Judicial Strike Blocks Insurgentes, Halts Metrobús Line 1 in CDMX

Striking federal court employees closed Avenida Insurgentes Sur in both directions on Friday, Nov. 6, near Parque La Bombilla in San Ángel, TV Azteca reported. Protesters were also reported on Insurgentes at Cracovia, in the Álvaro Obregón borough, and the blockade there stopped the articulated buses of Metrobús Line 1, the bus rapid transit route that runs along Insurgentes.

The closures came on a day when the SSC (Mexico City’s public security ministry) expected one march and several smaller protests around the city, according to El Universal. Drivers in the south, the center and the Venustiano Carranza area faced the heaviest delays.

Why federal court workers walked out

The protest comes from the Sindicato de Renovación del Poder Judicial de la Federación, a union of federal judiciary employees. El Universal reported that the union warned of a possible work stoppage at several court buildings over new performance evaluations for the judicial career system. The union says the evaluations could threaten job security for staff with decades of service.

TV Azteca reported that court workers had kept the San Lázaro judicial complex blocked since midnight. They want urgent talks with authorities and question the experience of the judges and magistrates who apply the evaluations. To get around San Lázaro, the outlet pointed drivers to Fray Servando Teresa de Mier, Eje 1 Norte or Eje 3 Oriente (Francisco del Paso y Troncoso).

Other closures reported Friday

According to TV Azteca, a group shut the northbound lateral lanes of Anillo Periférico at Las Flores, in colonia Tlacopac, backing up traffic headed toward San Antonio and Constituyentes. It also reported a closure on Calzada de Guadalupe at Euzkaro, toward the Basilica of Guadalupe, while crews unloaded materials and put up metal barriers, with congestion spreading to Eje 4 Norte. Retirees from the IMSS (Mexico’s social security institute) and the IPN (the National Polytechnic Institute) also marched downtown to demand payment and review of their pensions.

Marches planned by the SSC

El Universal listed these scheduled events:

• At 10 a.m., community health teams known as Ecos planned to walk from the Centro Médico Nacional “20 de Noviembre” (Avenida Félix Cuevas No. 540, Del Valle Sur) to Parque Acacias and back for World Stroke Day. The sixth edition of the walk aims to teach people the warning signs of a stroke.
• At 10 a.m., members of the Excélsior cooperative were due at the newspaper’s historic building to ask for a legal review of the 2006 sale of the paper’s assets to Grupo Ángeles, which they allege was fraudulent.
• At 10 a.m., students from Preparatoria number 1 “Gabino Barreda” planned protests at Prolongación División del Norte and Avenida Muyuguarda in San Lorenzo la Cebada (Xochimilco) and at the Glorieta de Vaqueritos (Tlalpan). They want teachers accused of sexual harassment removed, a better enrollment system, gender-neutral bathrooms reopened and an end to reprisals against protesters.
• At noon, the cannabis rights group Plataforma 420 planned to collect signatures and hold workshops at the Monumento a la Madre, at Avenida Cuauhtémoc and División del Norte, and at Gran Canal and Circuito Interior.
• At 15:30, the firefighters’ union was scheduled to meet a city government official in the Zócalo about a pay raise and back pay owed to retired firefighters.
• Throughout the day, the collective Las Tonantzin planned to gather at the courts of the Reclusorio Preventivo Varonil Oriente, a men’s jail, to demand justice for a victim of violence.
• The Fénix Libertas project planned a collection point in the Alameda Central for tools and supplies for searching mothers, the women who look for missing relatives.

Sources: El Universal, TV Azteca