CNTE Warns Sheinbaum: Meet Our Demands or We Protest at World Cup Inauguration
This article by Alexia Villaseñor and Jared Laureles originally appeared in the June 9, 2026 edition of La Jornada, Mexico’s premier left wing daily newspaper.
Just 48 hours before the start of the FIFA World Cup, the National Coordinator of Education Workers (CNTE) demanded that President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo fulfill her campaign promise and put forward a proposal that meets the union’s demands, otherwise it will continue protesting on the day of the tournament’s inauguration.
At a press conference on Calzada de Tlalpan at its intersection with División del Norte, after being prevented from marching to the Estadio de la Ciudad de México by a tow-truck blockade set up by Mexico City police, the CNTE leadership stated that there is no proposal for dialogue to meet with the head of the Executive.
On the ninth day of the sit-in, in the cold but unbowed, Eva Hinojosa, union leader of Section 18 of Michoacán, demanded that “the president reconsider and maintain the resolution-oriented dialogue with the National Unified Negotiation Commission.”
She specified that they are not in the streets by choice but out of the urgent need to improve the working conditions of state workers.
Oaxacan teacher Yenny Aracely Pérez, union leader of Section 22, emphasized the need to meet at the National Palace with the president so that she can explain why they do not agree with the proposals delivered last week by the heads of the Interior Ministry, the Public Education Ministry, and the ISSSTE.
“Until when will they give concrete answers to our demands?” she asked.
Pedro Hernández, union leader of Section 9 in Mexico City, noted that on the ninth day of the national strike and 48 hours before the World Cup inauguration, “once again we are met with these barricades.”
Hernández displayed a document that, he said, is the proposal delivered to them by ISSSTE Director Martí Batres on pensions.
“He is trying to take us for fools,” he stated, since it does not address the main demand of repealing the 2007 ISSSTE Law.
The leader argued that the government initiative proposes transferring workers’ accounts to Pensionissste, but this maintains the individual-accounts scheme and is part of the ten other Afores, which manage accumulated resources amounting to 8.3 trillion pesos, equivalent to 23.8 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), according to figures from the National Commission of the Retirement Savings System (Consar).
He rejected the government’s arguments about the cost of reversing the pension system reform and challenged the authorities to publicly demonstrate that doing so would require resources equivalent to 20 points of the GDP.
“It is very easy to say that 20 points of the GDP are needed, but that is a lie. We challenge them to demonstrate it publicly,” he maintained.
He explained that Section 9’s proposal consists of incorporating the teachers currently in the individual-accounts system into the Tenth Transitory (the solidarity-based pension system), without affecting the resources accumulated by the public sector workers themselves.
“We are proposing something simple: that the 3.5 million workers in individual accounts be moved into the Tenth Transitory. We are not saying their resources should be taken away,” he stated.
He added that this measure would later make it possible to advance toward the repeal of the 2007 ISSSTE Law. He also questioned the argument that the reform cannot be reversed, which has been said due to international financial commitments.
Spaces for Dialogue, Not Negotiating Tables
For her part, Elvira Veleces, leader of Section 14 of Guerrero, maintained that the meetings with the federal government cannot be considered negotiating tables, but only spaces for dialogue.
She explained that, in the meetings led by Cabinet secretaries, the authorities have limited themselves to outlining the scope of social programs, without presenting concrete proposals that address the Coordinadora’s main demands.
“We have not negotiated anything as the Coordinadora because they have not presented a proposal that can be considered and that advances toward the repeal of the ISSSTE Law. Nor have they presented a proposal that would lead to the repeal of the education reform pushed during Enrique Peña Nieto’s government,” she stated.
Veleces noted that the teachers have come to listen to the government’s positions but considered that these are reduced to general guidelines that the authorities present as viable alternatives. However, she maintained that those proposals are far from responding to the movement’s demands.
“We have told them that this does not represent even a minimal part of what is sought with the repeal of these reforms,” she expressed.
She also asked the president to reconsider her proposal, and recalled that what the dissident teachers are asking for is a dignified pension, a return to the solidarity-based pension system, and for wages to be paid in minimum wages and not in UMA (Unit of Measurement and Update).
She emphasized that the movement should not be minimized, as she considered the president had done during her morning press conferences, since such actions do not resolve their demands.
On the police blockade, Hernández said he had communicated with the Mexico City Government Secretary, César Cravioto, to request that the demonstration be allowed to advance.
“I just communicated with him and told him that the only thing we are requesting is to be able to continue the path we have set for ourselves. This is a peaceful demonstration. The devices, the blows, and the gas will not come from this side,” he stated.
He demanded that authorities reveal who led the operation of June 1, when the national sit-in was set up, and who ordered the use of force against the demonstrators, in which the teacher Procesó Columbo “lost the sight of one eye.”
“Government Secretary, we require that they show who led the operation on June 1 and who gave the order to fire on the National Coordinator of Education Workers,” he expressed.
The more than seven thousand teachers, according to capital authorities’ figures, who marched from the vicinity of the Tasqueña light rail station are holding a rally on Calzada de Tlalpan and will later return to the sit-in near the capital’s Zócalo.
At night, they will install the National Representative Assembly, in which they will define the action plan for tomorrow and Thursday.
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