End of the CNTE sit-in
The National Coordinator of Education Workers (CNTE) ended its national strike this Saturday. For 20 days, the mobilizations and the camp in the Historic Center of Mexico City generated losses of more than 410 million pesos to established businesses, according to sector estimates.
Although it did not achieve the repeal of the ISSSTE Law of 2007 or the repeal of the educational reform, the CNTE obtained commitments, financial resources, places, recategorizations and support for education workers in several states.
The leaders assured that the withdrawal is not a defeat. They advanced a stage of reorganization to strengthen the movement and prepare new actions. They insisted that the federal government did not present a proposal to eliminate the ISSSTE Law of 2007 or to reverse the educational reform, demands that will remain in force.
Starting this Monday, around 1.4 million students who remained without classes will be able to return to classrooms in the entities where the CNTE had suspended activities.
Space release
Public space has been gradually freed up. Cleaning workers from the Government of Mexico City removed garbage in streets such as 5 de Mayo, Belisario Domínguez, 20 de Noviembre and República de Cuba. In some areas, the withdrawal was almost total; In others there were still tarps and tents.
A teacher from section 34 of Zacatecas declared: > “We are going to clean it, don’t say that we are going to leave it dirty.”
Merchants expressed relief at the departure of the teaching profession. A worker at the La Blanca restaurant, on May 5, commented: > “It’s good that they’re leaving, it was a very hard month; here we had like a 90% drop in customers.”
A snow seller on the same street indicated that they expected higher sales with the FIFA Fan Fest in the Zócalo, but the arrival of the CNTE reduced their income by 50%.
For his part, the Secretary of Education, Mario Delgado, rejected that the government had “bribed” Section 22 of Oaxaca to hold the sit-in.