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UE and Mexican FAT federation
organize mutual support
What is FAT?
The FRENTE AUTENTICO DEL TRABAJO!
The Authentic Workers' Front or Frente Auténtico del Trabajo (FAT) is an independent federation of labor unions, worker owned cooperatives, and farmworker and community organizations. A women’s network operates within all of the FAT's sectors and as part of the leadership.
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The FAT was founded in 1960 and now represents workers in over half the states of Mexico in manufacturing industries such as textiles and auto-parts. In addition, the FAT recently won the right to represent workers in the transportation industry on a national level and service workers in Mexico City. Although modest in size, the F.A.T. has great influence due to its principled determination to create independent, democratic unions under extremely adverse conditions.
For example, the FAT was a founding member of Mexico's new, independent labor federation, the National Union of Workers or UNT. Benedicto Martínez, one of the FAT’s three national officers, was also elected vice president of the new federation - a recognition of the role the FAT has played in its formation and in defining and developing its program of work and action.
The FAT was also a founder and active participant in RMALC (the Mexican Action Network Against Free Trade), the coalition of more than 100 Mexican organizations which opposed NAFTA, and has in recent years worked to analyze the impact of neo-liberal economic policies and create positive proposals for change.
UE-FAT Strategic Organizing Alliance
UE first came in contact with the Frente
Autentico del Trabajo (FAT) as a result of the fight to oppose the North
American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). In 1992 the UE entered into a "Strategic
Organizing Alliance" with the FAT which seeks to build a new kind
of international solidarity focused on organizing and based on rank-and-file
involvement.
We joined together with the goals of organizing, educating, promoting contact, and building cross-border solidarity between rank and file workers employed by the same transnational corporations in the United States and Mexico; promoting the organization of independent unions; protecting the human and labor rights of Mexican and U.S. workers; and working together to improve wages, benefits, and working conditions on both sides of the border.
Organizing in Mexico is difficult, as it means taking on employers, official unions and the Mexican government in order to win the right of workers to organize real, democratic unions.
This work now includes an organizing team based in Mexico City, workers’ centers (Centro de Estudios y Taller Laboral A.C.) in Cd. Juárez, Monterey and Cd. Chihuahua, educational and solidarity work including worker to worker exchanges and cultural projects, an on-line monthly periodical -- Mexican labor News and Analysis -- and work in opposition to corporate globalization. We include as a basic objective working to under-cut racist stereotypes, and have a particular emphasis on ensuring full participation by women and the development of their leadership skills.
What we've accomplished: short history of Strategic Organizing Alliance
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| Taken from a mural created for UE-FAT solidarity. For more, see murals. |
The alliance helped win the first secret ballot election in Mexican labor history during an organizing campaign at the General Electric plant in Cd. Juarez. Joined by the Teamsters union, we also filed the first complaints under the NAFTA labor side agreement on behalf of Mexican workers who were fired by GE and Honeywell. We also helped build a tri-national union alliance around Echlin (later purchased by Dana), a transnational auto parts manufacturer operating in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Together with eight other US and Canadian unions we defended the rights of our Mexican brothers and sisters who were confronted by armed thugs and forced to vote out loud when they attempted to organize one of Echlin's Mexico City plants, ITAPSA. In actions at Echlin's shareholders meeting and before the National Administrative Office in Washington and Ottawa, the Echlin Workers'Alliance stood up together to back our commitment that an injury to one Echlin bargaining unit was an injury to all of us. More on NAFTA struggle
The UE and FAT view our work as a bi-national partnership which benefits workers on both sides of the border. Although the UE has had occasion to support the FAT in a number of campaigns, this too, is definitely a two way street. For example, The FAT provided critical support for a successful UE organizing campaign in a Milwaukee foundry. At the UE's request, a rank and file activist from the FAT traveled to Milwaukee for two weeks in December to accompany UE organizers. In meetings with the workers, who were predominantly of Mexican origin, he was able to speak from his own experience in telling them that the UE is a democratic union, unlike the "official" unions in Mexico. Together with excellent work by staff and members, this led to a union victory at a 400 worker plant in Milwaukee!
More recently, Benedicto Martiínez, one of the FAT's national coordinators, attended a UE convention. While at the convention he joined workers in Chicago during the first day of their strike and met with workers at another plant who had an election scheduled for the week following the convention. We are happy to report that UE also won that election!
The work of the Alliance includes:
Worker centers
The Labor Workshop and Studies Center (CETLAC)
The
first Centro de Estudios y Taller Laboral, A.C. (CETLAC – Cd. Juárez)
is a center for workers in the maquila plants in Cd. Juárez, the
most important maquila zone in Mexico where some 230,000 workers are employed
in approximately 400 plants.
