Mexican Labor News & Analysis

Mexico City Mayor Fights to Remain Eligible for Election

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Mayor of Mexico City, is fighting for his political life, fighting to keep from being made ineligible to stand as a presidential candidate in the 2006 election. As he does so, he is becoming the focal point and symbol, not only of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), but also of a popular movement opposed to both president Vicente Fox and the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).

The PAN and PRI have attempted to strip López Obrador of official immunity so that he can be tried on felony charges for ignoring a court order to desist from constructing a road connecting a hospital to a major highway. Under the Mexican Constitution if he is facing criminal charges, he would be ineligible to run for office.

López Obrador has threatened to mount massive political demonstrations that would disrupt Mexico’s capital if president Fox, his National Action Party, and the PRI majority in Congress don’t end their attempt to strip him of his executive immunity in order to indict him for a felony.

If he should be indicted, López Obrador promises that he will run for the presidency from prison, and will not give up his right to stand for president. The Mexico City mayor argues that the attempt to remove his immunity and indict him is entirely politically motivated and would deny Mexicans the right to a genuine alternative in the 2006 election. Political polls have consistently shown that López Obrador leads all other candidates from all parties.

López Obrador’s struggle for his right to run, and for the right of the Mexican people to have him as a candidate, comes at a time of rising discontent in the country, a result of president Fox’s failure to fulfill his promise to bring a better life to the Mexican people. Consequently, some fear that the Mayor’s call for street demonstrations could detonate an explosion of civil resistance.

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Labor Organizations from Mexico, U.S., Canada and Quebec Oppose Labor Law Reform

Twenty labor organizations from Mexico, Canada, Quebec and the U.S. have filed a case under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) labor side agreements in an attempt to stop the Mexican government from going forward with its proposed reform the Mexican labor law. The unions, represented by the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), a non-governmental human rights organization, argue that the “Abascal Project,” as the labor law reform proposal is known, would deny workers fundamental rights and weaken existing labor law.

The unions and WOLA filed a charge with the National Administrative Office (NAO), which administers the North American Commission for Labor Cooperation (NAALC), the official name for the labor side agreements to NAFTA. The unions, supported by Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), ask the NAO to undertake an expedited review of the proposed reforms and to recommend that any provisions violating the labor side agreement be rescinded.

Rep. Kaptur has initiated a congressional petition to Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, urging her to accept the submission, review the Abascal Project, and immediately initiate consultations with the Mexican government to address its open violation of Mexico’s obligations under the NAALC.

Fox and his party, the PAN, together with the PRI, and the Green Ecological Party (PVEM), are seeking a vote on a fast-track process for labor law reform in early March. Driven by the Mexican Employers Association (COPARMEX) which Secretary of Labor Abascal used to head, they have generally been able to count on the backing of the "official" labor movement in the Congress of Labor.

But even there divisions arose recently, with some unions rejecting the government's plan, among them the Mexican Miners and Metal Workers Union (SNTMM). An official of that union says, we don't want to see the law reformed, we want to see it enforced. The head of the Revolutionary Confederation of Mexican Workers (CROM), one of the important "official" federations, says that the reform is now a dead letter and should be forgotten.

The independent labor movement, led by the National Union of Workers (UNT) and the Mexican Union Front (FSM), completely rejects the PAN-PRI pro-employer reform, and has called for unions and workers to take direct action to oppose it. Around those unions has grown up a broad movement, the Labor, Peasant, Social, Indigenous, and Popular Front (FSICSP), which has drawn in many other social forces to oppose labor law reform, privatization, and the neoliberal economic model in general.

Now, to these forces, Canadian Quebecois and U.S. labor organizations have lent their support by challenging the proposed reform through the North American Free Trade (NAFTA) labor side agreements. The effort involving more 20 labor unions and federations from three countries (including Mexico) represents one of the most important demonstrations to date of international solidarity at this political level. [See below for a more detailed account of the suit.]

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Brief Explanation of Abascal Proposal and NAALC Submission

Beginning in the late 1980s, the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party) and Mexican employers' associations began to put forward their vision of a "New Labor Culture" that emphasized productivity and flexibility. The first proposal was introduced in the late 80’s by the Mexican Employers Association (COPARMEX), but was ultimately not successful. However, after Vicente Fox Quesada (PAN) was elected president in 2000, Carlos Abascal Carranza, his Secretary of Labor, and a former head of COPARMEX, began the process by which a proposal for labor law reform was developed.

In July of 2001, Abascal initiated the talks between the Secretariat of Labor and Social Welfare (STPS), the Business Coordinating Council (CCE) and the labor unions, both the Congress of Labor (CT) and the National Union of Workers (UNT), with a commitment that no legislation would be introduced in the absence of a consensus. However, the present piece of legislation, developed essentially by the STPS, is far from a consensus proposal and would seriously diminish current standards in violation of domestic and international law.

The initiative presented on December 12, 2002 with the support of the Fox administration will be voted on during the current session of the Chamber of Deputies, which began on February 15, 2005. Together, these reforms would strengthen the system of corporatist control over labor, further stifling the rights of workers, while giving business the unrestrained "flexibility" it has been demanding.

The Abascal Project further violates the “Twenty Commitments to Freedom of Association and Union Democracy” signed by President Fox while he was a candidate for the presidency and independent unions in 2000, which promised greater respect and protection of democratic rights in the labor arena

Already, independent labor unions, academics and labor lawyers have criticized the Abascal Project harshly. Lance Compa, former Director of Labor Law and Economic Research for the Secretariat of the Commission for Labor Cooperation, established under the NAALC, recently summarized the principal objections in terms of freedom of association to the Abascal Project as follows:

The proposal would tighten government control of union formation and collective bargaining while granting employers new unilateral powers to sidetrack unions…The Abascal proposal would do nothing to increase transparency in union affairs [and] rejects independent unions’ long-standing demand to list local unions and collective bargaining agreements in a public registry available to all citizens …The Abascal proposal would also create enormous obstacles to workers’ right to organize. First, it would tighten jurisdictional rules defining which labor organization can represent workers according to craft, enterprise and company. The effect would be to lock in bargaining monopoly by incumbent official unions and insulate them from challenges from independent unions. Finally, the Abascal proposal would require prior disclosure of the name and address of every worker who joins an independent union, then have the federal or state labor board with jurisdiction in the matter investigate each worker’s signature. …[This] puts all workers at the risk of reprisals and would have a chilling effect on workers’ freedom of association.

See Lance Compa, Justice for All : The Struggle for Workers Rights in Mexico, AFL-CIO Solidarity Center (2003), p. 18, www.solidaritycenter.org

On February 17, 2005, 20 Mexican, Canadian, Quebecois and U.S. unions, as well as the Washington Office on Latin America, filed a submission with the U.S. NAO alleging that the Abascal Project violates the central obligation of the NAFTA labor side agreement (NAALC), which obligates the parties to: “ensure that its labor laws and regulations provide for high labor standards, consistent with high quality and productivity workplaces, and shall continue to strive to improve those standards in that light.”
Substantially weakening existing laws and failing to fix the numerous problems that already exist is clear evidence that Mexico is not striving to improve its standards. The obligations undertaken by the Parties under the NAALC would be rendered utterly meaningless if one were able to repeal those laws that protect workers and replace them with laws that violate the principles set forth in the NAALC.

