Mexican Labor News & Analysis

Financial Crisis Hits Mexico: Social Crisis on The Horizon?

By Dan La Botz

The international financial crisis that originated in mortgages and derivatives in the United States has spread to Europe, Asia and Latin America. Mexico, too, will be significantly affected by the crisis. Government, business leaders and analysts say that for Mexico the crisis means:

· Less foreign direct investment.
· A decreasing market for its exports.
· Lower prices for Mexico’s petroleum, so less revenue for government.
· Less migration to the U.S. and lower remittances from migrants.
· Rising unemployment.
· Federal budget cutbacks.
· Increasing poverty, hunger and malnutrition.

In response to the crisis and to his critics in the political opposition, on Oct. 8 Mexican President Felipe Calderón of the National Action Party (PAN) announced a program to deal with the crisis. Calderón’s plan – a mirror of the plan put forward by Andrés López Obrador of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) – calls for spending US$4.3 billion on public works, particularly mass transport and refineries. The government will also offer support to small- and medium-sized businesses.

The plan will have the government spend 65.1 billion pesos ($5.26 billion) or about 1 percent of GDP. At the same time, the government will cut the Federal budget by 2.7 billion pesos, down from 2.82 trillion to 2.79 trillion pesos as a result of projected shortfalls in taxes and because of falling petroleum prices. Calderón emphasized that this was not a financial rescue plan, but rather a plan aimed at the real economy and issues of employment. The Mexican Congress will need to approve Calderón’s plan before it can take effect.

A Government Already in Crisis

The financial crisis comes at a bad moment for the Mexican government of Felipe Calderón of the National Action Party (PAN) which faced a crisis of legitimacy because of the accusations of vote fraud and of improper political intervention by President Vicente Fox, also of the PAN, during the 2006 elections.

Since then, Calderón has been leading a war against Mexico’s drug dealers which has led to partial militarization of the country, resulted in thousands deaths, and so far failed to bring victory and peace. Guerrilla groups have periodically blown up Mexican pipelines. Miners have been on strike for more than a year, and dissident teachers have shut down schools in several states. Many fear that even greater social turmoil than what it is now experiencing could be on the agenda for Mexico.

Calderón’s new plan and revised Federal tax and accompanying budget proposals may help to alleviated the crisis, but it is unlikely that it will prevent increased demands from many sectors of society. Mexico’s independent labor union alliances have been mobilized for years against neoliberalism and in defense of social property. Now they will face a greater challenge.

A Crisis for the NAFTA Region

The U.S. financial crisis has affected Canada and Mexico as well. Canada and Mexico have long been tied to the U.S. economy, but the process of globalization and the negotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which took effect in 1994, drew both nations into a far closer economic and financial relationship with the United States. While both Canada and Mexico claim that their financial institutions have not participated to the same degree in the risky financial practices of their U.S. counterparts, still both have some of the same problems. Moreover, integrated as they are into the U.S. economy, they will share both some of the financial woes and will be dragged down with the U.S. into recession. In Canada, government and business leaders say they, too, face financial problems from the mortgage market, though not as serious as those in the U.S., and they now foresee a recession for Canada.

The U.S. financial crisis and the recession pose even more difficult problems for Mexico than for Canada. Mexico is virtually integrated into the United States in terms of production and finance (not to mention political, military and security connections). The U.S. provides half of Mexico’s foreign investment, buys 85 percent of its exports, and provides work for millions of Mexican workers. Nearly ten percent of Mexico’s population—about ten million people—have migrated to live and work in the United States in the last couple of decades. A U.S. recession means a Mexican recession.

Mexican View of the Crisis

While no one can foresee the exact depth and breadth of the recession, Carlos Slim, Mexico’s richest man, believes that the crisis combines elements of the crises of 1929, 1970 and 1982 and, he says, it “is more complex than that of 1929 and bigger because the economy is bigger.” But he also expressed his belief that with its previous experiences, Mexico should be able to withstand it. Mexico’s Secretary of Finance, Agustín Carstens calls the U.S. financial crisis “unprecedented” and says that without a doubt it would affect the Mexican economy. He said that faced with “the crumbling [demoronamiento] of the financial system,” that Mexico will “respond and use all of the instruments which the state had at its disposal.” Secretary of Communications and Transportation Luis Téllez Kuenzler called the crisis “monumental,” though perhaps not as great as in other parts of the world.

The Mexican government claims that its financial system is sound because of measures it took after the 1994 Mexican financial crisis. Still, given the integration of world financial systems, Mexico will not be entirely immune. Over 80 percent of Mexico’s banking assets are foreign owned: one-third by U.S. banks, one-third by Spain, and the rest by other European banks. The shares of at least one Mexican bank have already fallen significantly. The Mexican stock exchange lost over 5% in the first week of October. The Mexico peso has lost ground as well, with the rate now at 12 pesos to the dollar, a loss of about 10 percent. The Bank of Mexico intervened to keep the peso from falling to 14 to the dollar.