This is a population that is largely composed of young people: the average age is 21 and almost 60% of the workers are women. CETLAC’s mission is to educate these workers about their rights, provide legal assistance designed to promote the development of workers' organizations, and to consistently put forward a different vision of how unions should and can operate in order to lay the groundwork for, and provide technical assistance in unionization. CETLAC’s organizers have applied the skills they use in advising factory workers in working with these workers in the informal sector and with the colonia residents.
From its inception, CETLAC has emphasized the importance of good working relationships with organizations in Cd. Juárez and El Paso, as well as on other parts of the border and in the US, Mexico and Canada, with the understanding that organizing work cannot be undertaken in isolation.
Staff have also developed excellent materials about a variety of labor related issues, and are frequently called upon by the media as expert authorities to discuss the conditions of workers in the maquilas.
CETLAC also participates with other local organizations in a network to defend the rights of women. In the past ten years there has been a dramatic increase in the level of violence directed against women: in addition to the thousands of cases of domestic violence, hundreds of women have been assassinated, and of those, approximately one fourth have been characterized as serial killings, making Juárez the center of international attention.
The network has organized marches and demonstrations, has conducted surveys of both men and women which clearly show the violation of human and labor rights of women, and has met with local and federal officials as well as UN representatives in an effort to raise awareness of the violation of women’s rights, and address the constant violence to which women are exposed by creating special government agencies such as a special prosecutorial unit to deal with crimes against women, and to increase the penalties under state law for sexual harassment and rape.
Because of its importance in reaching maquila workers, the FAT has created two additional centers – in Cd. Chihuahua and Monterey. Cd. Chihuahua is the state capital where the FAT now represents both taxi drivers and municipal workers, and is working with other groups of workers.
Monterrey is located close to the U.S. border and is the second largest industrial city in Mexico. While it is the original site of company unionism in Mexico, the FAT already represents workers at General Electric and is working closely with other workers who are committed to organizing independent unions.
Worker-to-worker exchanges
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Worker-to-worker exchanges have continued to be a valuable and exciting part of the UE-FAT relationship, permitting rank-and-file members of both organizations to learn about each other, and take the information back to their locals and communities . UE and the FAT continue to use worker-to-worker exchanges with the goal of dismantling the stereotypes that exist on both sides of the border while deepening understanding of the actual conditions in the host country. These exchanges demonstrate that the most effective way to educate workers in the United States and in Mexico - and to motivate them to educate others - is through direct contact with each other. In addition, in order to increase the participation and visibility of women within our organizations, many of these exchanges have specifically focused on women and the development of leadership skills.
Rank and file members of the UE, FAT, and occasionally other organizations have toured plants, exchanged experiences, walked picket lines, attended meetings, assisted with organizing drives, taught high school and university classes, and participated in radio and television programs. Some have participated in more intensive training programs for rank-and-file organizers and for women.
Recently, we have worked more closely with students involved in the anti-sweatshop movement, putting them directly in touch with workers engaged in struggles for democratic unions and decent working conditions in Mexico, added even more immediacy and depth to this work.
See what Mexican and American workers have to say about the exchanges.
A big vision?
Of course. Is it possible? Yes! The United Electrical Workers (UE) is working with unions, religious, community, university, and other organizations and activists to support the efforts of workers in Mexico to organize independent and democratic unions through financial contributions, targeted letter-writing and petition campaigns, by hosting delegations, and in various other ways. Please join us!
The F.A.T. has undertaken campaigns against both Mexican companies and transnational giants such as General Electric, and -- measured against a backdrop of government and corporate repression - can point to significant accomplishments. We need your help to increase the scope of the work and the pressure.
Help Support Cross-Border organizing!
Want to know more about Mexico and cross-border solidarity?
Mexican Labor News & Analysis
Dan La Botz, – a professor and former union member and activist who has written books on both the Mexican labor movement and Chiapas – has been a volunteer editor since 1996 of an excellent electronic bulletin containing labor and related news from Mexico. It is called Mexican Labor News and Analysis (MLNA) and is posted each month on the UE’s international web page. The Resource Center of the Americas has joined this all-volunteer effort, and manages an extensive e-mail list. You can subscribe for free by e-mainling mlna@americas.org. Also see:
Mural artists share visions of solidarity across borders
UE News Stories about cross-border Solidarity
Bibliography: Try one of these excellent books.
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On this page: UE-FAT Strategic Organizing Alliance What we've accomplished: short history of the Alliance In this section: Donate to cross-border solidarity! 
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