Sheinbaum’s mañanera in 60 seconds
- 👩🏫💰 Teachers’ salaries recovered under 4T, says Delgado: Education Minister Mario Delgado presented data showing average teacher pay rose from 6,700 pesos/month under Vicente Fox to 20,351 pesos ($1,167) following Sheinbaum’s recently announced 9% increase, framing the trend as wage “recovery” after years of real-term decline under “neoliberal” predecessors.
- 🏦 Pension overhaul ruled out for now: ISSSTE head Martí Batres acknowledged the 2007 Calderón-era law hurt teachers by replacing a collective fund with individual AFORE accounts, but ruled out repeal. The state cannot absorb existing individual accounts and lacks the 7+ trillion pesos (20% of GDP) needed to rebuild a common fund, he said.
- 🌍 Sheinbaum guarantees a peaceful World Cup opener: With Thursday’s opening match three days away and protests planned in the capital, Sheinbaum pledged the event will go ahead “in peace and calmly,” warning that some groups — “not necessarily teachers” — are deliberately seeking a government crackdown to generate damaging international headlines before the tournament.
- 🚫 No repression, no capitulation: The president said the government will wait on the outcomes of dialogue with teachers while refusing to yield to provocations, insisting both a successful World Cup celebration and a no-repression posture are achievable simultaneously.
Why today’s mañanera matters
With teachers protesting and the start of the FIFA men’s World Cup just three days away, the federal government on Monday sought to demonstrate that wages, benefits and conditions for the nation’s teachers have improved significantly since former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) took office in late 2018. At President Claudia Sheinbaum’s first press conference of the week, the government was determined to show that it is not like its pre-2018 predecessors, and has put teachers’ best interests at the center of its education policies.
The Monday morning affirmation of this comes as the government seeks to reach an agreement with protesting CNTE-affiliated teachers that leads to those teachers ending their demonstrations and returning to classrooms. The government wants to avoid potential disruptions to the World Cup, especially in Mexico City, where the CNTE teacher union protest is centered, and where the first match of the quadrennial FIFA tournament will be played this Thursday. As things stand, CNTE-affiliated teachers — and other disgruntled groups — look set to continue protesting, including on Thursday. Protests planned for Thursday could cause problems for people traveling to Mexico City Stadium on the capital’s southside.
On Monday morning, Education Minister Mario Delgado — the official who last month announced a 40-calendar-day reduction to the current school year before backtracking days later — was at Sheinbaum’s mañanera, where he sought to show that teachers have benefited from government policies in a range of ways in recent years, including due to significant salary increases.
He and other officials also highlighted recent changes to teachers’ pensions that they say will improve teachers’ lot in retirement.
However, Martí Batres, head of the State Workers Social Security Institute (ISSSTE), said that it is not possible to abrogate the 2007 ISSSTE law, which eliminated a previous pension system for teachers and leaves them — they say — significantly worse off in retirement.
A 100% pay increase and the repeal of the 2007 ISSSTE law are key demands of protesting teachers, a large number of whom are currently camping out in the historic center of Mexico City near the Zócalo, the capital’s main square and soon-to-be host of FIFA’s World Cup Fan Festival.
Delgado highlights ‘recovery’ of teachers’ salaries under 4T governments
Delgado presented data that showed that teachers’ salaries, on average, increased from around 6,700 pesos per month when Vicente Fox was president between 2000 and 2006 to just under 9,600 pesos per month when Felipe Calderón was in office between 2006 and 2012. Salaries rose to just under 12,000 pesos per month during Enrique Peña Nieto’s 2012-18 presidency before increasing to 17,635 pesos when AMLO was in office between 2018 and 2024. With the 9% pay rise announced by Sheinbaum last month, teachers’ salaries will increase, on average, to 20,351 pesos (US $1,167), Delgado said.
After AMLO became president, “wage policy” for teachers “completely changed,” the education minister said.
When “neoliberal governments” were in office, teachers’ salaries increased in accordance with “estimated inflation,” he said. However, in reality, inflation outpaced salary increases, Delgado said.
“A deterioration of real salaries for teachers began,” he said.
Delgado said that a policy of wage “recovery” for teachers was implemented during López Obrador’s presidency and has been maintained by Sheinbaum.
“There is wage recovery for teachers with the governments of the transformation,” he said, referring to the “fourth transformation,” or 4T, political movement previously led by AMLO and now led by Sheinbaum.
Batres: Creation of common pension fund for teachers is unaffordable
Batres said that the 2007 ISSSTE law, “promoted by Felipe Calderón, harmed teachers, state workers and the state itself.”
“It eliminated a [pension] system that was a supportive and inter-generational system of which the state was the owner,” he said.
“In its place, AFORES systems were created,” Batres said, referring to privately-managed individual retirement accounts.
“They are private retirement funds … and each worker became his or her own saver,” he said.
“This is a significant change,” he said, noting that the “common fund” for teachers was eliminated and each teacher became the “holder” and “owner” of their own account.
Batres said that “despite this whole process of privatization of the pension system, one institution that is 100% public survived.”
“The only institution that survived and which is 100% public is Pensionissste. Pensionissste is completely public and therefore when teachers propose strengthening a public, social, supportive [pension] scheme, we believe that Pensionissste can be a guiding axis of a scheme based on these principles, … an alternative [to individual accounts] that is developed progressively,” he said.
“This is the viable option we have at this time. We can’t say that the system of individual accounts can disappear from one day to the next, that the ISSSTE law can be repealed at this time, because the state cannot take the individual accounts that currently exist because each of those has a holder, an owner,” Batres said.
“On the other hand, the state doesn’t have 20 points of GDP — in other words more than 7 trillion pesos that would be needed to build or establish a new supportive [and common] fund [for teachers],” he said.
Sheinbaum guarantees peaceful start to World Cup
A reporter noted that various protests are planned for this Thursday in Mexico City and asked the president how much “pressure from the CNTE” the government can withstand and whether it would “give in” to the dissident teachers’ union.
“We’re going to wait [to see] what happens these days, today and tomorrow” Sheinbaum responded, referring to dialogue between the Interior Ministry and the Education Ministry on one side and the CNTE on the other.
🗣️ “Hay grupos que nos quieren provocar (…) lo que buscan es que haya represión”
Claudia Sheinbaum advirtió que varias agrupaciones quieren hacer quedar al país como “el gobierno que reprime a los maestros”; afirmó que no caerán en provocaciones y garantiza una “buena”… pic.twitter.com/946iVVrnFZ
— El Universal (@El_Universal_Mx) June 8, 2026
“There are groups that want to provoke us and they’re not necessarily groups of teachers,” she added.
“What they’re looking for is repression [from the government], I say that clearly. What they’re seeking is that before the opening of the World Cup, the article in the international media is ‘The Mexican government represses teachers,’” Sheinbaum said.
“That’s what they are seeking [but] they’re not going to have it,” she said.
“And at the same time we’re going to guarantee that the celebration of the opening of the World Cup takes place successfully, in peace and calmly,” Sheinbaum said.
“So we’re going to wait … to see the resolutions” reached in dialogue between the government and teachers, she said.
“… We’re not going to succumb to provocations,” Sheinbaum stressed.
“… And the opening [of the World Cup] will be fine, there is no problem,” she said.
“… There will be a good opening, that’s guaranteed. And there won’t be repression — all at the same time, that’s the way we are,” Sheinbaum said.
By Mexico News Daily chief staff writer Peter Davies (peter.davies@mexiconewsdaily.com)
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