[Note that healthcare workers have vowed to join the strike tomorrow. Note also that the $#!*ing AP repeats uncritically the golpista arguments legitimating the coup because the Court and Congress planned it, and linking Zelaya to Chavez, and refers to the FNRP as "a coalition of Zelaya backers" at a time when AP reporters have been suffering for years the same kind of neoliberal restructuring attacks on their union and labor structures that confront Honduran teachers and students today. The author also misrepresents the proposed law, which would actually completely destroy public education (not just hand power over to parents). Maybe it was an editor. Or maybe it was just Freddy Cuevas, pandering as usual to the oligarchy. In any case, read between the lines and there's a story there.] Click title to see article with links embedded (I didn't bother here) at MSNBC's website, story from the Associated Press:

Honduran president threatens striking teachers
Protesters are demanding back pay; they also oppose a proposed law that would give parents oversight of schools
Associated Press
updated 3/27/2011 12:13:56 PM ET

A demonstrator kicks at a cloud of tear gas during a protest in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, on March 24. Teachers have taken to the streets to demand their six months in back pay. The educators are also upset over a bill being discussed by lawmakers that would allow parents to monitor teachers' work in the classroom. At least four soldiers were injured and 13 people arrested Thursday.

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — Honduran President Porfirio Lobo on Sunday threatened to fire teachers if they continue a three-week-old strike that has aggravated divisions caused by a 2009 coup.

Teachers who fail to show up in classrooms Monday will be suspended without pay, according to the president's decree, which was read on radio and television stations. If teachers don't appear by April 4, they will be fired.

Lobo said he has the power to dissolve the teachers' unions for backing the strike.

The protesters oppose a proposed law that would give parents oversight of schools and they say the government owes six months of back pay to 6,000 teachers. They also demanding the return of leftist former President Manuel Zelaya, who was ousted in a 2009 coup backed by the nation's congress and courts.

Zelaya's term ended in January 2010, but many Zelaya backers argue Lobo's election was illegitimate because it occurred under an interim government installed by the coup.

A judge last week dropped arrest warrants against Zelaya so that he can return without fear of arrest, but the former leader, an ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, said he fears he will be killed if he comes back.

The unions immediately rejected Lobo's ultimatum.

"We are in the streets and we will stay there," said Jaime Rodriguez, president of the middle-school teachers' union.

Another union leader, Daniel Duron, warned that Lobo's order "will create greater confrontation" and complicate efforts to solve the dispute through dialogue.

A union for more than 14.000 hospital workers has vowed to join the strike on Monday and a coalition of Zelaya backers, the People's National Resistance Front, is calling for a general strike on Wednesday. The teachers have been a key force within the Front.