CNTE Agrees to Lift Sit-In in Mexico City; "We Will Return With Greater Strength," They Affirm
mexicosolidarity.com
After 19 days, the CNTE recessed its strike against the 2007 ISSSTE Law; Section 22 of Oaxaca approved the pause 12,818-3,594, framing it as a regrouping.

This article by Laura Poy and Carolina Gómez originally appeared in the June 20, 2026 edition of La Jornada, Mexico’s premier left-wing daily newspaper.

Mexico City. The National Coordinator of Education Workers (CNTE) agreed last night to recess its national strike and lift the sit-in installed in Mexico City, as well as in various states.

At the close of its National Representative Assembly (ANR), it was reported that today they will conclude their day of struggle with a rally in front of the coordinator’s national headquarters, located at Belisario Domínguez 32, in the Historic Center.

Nineteen days after the start of their protests demanding the repeal of the 2007 ISSSTE Law, the secretary general of Section 22 of Oaxaca, Yenny Aracely Pérez Martínez, affirmed that “we went out to demand a dignified retirement, and during these days the federal government’s intransigence was made visible (at the national and international level),” a government that offered the mobilized teachers the creation of a public insurance agency to guarantee the payment of their pensions, and the disappearance of the Unit of the System for the Teachers’ Career (Usicamm).

At the reconvening of the assembly, at 10:19 p.m., the CNTE’s highest decision-making body, Professor Pedro Hernández Morales, secretary general of Section 9 of Mexico City, emphasized that determining the end of this phase of struggle is not synonymous with having been “defeated,” but rather is one more step toward “returning with greater strength, fortitude, and intelligence.”

Hours earlier, the leader explained that the ANR would be the space where each contingent would announce the results of its vote to define the strategy and the unified recess of the day of struggle.

Teachers gather their belongings on streets adjacent to the Zócalo of Mexico City

Photo: María Luisa Severiano

At night, in areas surrounding the capital’s Zócalo, hundreds of teachers, mainly from Oaxaca, began to take down their tents and gather their belongings, as on 5 de Mayo street at its intersection with Eje Central, as well as Tacuba and Filomeno Mata.

This came after Section 22 of Oaxaca agreed in its state assembly, held yesterday afternoon in Mexico City, on the “strategic ceasing of the mobilization” with 12,818 votes in favor and 3,594 against. Teachers from that state noted that the majority vote was to “recess starting this very Friday.”

At the close of the state meeting, Pérez Martínez affirmed that the day of mobilizations, which in the case of Oaxaca began on May 25, “marks a history in the country. The struggle has been historic. Not only because we denounced a government that is not on the side of workers, but on the side of the Afores (Retirement Fund Administrators). We have been national and international news, and the objective was fulfilled of making visible that in the country there is no retirement system for all workers. And that is what the CNTE put on the table.”

She noted that with this decision, the teachers’ contingents will return to their states, “not for a question of defeat, but to reorganize ourselves (…) There are co-responsibilities; we have to go to our spaces and take stock of this day of struggle, and also bring this reflection to the national level.”

In the morning, teachers from Oaxaca, Chiapas, Guerrero, and Michoacán marched from the Ángel de la Independencia to the Secretariat of the Interior (Segob), to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the acts of repression against teachers and residents of Nochixtlán, Oaxaca, on June 19, 2016.

In an interview, Pérez Martínez held that the “economic offer” the federal government made at last Thursday’s tripartite table with the Oaxaca teachers could be allocated to cover teaching positions in the state, and specified that it will be the mobilized base that determines whether that proposal is accepted and the destination that could be given to the extraordinary allocation.

She clarified that that money, whose amount she declined to comment on, “is not for the section, nor for any matter that has to do with lifting the movement,” and detailed that with the 2019 education reform “the hiring of teachers was affected, and there is a backlog of more than 10,000 positions.”

In the afternoon, tripartite tables were also installed for the Chiapas teachers, as well as for Mexico City, which groups together Sections 9, 10, 11, and 60. In this regard, Hernández Morales emphasized that despite the federal government’s claims that “we do not represent the teachers’ base, today they had to recognize this representativeness and address central issues such as the granting of permanent positions for teachers, the cessation of all acts of repression against teachers, which was ratified, and continuing on the path of standardization of benefits,” among other demands.

The post CNTE Agrees to Lift Sit-In in Mexico City; “We Will Return With Greater Strength,” They Affirm appeared first on Mexico Solidarity Media.

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