Today’s SUTEP is quite different from the class-based union that emerged in the 1970s. It retains much of its symbolism, language, and historical references, but the practices that guide its actions have changed. The union’s trajectory during this century can be understood as a shift from class-based activism toward a relationship of political tutelage with Patria Roja; and subsequently toward what I call corporate unionism.

The story goes back quite a ways. Since its founding, SUTEP has maintained a close relationship with Patria Roja. For decades, the union’s top leaders were also party cadres, and the union’s strategic decisions were, to a large extent, shaped by the party’s political leadership. Using the concept of “tutelary order” developed by Nugent, this relationship can be understood as a form of tutelage in which one organization formally retains its autonomy, but another body sets the limits within which key decisions are made. In the case of SUTEP, the party leadership intervened in the selection of top leaders, defined political orientations, and exerted decisive influence over union representation in the Derrama Magisterial.

However, this relationship gave rise to a paradox. While the union continued to use class-based language, the Derrama’s leadership gradually introduced a different rationale into its operations.

When SUTEP took over the administration of Derrama Magisterial in 1984, it inherited a severely weakened institution. Over the years, Derrama Magisterial was professionalized, expanded its financial operations, and became an economically powerful institution. The very experience of managing it gradually shaped a management culture based on efficiency, profitability, professionalization, and the technical management of resources. My research reveals precisely such an efficiency-driven, profit-oriented organizational culture, which enabled the Derrama to develop a significant investment portfolio and an institutional framework that went far beyond traditional union activities.

This is where what I call “corporate” or “managerial” unionism begins to take shape. It does not simply mean that a union owns companies or manages financial resources. The change runs deeper: the logic of management begins to shape union practices as well. Politics is gradually ceasing to be understood as a tool for transforming social relations and is increasingly becoming a means to obtain resources, maintain institutional positions, secure union leave, manage organizations, and strengthen the union’s structure.

For quite some time, this corporate unionism coexisted under the tutelage of Patria Roja. The party provided political leadership and cadres; SUTEP contributed organization, a national presence, and resources; and Derrama offered an extraordinarily important material foundation. The contradiction between class struggle and corporate management could be sustained because both dimensions were integrated within the same framework.

But that structure began to break down.

The 2017 teachers’ strike was not the first sign, but it was the most significant one. SUTEP had been losing its ability to lead the teachers’ mobilization, and regional leaderships and groups linked to CONARE and other alternative teachers’ movements emerged, openly challenging SUTEP’s claim to representation. The union’s subsequent response was to rebuild its connection with the rank and file, while simultaneously reinforcing its image as a professional, responsible union that was technically prepared to negotiate with the government. Mobilization ceased to be the central focus, and greater importance was placed on governance, institutional dialogue, and achieving concrete results through negotiation.

The election of Lucio Castro as general secretary in 2019 accelerated this process. Castro came from Patria Roja, but he gradually built his own network within the union. The conflict became explicit in 2022, when he decided to run for reelection even though the party had established a different policy. Until then, Patria Roja had maintained a fairly effective mechanism for rotating and selecting leaders. In practice, the general secretary was politically vetted by the party, and reelection was not customary. Castro broke that rule. Consequently, Patria Roja suspended the party membership of Lucio Castro and Alfredo Velásquez for acting against the party’s decision regarding who should lead SUTEP. 

The second dispute was even more significant because it directly involved the Derrama Magisterial. Traditionally, SUTEP representatives on its board of directors were selected within the political structure of Patria Roja. Castro argued that it was the union’s responsibility to make that appointment and installed leaders affiliated with his own group. That was the point at which the old arrangement broke down definitively. Patria Roja ended up expelling Castro and other leaders. The party lost its influence over the union’s national leadership, while the new leadership group retained control of the union and a decisive position within the Derrama. In 2024, the Central Committee of Patria Roja ordered the expulsion of Castro and other leaders affiliated with his group.

This outcome is important for understanding the current SUTEP. While Patria Roja no longer exercises control over the union, the pro-business unionism that had developed under its influence has not disappeared. On the contrary, it has likely grown stronger.

The old party bureaucracy is being replaced by a truly union-based bureaucracy that has organizational resources, technical expertise, and access to union dues. In my doctoral research, I point out that the process is still ongoing and could lead either toward a personality-driven leadership or toward the establishment of a stable and professionalized leadership body. The most recent developments seem to point toward the latter possibility: a union leadership that is more autonomous, technically sophisticated, and committed to preserving its institutional capacity for negotiation with a high degree of pragmatism.

The events of 2026 seem to mark the end of a phase in SUTEP’s transformation. The break with Patria Roja had put an end to the old system of political patronage; the withdrawal from the CGTP now marks a second, even more profound rupture. This is not merely an organizational decision. It is a historic event in the history of Peruvian teachers’ unionism, because it separates SUTEP from the main class-based labor federation with which it had maintained a political relationship for decades.

This disaffiliation can be understood as the culmination of a longer process. SUTEP retains symbols, references, and much of the language of class-based organizing, but its union practices have gradually been organized around a different rationale. The administration of the Derrama Magisterial fund, the professionalization of management, the defense of institutional resources, and the construction of a leadership structure that is increasingly autonomous from the party have consolidated an identity-based framework of corporate unionism. Politics is increasingly seen as a means to obtain resources, secure institutional positions, and maintain the capacity to engage with the state. Within this framework, the political identity of the interlocutor becomes less important than their usefulness to the organization’s objectives.

The CGTP’s withdrawal is particularly significant because it severs one of the last organic ties connecting SUTEP to the historical tradition of class-based unionism. Until now, that tradition had been able to coexist with managerial and pragmatic practices. The question is what will happen when that institutional anchor also disappears.

This raises the question of what kind of discourse will characterize this new phase. SUTEP may continue to use a confrontational, rights-based rhetoric that broadly defends workers—a legacy of class-based organizing—even as its organization increasingly operates according to a business-oriented logic. But it may also move toward a more conciliatory discourse, focused on dialogue, governance, and building agreements with the state, regardless of the government’s political affiliation.

This second path would bring SUTEP closer to certain characteristics of neo-corporatist unionism. There are, however, significant differences. Over decades, the FTCCP has built a relatively stable institutional relationship with CAPECO and the government centered on sector-based collective bargaining. SUTEP lacks an equivalent structure, and its relationship with the government remains more volatile. For this reason, it is still premature to speak of a consolidated neocorporatist arrangement.

This process gives rise to a particularly significant paradox. Class consciousness may persist as memory, language, and a source of legitimacy, while strategic decisions are increasingly organized around resource management, institutional stability, and negotiation with political power. The question that remains is whether this gap between discourse and practice can be maintained or whether, ultimately, SUTEP’s discourse will also end up adapting to the new identity framework.