The National Coordinator of Education Operators (CNTE) was unable to carry out the dialogue she hoped for this Thursday with President Claudia Sheinbaum. The massive march, which began at 4:00 am, was met with the deployment of police and protective metal fences at the National Palace. After several attempts to overcome the blockade and repression with gas by the agents, the teachers continued their race towards the Congress of Deputies. There they intend to stage a 48-hour sit-in to protest broken agreements with the federal government regarding their demands on education and work, especially the abolition of the current pension plan and reform.
Sheinbaum assured from inside the National Palace, while teachers protested outside, that there is an open dialogue table in several states to address the demands. “They want to use violence to reach the National Palace, if many of their demands are met,” he explained, announcing that work continues on an alternative to repealing the ISSSTE reform, as there are no resources for such a demand. “The pension fund for Welfare has been created and other options are being worked on. As regards education reform, we have already proposed that there should be no impositions”, he indicated regarding the conversations he had with teachers on the evaluation of their teaching career.
This new sit-in, which will last until November 14, will take place at the Union Congress starting at 9 am. The Nation’s Supreme Court of Justice reported that the demonstrations, which affected operations near its building, forced the relocation of plenary sessions to an alternative location on Avenida Revolución 1508.
However, the CNTE march had already warned, when it declared an indefinite strike last May, that it would not accept any proposal other than the abolition of the ISSSTE law. In the requests, the priority is the return to the solidarity pensions of the previous law, instead of the privatized management through individual accounts or Afores and which eliminates the lifetime pension. They also ask for a return to pensions based on years of service and not age and a 100% increase in salaries. The government’s negotiating team responded then, as it does today, that the budget was not enough. The latest strike, which lasted 24 days and which sowed chaos in the capital, was suspended only thanks to some concessions from the Administration, such as the freezing and reduction of the retirement age or the 10% increase in salaries.
Now the union accuses Sheinbaum’s executive of not having done its duty. “The federal government has violated the agreements signed with the CNTE”, the teachers underline in the statement. They also accuse that the dialogue tables in the States have not resolved the claims, that there is a lack of political will to address the problems in the educational field and that there is repression of the union through threats and harassment by the Administration.
