Mexican Unions Formerly Affiliated with PRI are now with MORENA

ByDulce Olvera

This article by Dulce Olvera originally appeared in the December 22, 2025 edition of Sin Embargo.

Mexico City. Union leaders from the National Union of Education Workers (SNTE), Mexican Petroleum Workers Union (STPRM), the Revolutionary Confederation of Workers and Peasants (CROC), and the Railway Workers Union (STFRM) have joined the government project of President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo.

In the recent events organized by President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo in the Zócalo of Mexico City, on October 5 for the First Year of Government and on December 6 for the Seven Years of Transformation, the leaders of these unions have mobilized their bases to mark their presence in the plaza with symbols such as flags and zeppelins, political operations that they used to do for events of the PRI, formerly Mexico’s hegemonic party.

“We are against the corporatism that existed throughout the PRI era,” President Sheinbaum stated one day after her government report in the Zócalo of the capital, in response to a direct question about the massive presence of union, peasant, worker and business organizations.

Corporatism – a product of the political pact between the Lázaro Cárdenas government and labour unions – was one of the structural pillars of the PRI regime, and that regime used it to benefit protected businessmen at the expense of workers’ wages, writes SinEmbargo columnist and political scientist Javier Romero Vadillo.

During the so-called Fourth Transformation, the minimum wage has increased by 154 percent since 2018, which resulted – along with social programs – in 13.5 million people leaving the poverty level.

But the 40HorasYa collective accuses Pedro Haces, a Morena party congressman and union leader of CATEM —a friend of magnate Carlos Slim—of pushing for the gradual reduction of the workweek from 48 to 40 hours by 2030, which puts Mexico behind other countries like Chile in this area. CATEM, accused of running extortion rings in Durango and Sonora, has also been present at both presidential events, as has the Mexican Electrical Workers Union.

The Ministry of Labor promoted the labour reform in 2019 to guarantee free and democratic elections in unions to prevent leaders from being re-elected and illicitly enriching themselves as happened with the teachers’ union leader Elba Esther Gordillo – who even formed her own political party – or the oil union leader Carlos Romero Deschamps, who died with impunity.

Senator and head of SNTE, Alfonso Cepeda Salas, whose appointment as unelected Senator allows him to benefit from immunity from corruption investigations, seated with Delfina Gómez Álvarez, Governor of Mexico State who has proposed to raise the retirement age from 62 to 65 and an advanced age retirement from age 67 to 70.

SNTE vs CNTE

The SNTE teachers’ union leader and Morena Senator, Alfonso Cepeda Salas, has a seat in the Senate, as was previously the case with PRI-affiliated charro leaders like Carlos Aceves del Olmo of the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM), whose assembly this year was inaugurated by the Secretary of Labour, Marath Bolaños.

The leader and member of the Morena party controls the movement’s narrative and even reprimands dissidents who call for a strike. During the Teacher’s Day event, he stated, in the presence of President Claudia Sheinbaum:

“In the National Union of Education Workers, we fight for better living conditions, for more and better economic, health, and social security benefits, for professional development and advancement, but we also fight for the well-being and progress of the people, for the education of all Mexicans. We transcend labor representation to participate in the consolidation of a popular national project with a clear sense of justice in favor of those who have the least,” he said.

As part of the massive membership drive promoted by the Morena leadership, union leader Cepeda Salas pledged to enroll more than 1.5 million of the 2.5 million teachers in the SNTE (National Union of Education Workers). He stated that by September of this year, the goal had been expanded to 5 million teachers, their families, and friends by the end of the next school year.

“The teaching profession is diverse; we have members from all parties, but many are convinced they should join Morena, and we will facilitate their affiliation,” Cepeda told the press in February. “I believe we can convince 1.5 million of them; we can convince the rest, but it’s a medium- to long-term process… But teachers have families, friends, they spread out, and we believe we can contribute 5.5 million, not immediately, but within the time we have to convince them to join.”

