Striking workers at Mexico’s Monte de Piedad will receive 100% of the wages they missed during a 364-day walkout, under an agreement signed Wednesday, September 30, 2026, at the federal Labour Ministry. The strike closed 302 branches of the pawn institution. Customers’ pledged goods remained behind locked doors for nearly a year.
The Deal
The Labour Ministry, or STPS, said the parties held more than 70 negotiating meetings after the strike began on October 1, 2025. The talks made progress, the ministry said, but differences remained. In the end, the union and institution agreed to follow a comprehensive ruling drafted by the ministry, then signed it at ministry headquarters.
The path to a deal wasn’t smooth. After earlier talks stalled, the ministry called the parties back to negotiations on May 2. El CEO reported that more than 30 trilateral meetings had failed to produce an agreement by then.
Director José Antonio Murillo Garza and union leader Arturo Zayún González announced the strike’s end together in a video for staff. “We reopen the doors of the branches with our clients’ pledged items intact,” Murillo said. Zayún described rebuilding the institution with fresh ideas as a “great task.”
A Dispute With a History
The union said management had breached the collective labour contract. La Jornada reported eight alleged violations, including the sidelining of joint committees responsible for promotions. This wasn’t the first stoppage. A previous strike ended in an agreement in March 2024, and El Financiero reported that breaches of that agreement helped fuel the new dispute.
The legal picture was tangled, too. In February 2026, a judge granted the institution an injunction and declared the strike non-existent, El CEO reported, citing the institution. The workers kept striking anyway, until the ministry’s ruling settled the matter.
What Customers Face
The people with the most at stake were the institution’s clients, who pawn belongings to raise cash and need access to reclaim them. Starting October 7, they’ll have 45 days without interest charges. The institution will discount interest that accumulated during the closure case by case, according to each client’s history.
There are conditions. Customers must book an appointment online and bring an official voter ID card and their ticket number. Branches will open from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays, and from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturdays. Workers will return to their posts as the branches reopen.
A year of backlogged pledges won’t clear overnight. How quickly the 302 branches could work through them wasn’t clear. Reports also didn’t put a price tag on the full retroactive wage commitment. The ministry said it hoped for “lasting” cooperation.
Why This Matters:
A year-long shutdown of an institution that lends money against pawned goods hits ordinary borrowers hardest. The interest-free window and case-by-case discounts show how much damage a closure of this length can do. The agreement also leaves open questions about cost: full back pay for a year of stoppage is a major commitment, and no figure was reported. A government-drafted ruling ended a dispute that talks, a prior agreement and a court injunction hadn’t resolved. From a market and institutional perspective, the real test is whether the parties honor the contract’s terms this time, because the 2024 agreement didn’t hold.