Petitioners are asking the U.S. NAO to undertake an expedited review of the labor law reforms and to recommend that any provisions found to violate the labor side agreement be rescinded. Petitioners are supported in this effort by Representative Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), who is currently sponsoring a congressional sign on letter to Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, urging that Secretary Chao accept the submission, review the Abascal Project, and immediately initiate consultations with the Mexican government to address its open violation of Mexico’s obligations under the NAALC.

Participating Unions:

U.S.: American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), Communications Workers of America (CWA), International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), International Association of Machinists (IAM), Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical & Energy Workers International Union (PACE), Service Employees International Union (SEIU), UNITE-HERE, United Auto Workers of America (UAW), United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE), United Steel Workers of America (USWA), and the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (LCLAA)

Canadian/Quebec: Canadian Auto Workers Union (CAW), Canadian Energy and Paper Workers’ Union (CEP), Canadian Labour Congress (CLC), Centrale des Syndicats du Québec (CSQ), Syndicat de la fonction publique du Québec (SFPQ).

Mexico: Sindicato Mexicano de Electricistas (SME), Sindicato Unico de los Trabajadores del Gobierno del Distrito Federal (SUTGDF), Unión Nacional de Trabajadores (UNT) (Mexico’s largest federation of independent trade unions)

Global Union Federations: Public Service International (PSI)

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Mexico: Fox’s Labor Reform Proposal Would Deal Serious Blow to Workers’ Rights

Letter to Mexico's Chamber of Deputies

February 9, 2005

Deputy Francisco Javier Barrio Terrazas
Coordinator of the PAN Parliamentary Group
Chamber of Deputies
Mexico City, Mexico

Deputy Emilio Chuayffet Chemor
Coordinator of the PRI Parliamentary Group
Chamber of Deputies
Mexico City, Mexico

Deputy Pablo Gómez Álvarez
Coordinator of the PRD Parliamentary Group
Chamber of Deputies
Mexico City, Mexico

Deputy Manlio Fabio Beltrones Rivera
President of the Mesa Directiva of the Chamber of Deputies
Chamber of Deputies
Mexico City, Mexico

Dear Deputies Barrio, Chuayffet, Gómez, and Beltrones:

We write to express our concern that the proposed labor law reform, known as the Abascal Project, under consideration in the Labor and Social Welfare Commission of the Chamber of Deputies would be a serious setback for workers’ human rights in Mexico. As you know, Human Rights Watch is an independent, nongovernmental organization that conducts investigations of human rights abuses in some eighty countries around the globe and is the second largest human rights monitoring organization in the world.

It has come to our attention that the Abascal Project may soon be voted on in the Commission and then put to a floor vote. We oppose putting the proposal to a vote. Instead, we strongly urge the Commission to reject the Abascal Project and encourage the development of a new proposal that would strengthen workers’ rights protections.

The Abascal Project not only fails to remedy key shortcomings in Mexican labor law, but it weakens existing protections. In doing so, the proposal also violates Mexico’s obligations under international law to protect and promote workers’ human rights. The proposed changes would make it virtually impossible for most workers to exercise their rights to strike, bargain collectively, and join a union of their choosing. The proposal also fails to provide sufficient protections for workers facing pregnancy-based discrimination in hiring.

Additionally, the Abascal Project ignores important recommendations in the 2003 report on Mexico from the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights; key principles of Mexico’s National Human Rights Program, launched by President Vicente Fox in December 2004; and commitments made in a May 2000 ministerial agreement between the United States and Mexico during proceedings under the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC), the labor side agreement to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

Failure to Protect Workers’ Rights to Organize, Strike, and Bargain Collectively

Mexico is a party to several international instruments that require the government to protect workers’ right to freedom of association, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), and the Additional Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights in the Area of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (“Protocol of San Salvador”). Similarly, the International Labor Organization’s Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work (ILO Declaration) has recognized freedom of association as one of the “fundamental rights” that all ILO members, including Mexico, have an obligation to protect.

The 2003 report of the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights on Mexico recommended “dismantling the regulatory system that inhibits freedom of association in the workplace” and “guaranteeing the following rights: freedom of association, a free and secret vote for workers, and the right to strike.” President Fox’s National Human Rights Program of December 2004 includes related goals. The Abascal Project seems to ignore these objectives. Instead, the proposal would impose onerous new preconditions on workers’ rights to strike, to demand collective bargaining, and to supplant pre-existing unions. If these requirements were adopted, they would effectively ban most independent union supporters from enjoying fundamental workers’ rights.

A major problem in Mexico is the lack of independent unions that can negotiate strong and fair collective bargaining agreements. According to some estimates, roughly 90 percent of all Mexico’s collective bargaining agreements are negotiated by non-independent, pro-government, pro-company unions. These “protection contracts” are generally negotiated without the consent, or even the knowledge, of the majority of workers. The law only requires that twenty workers belong to the negotiating union. The agreements also inhibit the formation of truly independent unions, since new unions must later win an election in which at least half the workforce participates in order to take control of the collective agreements away from the non-independent union. As discussed below, under the Abascal Project, such an election would be next to impossible.

Difficult to Obtain Documents Required

The Abascal Project adds burdensome provisions that would require workers to obtain various certified documents before they could strike, compel their employers to bargain collectively, or call a vote to oust a pre-existing union. Under Mexican law, however, these documents are only available from authorities that have been historically hostile to independent unions: the Labor Ministry in federal matters and local Boards of Conciliation and Arbitration in local ones. The Boards are tripartite bodies, with business and government officials and labor representatives generally hailing from non-independent unions. Therefore, the Boards would likely be reluctant to turn over the needed documents. As a result, under the Abascal Project, independent union supporters could be regularly prevented from being able to exercise their rights to strike, negotiate collectively, or join a union of their choosing.

Limits on Processing Union Election Requests

The Abascal Project would also require labor authorities to process only one request to unseat a pre-existing union at a time. As a result, at the first sign of independent union activity, an employer could collude with a non-independent union to submit a bogus application to prevent a vote with an independent union challenger. Since each request can take years to process, this provision would virtually eliminate the chance of a timely and independent union election.

Prejudicial Disclosure of Independent Union Supporters

Under the Abascal Project, workers would have to present documents containing their names and signatures to the local Boards or federal authorities with a statement expressing their desire to strike or hold an election to replace an existing union before they could engage in such activities. This could have a chilling effect on the exercise of these rights, since it would publicly identify workers who support strike action and independent unions in an environment where such workers often face employer intimidation and retaliation.

In addition, Mexican law allows “exclusion clauses” in labor contracts, which require employers to hire only union members and give unions the right to demand that an employer fire workers who resign or are expelled from the union. These clauses are also regularly invoked by non-independent unions to demand the dismissal of independent union supporters. The identification procedures in the Abascal Project that would force independent union and strike supporters to publicly disclose their identities would, therefore, make them vulnerable to negative repercussions, including firing. Under those circumstances, workers would be reluctant to openly declare their wish to join independent unions or strike. But unless they did so, they would be barred from exercising fundamental workers’ rights under the Abascal Project.

Secret Ballots in Union Elections Undermined

In Mexico, trade union elections to supplant pre-existing unions are often open ballot elections. Workers must publicly declare their union preference in the presence of numerous employer and non-independent union representatives and even, on occasion, hostile hired thugs. Intimidation by these parties has frequently prevented free and fair elections. Mexico has recognized this problem, and in its May 18, 2000, joint declaration with the United States under the NAALC, the government agreed to “promote the use of . . . secret ballot elections in disputes over the right to hold the collective bargaining contract.”