Effects on the Real Economy in Mexico

More important, the U.S. recession, now expected to be long and deep, will have effects on the real economies of both countries. Guillermo Ortiz, head of the Bank of Mexico (Banixo), says that Mexico will suffer from a fall in economic growth, exports, and employment. As a result of the U.S. financial crisis and recession, Mexico will see less foreign direct investment, a decreasing market for its exports, less migration abroad and lower remittances, and rising unemployment. Mexico also faces declining oil prices, its chief source of government revenue, which together with the financial crisis and recession will mean cuts in the Federal budget.

Rogelio de la O, an economist allied with the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), predicts that Mexico will lose 1 million jobs this year and 1.5 million next year. Independent of this, Mexico already needed to create more than 1 million jobs each year, meaning that in two years Mexico is projected to produce 4.5 million new unemployed.

Mexican Secretary of Labor, Javier Lozano Alarcón, has expressed concern that 200,000 Mexican migrants could return to Mexico within a year, possibly leading to even higher unemployment. The Pew Hispanic Research Center in the United States has already noted a decline in undocumented immigration to the United States in the last few years. Secretary of Social Development, Ernesto Corder Arroyo warned that the fall in remittances from Mexican workers in the United States would lead to hunger in Mexico. Some 14 million families in Mexico cannot afford to buy the basic food basket to support a family, and six percent of those receive help from family members working in the U.S., he said. Migration to the United States has long been looked upon as Mexico’s social pressure escape valve, but the combination of stricter border controls, workplace and community raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) leading to increased deportations, and now the economic downturn in the U.S. economy all appear to be tightening up the lid, jamming up the valve, and turning up the fire under the pressure cooker.

Mexican Response to the Crisis

President Calderón has found himself challenged by everyone from the church to the opposition parties to take extraordinary action to respond to the crisis. The Mexican Catholic Church, speaking through the Archdiocese of Mexico, declared through its weekly newspaper Desde la Fe (From the Faith) declared that the U.S. financial crisis had proved that savage, speculative capitalism “had failed.” Criticizing government officials for a false sense of optimism, the church called for a return to a socially responsible economy.

Representatives of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which ruled Mexico for over 70 years, of the left-of-center Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), and of two smaller left parties, the Workers Party (PT) and Convergence, have told the government that the neoliberal model is dead and – before Calderón acted – demanded that the government create public works that will generate jobs. The PRD proposed to the Senate that the governor of the Bank of Mexico be asked to set aside 25 billion pesos for the building of public works and infrastructure. Outside of the Mexican Congress, the PRD remains paralyzed because it is divided between a left and right wing that cannot bear to be in the same room, much less overcome the divisions in the party.

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the PRD presidential candidate in 2006 who, after what he claimed was a fraudulent election, proclaimed himself the president of the Legitimate Government of Mexico represents a challenge to Calderón’s government. López Obrador, who – independent of his party – has the power to mobilize millions of Mexicans, mostly from among the working class and the poor, put forth an “anti-crisis plan” days before Calderón acted. López Obrador has blamed the Calderón government for ignoring the signs of a coming crisis and failing to act to prevent it. Once the crisis began to unfold he called upon the government to adopt 30 measures to deal with it, among the most important:

· Cancel all increases in the prices of gasoline, diesel, gas, and electricity.
· Increase the budget destined for the countryside.
· Construct three refineries so Mexico, an oil producing country, won’t have to buy refined fuel from abroad.
· Carry out a program of public works to reactivate the economy and to generate jobs.
· Increase the public budget destined for youth as a social investment giving educational stipends to all students.
· Create a food budget for older adults, beginning with the indigenous population and the urban and rural poor.

Calderón essentially adopted the core of López Obrador’s plan based on public works. In response, López Obrador has emphasized his call for cuts in wasteful government programs and bureaucrats’ salaries. The PRD legislators have called for a 50 percent reduction in the salaries of government ministers, legislators, and high level functionaries.

López Obrador’s appeal and his movement are almost certain to grow during an economic crisis, though it seems highly unlikely that he would attempt to overthrow the man he calls the usurper.

To the left of López Obrador stands Subcomandante Marcos of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) who, during the 2006 election, conducted a non-electoral, anti-capitalist “Other Campaign” in which he and his compañeros visited cities, towns and rural areas throughout Mexico. Marcos and the EZLN, who reject all of Mexico’s political parties and its government, lost some of their support because of their sectarian behavior during the 2006 election when they refused to join the movement against election fraud. Still, they retain their base in the state of Chiapas and have an unorganized following throughout the country. It remains to be seen if Marcos will seize the moment.

