Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, coordinator of the Committees for the Defense of the Fourth Transformation, pledged to protect the wages and benefits of workers, inviting them to join her pre-campaign.
“We will walk together so that this transformation initiated by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador continues,” she announced, formalizing a coalition with the Autonomous Confederation of Workers and Employees (CATEM).
During the XV National Ordinary Congress of this Workers’ Central, held at Arena CDMX, Sheinbaum Pardo swore in the Labor Defense Committees of the 4T, with delegates in all 31 states of the Republic, and stated:
“This great coalition is united by the fundamental objective of continuing the Fourth Transformation and seeks the unity of the people and the transformation of Mexico’s public life.”
Accompanied by workers from across the Republic and the governors of Baja California, Marina del Pilar Ávila; Quintana Roo, Mara Lezama; Nayarit, Miguel Ángel Navarro; Michoacán, Alfredo Ramírez Bedolla; and Puebla, Sergio Salomón Céspedes, Sheinbaum recounted the labor achievements of the current government.
She recalled that President López Obrador’s administration broke with 36 years of minimum wage stagnation, during which previous governments boasted about Mexico’s cheap labor abroad.
“With our workers as a priority, wages were increasingly low. President López Obrador promised and delivered, nearly tripling the minimum wage from what it was in 2018, eliminating the impoverishment of labor,” she pointed out.
She also highlighted that, contrary to claims by previous governments, “there is no inflation due to the increase in the minimum wage.”
Addressing CATEM’s Secretary General, Pedro Haces Barba, who welcomed her to Arena CDMX in Azcapotzalco, Sheinbaum, honored guest at the celebration for the 15th anniversary of this Workers’ Central, said:
“If workers do well; if entrepreneurs do well, then Mexico does well too.”
One of the speakers, former Senator Ricardo Monreal Ávila, commented, “Dr. Claudia Sheinbaum invited me to this Congress, and it is an honor to accompany her.”
He emphasized that thanks to the government and the working class in the current administration, the country’s transformation process continues.
Regarding CATEM, he mentioned that “with its 194 trade union organizations nationwide, it is a powerful Workers’ Central that promotes union inclusion and freedom, as well as gender parity.”
“We have achieved more in terms of labor justice in decades,” he emphasized, mentioning to those present that the new Federal Labor Law, amended in 2019, has brought about wages above inflation and decent vacations.
In the presidium, Francisco Cervantes, president of the Coordinating Business Council, and in a special area, the invited entrepreneurs to this XV National Ordinary Congress, such as José Miguel Becos, president of Mota & Gil México; Miguel Rincón Arredondo of Bio Pappel; Guadalupe Phillips Margain, CEO of Grupo ICA; and Carlos Peralta Quintero, CEO of Grupo IUSA, among others.
The celebration included everything: from traditional dances from Oaxaca, such as the “piña” from Valle Nacional, elegantly performed by women in beautiful dresses; mariachi, poems, and CATEM’s emblem: an eagle that even leader Haces Barba displayed on his right arm to the public.