On its face, the Abascal Project addresses this issue. It would amend current law to require that elections to oust pre-existing unions occur only by secret ballot. In practice, however, the new procedural requirements that independent union supporters must fulfill prior to such an election would undermine, if not entirely negate, any benefits of a secret vote.

As discussed, under the Abascal Project, an election to gain workplace representational rights could only occur after workers supporting the vote presented to the relevant Board the requisite legal documents and papers containing their names and signatures. As noted, these requirements would be virtually impossible to meet. As a result, workers would rarely, if ever, get to enjoy their new right to a secret ballot election.

Furthermore, by requiring workers to publicly declare their desire for a vote when they file the election petition, the Abascal Project would create a new opportunity for intimidation prior to a secret-ballot vote. Thus, under the Abascal Project, the intimidation period would simply shift from election day to the period between petition filing and election day.

No Public Registry for Collective Accords and Union Registrations

The 2003 U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights report on Mexico recommended the creation of an “independent and autonomous” institution to “keep the registry of union organizations and collective contracts.” Similarly, in its May 18, 2000, joint declaration with the United States under the NAALC, Mexico agreed to “continue promoting the registry of collective bargaining contracts in conformity with established labor legislation.” Nonetheless, the Abascal Project fails to create a public registry for collective agreements and union registrations.

The lack of such a public registry becomes a problem when workers seek to form an independent union, following one of two paths for doing so under Mexican law. If there is a pre-existing union, as is often the case, they must call for a union election to gain representational rights for their workplace by filing a petition with the local or federal Board that contains, among other information, the legal name and address of the pre-existing union. Because workers are unable to check with a public registry to determine whether a union exists, they often either follow the wrong procedure or file a petition without the union’s correct name and address. Authorities then dismiss the petition, but through the petition process, the employer and any pre-existing union become aware that independent union organizing is underway and often retaliate against suspected independent union supporters.

Failure to Protect Workers’ Right to Freedom from Sex Discrimination

The ILO Declaration has also recognized the right to freedom from workplace and employment discrimination, understood as including pregnancy-based discrimination, as a fundamental right that all ILO members must protect. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the ICESCR, and the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence Against Women (“Convention of Belém do Pará”), both of which Mexico has ratified, also protect this right. Parties are required to provide effective legislative protection to guarantee the rights in these conventions, yet the Abascal Project does not.

Pregnancy-Based Discrimination

Human Rights Watch documented systematic pregnancy-based discrimination in Mexico’s free trade zones, both post-hire and in the hiring process, in August 1996 and December 1998. In January 1998, the U.S. National Administrative Office also concluded that the practice was widespread. And the U.N. Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) stated in 1999 that it was “deeply concerned about the situation of women workers in the maquiladoras, some of whom are subjected to pregnancy tests upon recruitment and at intervals during work, and are dismissed if found to be pregnant.” Human Rights Watch has recommended clarifying federal legislation to explicitly prohibit requiring proof of pregnancy status as a condition to gain or retain work and to explicitly ban employment and workplace pregnancy-based discrimination.

The Abascal Project only partially addresses these problems. It would amend existing law to explicitly prohibit employers from firing or pressuring a worker to resign due to her pregnancy, but it fails to address pregnancy-based discrimination in the hiring process. This omission is contradictory to President Fox’s National Human Rights Program, which includes a goal “to verify that pregnancy tests are not demanded of women wishing to access employment.” Similarly, it flouts the 1999 CESCR recommendation that Mexico “adopt immediate steps towards the protection of women workers in the maquiladoras, including prohibiting the practice of demanding medical certification that prospective workers are not pregnant and taking legal action against employers who fail to comply.”

Conclusion

For the reasons set forth above, we urge you to reject the insufficient Abascal Project and not put the proposal to a vote. Instead, we encourage the elaboration of a new labor law reform proposal through a truly tripartite process that includes employers, government officials, and independent and non-independent union representatives. This new proposal should remedy the deficiencies of the Abascal Project and improve protections for workers’ human rights.

We will continue to monitor labor law reform developments and would welcome the opportunity to discuss this issue further.

Sincerely,

/s/
José Miguel Vivanco
Executive Director, Americas Division
Human Rights Watch

/s/

Carol Pier
Labor Rights and Trade Researcher
Human Rights Watch

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Request For Letters Protesting Abascal Proposal

WE ARE ASKING ALL OF YOU WHO ARE CONCERNED ABOUT THE FUTURE OF INDEPENDENT TRADE UNIONISM IN MEXICO TO SEND LETTERS OF PROTEST TO THE MEXICAN POLITICAL LEADERS.

Two draft letters, modeled on letters sent on February 21st by John H. Hovis, Jr., President of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) appear below. One is addressed to President Fox, the other to the leaders of the PRI and PAN. Please feel free to use them, modify them, or even better, draft your own.

Please don’t forget to put your name at the end, and to copy the FAT/UNT at FAT@Laneta.apc.org


Vicente Fox Quesada
Presidente de la República
Palacio Nacional Patio de Honor
Col. Centro
06067, Distrito Federal
México

vicente.fox.quesada@presidencia.gob.mx

Dear President Fox,

I am writing to you to express my grave concern about the news we have received that the Plan Abascal is about to be introduced in the Mexican Congress.

The Mexican Constitution of 1917, a product of the Mexican revolution, provides for the freedom to organize, bargain collectively, and for many other fundamental rights. At the time, it was the most progressive labor law in the world, and over time it has been effectuated through the Ley Federal del Trabajo. With modernization, pressure has come from many sources to reform the law both from businesses which seek the freedom to reap profits free from its constraints, as well as from labor organizations which seek to realize the rights to freely organize and to select the union of ones choice under a system free of institutional constraints.

I have watched this debate with great interest as it has unfolded, and have appreciated your approach in attempting to resolve these conflicting views through consensus by establishing working sessions in which all interests were represented. Therefore, it is with deep concern and disbelief that I view what appears to be an attempt by the PAN and PRI to force the Abascal Plan through the Mexican Congress.

This set of proposals is far from a consensus, and is opposed by unions, social organizations and by the church. Previous efforts to move forward in the absence of a consensus have resulted in major mobilizations.

I deplore this effort to deprive workers of their fundamental right to organize and bargain collectively, and to strip them of the protections afforded by Mexican law:

1. In terms of collective rights, it effectively destroys the right to strike, to win a collective bargaining agreement, and the possibility of changing unions by imposing impossible requirements such as previous authorization handed down by the Registrar of Associations.

2. It expands temporary hiring without union involvement and gives employers the right to lengthen the work day, in clear violation of the constitutional guarantee of a maximum work day.

3. It cancels a whole group of labor protections dealing with procedure, proof of responsibility, and other matters of an administrative nature.

Moreover, the Abascal Project excludes the demands of democratic unionism, including.

*A public registry of contracts and unions
*A secret ballot vote in union representation elections
*Transparency and accountability in the handling of union funds
*Gender equity
* Complete fulfillment of the International Labor Organization (ILO) Conventions 87 (on freedom of association) and 98 (on the right to organize and collective bargaining).

In addition, these reforms place all power in industrial relations and in the workplace in the hands of the employers, leaving workers legally helpless, and violating the historic principle of Mexican labor law of a balance of the factors of production (capital and labor). This is particularly offensive, given the total lack of response to the demands to correct some of the serious deficiencies in the current law, including the failure to truly provide for secret ballot elections or public access to information regarding unions and contracts.

