Mexican Labor News & Analysis

Violence Takes New Form, Hits New Level in Mexico

In a scene that looked like Iraq, explosions in the central plaza of Morelia, Michoacán, home town of President Felipe Calderón, killed eight and injured at least 100. The central plaza was crowded with those who had come toward midnight on September 15 to celebrate Mexican Independence Day (September 16) with the traditional Grito or shout of “Long Live Mexico!” Instead, they experienced a horrifying blast that left the bloody bodies of dead and dying men, women and children scattered across the paving stones.

More than 1,500 federal police and soldiers were on hand to keep order, but could not stop the attack. Following the blast, scores of police reportedly engaged in a shoot-out with the perpetrators, but did not apprehend them.

Calderón the Political Target

The choice of Morelia as the scene for this attack suggests that Calderón was the political, if not the actual, target. Mexican newspapers reported that the explosions came from two hand grenades pitched into the crowd, presumably by drug dealers. So far, no group has claimed responsibility for the assault.

This escalation in the on-going war between the Mexican government and the drug dealers represents a new level and a somewhat different kind of violence. While in the past drug dealers have killed each other and have killed Mexican police and soldiers, and have sometimes killed innocent bystanders, this is the first such terrorist attack where such large scale and apparently indiscriminate killing has taken place. Even some of the largest drug massacres involving numbers in the twenties never approached the large scale injuries of this attack.

Technically Terrorism

Governor Leonel Godoy told the press, “Technically, this is a terrorist act. We have no doubt that we're facing a terrorist attempt.” So far there is no indication that those who threw the grenades had targeted any particular individual.

Archbishop de Morelia, Alberto Suárez Inda, told The Voice of Michoacán, “The incident that happened last night (around midnight September 15) creates sadness and worry but above all indignation, because it is a totally irrational act taken against the defenseless citizenry.” He prayed that the experience would bring Mexicans together in a spirit of reconciliation and peace.

New Stage in the Drug War

If drug dealers have turned to this tactic with its much higher level of human casualties, it will mean a new level of instability that could have disastrous results for Mexico. Mexican citizens will not only face the drug violence, but the government response may, yet again, bring even more repression and violence. Foreign corporations may be hesitant to invest in Mexico and tourists may turn away from the country.

The new escalation of violence requires some response from the government, but so far President Calderón’s use of the Federal Police and the Army to suppress the drug lords has failed. Andrés Manurel López Obrador, leader of the so-called Legitimate Government, has called for changing social conditions to end violence, but that will seem inadequate with 2,700 people killed in the drug wars so far this year, and with over 1,000 people killed in Ciudad Juarez alone.

Additiional resources on this topic

For readers interested in additional resources: Jane Bussey of the Kansas City Start, McClatchy Newspapers, has been writing an informative series on the Mexico drug wars during this month. Find a map of Mexico’s drug cartels and their territory produced by El Universal newspaper at http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/graficos/graficosanimados/EU_narco/default.html

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Unions, Bosses, Government Sign Anti-crime Pact

The impact of the war between the government and the drug dealers and the national focus on crime has found expression in a tripartite pact between Mexico’s unions, corporations, and the government, aimed at fighting crime and promoting a culture of whistle-blowing. In the past, such tripartite pacts were entered into during national emergencies, such as the no-strike and production agreement signed by the government, bosses and unions at the end of World War II. During the economic crisis of the 1980s the government also promoted such tripartite agreements.

Now it is crime that motivates a new kind of social pact. The Secretary of Labor, together with Mexico’s leading employer organizations—the Mexican Confederation of Employers (COPARMEX), the Confederation of Chambers of Industry (CONCAMIN), the Confederation of National Chambers of Commerce (CONANACO), and the National Chamber of the Transformation Industry (CANACINTRA)—and the Congress of Labor which represents the pro-government unions agreed to the anti-crime and pro-law-and-order accord.

The Secretary of Labor said that the agreement will help to stop crime, fraud, and identity theft. Employers promised to create decent jobs, increase productivity and to preserve social peace. Enrique Aguilar Borrego, head of the Congress of Labor, said that unions would become crime fighting organizations and promoters of safety to protect workers from robbery. He said it would help to prevent assaults and robberies in the workplace or on public transportation.

