Salvadoran teachers strike for wages, 1971
Summary
In the summer of 1971, the National Association of Salvadoran Educators (ANDES) ran a 53-day national teachers’ strike demanding a modernized salary scale, social security, and better school infrastructure. [source: nv-database] The strike was declared illegal under Decree 390 but drew in roughly 50,000 participants including students, Catholic parishes, and peasant organizations. The campaign did not win a single material demand; the source scores it 1 of 6 on demand achievement. However, ANDES declared an “unqualified success in advancing the socio-political struggle,” and members left the strike radicalized, eventually feeding into the United Popular Action Front (FAPU). [source: nv-database]
Tactics used
Background
In 1968, President Fidel Sánchez Hernández launched national education reform that required teachers to pass every student regardless of performance, replaced parts of the curriculum with televised lessons, and standardized content Salvadoran teachers considered alien. [source: nv-database] These changes reinforced an already-existing discontent over low pay, poor infrastructure, and the absence of benefits. ANDES began organizing congresses on the reform in December 1970, and in 1971 the legislature passed a teacher salary-scale law; the ANDES counterproposal was rejected outright, prompting the strike call. [source: nv-database]
What happened
The government declared the strike illegal under Decree 390 and the National Guard began arresting traveling ANDES campaigners carrying pamphlets. [source: nv-database]
The campaign drew support from Catholic labor unions, opposing political parties (the PDC and MNR), the Central American University (UCA), the peasant movement, and high school and college students. Students held solidarity strikes, fundraisers, and marches; the university community raised roughly $5,200 for striking teachers and donated printing services so ANDES could publish its own newspapers and leaflets. Church members opened their parishes as safe spaces for ANDES strategy meetings. [source: nv-database] Total participation is estimated at 50,000.
In the town of Suchitoto, the local priest José Inocencio Alas (“Chencho”) used a Mass with roughly 10,000 celebrants as the launching pad for a march to the jail where arrested ANDES teachers were being held. The march ended in a rally and a vigil that lasted all night, with about 400 protesters maintaining presence through the early hours. [source: nv-database]
At 5:00 a.m., the town judge arrived and ordered the teachers released so their cases could be heard. By 11:00 a.m., all the imprisoned teachers had been freed and the crowd dispersed. [source: nv-database]
After 53 days on strike, ANDES called off the action having won none of its material demands. The organization nonetheless declared the campaign “an unqualified success in advancing the socio-political struggle,” and its members began reframing the education reform as a tool of “Yankee imperialism” and of the dominant Salvadoran class — a shift that contributed to the formation of the United Popular Action Front (FAPU) in 1974. [source: nv-database]
Key people & organizations
- José Mario López — ANDES Secretary General at the time [source: nv-database]
- ANDES (Asociación Nacional de Educadores Salvadoreños) — National Association of Salvadoran Educators [source: nv-database]
- Father José Inocencio “Chencho” Alas — activist priest who used Mass to launch a march on the Suchitoto jail [source: nv-database]
- Central American University (UCA) — students and printing services [source: nv-database]
- PDC (Christian Democratic Party) and MNR (National Revolutionary Movement) — political supporters [source: nv-database]
- FAPU (United Popular Action Front) — the coalition many ANDES members would later help build [source: nv-database]
- The National Guard — executing the government’s Decree 390 [source: nv-database]
Outcome
Verdict: lost.
None of the teachers’ material demands — modernized salary scale, social security, better infrastructure — were met. [source: nv-database] The campaign scored 1 of 6 on demand achievement. However, the strike radicalized ANDES members and laid organizational groundwork that contributed to the founding of FAPU in 1974. The source frames this as a “lost as strike, won as catalyst” pattern. [source: nv-database]
Lessons
- A strike that loses on its stated demands can still win on its secondary goal if it deepens its participants’ political analysis.
- Using religious liturgy (Mass, vigils) as a launching pad for civic action can draw in congregations that might not otherwise join a formal strike [source: nv-database]
- Government declarations of illegality (here, Decree 390) rarely suppress a strike that already has broad support; they mainly determine the legal risk each participant is taking [source: nv-database]
Sources
Disclaimer: Included as a teaching example of campaign craft, not as endorsement.
Sources & verification
nv-database— grounding: primary — license: link-only / all-rights-reserved (ND-style; content paraphrased, not quoted)- Verified: 2026-07-04 by human