This is especially outrageous given the agreement which was reached under the Labor Side Agreement of NAFTA (NAALC) on May 18, 2000, in which the Mexican Ministry of Labor committed the Federal government both to promote public registries of unions and contracts as well as elections by secret ballot.

I consider this to be a matter of crucial importance and respectfully request that you take the necessary measures to ensure that any labor law reform proposal which is introduced be balanced in nature and reflect a consensus by all affected sectors of society.

I look forward to your response.


Sincerely,


your name and organization if any)




DIP. MANLIO FABIO BELTRONES RIVERA
Presidente de la Mesa Directiva
CAMARA DE DIPUTADOS -PRI
Av. Congreso de la Unión No. 66,
Col. El Parque
México, D. F. 15969

manlio.beltrones@congreso.gob.mx


DIP. FRANCISCO JAVIER BARRIO TERRAZAS
Coordinador de la Fracción Parlamentaria
PARTIDO ACCION NACIONAL
Av. Congreso de la Unión No. 66, Edif. H, 4E piso
México, D. F.

nora@gp.pan.org.mx


Dear Diputados Beltrones Rivera and Barrio Terrazas,

I am writing to you to express my grave concern about the news we have received that the Plan Abascal is about to be introduced in the Mexican Congress.

The Mexican Constitution of 1917, a product of the Mexican revolution, provides for the freedom to organize, bargain collectively, and for many other fundamental rights. At the time, it was the most progressive labor law in the world, and over time it has been effectuated through the Ley Federal del Trabajo. With modernization, pressure has come from many sources to reform the law both from businesses which seek the freedom to reap profits free from its constraints, as well as from labor organizations which seek to realize the rights to freely organize and to select the union of ones choice under a system free of institutional constraints.

I have watched this debate with great interest as it has unfolded, and have appreciated the initial approach of the Fox administration in attempting to resolve these conflicting views through consensus by establishing working sessions in which all interests were represented. Therefore, it is with deep concern and disbelief that I view what appears to be an attempt by the PAN and PRI to force the Abascal Plan through the Mexican Congress .

This set of proposals is far from a consensus, and is opposed by unions, social organizations and by the church. Previous efforts to move forward in the absence of a consensus have resulted in major mobilizations.

I deplore this effort to deprive workers of their fundamental right to organize and bargain collectively, and to strip them of the protections afforded by Mexican law:

1. In terms of collective rights, it effectively destroys the right to strike, to win a collective bargaining agreement, and the possibility of changing unions by imposing impossible requirements such as previous authorization handed down by the Registrar of Associations.

2. It expands temporary hiring without union involvement and gives employers the right to lengthen the work day, in clear violation of the constitutional guarantee of a maximum work day.

3. It cancels a whole group of labor protections dealing with procedure, proof of responsibility, and other matters of an administrative nature.

Moreover, the Abascal Project excludes the demands of democratic unionism, including.

*A public registry of contracts and unions
* A secret ballot vote in union representation elections
*Transparency and accountability in the handling of union funds
*Gender equity
* Complete fulfillment of the International Labor Organization (ILO) Conventions 87 (on freedom of association) and 98 (on the right to organize and collective bargaining).

In addition, these reforms place all power in industrial relations and in the workplace in the hands of the employers, leaving workers legally helpless, and violating the historic principle of Mexican labor law of a balance of the factors of production (capital and labor). This is particularly offensive, given the total lack of response to the demands to correct some of the serious deficiencies in the current law, including the failure to truly provide for secret ballot elections or public access to information regarding unions and contracts.

This is especially outrageous given the agreement which was reached under the Labor Side Agreement of NAFTA (NAALC) on May 18, 2000, in which the Mexican Ministry of Labor committed the Federal government both to promote public registries of unions and contracts as well as elections by secret ballot.

I consider this to be a matter of crucial importance and respectfully request that you take the necessary measures to ensure that any labor law reform proposal which is introduced be balanced in nature and reflect a consensus by all affected sectors of society.

I look forward to your response.


Sincerely,



(your name and organization if any)

Back to February , 2005 Table of Contents

Unions, Social Movements Create “Network of Networks”

Mexico’s independent labor organizations and social movements joined with academics in early February to create a “network of networks” to oppose neoliberal globalization.

Meeting in Queretaro, Queretaro on February 4 and 5, over 200 organizations in the Union, Peasant, Popular and Indigenous Front (FSCISP) met in the Second National Dialog for the Defense of National Sovereignty to reaffirm their opposition to the administration of President Vicente Fox and his program of privatization and labor law reform.

Labor union members from many unions, peasants and farmers, academics, and social movement activists criticized the Fox government for having further enriched business and transnational corporations while impoverishing Mexican working people. Speakers called for the defense of the Mexican Constitution from attacks by multinational corporations.

The “Consensus of Queretaro,” signed by 200 organizations, called for mobilizations to rescue Mexico’s natural and energy resources threatened by privatization.

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Railroad Union Leader Victor Flores Reelected to Head CT

Victor Flores Morales, head of the Mexican Railroad Workers Union (STFRM), has been reelected to head the Congress of Labor, the umbrella organization of Mexico’s “official” or pro-government unions. The election is for a one-year term.

Flores Morales, the notoriously volatile and violent figure who presided over the STFRM during the privatization of Mexico’s railroads, had the backing of the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM) and the Revolutionary Confederation of Workers and Pesants (CROC), the Federation of Unions of Workers at the Service of the State (FSTSE), as well as 34 other union organizations.

Under Flores Morales’s leadership, the CT has supported President Vicente Fox’s call for further privatization and for labor law reform, deepening the split between the “official” and independent unions organized in the National Union of Workers (UNT) and the Mexian Union Front (FSM).

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IMF Says Mexico’s NAFTA Benefits Almost Used Up

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) stated in early February that Mexico’s benefits from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) had been almost used up, and would be gone in three years.

The IMF analysis argues that Canada, Mexico and the United States initially benefited from the free trade agreement, but that those benefits have been decling. Between 1994 and 2005 trade between the three nations tripled, energizing the Mexican economy. Foreign direct investment in Mexico rose from 12 billion to 54 billion between 1991 and 2002.

Now, the report says, those benefits have been nearly exhausted, and Mexico will have to seek new ways of stimulating its economic development.

Many unions and other organizations in Canada, Mexico and the United States argued that NAFTA failed to bring the promised benefits, and actually had adverse impacts on all three countries.

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Study Finds Fed Gov’t Among Worst Labor Rights Violators

The Center for Labor Investigation and Union Consultation (CILAS) asserts in a study published in mid-February that Mexican Federal government agencies such as the Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS), the Federal Electrical Commission (CFE), and the National Institute of Statistics (INEGI) are among the worst violators of Mexican workers’ labor rights.

The Federal agencies rival private Mexican companies and foreign multinationals such as Sara Lee, NKs, Novolan, Minera del Monte, Texnova e Hilaturas, private guards and cleaning companies and educational institutions in their common violations of workers’ rights.

CILAS found that the most common violations were unjustified firings together with failure to pay severance. The study found that many Mexican workers work long hours for low pay, 12 to 14 hours per day for 500 pesos per week. (11 pesos=US$1.00).

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Judge Agrees to Hear NGO’s Writ on Minimum Wage

A Mexican judge agrede on Feb. 7 to hear a writ brought aganst the National Minimimum Wage Commission (CNSM) by several non-governmental organizations who argue that the minimum wage of 46.80 pesos per day violates the Mexican Constitution. No court has agreed to hear such a case for more than 30 years.

