The 1970s had seen a rapid expansion of the educational system in Mexico, with a subsequent increase in job mobility, especially from countryside to town. But with the onset of economic and fiscal crisis, career structures were frozen and wages were rapidly eroded by inflation. The 325,000 primary school teachers were worst affected, but those in secondary education were not much better off. Hence, it was economic demands for a fair wage, a moving wage scale (to be adjusted against inflation), and greater job security that provoked the first protest action by the teachers. This took place in the Agricultural Technical Schools (ETAs) of Chiapas in 1978 (Chispa Sindical, March 1978).

For many workers the economic pressures of the mid-1970s had been temporarily relieved by the oil-led boom of the late 1970s. But in Chiapas, especially in the north of the state, the teachers were far from feeling any relief. In this corner of the country they were suffering dramatic price inflation unleashed by oil exploration and hydroelectric construction. In effect, the heavy investment programs of the federal oil company (PEMEX) and the federal electricity commission (CFE) raised the local cost of living some 300 percent during the two years prior to September 1979. As the teachers tell it, everything was “at gringo prices” (a precio de gringo), and these inflationary pressures led them to focus their campaign on the unfreezing of the so-called cost-of-living bonuses (sobresueldos), which in Chiapas had remained unchanged since 1956 and were far inferior to those paid in other states such as Chihuahua and Baja California. In the teachers' view, changing conditions demanded a revision of the bonus.