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Mexican Supreme Court Grants Workers Secret Ballot

The Mexican Supreme Court (SCJN), in a historic decision on September 11, granted workers the right to a secret ballot in union representation elections. Benedicto Martínez, a leader of the Authentic Labor Front (FAT), called the decision an important step toward union democracy. The demand for the secret ballot in elections where workers choose a union to represent them has been at the top of the agenda of the democratic workers’ movement in Mexico for decades.

Up until now, a worker in Mexico voted in such elections by speaking out loud in front of his or her boss, the rival unions seeking to represent workers in that plant, government authorities conducting the election, and sometimes while surrounded by hoodlums brought in to intimidate them. Company managers, union officials or gangsters often threatened workers on their way to the voting place and sometimes in the course of the elections they even beat up workers. Through such tactics, employers and bureaucratic, corrupt and gangsterized unions have been able to prevent workers from choosing an independent and democratic union to represent them.

The Center for Labor Research and Union Consultation (CILAS) called the Supreme Court decision a land mark event. “It’s a step toward real freedom to choose a labor union,” said a representative of the group. CILAS emphasized the continued need to protect workers during union elections from gangsters’ violent attacks and to prosecute those responsible.

The FAT and CILAS have been among the leading organizations in the fight for workers’ democratic union rights in Mexico, including the right to choose a union by a secret ballot. While they hailed the secret ballot decision as a tremendous victory, they also recognized that many things remained to be done to assure workers’ rights.

Martínez laid out an agenda for the workers movement in days to come, including financial reporting and transparency in economic affairs, impartial labor boards, and an end to “protection contracts.” Authorities believe that the great majority of union contracts in Mexico are such protection agreements with minimal conditions arrived at secretly by employers, lawyers and union officials without the knowledge of the workers.

Additiional resources on this topic

For an overview of workers rights issues see the recent report by the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center, “Workers’ Freedom of Association Under Attack in Mexico,” at: http://www.solidaritycenter.org/files/pubs_policybrief_mexico.pdf. For a more thorough discussion of protection contracts in Spanish, see Inés González Niclás, ed., Auge y perspectivas de los contratos de protección: corrupción sindical o mal necesario? at:
http://library.fes.de/pdf-files/bueros/mexiko/50435.pdf.

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Protection Contracts a Menace in Mexico

A new study of protection contracts conducted for the Inter-American Regional Organization of Workers (ORIT) by a group of distinguished scholars finds that “protection contracts,” which are widespread in Mexico, inhibit union democracy and keep workers in poverty.

The study by José Alfonso Bouzas, Graciela Bensusán, Aleida Hernández, and Patricia Juan Pineda, finds that employers and union officials enter into such agreements, which are then recognized by the government, in order to maintain a monopoly of power in the labor union arena and the workplace.

Under these conditions, the entire collective bargaining process becomes a fiction. The Mexican Secretary of Labor (STPS) reported in March 2007 that of the 5,774 union contracts registered with his department, only 158 were active, and that those covered only about two million workers.

The unions representing 88 Wal-Mart stores in Mexico, the country’s largest employer, are just such vendors of protection contracts, according to Bouzas. In the entire commercial sector there is hardly a legitimate labor union contract, he said.

Some of these organizations, such as Grupo Morelos, now actually sell such protection contracts online.

Additional resources on this topic

A slide show of the study in Spanish can be found at: http://www.cioslorit.net/arquivo_up/Presentaci%C3%B3nBouzas.ppt

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Mexican Supreme Court Upholds Mexico City Abortion Law

In another historic decision, this one for women, the Mexican Supreme Court upheld the Mexico City abortion law adopted in April 2007. Under the law, women could seek an abortion during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.

The vote to uphold the law was 8 to 3. Justice Sergio Valls explained the decision saying, “To affirm that there is an absolute constitutional protection of life in gestation would lead to the violation of the fundamental rights of women.”

Since the law took effect, 12,000 women have sought abortions in the Federal District.

The decision was a victory for secular and feminist forces over the Catholic Church and its organization Pro-Life which had opposed the law. The Supreme Court ruling is expected to have an impact on the 32 states of Mexico which may now liberalize their own laws to permit abortion.

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New Left: National Liberation Movement Founded

A new left organization, the National Liberation Movement (MLN), was founded in Mexico during the weekend of September 13-14 by over thirty organizations composed of labor unions and workers, teachers and students, small business people and farmers. Benito Mirón, a leader of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), Secretary of Labor of the Federal District, and a member of the political council of the new movement said that its goal was to create a united left that could rise above the conflicts and personalities.