The Constitution Article 123, Fraction VI says that the minimum wage should be sufficient to allow the head of a family to satisify the normal material, social and cultural needs of the family, as well as providing for the education of the children.

The Center for Reflection and Labor Action (CEREAL) and several other non-governmental organizations, as well as some Mexican universities and international organizations argue that Mexico has failed to take action against the persistence of low wages, despite recommendations from various international organizations.

The argument for the writ criticizes the Mexican labor union representatives on the National Minimum Wage Commission from the “official unions” who have failed to defend the workers’ right to a living wage. Among those mentioned is Victor Flores Morales, head of the Mexican Railroad Workers Union (STFRM) who was just reelected to head the Congress of Labor. against the company

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Peasants March, Protest Gov’t Failure in Countryside

Twenty thousand peasants from all over central Mexico marched and demonstrated in Mexico City in early February to protest the government’s failure to fulfill its National Agreement for the Countryside (ANC). As they walked into the city from different directions, they shouted “Zapata vive!” and “We come in search of Justice.”

After marching into the city during the first days of February, the rural workers’ organizations set up a plantón or sit-in in front of the Ministry of the Interior. On February 7 the demonstrations became violent after peasant activists disrupted the negotiations because they felt that no progress was being made. New discussions were begun with direct face-to-face meetings between high government officials and top peasant organization leaders. Nevertheless, the peasant organizations did not feel that their demands had been met.

Ten peasants’ and farmers’ organizations backed the protest demonstrations: El Barzón, El campo no aguanta más, Central Campesina Cardenista, Central Campesina Independiente, Central Independiente de Obreros Agrícolas y Campesinos (CIOAC), Coalición de Organizaciones Democráticas Urbanas y Campesinas, Congreso Agrario Permanente (CAP), Coordinadora Nacional Plan de Ayala, Unión Nacional de Organizaciones Regionales Campesinas Autónomas, and Unión Nacional de Trabajadores Agrícolas (UNTA).

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Thousands of Teachers March Against Arrests of Activists

Mexican teachers demonstrated in various parts of Mexico over the arrest of teachers’ union activists, over favoritism in job placement, and over the proposed reform of the public employees’ social security system.

More than 40,000 teachers in Oaxaca marched in mid-February to protest the arrest of union and social movement activists and to demand their release. Local 22 of the Mexican Teachers Union (el SNTE) led the demonstrations in Oaxaca, joined by many other social organizations protesting the arrest of 20 activists who oppose the state government.

In Yucatan at the same time, 30,000 teachers marched to protest favoritism in job assignments to teachers.
A day earlier in Mexico City a group of teachers affiliated with the National Coordinating Committee of the Mexican Teachers Union (la CNTE) marched to protest the proposed reforms to the public employees social security program (ISSSTE).

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Fight for Rights at Federal District Women’s Institute

Mexico City reputedly has a progressive government headed by Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the Party of the Democratic Revoluton (PRD). Nevertheless, the Beatriz Lus Rosales Esteva who heads the Women’s Institute of the Government of the Federal District has threatened, transferred to distant locations, and fired women who attempted to organize an independent union.

Rosales Esteva has defended her actions arguing that, “Women’s rights in the city come first, and the Insitute’s women workers come last.” Meanwhle López Obrador and the Legislative Assembly of the Federal District, also dominated by the PRD, have turned a blind eye to labor rights violations.

Julia Escalante, Mary Carmen Sánchez y Angélica Sierra, three union activists, acuse Rosales Esteva of having fired without cause 30 women workers out of a total of 220. The women, they argued, were fired for affiliating with the Union of Workers of Commercial Houses, Offices and Facilities of the Federal District.

The women claim that the Institute has repeatedly misled them about their employment situation and their rights, and that their bosses have forced them to do work for which they were not hired. The women vow to continue their struggle for an independent union, a contract, and respect for their rights on the jobs.

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Alaris Company Destroys Their Lives, Workers Claim

Thanks to the Maquila Network for this article.

[Tijuana, Feb. 2005] While improving the health of patients in the U.S.A., Alaris Co. has abusively exploited thousands of workers in Mexico, according to the Maquiladora Network, an organization that works with maquiladora workers.

“And they insolently tell us to thank god that we have a job. We will Thank God - for giving us the dignity to make a stand against this treatment,” said one worker.

Various groups of workers have brought suit against the company Alaris Medical Systems of Tijuana in the past months.

Alaris Medical Systems, Inc. is a multi-corporation that produces medical equipment for a variety of uses: intravenous injection systems for infusions and transfusions, disposable syringes, electronic monitoring systems, and computerized monitoring control systems. Alaris products and systems are sold to more than 5,000 hospitals and medical centers in the U.S.A. and over 120 other countries.

According to its annual report, the Alaris corporation had sales of approximately US$530 million dollars, and it had gross earnings of US$285 million in 2003. The company employs about 3,000 workers world wide and more than 1,000 of those workers are in Tijuana.

Alaris Inc. claims. “We care about the health and safety of our employees.” However, in Tijuana they are promoting health by paying starvation wages and then destroying the lives of their workers.

María is an employee bringing suit against the company. Her name has been changed in this article to protect her identity and to prevent her from being blacklisted from employment at other maquiladoras in Tijuana. María had worked at Alaris for more than 10 years when the management informed her that the factory at El Limón Industrial Park was going to close. On August 13, 2004, she would have to begin working at the factory in El Florido Industrial Park.

The change was an attack on María and the rest of the employees. The El Florido factory is located on the outskirts of Tijuana where public transportation is scarce and expensive. The only way for workers to get to work on time was on the company bus. This meant she would have to pay more, and get up and leave home earlier, at 5:30 a.m., and get home later, at 7:00 p.m. She was already working 10.5 hour days, and now she would be away from home another 3 hours. There would be even less time for her to be with her children.

Also, many times, she would have to go to appointments at the doctor or at her children’s school. But, how could she leave the factory with no public transportation? How could she get back to work if she did leave? She would have to miss an entire day every time that she had any appointment outside of the worksite.

However, her dilemma gets even worse because, missing a day from work means losing about half of a week’s pay. At Alaris, workers labor 50 hours a week for a wage of about US$90. This includes the base pay and the bonuses for “perfect” attendance and punctuality, and for “certification”. Certification bonuses are paid for achieving a high level of production. In August of 2004, teams of 5 workers on the production line had to assemble and pack 400 blood transfusion kits per hour. In February of 2005, that standard had been raised to 500 kits per hour. If a worker misses 1 day on the job, they lose all of the bonuses and 10.5 hours of wages that adds up to about US$45 or about half of the week’s wages.

Due to worsening conditions caused by the change of work site, many of the workers asked to end their contracts and to be paid the severance pay to which they are entitled. According to the Federal Labor Laws of Mexico, the severance pay must be equal to 90 days of pay and an additional 12 days of pay for every year of service to the company. María and others affected by this change have been working for Alaris for over 10 years.

Alaris claims to provide a great benefits plan for its employees. According to Alaris, it is “a benefit program that allows you to select plans that best suit your lifestyle and provides you the protection you want”. But, in Tijuana, Alaris has decided to ignore their moral and legal responsibility to pay their employees their severance pay. The company forced its employees to sign new contracts or sign a resignation. By signing either form, the employees would lose their rights to any severance pay or seniority pay that the company would be legally obliged to pay. Obviously, the workers protested against this action.