In addition to the EZLN, which has not fired its arms since January 1994, there is also the Peoples Revolutionary Army (EPR), which has taken responsibility for some recent violent attacks on the government, as well as other small guerrilla groups. These groups maintain a revolutionary posture toward the government and usually define themselves as Marxist-Leninist.

Finally, besides the PRD and the EZLN and EPR, there are those groups, neither parliamentary politicians nor guerrilla rebels, but movement activists and party-builders—revolutionary nationalists, Trotskyists, neo-Stalinists, and Maoists—who have anti-capitalist programs and small followings and have proven capable of intervening in social upheavals, such as the Oaxaca Civic Uprising (sometimes called the Commune of Oaxaca). One can expect all of these groups to offer revolutionary alternatives to Mexico’s government and its business class.

The Mexican Labor Movement

The financial crisis finds Mexico’s labor movement deeply divided, though the labor left is already mobilized to defend social property and the working class. Mexico’s “official” or government-backed unions united in the Congress of Labor (CT) and dominated by the conservative and corrupt Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM) – which for decades supported the PRI – have, since the Fox administration, offered political cover to the conservative PAN. The CT can be expected to criticize the U.S. financial institutions and to call for very minimal improvement for workers, but will not take action.

A new and more dynamic, but equally conservative and corrupt, union alliance is that between the Mexican Teachers Union (el SNTE) led by Elba Esther Gordillo and Mexican Petroleum Workers Union (STPRM) led by the notoriously corrupt Carlos Romero Deschamps. Gordillo, a former head of the PRI and a shrewd political operator, called for this alliance to deal with the economic crisis back in May of 2008. Gordillo, who has been a supporter of President Calderón, will attempt to respond to the crisis by winning more influence for herself and her union with the Calderón government.

The Labor Left

Mexico’s labor left, the National Union of Workers (UNT) and the Mexican Union Front (FSM), have been in a nearly constant state of mobilization against the government of presidents Fox and Calderón for the last eight years. They have sought to protect the Mexican Petroleum Company and the Light and Power Company of Central Mexico from privatization through a long series of national mobilizations. The two left labor alliances have also created a National Union, Peasant, Social and Popular Front (FSCSP) that has used every occasion to criticize the government’s neoliberal policies. Among other things they have called for a renegotiation of NAFTA.

Also already in struggle on the labor left is the Democratic Coordinating Committee (formerly la CNTE) of the Teachers Union which has been leading protests and strikes for weeks in various states throughout Mexico against the Alliance for Quality Education(ACE), established by President Calderón and teachers union leader Elba Esther Gordillo. Then, too, there is the Mexican Miners and Metal Workers Union (SNTMMRM) which has been on strike at Grupo Mexico’s Cananea copper mine and other mines for more than a year in a fight to defend the autonomy of their union. The Calderón government has removed Miners’ Union leader Napoleón Gómez Urritia from office, accused him of embezzling more than US$50 million, and has driven him into exile in Vancouver, British Columbia, the location from which for more than a year he has led the union.

Since the crisis began, some small or local unions in the public sector have begun to issue statements calling on the government to protect employment. So far, the major unions have not issued positions on the financial crisis.

Mexico’s labor, social, and left movements will all be called upon to respond to the challenge of the current crisis. We will see who rises to the occasion in the next few months.

Notes

1. Claudia Herrera Beltrán, "Reconoce Calderón los impactos de la crisis y presenta plan para enfrentarla," La Jornada, Oct. 9, 2008; Jens Erik Gould and Andres R. Martinez. "Calderon Proposes Spending to Bolster Mexico Economy (Update1)" Bloomberg.

2. Roberto Garduño and Ciro Pérez, "El Ejecutivo ajusta el presupuesto 2009 a la baja; será de 2.7 billiones de pesos," La Jornada, Oct. 9, 2008.

3. Greg Quinn and David Scanlan, "Canada Joins Other Central Banks, Stocks More Dollars (Update3)," Bloomberg.com, Sept. 18; CTV.ca News Staff, "Scotiabank forecasts recession for Canada," CTV, Oct. 6.

4. Miriam Posada García, "La crisis en EU es peor que la debacle de 1929, afirma Carlos Slim," La Jornada, Sept. 30, 2008; "Mexico tiene experiencia para enfrentar crisis: Slim," Notimex, Sept. 30, 2008.

5. Roberto González A., Roberto Garduño, and Enrique Méndez, "Afectará a México la crisis 'sin precedentes' de EU: Carstens," La Jornada, Sept. 18, 2008.

6. "Carstens: habrá medidas emergentes por crisis de EU," Notimex, Oct. 1, 2008.