The new organization plans three actions in the near future: a national strike in defense of the Mexican Petroleum Company (PEMEX), participation in the teachers strike planned for September 23 and 24 against the Alliance for Quality Education (ACE), and a push to remove Felipe Calderón as president.

The organization pledge to work with the Broad Popular Front (FAP), the coalition of left parties linked to the PRD, and with Andrés Manuel López Obrador and his “Legitimate Government of Mexico.”

Oppose Neoliberalism

Spokespersons for the MLN said that they would oppose the neoliberal policies of the government and work to build a national and even an international movement to do so. Among the organizations participating in the founding convention were: the Francisco Villa Popular Front, the Revolutionary Popular Front, the Streetcar Workers Union (ATM), the Emiliano Zapata Peasants Union of Chiapas, the Coalition of Agrarian Organizations of Chiapas, and the Emiliano Zapata Popular Organization.

The name National Liberation Movement (MLN) will evoke memories for older Mexicans. An earlier National Liberation Movement was founded in 1959 by former Mexican President Lázaro Cárdenas who came out of retirement to oppose the direction of the Mexican government of Adolfo López Mateos and to call for solidarity with Cuba. Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, the son of the former president, played a role in the MLN of that era. The name therefore suggests a reform oriented movement associated with the left nationalist and populist politics of an earlier era.

Meanwhile, the faction fight that has divided, paralyzed and threatens the life of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) remains unresolved and the National Convention of the party had been postponed again.

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Opposition Teachers Still in Fight Against Government Union Pact

Opposition teachers in several central and southeastern states of Mexico—Guerrero, Michoacán, Morelos, Oaxaca, Quintana Roo, and Zacatecas—continued their fight against the Alliance for Quality Education (ACE) established by the government of Felipe Calderón and Elba Esther Gordillo of the teachers union. Others also joined the opposition to protest the government’s plan to close some or all of the country’s Normal Schools or teachers’ colleges.

With the situation varying somewhat from state to state, teachers engaged in work stoppages—some have lasted almost a month—marches, protest demonstrations, seizures of public buildings and occupation of highways to indicate their opposition to the plan. In some case there were violent confrontations between the pro-ACE and anti-ACE teachers or between teachers and parents.

In Michoacán teachers had closed schools serving 260,000 of the 1,300,000 students. In Quintana Roo the work stoppage left more than 250,000 students without teachers and in some cases parents took their places in the classrooms. In some schools, teachers and parents argued or struggled to take control of the buildings.

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Miners Continue Work Stoppages; USW Adopts Strikers’ Families

The Mexican Miners Union (SNTMMRM) has continued its struggle against Grupo Mexico and the Mexican government over the last weeks, maintaining its strike at three major mines and engaging in 24-hour work stoppages at others. The union threatened to call a national work stoppage if the company and the government continue to refuse to deal with its union leadership.

For two years the Mexican government and Grupo Mexico have taken a series of actions against Napoleón Gómez Urrutia, general secretary of the Miners Union, intended to remove him from the union and force it to accept the company’s demands.
The Mexican authorities have threatened to attempt once again to have Gómez Urrutia extradited from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada where he has been living in exile while directing the union from afar. In response to the new threats, union attorneys say that they will seek a new visa for the Mine Union leader as a political exile.

Meanwhile, the United Steel Workers Union (USW), which represents workers in Canada and the United States, has announced that it will “adopt” 3,000 striking workers’ families in Mexico. Gerald Fernández, a spokesman for the union, said the USW would support the Mexican miners in their struggle against Grupo Mexico and the Mexican government “for as long as it takes.”

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Mexican Airlines In Danger Of Collapse Unions Warn

The Mexican airlines could crash—all of them. The fourth special convention of the Federation of Unions of the Airline Sector (FEDSSA) meeting in September warned that the industry was in danger of collapse and that the government had no policy to deal with it. Tomás del Toro del Villar told his members that the industry was faced with financial problems, a tariff war, an excess of flights, and other issues, but that the government had no one at the controls.

Meanwhile, he said, Mexican workers conditions had continued to deteriorate. The airline unions have also complained recently that they have been denied the right to strike.

The unions also claim that the current institutional instability in the industry could lead to actual safety issues that would affect the planes, crew and passengers.

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