This article by Jared Laureles and Jessica Xantomila first appeared in the April 30, 2025 edition of La Jornada, Mexico’s premier leftist daily newspaper.
Mexico City. Reducing the workweek from 48 to 40 hours, paying pensions in minimum wages rather than in Units of Measurement and Update (UMA), and eliminating taxes on benefits such as Christmas bonuses are some of the main demands that union organizations will raise during the May 1st march to commemorate Labor Day.
Various unions will attend this mobilization next Thursday, but the bloc formed by the General Association of Workers (AGT) and the National Union of Workers (UNT) warned that there is a risk that the traditional rally on the Zócalo square will not take place due to the structures and tents installed by the Mexico City government for Children’s Day activities.
Therefore, contingents of miners, university students, telephone operators, farmers, and others affiliated with these unions will have to surround the Plaza de la Constitución esplanade, because, so far, “there has been no positive response to providing us” with the space, indicated Rodolfo González, general secretary of the Mexican Workers’ Confederation (CROM).
He said a small platform will be set up next to the Metropolitan Cathedral, “but we won’t be stopping at the Zócalo. The general secretaries will watch the contingents pass by, and each labor union will probably take their positions there.”
At a press conference, he indicated that, in addition to demanding an increase in the Christmas bonus received by private sector workers from 15 to 30 days, they will also call for the reestablishment of dialogue between the federal government and the union organizations that comprise the AGT (General Confederation of Labor), in order to take action against the U.S. government’s policies.
González mentioned that after the mobilizations, they will have lunch with President Claudia Sheinbaum, to whom, he said, they will deliver a document “telling her that we must reestablish permanent social dialogue.”
He acknowledged that unionism “has lost a great deal of strength, it has declined,” due to “ferocious economic policies” aimed at diminishing the benefits of the working class.
“We are scattered and have not had the capacity to organize ourselves” to defend workers, as was the case with the exemplary struggle of the National Coordinators of Education Workers (CNTE) to overturn the reform of the ISSSTE Law. They did have the capacity,” he said.
One of the marches will depart from the Angel of Independence and will be led by organizations affiliated with the New Central of Workers and the CNTE, which will insist on the repeal of the 2007 reforms to the ISSSTE Law and the Education Law of Enrique Peña Nieto’s administration.
Meanwhile, other contingents of workers affiliated with the AGT and UNT will gather at the Lázaro Cárdenas Central Axis and Juárez Avenue.
Both mobilizations will converge at the Zócalo.
As for the unions that are part of the Labor Congress (CT), such as the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM) and railroad workers, they have agreed to once again suspend their participation in the May 1st rallies, union sources indicated.
Separately, the National Front for 40 Hours announced that it has filed an injunction seeking “immediate and prompt approval” by federal deputies in the current legislature of the reform proposal drafted in 2022 to reduce the work week with two days off and improve workers’ working conditions.
The group delivered a letter to President Sheinbaum and Secretary of Labor Marath Bolaños at the National Palace on Tuesday requesting approval of this proposal.
They recalled that there are currently six initiatives ready for discussion in the Chamber of Deputies.
“All that’s missing is the political will of legislators, and of course, the president, to approve this reform, which will be part of addressing the public health and economic problems posed by grueling workdays,” they stated at a press conference outside the National Palace.