7. Miriam Posada García, "La crisis que viene será 'monumental' y habrá que sobreponerse: Luis Téllez," La Jornada, Oct. 9, 2008.

8. Alexei Barrionnuevo, "Emerging Markets Find They Aren't Insulated from the Tumult," New York Times, Oct. 7, 2008.

9. Noel Randewich, "Mexico says banks protected, exports a weak spot," Reuters, Sept. 29, 2008.

10. Juan Antonio Zuñiga, "Perdió la BMV 5.40%, empujada por los desplomes en las bolsas mundiales," La Jornada, Oct. 7, 2008.

11. Juan Antonio Zuñiga, "Fuerte demanda llevó el dólar a $12, el precio más alto en 16 años," La Jornada, Oct., 7, 2008.

12. "Resiente México crisis de EU: Ortiz," El Economista, Oct. 6, 2008.

13. Roberto Garduño and Enrique Méndez, "Ante la crisis, Hacienda replantea el presupuesto," La Jornada, Oct. 3, 2008; Israel Rodríguez, "Se desploman precios del crudo; las mescla mexicana, por abajo de lo presupuestado," La Jornada, Oct. 7, 2008.

14. Jeremy Schwartz, "Looming economic disaster in Mexico?" Austin American-Statesman, Sept. 30, 2008.

15. Jeffrey Passel, "Trends in Unauthorized Immigration: Undocumented Inflow Now Trails Legal Inflow," Pew Hispanic Research Center, Oct. 2, 2008.

16. Victor Ballinas, "Si afectará a familias pobres la crisis en EU," La Jornada, Oct. 7, 2008.

17. José Antonio Román, "Pide la Iglesia a funcionarios ser realistas ante la crisis en EU," La Jornada, Oct. 6, 2008.

18. Enrique Méndez, "Demandan diputados medidas extraordinarias," La Jornada, Oct. 7, 2008.

19. "Plantea el PRD usar parte de las reserves monetarias para un plan de contingencia," La Jornada, Oct. 8, 2008.

20. Andrés Manuel López Obrador, "Urge Aplicar un Plan Anti-Crisis."

21. Alma E. Muñoz, "Calderón culpable del impacto en México de la crisis en EU: AMLO," La Jornada, Oct. 9, 2008.

22. Andrea Becerril, "Propone Monreal reducer 50% ingresos de legisladores, ministros y funcionarios," La Jornada, Oct. 9, 2008.

23. The EZLN's latest manifesto: "Sixth Intergalactic Commission." To the best of my knowledge Marcos has not yet spoken out on the current financial crisis of Sept.-Oct. 2008.

24. Mexico's armed guerrilla groups and their various manifestos and statements can be found at: CEDEMA.

25. The literature on Oaxaca's Civic Uprising includes: Victor Raúl Martín Vásquez, Autoritarismo, movimiento popular y crisis política: Oaxaca 2006 (Oaxaca: Diálogo, 2006); Diego Enrique Osorno, Oaxaca: La primera insurección del siglo XXI (Mexico: Grijalbo, 2007); Cuauhtémoc Blas López, Oaxaca: Insula de Rezagos: Crítica a sus gobiernos de razón y de costumbre (Oaxaca, Mexico: Editorial Siembra, 2007); Nancy Davis, The People Decide: Oaxaca's Popular Assembly (np: Narco News Books, 2007); Richard Roman and Edur Velasco Arregui, The Oaxaca Commune: The Other Indigenous Rebellion in Mexico (Canada: Socialist Project, 2008); also the journals: Socialism and Democracy, Vol. 21, No. 2 (July, 2007), special section "The Uprising in Oaxaca" and Cuadernos del Sur, Vol. 12, Nos. 24/25 (Nov. 2007) issue dedicated to Oaxaca events of 2006.

26. Carolina García, "Lanzan sindicatos propuestas laborales ante la crisis," El Universal, May 30, 2008.

27. Dan La Botz, "Mexico's Labor Movement in Transition," Monthly Review, Vol. 57, No. 2 (June 2005).

28. Patricia Muñoz Rios, "Organizaciones obreras señalan graves efectos de la pulmonia financiera de EU," La Jornada, Oct. 7, 2008.

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Teachers Continue Fight Against Government Education Reform

During the last month, teachers in many states throughout the country—tens of thousands of them—continued their strikes, protest demonstrations, sit-ins, and marches against the government’s education reform proposal. Thousands of teachers from more than half of Mexico’s 32 states marched through Mexico City on October 8 to demand that the government give up its Alliance for Quality Education (ACE) and its attempts to reform the public employees’ health and pension system (ISSSTE).

