Thousands of teachers in the National Coordination of Education Workers (CNTE) went on strike and initiated a 25-day encampment in Mexico City’s vast square, the Zócalo, beginning May 15. These unionists are demanding that President Claudia Sheinbaum stand by her campaign promise to establish decent pensions for public workers.
Throughout her campaign, Sheinbaum pledged to reverse federal legislation that privatized and weakened pensions for all government workers. The teachers have focused their ire on the 2007 Social Security Reform Act (ISSSTE). This law moved the retirement funds from a traditional public pension system, with pooled funds, to individual savings plans managed by banks and private financial corporations. As U.S. workers with Individual Retirement Accounts have learned, such schemes enrich bankers at the expense of retirees’ income.
CNTE, the militant sector of the national teachers’ union, opposed the 2007 ISSSTE reform from the beginning and has been working to overturn it ever since. Sheinbaum’s campaign promises were part of her Morena Party’s efforts to garner votes from poor and working people while adhering to the same neoliberal, anti-working class policies of recent decades. Since the new president’s electoral victory in June 2024, CNTE has waged a series of strikes and actions to make Sheinbaum keep her word.
In summer 2024, teachers occupied the Zócalo for 27 days. They followed this with a 48-hour strike on March 6–7 of this year, and a three-day work stoppage March 19–21. With each mobilization, support for the educators grows. CNTE activists are reaching out to other public worker unions, like university faculty and staff, healthcare providers, and government administrative employees, to build a broader movement.
Sheinbaum’s response to the teachers is that she cannot call for overturning the Social Security Reform Act because there is no money in the budget to improve retirement benefits. What’s actually lacking is the political will to tax the rich in Mexico at rates seen in other Latin American countries like Brazil and Chile. This would readily provide the funds needed to improve pensions, healthcare and other services. A leader who truly represents workers would move to tap such wealth. More and more Mexicans each day are disappointed by Sheinbaum’s failure to deliver on her campaign promises. They are seeing through her progressive veneer.
Through their relentless struggle, CNTE teachers are making history in exposing Sheinbaum and the Morena party for what they really are — defenders of the corporate class and international capital.
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