In contrast, teachers from the dissident National Coordinator of Education Workers (CNTE) carried out various blockades and demonstrations this year in their strongholds such as Oaxaca, Michoacán and Mexico City to demand a dignified retirement and question the enrichment of the owners of the AFORES pension funds, a tripartite neoliberal retirement model.

They even threatened blockades on the eve of the judicial election on June 1 and again threatened protests to disrupt the organization of the 2026 World Cup.

Deschamps’s Heir

That Sunday, October 5, during President Claudia Sheinbaum’s first State of the Union address, photographs from the federal government show a white zeppelin floating in the front row with the name “Ricardo Aldana,” that is, the Pemex union leader, protégé of the corrupt union leader Carlos Romero Deschamps, and who participated in the Pemexgate scandal when he was the union’s treasurer.

The labor reform proposes a free and secret vote in unions, but Aldana’s election in 2022 and re-election in 2024 have been criticized by dissident oil workers for reproducing the same vices of corporatism.

A zeppelin belonging to Ricardo Aldana, leader of the Pemex union linked to the Pemexgate scandal, on October 5, 2025, during the first State of the Union address by President Claudia Sheinbaum. Balloons from the CATEM union fly nearby. Photo: Jessica Ramírez, Presidency.

Alan Aldape, a worker at the Cadereyta Refinery, asserted on the eve of the reelection that Aldana’s group is a union mafia that should be investigated by the Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF), since although thousands of workers pay union dues, they don’t even have access to profit sharing. He predicted, as indeed happened, that Aldana would be reelected because the union is both judge and jury in the organization, counting, and registration of votes in the election, and has the necessary resources and a large workforce.

In the 2022 election, when she replaced Romero Deschamps, union leaders from various sections pressured oil workers to send proof of their vote for Aldana, according to WhatsApp messages and audio recordings. There were also reports of voter transportation at both Aldana’s campaign closing event and on election day to “guarantee her victory.”

The energy-focused media outlet Global Energy reported this December that companies linked to the sons of Pemex union leader Ricardo and Luis Antonio Aldana Patrón have obtained contracts from the Ministry of National Defense (Sedena) or the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) to sell diesel in 2023 and 2024 on behalf of the Sonora-based company Gas Azul de Nogales.

Mexicans and MORENA members alike were shocked earlier this year when right winger Adrián Rubalcava was appointed to head the Mexico City metro, one of the world’s most important public transit systems, given his total lack of experience with public transportation, allegations swirling about his involvement with organized crime and a record of fiscal incompetence, but he and his were already appearing at Sheinbaum campaign events in May of 2024.

Balloons from the Dragons, the political group of Adrián Rubalcava, former mayor of Cuajimalpa and current director of the Metro, also flew over the presidential events, as did balloons from CATEM, the union of the controversial Pedro Haces. Business owners from the Laguna region and Sonora accuse CATEM of extortion, but Security Secretary Omar García Harfuch exonerated Haces.

“What we like is that people arrive individually,” President Sheinbaum stated in October from the National Palace.

But union leaders once again ensured group attendance on Saturday, December 6. The SNTE, led by Morena party member Alfonso Cepeda, again displayed orange flags and distributed lunches in single-use plastic containers. In the morning press conference following the “Tiger March,” the president reiterated:

“We have always been against any bribe in exchange for participating in an event. It should not happen (…) we will never approve of it, it is not the way we act nor the way we use to call for a mobilization.”

On Saturday, December 6, the initials of the CROC, the Revolutionary Confederation of Workers and Peasants, one of the PRI’s union arms, also stood out in red. It had been led since 2005 by Isaías González Cuevas, a PRI legislator until 2021. In August 2025, Mario Machuca Sánchez, the CROC union leader in Cancún, was murdered.

Dulce Olvera is a reporter covering climate crisis, human rights, and economic issues. She co-hosts Dos con Todo with Monserrat Antúnez on SinEmbargo al Aire.