The Alliance for Quality Education was established by President Calderón and teachers’ union leader Elba Esther Gordillo who argue that it will improve education. The dissident teachers, however, led by the Democratic Coordinating Committee, see it as the opening wedge in an attempt to weaken public schools and the position of the teachers’ union and in the long run to privatize aspects of education. Teachers are particularly angry about a new examination being given to current and future teachers which will be used to determine their eligibility for teaching jobs. Many fear this test could be used to exclude or punish union activists. Others worry about political favoritism.

The dissident teachers movement has been especially strong in Oaxaca, Morelos, Michoacán, and part of the Federal District. On October 8 in Morelos, more than 1,000 Federal Preventive Police (PFP) violently removed families belonging to the Union of Towns of the Eastern Zone who had blocked the federal Cuautla-Puebla highway near the town of Amayuca. Six helicopters dropped tear gas bombs on the parents and their children. During the melee, in which trucks and cars were burned and destroyed, 49 were arrested and dozens were injured, some seriously. Some people also “disappeared,” usually meaning they are being illegal and secretly held by the police.

Similar operations took place in other towns where highways or roads were being blocked. The press and witnesses reported that in these operations police went from house to house looking for teachers, dragging them out and beating them.

In Morelos, after the strike by 20,000 had left 400,000 students without teachers for more than a month, the state government announced that it planned to use television and internet to educate the students, at least during the continuing work stoppage.

In addition to the teachers’ protests taking place in more than 16 states, hundreds of college students at the country’s normal schools (teachers colleges) have been marching and protesting both the Alliance for Quality Education and plans to close their colleges. The college students have created a National Front of Normal School Students from 17 normal schools in several states.

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Mexico to Initiate an Unemployment Insurance Fund

The Mexican Secretary of Labor announced at the end of September that it had begun to put in place a new National Employment Service (SNE) which will offer help to the unemployed. Mexico has never before had an unemployment system for workers and this represents a significant change in the nation’s labor and social welfare system.

Under the new system, workers who become unemployed due to an economic, social or natural “labor contingency” will be able to apply for financial assistance equal to 2.5 minimum wages (about $10 per day) for three months. The new program has a 20 million peso budget for the remainder of the year which can be expanded based on conditions. Next year it will have a 650 million peso budget.

The SNE and other government agencies will also offer job training grants, employment assistance, help for the handicapped and older adults, and for agricultural workers.

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Proposals in Congress to Oblige Unions to Report Finances

Several proposals have been presented to the Mexican Congress which would require labor unions to file financial reports that deal with union dues and union property and resources.

The proposals have come from the International Campaign against Protection Contracts, a movement which seeks to end a system of phony labor union agreements arranged by crooked lawyers and corrupt unions that offer employers sweetheart deals. The system of protection contracts is widespread in Mexico.

At present, Mexican unions generally give no accounting of their finances and income either to their own members or to the public or the government. Under the proposals, union officers would have to file reports every six months.


THOUSANDS MARCH TO REMEMBER MASSACRE OF OCT. 2, 1968

Thousands marched in Mexico City and in other cities to remember the government’s massacre of hundreds of students forty years ago at the time of the Mexican Olympics. The marches were led by former leaders of and participants in the student marches for democracy that took place on October 2, 1968. At the orders of the Mexican President and Secretary of the Interior, Mexican Army and police units killed several hundred students at the Plaza of the Three Cultures also known as Tlatelolco.

The Mexican government has yet to bring all of those responsible to account. This year, students, workers, housewives, teachers, government workers and many others participated in the memorial march. Speakers at rallies held at the culmination of the march linked the movements for democracy then to movements for democracy in Mexico today, and compared the repression of 1968 to recent repression by Felipe Calderón’s government.

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Mexico a Flagrant Violator of Children’s Rights: UN

Mexico is among the worst violators of children’s rights according to Jorge Bustamante, a founder of the College of the Northern Border and a Special Reporteur to the United Nations for the Human Rights of Migrants. According to Bustamante there are 3.3 million child workers in Mexico in violation of the Mexican Constitution.

His remarks came on the occasion of a meeting of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees.

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Poem ... Y Ya No Queda Nadie

Jaime Cota, Cittac

(English translation follows the Spanish)

Primero corrieron a las trabajadoras de la maquila de enfrente,
Y yo no dije nada, pues no trabajaba ahí.
Después cerraron el turno nocturno en mi fábrica.
Y yo no dije nada, pues trabajaba en el turno de día.
Después despidieron a los de nuevo ingreso.
Y yo no hablé porque ya tenía cinco años trabajando ahí. Hoy me anunciaron que estoy despedido.
Y para este momento ya no queda nadie que pueda solidarizarse conmigo.

