The National Coordinator of Education Workers (CNTE) agreed at its national assembly to hold a 72-hour national strike in the first quarter of 2026, as well as to strengthen protests at events attended by President Claudia Sheinbaum to compel her to meet their demands: repeal of the Law of the Institute of Security and Social Services for State Workers (ISSSTE) and the education reform.
At a press conference, secretaries from various CNTE sections accused President Claudia Sheinbaum of failing to re-establish dialogue and responding only with barricades, police, and tear gas to their demonstrations.
Yenny Pérez, general secretary of CNTE Section 22, denounced the president for exerting media pressure on dissident teachers, promoting the narrative that teachers are being heard or that only a few are mobilizing, which, she asserted, is not the case.
“While there is no persecution of us as leaders, the persecution from the Presidential Palace is media-driven, targeting the movement in general, the CNTE, by claiming we are few and a minority when in reality there are many of us who continue this constant struggle,” she said.
The secretary of CNTE Section 22 indicated that they seek to inform all state employees about the impacts of the 2007 ISSSTE Law with the goal of bringing more sectors into the strike that would begin in the first quarter of next year, following the National Representative Assembly to be held on January 31 in Mérida, Yucatán.
“We hope that with this national outreach, we can reach not only CNTE teachers, but teachers nationwide, as well as other sectors, and that with this we can have much greater participation than we had in May and June with the national strike we held in Mexico City,” she noted.
Meanwhile, Pedro Hernández, general secretary of Section 9 of the CNTE teachers’ union, added that the repression is also administrative, since the deductions made from the salaries of education workers for participating in the national strike in May and June have not been reimbursed.
“This administrative repression means that more than 20,000 teachers in Mexico City have had their salaries docked, totaling more than 65 million pesos, and only partial refunds have been made. We demand that the agreement with the president be honored. She even gave us a document on March 18th stating that there would be no repression of any kind,” he said.
Source: elfinanciero