“It is blatantly unfair that after so many years of service to this company, they want to throw us out on the street with nothing,” said one worker. But, the company had done the calculations and decided to risk paying their workers nothing. The workers that protested were accused of instigating a revolt and were fired. The management said, “If you don’t like it, do whatever you want, but get out of here now.”

The workers are fighting for their rights. They seek their severance pay, and now their demands have grown. They are now seeking compensation for lost wages form the date that they were fired until they are paid the severance pay. They are also asking that the company pay or prove that they have paid into the Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS) and into the retirement fund (known as an AFORE). Moreover, the workers are demanding that Alaris pay them for more than 450 hours of overtime that the company has cheated them out of in the last year alone.

According to Alaris, “the company strives to comply with all of the applicable laws of each country in which it does business.” However, according to the Mexican Constitution, work shifts are a maximum of 8 hours, and the workweek is a maximum of 48 hours. Any overtime must be voluntary, and must pay double, or triple the established wage if it exceeds 9 hours of overtime per week.

At Alaris the work shifts are 10.5 hours Monday through Thursday plus 8 hours Friday, or a total of 50 hours per week. This way, Alaris has been cheating every employee out of 12 hours of overtime every week. Over 10 years, this adds up to 1000’s of hours of overtime that were never paid to each of their employees. Where is Alaris’s respect for Mexican Labor Laws?

The Mexican Constitution decrees a maximum mandatory workday of 8 hours or 7 hours for a night shift. This was a very important benefit won for the workers during the Mexican Revolution of 1910, when people were forced to work 16 hours a day.

These maquiladoras operate as foreign companies did back in the days of President Porfirio Díaz in the nineteenth century. They come to exploit. They don’t respect our constitutional laws and they force the workers to work 10 or 12 hours a day or more without paying overtime. And now, the company is trying to use God’s name to help them placate the workers. “And still, they shamelessly tell us to thank God that we have a job; we will give thanks to God alright; for the dignity to take a stand against this abuse,” say María and other Alaris workers.

Alaris is offering only US$800 of the thousands of dollars owed to each employee. The workers certainly have dignity on their side in this case.

For more information contact: maquilatijuanasandiego@earthlink.net (Maquila Network/Red)

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Mothers of Femicide Victims Speak Out

In March the Mexico Solidarity Network will be touring with a representative from Justice for our Daughters (Justicia Para Nuestras Hijas), an organization of mothers of victims of the Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua femicides.

Murders in Chihuahua and Juarez: For more than a decade, the cities of Chihuahua and Juarez, near the US-Mexico border, have been killing fields for young women, the site
of over 380 unsolved femicides. Despite the horrific nature of these crimes, authorities at all levels exhibit indifference, and there is strong evidence that some officials may be involved. Impunity and corruption has permitted the criminals, whoever they are, to continue committing these acts, knowing there will be no consequences.

A significant number of victims work in the maquiladora sector - sweatshops that produce for export with 90% destined for the United States. The maquiladoras employ mainly young women at poverty level wages. In combination with lax environmental regulations and low tariffs under the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the maquiladoras are amassing tremendous wealth. Yet despite the crime wave, they offer almost no protection for their workers. High profile government campaigns such as Ponte Vista (Be Aware), a self defense program, and supplying women with whistles have been ineffective and are carried out mainly for public relations purposes. Small advances in the struggle for justice are due to the perseverance of victims' families who cannot be silenced despite the efforts of state and federal authorities to keep them quiet. Campaigns by local, national and international non-governmental organizations are also important. Often these grassroots groups work in a climate of threats and defamation by government officials for making one simple demand: STOP THE FEMICIDE.

PROGRAM: Femicide on the US-Mexico Border, a tour sponsored by the Mexico Solidarity Network in the spring of 2005, will feature a mother of one of the murdered
young women and will:

· Educate about the femicides and the Mexican governments failure to protect women.
· Educate about how US policies like free trade and the drug war compound the problem.
· Educate about the impact of corporate-centered globalization on women in border towns.
· Create strategies that strengthen solidarity between people working for social and economic justice on both sides of the US-Mexico border.
·
The March speaking tour will include a mother of a woman murdered in Ciudad Juarez who will share the story of her struggle for justice. A representative of Mexico Solidarity Network will discuss the economic and social context in which the femicides of Juarez and Chihuahua occur.

Those interested in hosting the tour or know of any universities or other organizations who might be interested, please contact the office for further details.

For more information, contact :

msn@mexicosolidarity.org
or
Northeastern US Tour: March 1-11 - 202/544-9355 or
773/583-7728
California Tour: March 15-26 - 415/621-8100

Mexico Solidarity Network http://www.mexicosolidarity.org

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The Toxic Border: Environmental Injustice

By David Bacon

In early September 2002, the Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras (CJM) put out a call to border activists, urging them to act quickly to salvage one of the few remaining complaints filed under the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC)-the case of mistreated workers at Customtrim/Autotrim. Inside the cavernous San Diego Convention Center, the CJM had learned, the temporary Bi-national Working Group on Occupational Safety and Health was holding a secret discussion between U.S. and Mexican government officials, supposedly to find ways of protecting the safety and health of maquiladora workers.

What followed that call, and the ultimate fate of the Customtrim/Autotrim complaint, is not only a stark illustration of the failure of the NAALC, but also a grim warning. A second Bush administration has already begun a hard push for the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) and the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). Free trade's defenders argue that the rights of workers in Central and South America under these agreements can be protected in much the same way that the NAALC protected the rights of workers in Mexico. The bitter experience of the workers at Customtrim/Autotrim and their supporters, however, indicates that exactly the opposite is true. Labor protections embodied in the NAALC not only failed in this one case, but in every other effort made by workers to use the same mechanism to protect their health, their safety and their rights at work. Basing protection for workers in future agreements on this experience condemns them to the same fate.

The labor cooperation agreement is usually referred to as the labor side-agreement to the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA. It set up a process that free trade supporters argued would protect the labor rights and health and safety of workers in the three NAFTA countries-the United States, Mexico, and Canada. Under the side-agreement, workers, unions, and community organizations could file complaints if worker protection or health and safety laws were not being enforced. NAFTA also had a second side-agreement, the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation. Its process, similar to that of the labor side agreement, supposedly allowed communities to file complaints over cases of environmental contamination.

Both agreements were crucial to residents of the U.S.-Mexico border, since violations of labor rights, dangers to worker health and safety, and extreme cases of environmental contamination have been commonplace in this region since long before the agreements were proposed. These problems are a result of a longstanding development policy in which both the Mexican and U.S. governments encouraged corporations to relocate production to border factories, or maquiladoras, by creating a border zone within which labor protection, health and safety, and environmental laws were essentially not enforced. By 2001, more than 2000 such factories were employing more than 1.3 million people, and border cities like Tijuana and Juarez had mushroomed into industrial urban centers with over a million residents each.

The Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras began bringing together unions, churches, and community groups in all three countries in the years just before NAFTA went into effect in 1994. From the perspective of these organizations, the secret meeting in the San Diego Convention Center highlighted just how empty the promises of the side-agreements have been.

The first problem with the secret meeting was that the workers themselves, the very victims of the conditions that the side-agreements were intended to remedy, were excluded from the process. Workers at two Customtrim/Autotrim plants, owned by the U.S. auto parts giant Breed Technologies, had filed a complaint that they had been systematically exposed to toxic chemicals at work in violation of Mexican health and safety laws. The sickest ones were referred to by management as "junked workers" and were forced to labor in a special area. When workers began organizing an independent union to protest, the most active participants were fired, a violation of Mexican labor law. Complaints to the authorities went nowhere, and workers filed a case under the labor side-agreement, assisted by the CJM along with U.S. health and safety activists.

