Just days before Mexico City hosts the opening match of the 2026 FIFA World Cup co-hosted by Mexico, the United States and Canada, a high-profile labor protest has disrupted the capital’s pre-tournament calm and drawn global attention. On Tuesday, June 2, dissident teachers from Mexico’s national teachers’ union CNTE took to Paseo de la Reforma, Mexico City’s iconic tree-lined central promenade dotted with skyscrapers, to push their unmet labor demands.
The stretch of the avenue had been lined with 5-meter-tall plastic statues of international football players, installed as part of pre-World Cup public celebrations. Using ropes, the protesting teachers pulled down three of the giant statues, stripped off the player uniforms draped on the mannequins and set the garments on fire. Graffiti in bright red paint was scrawled across one of the toppled nude mannequins reading “Long live the CNTE”, while another bore the message: “If there isn’t a solution, the ball won’t roll.” Notably, the statue decked out in Mexico’s national team kit remained standing through the action.
In a sign of the escalating tension between the dissident union wing and authorities, police had already deployed tear gas and sound grenades to break up a separate CNTE march on Monday near Mexico City’s historic Zocalo plaza, the site of the official World Cup Fan Fest. By Tuesday, crews were still reinforcing the perimeter of the plaza with metal barricades to prevent further disruptions. Tuesday’s statue-toppling action itself shut down key thoroughfares, compounding the chronic traffic congestion that plagues the Mexican capital. Notably, on-site police forces made no attempt to intervene to stop the protesters’ action.
The dissident CNTE faction, which has organized rolling protests across the country in recent weeks, is demanding a 100% increase to base teacher salaries and is vehemently opposing planned federal pension reforms. The group has already rejected a 9% pay increase that government negotiators agreed to with the union’s mainstream, government-aligned national leadership. Protesters have issued a clear warning: if the administration does not address their demands by the tournament’s opening match on June 11, they will stage mass demonstrations that disrupt the opening festivities.
Juan Pablo de la Cruz, a 44-year-old teacher participating in Tuesday’s protest, defended the group’s disruptive tactics, drawing a direct parallel between the statue action and the government’s labor policies. “If (President Claudia Sheinbaum) calls toppling some statues a crime, what would she call the act of taking away our rights? We need to be more firm,” he told reporters.
For her part, President Claudia Sheinbaum characterized the Tuesday protest as peaceful in public remarks, and a formal statement from her administration extended an invitation to the dissident union to resume negotiations to resolve the dispute. As the World Cup’s opening draw closer, the standoff between teachers and the government casts uncertainty over the smooth running of the global tournament’s opening activities in Mexico.