... And no One is Left

First they fired the workers from the maquiladora across the street, and I did not speak out—
Because I didn’t work there.
Then they shut down the night shift at my factory, and I did not speak out—
Because I worked during the day shift.
Then they fired all the new employees, and I did not speak out—
Because I’d been working there for more than five years.
Then they told me I was fired—
And there was no one left to speak out for me.

[Translated by David Schmidt, Si Se Puede]

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Labor Secretary Sends Reform to Congress

Secretary of Labor Javier Lozano announced in early October that he would send Congress his labor law reform proposal. He argues that the new law is necessary to promote "economic competitiveness," growth and job creation. He predicts that passing the law will increase economic growth by 5 percent.

Previous attempts to pass the reform of the Federal Labor Law in the administration of Vicente Fox failed. Lozano believes that this Congress will pass it.

The National Union of Workers, the Authentic Labor Front (FAT), and the Mexican Union Front (FSM) have opposed the reforms arguing that they would give management a free hand and weaken unions and harm workers' interests. The UNT and FAT working with the PRD in the last Congress put forward their own legislative alternative which would enhance union democracy and increase workers' power in the workplace.

Lozano's office also reported that a staggering 66 percent of Mexican workers are employed in the informal economy, in which no taxes are paid or benefits received.

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Documents of the Movement in Translation

By Congressman José Antonio Almazán González

[The following document was released to the news media by Mexican Congressman José Antonio Almazán González of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). His website can be found at: http://almazan.org.mx/.]

STOP FINANCIAL SPECULATION IN OUR COUNTRY!

Press Bulletin, October 8, 2008

Secretary of Finance Augstín Carstens Carstens recently gave the media his view of the effects of the grave economic crisis which has shaken the United States and its repercussions on our country. His impression is that “Mexico is well prepared to withstand the effect of the financial crisis in the United States.”

In addition, speaking with demagogic abandon or ignorance he declared, “The strength that we have in public finance, the management of the Bank of Mexico, banks which are in a good situation and with little dependence on foreign commerce are going to give us the strength to navigate through turbulent waters in the coming days.”

So it seems that the Secretary of Finance and [President] Felipe Calderón are the only functionaries who “don’t realize” the powerful economic deceleration at the global level (as the International Monetary Fund calls it), which is affecting the developed countries as much as the emergent economies, as in the case of Mexico.

It’s enough to observe the behavior of our economy in these days, in order to realize that everything that’s happening points to a real economic recession.

· The Mexican peso has fallen dramatically against the dollar: a few hours ago it was as 14.00 pesos to the dollar, surpassing the level it reached during the term of [former President] Luis Echeverría, only that since then they removed three zeros from the peso in 1992.

· The Price of petroleum has fallen and is below the price calculated into the budget by the Secretary of Finance, reaching 78.03 dollars a barrel, almost two dollars below the budget calculation made by Treasury in the Federal Budget for fiscal 2009.

· As the International Monetary Fund recognized in its last report Perspectives on the World Economy, by way of a press release on October 8, inflation will grow enormously at the global level. In the case of the so-called emerging countries such as Mexico, the inflation rate is projected at around 8% at the end of 2008, and then will return to a level of about 6.5% in 2009.


In this context of grave economic crisis we can arrive at the following conclusions:

· At the global level the neoliberal economy, which bet everything on the regulation of the market “without the intervention of the state,” is a failure as this international financial crisis shows, a failure that has impacted negatively on the economies of the United States, of the Europeans, as well as of Latin America, particularly Mexico.

· The Capitalist Model which bases its existence on private property in land, factories, and primary materials, suffers recurrent structural crises which have been occurring from the nineteenth century to our times. It is a system based on the exploitation of the labor force of millions of workers—which contrasts with the immense accumulation of fortunes by multimillionaires. This system has entered a new stage of recession, demonstrating that it does not constitute an alternative for human society. Capitalism with its crises not only condemns millions of human beings to poverty, but it also puts at risk the very existence of the human species, contributing to the destruction of the environment and to wars of extermination throughout the planet.

· Without a doubt the crisis through which we are now passing is a product of the recession in the United States; nevertheless, another contributing element is the poor administration of our finances carried out by the Bank of Mexico, which is completely foreign and which serves the needs of the international oligarchy.

· Coinciding with the proposal that, in order to end this crisis, it is necessary to eliminate the executive branch’s wasteful spending, it will also be necessary to re-nationalize the Bank in our country, and put it at the service of the interest of our Nation.

· The hundreds of organizations which have raised the banner of the Non-Negotiable Minimum Program fighting for a National Alternative to Neoliberalism, reject the Secretary of Finance’s budget for 2009 which proposes to cut the funding for strategic sectors of our country, allowing the weight of the crisis to fall on the public enterprises, and with cuts to health and education.