The San Diego meeting was organized by the body responsible for resolving the workers' complaint - the Binational Working Group on Occupational Safety and Health - but the discussion inside the convention center was really about dumping the workers' case, not protecting their rights. Outside, health and safety activists taped their mouths shut to dramatize the fact that the process had effectively silenced them. The workers who made the complaint would have found it very difficult to attend in any case; they live in Matamoros, on the Mexican side of the border and at its other end-2000 miles away. For them, the location of the exclusive meeting in San Diego was an even more effective barrier to participation than secrecy.

A year before, a report issued by the National Administrative Office of the U.S. Department of Labor concluded that extensive violations of Mexican health and safety laws had taken place in the two Breed Technologies plants in Matamoros and Valle Hermosa. Workers testified at the hearing that prompted the report, risking their jobs and ensuring that they would be blacklisted for years. Independent health and safety experts from both countries had also submitted massive documentation. Despite previous bitter experiences, their hopes were still alive. Workers and their supporters thought there was yet a chance that, for the first time, monetary penalties would be imposed on Mexico, since the side-agreement allows for heavy fines in cases of health and safety violations.

In the end, however, the secret and exclusive San Diego meeting proved to be the only actual outcome of the NAFTA process. The meeting was "a charade and a disgrace," fumed CJM director Martha Ojeda. "Instead of specific, effective action to improve conditions at Autotrim/Customtrim, and throughout the maquiladora industry along the border, the injured workers are promised 'chats' between government officials whose refusal to listen and to act was the exact basis of the complaint in the first place," she railed.

Environmental activists participated in the protest outside the convention center as well. The process under NAFTA's environmental side-agreement, they explained, was just as ineffective and corrupt as the labor accord. As proof, they pointed to one of the worst cases of pollution on the border and the failure of the side-agreement to provide any remedy.

Metales y Derivados is an abandoned battery recycling plant sitting on the lip of Otay Mesa adjoining Tijuana. Standing outside the plant walls on the chemical-encrusted ground, it's possible to look over the mesa's edge and see people moving about in the working-class barrio of Chilpancingo below. There, six years earlier, the Border Region Workers' Support Committee (CAFOR) and the Citizens Committee for the Restoration of Cañon del Padre had documented the growing number of children born with anencephaly; i.e., without brains. Two of CAFOR's Mexican organizers, Eduardo Badillo and Aurora Pelayo, along with their U.S. supporters were stopped from making annual counts of the growing number of cases after the issue began to appear in the press. But enough data had been accumulated, they believed, to cite Metales y Derivados as a likely source of the pollution causing the horrific birth defects.

In 1998 the Environmental Health Coalition (EHC) in San Diego and the Citizen's Committee in Tijuana filed a case under the environmental side-agreement. They alleged that Mexican authorities hadn't enforced environmental laws against the plant's owners, the New Frontier Trading Corporation, located in San Diego. Staff working for the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation (NACEC) investigated the complaint and reported their findings in February 2002. Their study documented the illegal storage of 7,000 tons of toxic waste and the presence of lead, arsenic, and heavy metals in the soil surrounding the defunct plant. It also mentioned an inconclusive survey of lead contamination among Chilpancingo residents conducted by a team from the University of California at Irvine. Cesar Luna, the lawyer who headed the EHC's border project at the time the case was filed, documented one case of anencephaly himself and heard reports from residents of at least half a dozen others.

But NACEC staff had no power to investigate the actual health conditions in Chilpancingo, and no official record that contamination existed, because Mexican authorities never conducted a health survey in the barrio. They had good reason not to do so. Reports of anencephaly had been increasingly frequent in industrial communities all along the border, but the lax enforcement of environmental laws is an important, albeit unspoken, means for attracting new factories. A scandal about children without brains might discourage any future flow of investment.

So just as in the labor case, that was it. “All we got was a report, and an incomplete one at that," grumbled EHC policy advocate Connie Garcia. Nothing changed on the ground. NAFTA provides for no cleanup plan or enforcement mechanism, and the community continues to be poisoned,” she charged. “These two landmark cases argue convincingly that NAFTA fails to protect workers or the environment," added Garcia. The move to hold a secret hearing surprised no one, and most border activists saw it for what it was-a last gasp of the NAFTA side-agreement process sputtering to a halt.

The much-touted side-agreements, heralded as protection for labor and environmental rights as the border was opened to the flow of capital and production, had already served their purpose long before. In 1993, their promise of protection provided political cover for a few liberal Democrats who wanted to vote with President Clinton. The addition of these few votes to those of almost the entire Republican congressional delegation produced the slim margin needed to approve NAFTA. Making the appeal process work, however, was never a genuine concern. Concrete results from the many cases subsequently filed under the side-agreements were virtually invisible to workers who provided the testimony and evidence at great risk to themselves.

Just months before the secret hearing on Customtrim/Autotrim, the U.S.-based United Electrical Workers (UE) and the Mexican Authentic Labor Front (FAT) had branded the NAFTA labor side-agreement a farce. The two unions had forged a strategic relationship to try to organize the Mexican work force of large U.S. corporations. They had filed a complaint under the labor side-agreement after workers at the ITAPSA brake plant, belonging to the Dana auto parts giant, were exposed to asbestos and were terrorized when they tried to join the FAT in response.

The governments of the United States and Mexico agreed to settle the ITAPSA case by holding a seminar on union rights. Adding insult to injury, that seminar was moved from Mexico City, where the workers lived and the FAT has its offices, to Monterrey, the hometown of the head of Mexico's national labor board. The United Electrical Workers Union only discovered by accident that the seminar had been moved and that UE suggestions for the agenda had been trashed. The only presenters scheduled were government officials.

The charade was too much for UE President John Hovis. In a letter to U.S. Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, he bitterly declared that "given this history, we believe the process has deteriorated into a farce, and under these circumstances we see no value in participating further." Hovis acidly concluded, "We do not choose to lend any further credibility to a process which has so totally failed to protect workers' rights."

By 2002, the number of new complaints filed under the labor side-agreement had slowed to a trickle and finally to none at all. Under President Clinton, appointees to the National Administrative Office of the Department of Labor, which is responsible for hearing evidence on complaints, often tried to maintain at least the appearance of a commitment to workers' rights. For some judges, like Irasema Garza, who took testimony from Customtrim/Autotrim workers, that commitment was more than just appearance. Once George Bush became president, however, the U.S. administration ceased to even bother with pretense. Bush's unmistakable message was that any effort to restrain trade and investment was politically wrong-headed. And for his part, Mexican President Vicente Fox did nothing to change the basic hostility to the appeal process evidenced by the administrations that preceded him.

The problem with the side-agreement process, however, isn't the attitude of the public officials responsible for administering it, although they often make it clear that even an appearance of fairness depends on the political will of the administration in power. Whether liberals or conservatives hold office, in Washington, Mexico City, or Toronto, they are all committed to corporate-defined free trade. Enforcing labor rights and environmental protections runs contrary to the purpose for which NAFTA was negotiated-creating conditions favorable to investment.

