Mexico City, July 6 (RHC-teleSUR),-- Public school teachers in Mexico City carried out their first day of an indefinite strike on Tuesday. The protest had been announced earlier by leaders of the dissident CNTE teachers union as a way of opposing education reforms imposed by President Enrique Peña Nieto.

The striking teachers' mega-march was held in central Mexico City, and was joined by some parents and by peers from the southern states of Oaxaca, Chiapas and Guerrero.

In an official statement, labor organizers called on teachers to also join in road blockades, which protesters had been staging for months, to demand that the government discuss the reforms.

However, the government of Peña Nieto has shown little openness to dialogue and instead, teachers have been repressed by security forces. The government violence escalated to fatal levels in Oaxaca, where federal and local police repression claimed the lives of at least eight people and left dozens injured, with many arrested during the demonstrations.

Protests began in 2013 when Peña Nieto introduced a total of 11 free-market structural reforms early in his mandate, with those on education being the first.