[The author refers in this last point to: Non-Negotiable Minimum Program was adopted at the Second National Dialogue toward a National Project that is an Alternative to Neoliberalism, Feb. 4 – 5, 2005. The full text can be found at: http://www.dialogonacional.org.mx/iipon09.html. The minimum program calls for: 1) No mor privatizations; 2) a program of nationalization of industry; 3) for national leadership by the manual and intellectual working class, peasants, students, small- and medium-sized business people, together with all who join in this program; 4) A new qualitatively different democracy, a democracy of the people; 5) self-determination and nonintervention in the affairs of Mexico and other countries, and no use of violence in international relations; 6) rejection of the terms of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (based on the North American Free Trade Agreement); 7) for the economic, political and cultural integration of Latin America and the Caribbean; 8) significant reduction of the service of the external debt with the different going to national development; 9) end the robbery of the nation which the Fobaproa-lpab [bank rescue program] imposed, guaranteeing public education, protecting workers rights and the Social Security (public health and pension) program; 10) reform Article 27 to protect rural communities, strengthening infrastructure, credit opportunities, technical assistance, and subsidies which would raise productivity.]

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Resources

Book Announcement: Uprooted: The Impact of Free Markets on Migrants – by David Bacon

"The borders between our countries should be common grounds to unite us, not lines that divide us."

Since NAFTA's passage in 1993, the U.S. Congress has debated and passed several new trade agreements - with Peru, Jordan, Chile, and the Central American Free Trade Agreement. At the same time it has debated immigration policy as though those trade agreements bore no relationship to the waves of displaced people migrating to the U.S., looking for work.

Meanwhile, a rising tide of anti-immigrant hysteria has increasingly demonized those migrants, leading to measures that deny them jobs, rights, or any pretense of equality with people living in the communities around them.

To resolve any of these dilemmas, from adopting rational and humane immigration policies to reducing the fear and hostility towards migrants, Uprooted: The Impact of Free Market on Migrants, a new Backgrounder from the Oakland Institute, suggests the starting point has to be an examination of the way U.S. policies have both produced migration and criminalized migrants.

Read the Backgrounder

About the Author: David Bacon, a senior fellow at the Oakland Institute, is an award-winning labor journalist, photographer, immigrant-rights activist and former labor organizer.

The Oakland Institute is a progressive policy think tank working to increase public participation and to promote fair debate on critical social, economic, and environmental issues.

OPPORTUNITY TO HELP THE MAQUIÁPOLIS PROMOTORAS

Dear Friends of the MAQUILÁPOLIS project:

MAQUILÁPOLIS has touched thousands of people since its 2006 release, and many of you have written to us expressing your wishes to support the work of the promotoras, the factory worker/activists who participated in the creation of the film. Many of you have gone on to do just that in a variety of ways, from making donations to their organizations to inviting the promotoras to speak in your communities.

Today, we want to tell you about a new opportunity to help some of the promotoras develop and grow as activists. Earlier this year, four of the MAQUILÁPOLIS promotoras began a 2-year, university level program in community advocacy or "promotoría." The program is offered by the IberoAmerican University (UIA) in Tijuana. When the women graduate, they will have a Certificate in Community Organizing. For those who have not finished their "secundaria," the Mexican equivalent of U.S. high school, they will also receive their secundaria diploma as part of the program.

The participating promotoras are seeking help with their tuition, to ensure that they can complete the 2-year program. You can support them by making a donation towards their tuition. The promotoras taking the course are Lupita Castañeda, Carmen Durán, Natty Guizar, and Blanca Sanchez. For those of you making donations in the U.S., these donations are tax-deductible.

Please note that these donations should NOT be made to the MAQUILÁPOLIS project, but must go through the Community Services Center of the IberoAmerican University.

-Best to you all,
Vicky Funari and Sergio De La Torre, Directors of MAQUILÁPOLIS

Donations are tax-deductible within the U.S.
$50 Dólares ( ) $100 Dólares ( )
another amount, please state amount] $ ____________

Note: To send you proof of tax deductible status the donation must be at least $50 dollars.
Make check out to: IBEROAMERICANA UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION (PENOAC)
Address: P.O. Box 438210 San Ysidro, CA. 92143-8210 USA
For more information, please contact:
Lic. Lilia A. Palomares Santillán
Tel: 011-52 (664) 609 47 13
email: lilia@tij.uia.mx

NEW BOOK – Photos, Analysis, Testimonies

Edited by Diana Denham and CASA Chapulin. Published by PM Press
The mass mobilization in Oaxaca that began in the summer of 2006 brought together people from all sectors of society to address deeply rooted social problems, such as widespread corruption and repression. The accounts recorded in Teaching Rebellion, accompanied by photography and political art tell the story of the movement as it has been lived by the people, shedding light on how deeply Oaxaca society has felt the unfolding conflict.