The Bush administration is simply more open in its embrace of this goal and sees nothing wrong with making money from low wages and relaxed controls over pollution. This attitude will also be the hallmark of the agreements designed to extend NAFTA southward-the CAFTA and the FTAA. Mindful of the Customtrim/Autotrim and Metales y Derivados cases, those considering their positions relative to CAFTA and the FTAA should heed the warning by Connie Garcia as she stood outside the closed San Diego meeting: "These two landmark cases argue convincingly that NAFTA fails to protect workers or the environment. Its terms should not be reproduced in
new agreements."

[This article originally appeared as a Foreign Policy in Focus Policy Report. David Bacon is a reporter and photographer specializing in labor issues and a regular contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus. His book, The Children of NAFTA, was recently published by the University of California Press. See: http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9989.html
http://www.fpif.org/papers/0412toxic.html – Ed.]

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Supporters of The Maclovio Rojas Community Request Letters of Support

Supporters of the Maclovio Rojas Community in Tijuana have asked supporters to send letters to authorities demanding the release of community organizers Nciolasa Ramos and Juan Regalado and other arrested or threatened with arrest for the crime of stealing water.

In November of 2002, the United Nations recognized water as a Human Right. The right to water and food is not like any other right in that it precludes the human ability to enjoy other rights. If we do not have water or food, it is not possible to exercise other human rights. The governments of all countries are now obligated to progressively assure that everyone has access to potable water equally and without discrimination.

This international agreement of the United Nations further demonstrates the human right to water assures that everyone have secure physical access to enough potable water at a reasonable price for personal and domestic use. It also requires that all governments refrain from adopting any policy or conduct that would interfere with the right to water or that would deny them access to potable water.

Water is clearly indispensable to life; it cannot be considered an economic commodity subject to market laws and regulations. Like the air, it must be provided for all to satisfy basic human needs.

On December 4 of 2002, a few days after the Mexican Government adopted the United Nations international agreement on water, the State Judicial Police of Baja California North detained Nicolasa Ramos and her 2 year old granddaughter accusing them of stealing water. Six months later, they detained Juan Regalado and issued 14 arrest warrants for Hortensia Hernandez, Artemio Osuna and Ruben Garcia for the same crimes of stealing water. All of these people are residents of Maclovio Rojas.

We demand that the government grant immediate and unconditional pardon for Nicolasa Ramos and Juan Regalado for exercising their right to water, and that the government suspend the 14 arrest warrants against the directors and residents of Maclovio Rojas, considering the fact that the right to adequate potable water for domestic and personal use is a human right recognized by the United Nations and the government of Mexico.

It is the obligation of all governments to respect human rights including the right to freedom. But, today Nicolasa Ramos and Juan Regalado are in jail for exercising their right to secure access to water not for themselves but for the 15,000 residents of Maclovio Rojas. Furthermore, there are 14 arrest warrants for Artemio Osuna, Hortensia Herdandez, and Ruben Garcia for the same offence of stealing water from the aqueduct. The neighboring cattle ranches, the Police Academy, and the ZILSA gas company (just to mention a few) also take water from this same aqueduct for commercial purposes or as a government agency. However, the police have only taken action against the residents of Maclovio Rojas, the people that are struggling to obtain land and water for everybody.

Access to potable water is a HUMAN RIGHT not a privilege to be awarded only to the wealthy.

FREEDOM to Nicolasa Ramos and Juan Regalado.

Send letters to:

Eugenio Elorduy Walther
Gobernador de Baja California
Address/Dirección:
Calzada Independencia y Av. de los Héroes s/n
Centro Cívico
Mexicali 21000
Phone/Teléfono: (686) 558-1090
Fax: (686) 558-1178
E-mail/Correo Electrónico: Write or paste a letter in the Baja California government web page:
Incluir carta en la página del gobierno de Baja California: www.bajacalifornia.gob.mx
Go to the web page, then to "oficina del gobernador," then to "contacta al gobernador," and then write/paste the letter.

Lic. Felipe de Jesús Padilla Villavicencio
Presidente del Tribunal Superior de Justicia y del Consejo de la Judicatura del Estado
Address/Dirección:
Avenida Pioneros y Calz. Independencia s/n Edificio Tribunales, Centro Civico, C.P. 21000, Mexicali, B.C.
Phone/Teléfono: (686) 5 58 10 00 ext. 1699
Fax (686) 557-28-94
E-mail/Correo Electrónico: presidencia@poder-judicial-bc.gob.mx

Lic. María de Jesús López González
Juez Segundo de lo Penal
Address/Dirección:
Avenida de los charros s/n, Fracc. Jose Sandoval, Delegacion La Mesa, Tijuana, B.C., C.P. 22450
Phone/Teléfono: (01664) 86-17-50

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Social Statistics

Gross National Product

Mexico’s gross national product in 2004 reached the level of 2000, according to the Mexican National Institute of Statistics, Mexican Secretary of the Treasury, and Banamex-Citigroup. This indicates that there were four years of low national production during the Vicente Fox presidency.

Unemployment

Open unemployment grew by 87 percent since Vicente Fox became president, according to a study by the Mexican National Institute of Statistics (INEGI). In the fourth quarter of 2004, some 1,144,00 Mexicans were unemployed.

INEGI also reports that today there are some 2,468,000 fewer workers in the countryside than there were when Fox took office, a 27 percent fall in rural jobs. Rural workers fell from 9,268,000 when Fox began his term to 6,800,000 in the last quarter of 2004.

Public Employment Job Cuts

In the last three years, the Mexican Federal government has cut 36,000 public employees from the employment rolls, largely through attrition. This year 12,000 public employees will take voluntary retirement.

Wages and Incomes

Some 35 percent of Mexico’s peasants cannot afford to buy the basic food basket, according to a report by the World Bank. The national level of those unable to afford basic necessities is 20 percent, and 11 percent in urban areas.

Retirement Benefits

The Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS) has registered 800,000 firms, but only 1,800 or 0.22 percent offer well-structured and funded private retirement programs. Mexicans industrial workers are covered by partially privatized IMSS public program, though there have been complaints that it is not adequate.

Maquiladoras closed

During the term of President Vicente Fox, some 500 maquiladoras have left the country, leaving 500,000 workers without jobs, according to the Authentic Labor Front (FAT).

China factor

China has begun to displace Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean in importations to the United States, particularly in clothing and accessories, according to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC/CEPAL).

Education

In Mexico, only 58 percent of children 15 years old are in school, according to a recent study done by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). In other OECD countries 100 percent of children age 15 are in school.

Contract Settlements

The rubber industry and rubber workers’ unions reached agreement on a 4.5% wage and benefit increase in mid-February.

The Metropolitan Autonomous University (UAM) and the Sole Union of Workers (SITUAM) reached agreement on a 3.3 percent wage increase, plus 1.2 percent in benefits for a total of 4.5%.

Few Strikes In February

Mexico saw few industrial disputes in February, though there were strikes by the National Union of Miners and Metal Workers (SNTMM) at several mines. The mine workers’ union demanded a 10.5 percent wage increase and the company offered around 4.0 percent. Miners accepted wage gains of around 4.0 percent.
Similarly there were strikes at several Mexican university campuses by university professors’ unions and staff asking for a 20 percent wage increase, with the universities offering about 4.0 percent in wage increases. Most university workers settled for 4.0 percent.

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Resources

Garrett Brown, “NAFTA’s 10 Year Failure to Protect Mexican Workers’ Health and Safety,” at:
http://mhssn.igc.org/NAFTA_2004.pdf

Garrett Brown, “Why NAFTA Failed and What’s Needed to Protect Workers’ Health and Safety in International Trade Treaties,” at:
http://mhssn.igc.org/trade_2004.pdf

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