‘School by School’ There Will Be Direct Dialogue With Teachers, Not Only With Union Leadership: Sheinbaum

ByAlma E. Muñoz and Alonso Urrutia

This article by Alma E. Muñoz and Alonso Urrutia originally appeared in the June 11, 2026 edition of La Jornada, Mexico’s premier left wing daily newspaper.

Mexico City. Reaffirming that “Mexico is a country of democracy and liberties,” where there is no repression, President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo announced that starting in August the teaching rank and file will be consulted directly, school by school, and no longer through the union leadership, regarding the elimination of the Unit of the System for the Career of Women and Men Teachers (Ussicamm) and its alternative.

She reaffirmed that dialogue will continue with the National Coordinator of Education Workers (CNTE), but there are “more than a million teachers, let’s go straight to them, why should we keep getting locked into a discussion that isn’t leading us to any way out?”

“The consultation is going to be with them, direct, with no intermediaries, school by school. That’s where we’re going, why be locked into a representation without really knowing whether all the agreements or proposals being made are communicated, better that we go direct,” she insisted at her press conference.

She stated that dialogue will continue with the CNTE, “but the truth is many proposals were made; just yesterday they stayed several hours at the Ministry of the Interior and in the end they decided they are still going to hold a demonstration today, well, we can’t just stay only in those meetings either.”

“Let’s go to the teachers to tell them what we are doing directly, without intermediaries, and of course there are the union representations. The SNTE is in many sections,” and with the CNTE they are still “negotiating many things, but it is important that down at the base level people know what we are proposing.” And dialogue continues with the CNTE, and in the end they said yesterday still.

Regarding today’s mobilization, she emphasized that she will not act as in the era of Miguel Ángel Mancera, when, on account of the education reform, the capital police and “something federal” were used to remove them “with repression” from the Zócalo. “We do not agree with that, at the same time as we open dialogue.”

The head of state said the country must keep moving forward and stressed her decision to “go with the rank and file. We also have to keep moving forward. So our decision is to go with the rank and file, to go with the women and men teachers.”

She considered that it would “hardly” be acceptable to return to a situation in which the union leadership, together with state governments, “decide who comes in or how they move from one place to another. That generated enormous corruption. So, better that the women and men teachers down at the base level decide, directly, gathering the opinion of everyone.”

—Won’t this complicate the situation with the CNTE even more?

—No, because they are the women and men teachers. Dialogue continues, but we want to know, for example, whether teachers in the states, down at the base level, know all the proposals we have made on a tripartite basis to improve the conditions of teachers, since maybe the information that there will be more positions for teachers in Oaxaca, or that support is being given to schools, doesn’t reach them.

“So we’d better inform them directly. Through the teachers, because they also have their academic structures, the technical councils… and meanwhile it isn’t that we are closing the door on dialogue, dialogue continues, but things can’t stay that way. And with the SNTE there is very good dialogue.”