Fetems

In the 1970s, together with Mato Grosso, an avant-garde trade union movement was born, organized by the teachers who taught in the public schools of the new state. It was the beginning of an ideal, which became struggles, which became rights and achievements. The Federation of Education Workers of Mato Grosso do Sul (FETEMS) is the result of the boldness and perseverance of men and women who believed that education is capable of transforming society.
The first union meetings had to be discreet, as the country still felt the repression of the military dictatorship. In the 1980s, there was a lot to do. The time was one of change and challenge, and the Education category struggled to defend the interests of the workers. Education was precarious in every way, there were no structural conditions, schools were lacking, there was no public competition, there was no established career.
In the claims agenda, along with salary issues, there has always been the struggle for a quality education, as well as for the professional valorization of the category, both teachers and administrators.
Faced with the difficulties, the way was to go to fight and try to change things. This is what the young people in the Mato Grosso do Sul Education Union movement did. The mobilization of workers in Education was done by word of mouth, from city to city. Everything was far away, the roads were bad. Even so, the meetings took place. The result of the collective effort was the founding of the Federation of Teachers of Mato Grosso do Sul (FEPROSUL) on March 3, 1979. The Federation of Education Workers of Mato Grosso do Sul (FETEMS) came ten years later, in 1989, when the entity joined the Workers' Central (CUT) during the State Congress held in the municipality of Amambai.
At that time, career unification also took place: teachers and school clerks were recognized as education workers, and associations were called trade unions.
Since its foundation, FETEMS has sought to play a transformative role in reality through education. Together with the municipal unions, it has been one of the main instruments of the category in the struggle for the conquest of a society in which there is distribution of socially produced income, social rights are respected, and there is appreciation of the human being with autonomy and freedom.
FETEMS is today the largest union entity in Mato Grosso do Sul, bringing together 73 affiliated municipal unions, more than 25,000 workers at the base, representing more than 50% of the state civil service.
The Fetems Application is a direct communication channel between its Sinteds and Affiliates, providing greater communication agility as well as the availability of the New Digital Carteirinha.