requirements are met, it must be recognized, but if they are not met, time must be given to address and overcome the observations; if in the end it is not met, it could not be recognized”, he declared on Friday, July 10.
The meeting with the Fenate leaders also occurs amid a restructuring in the senior management of the Ministry of Labor. On the same day as the meeting, the Executive formalized the departure of the Deputy Ministers of Labor Employment Promotion and the appointment of a new Secretary General of the ministry through resolutions published in the official newspaper El Peruano.
On July 15, the Fenate leaders also visited the Ministry of Education, according to the Transparency Portal. In addition to the three leaders who went to the Ministry of Labor, Rolando Requiz Espinoza and Gregorio Huayhuarima participated. All were received by Roger Rodríguez Delgado, head of the Ministry’s Dialogue Office. The meeting took place between 12:04 p.m. and 1:04 p.m.
It is worth remembering that Fenate was founded by Pedro Castillo after the 2017 national teachers’ strike and emerged as an alternative organization to the Single Union of Workers in Education of Peru (Sutep).
In August 2021, a few weeks after the start of Castillo’s government, Fenate obtained its registration in the Public Sector Union Organizations Registry during the tenure of then Minister of Labor Iber Maraví, now an elected senator.
After the fall of Castillo’s government, the scenario changed. In June 2023, a directoral resolution from the Ministry of Labor declared the nullity of Fenate‘s registration, concluding that the procedure did not meet various technical requirements demanded for the recognition of public sector union organizations. Two months later, in August of the same year, a second administrative instance confirmed the decision.
Since then, Fenate has sought to recover its official recognition before the Ministry of Labor, a process currently under review again by the same ministry that this week received three of its main leaders in its office.
Criticisms
Former Interior Minister Rubén Vargas and former Deputy Minister of Internal Order Ricardo Valdés criticized that the Minister of Labor, Flavio Cruz, received Fenate leaders in his office. They also criticized that the meeting was registered late on the transparency portal.
For Vargas, Fenate represents a threat as it advocates the so-called “Gonzalo thought.” In that sense, he stated that organizations sharing that ideology should not be recognized by the State.
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“It is an organ generated by the political arm of Shining Path. So, any union or social organization that wants to formalize must clearly recognize the rules governing a democratic system, and that absolutely does not include having the so-called Gonzalo thought in its ideology,” he said.
He added that “the State, the government in power, cannot allow a union to formalize knowing what its ideology is, with which the murder of thousands of Peruvians was justified.”
He also criticized allowing extremist ideologies to seek influence in the education system.
“How long are we going to keep tolerating, as if it were not our concern, that far-left ideologies, like Gonzalo thought and Patria Roja, compete for the education of our children?” he said.
The former minister also criticized that the meeting was not timely registered on the transparency portal.
“When they do these procedures, public officials, knowing these meetings should not be held, try to do it clandestinely and start getting entangled with those meetings and the topics discussed,” he said.
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For his part, Valdés said: “I am concerned about this persistence of the José María Balcázar government to give space to an organization that, clearly, we know is a legacy of Shining Path. I am very concerned that this issue is insisted upon, when Iber Maraví already gave them the green light, but they lost it. They want to legitimize a movement that does not deserve it.”
In his opinion, the next presidential administration should review the appointments made during the current government, especially in the Ministry of Labor. In that line, he stated that Flavio Cruz seeks to favor Fenate.
“It should be remembered that Perú Libre came with a faction of Movadef members,” he emphasized.
Valdés also considered that the late registration of the meeting sought to avoid public scrutiny.
“Here there is a desire to hide the meeting and obscure transparency, which is absolutely necessary when voices have already been raised drawing attention to this closeness between Fenate and the current Cabinet,” he said.
Finally, he also held the President of the Council of Ministers, Luis Arroyo, responsible for not taking measures regarding these events.
“I don’t understand what is happening. He is a person who comes from the Armed Forces and knows perfectly well the role Shining Path played. I don’t understand this sidelining by the prime minister. I understand Balcázar because he has been trying for months to favor these factions and former president Pedro Castillo himself,” he concluded.
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