Talks this week by one of the new working groups formed to end the conflict between authorities and the CNTE teachers’ union produced “absolutely nothing,” says a union leader.

The leader of the union’s Chiapas local, Section 7, rebuked the Interior Secretariat for failing to offer a concrete response to the union’s demands after more than three hours of discussions in the first of three planned working group sessions.

CNTE representatives arrived at the meeting with demands that the education reforms be suspended, that teachers be paid salaries that had been withheld, that outstanding arrest warrants be canceled and that jailed teachers be freed.

“We have detailed the damages caused to teachers, but the government seems incapable of reaching any conclusion. This means that the federal administration hasn’t given the union any answers today,” Adelfo Alejandro Gómez Álvarez said yesterday.

“We believe it’s a lack of seriousness on the government’s part that, after clearly following the agreed agendas, they’re still unable to deliver a concrete answer.”

“[The government] has asked for a June 21 deadline, a date when they’ll have a proposal for us. In the meantime, there’s no proposal that would allow for the conflict to be eased,” the union leader said.

“The government has said that the road to the suspension of the education reforms is a long one, but has never specified what that answer means,” said Gómez.

Gómez also confirmed that the union’s mobilizations, protests and blockades in several states will continue according to their plan, and would intensify, if necessary.

The union leader said that they have been “very patient . . . if the government is expecting us to tire and to wear out, we can assert that CNTE will continue, eager to negotiate, even if we leave like today, with no answers.”

For its part, the Interior Secretariat stated through a press release that “the dialogue and accords” with the CNTE are ongoing, with the goal of finding routes of understanding that solve the teacher’s problems.

The political working group will continue next Thursday, but the union will hold a meeting on Tuesday where it will discuss a proposal to transform the country’s education system.

The CNTE is maintaining at least a dozen blockades in Oaxaca and one or two in Chiapas to keep pressure on the government. Protests continue as well in Guerrero, Michoacán, Mexico City and Nuevo León.