TO ORDER BOOKS: click here!

"Once you learn to speak, you don't want to be quiet anymore," Alfredo, an indigenous community radio activist, told us. When asked about the movement and the months of intense conflict, the people who bore witness to the events can hardly stop to catch their breath. In their stories, they capture the shifting atmosphere that could be felt on the streets from fear to hope, weakness to strength. This book comes out of months of informal conversations with Oaxacans dedicated to making change in their state.

"While we made an effort to represent a cross-section of Oaxacan society, to reflect both the diversity of actors and the diversity of their experiences, there are at least a million people who took to the streets and all of them lived things they had never imagined. Their buried fears, earned victories, suffered traumas, and sown dreams are the answers to why and how this movement organized as it did."

-- Teaching Rebellion

BOOK REVIEW - September 24, 2008

TEACHING REBELLION: STORIES FROM THE GRASSROOTS MOBILIZATION IN OAXACA

http://www.casachapulin.org/en/story/issue-64-october-2008/review-teaching-rebellion-stories-grassroots-mobilization-oaxaca

Review by Peter Gelderloos, author of How Nonviolence Protects the State

The popular rebellion that broke out in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca in the summer of 2006 caught the attention of people around the world even before the federal police moved in to crush it violently. For half a year, Oaxaca City and many of the surrounding towns were effectively self-organized through popular assemblies. A broad coalition of teachers, indigenous, students, artists, environmentalists, unemployed, and others came together not just to press their demands for the resignation of the state's particularly brutal governor, Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, but to create a new society, compassionate and anti-authoritarian, without the interference of political parties.

Solidarity actions and material support for the rebellion were organized throughout Latin America, North America, and Europe, and many activists traveled to Oaxaca to participate in and learn about the social movements there. CASA, a solidarity collective that helps place visiting activists with groups in Oaxaca where they can do the most good, has recorded and translated an impressive compilation of interviews with participants in the popular rebellion.

The result is Teaching Rebellion, a vital oral history for the English-speaking world. Included are the voices of neighbors who met at the barricades, artists painting revolution on the walls or reclaiming indigenous traditions, women taking over a TV station, striking teachers, torture survivors, political prisoners, grandmothers and children.

The stories that come out give an intensely personal picture of the roots and beginning of the rebellion, its multifaceted development over the summer, and its brutal repression in November, 2006. The reader also gains a sense of what was happening in the rural areas outside of Oaxaca City, in towns where people kicked out the local politicians and set up popular assemblies. Some testimonies provide an exciting glimpse of insurrectionary moments when popular desires exploded in the streets and anything was possible, while others give a more sobering view of the long struggle, from the perspective of teachers' union organizers or indigenous communities who have already been through previous ebbs and flows, victories and defeats, while continuing in their resistance patiently and persistently.

Teaching Rebellion realistically encompasses the diversity of the social movements active in Oaxaca, giving voice to priests spreading liberation theology, indigenous activists defending their culture, maids or students swept up in the moment, NGO workers seeking limited reforms, political prisoners fighting for revolution. Though they have taken on an ambitious project, the editors, as sensitive outsiders, have not attempted to answer the contradictions that exist within the movement. This is problematic, given that within half a year the movement was splitting in different directions. According to many, Stalinists and politicians had taken over the leadership roles within APPO, the Oaxaca popular assembly. They subsequently disregarded a founding principle of the APPO and participated in the elections in 2007. The goal of the book is to teach about popular rebellions with the intent of spreading them, thus the perennial conflict between reform and revolution, between horizontal uprisings and the political opportunists that always attempt to control them, is necessary to explore and understand. Those conflicts are implicit in the interviews provided, but readers may have to do more reading and thinking to encounter those questions in a constructive way.

Fortunately, the editors have made it clear this is not a book to read and put back on the shelf, rather, it is a tool. The final pages include a thorough study guide with discussion questions and activities that encourage the reader to turn this book into a workshop, an opportunity to engage with their friends and communities and draw lessons from the rebellion in Oaxaca. Given how inspiring the testimonies can be, I would guess that many readers will take up the challenge posed by the study guide, and learn from the Oaxaca rebellion in a critical way.

Essentially a simple book with beautiful photos and plenty of background information, Teaching Rebellion is accessible to beginners, but full of valuable stories and challenging perspectives that will benefit those who have closely followed the events in Oaxaca.

* * *

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CASA: Collectivos de Apoyo, Solidaridad y Accion: The CASA Collectives coordinate two centers for education, international solidarity and activism in Oaxaca and Chiapas, Mexico. We work to connect movements for justice across borders, and to provide collective members with skills and experience to bring back to their work in their home communities.

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