A series of explosions and a huge fire at the Petroleos Mexicanos (PEMEX) plant in San Juan Ixhuatepec (also known as San Juanico) has left four dead, 1,000 injured and 5,000 thousand temporarily homeless. This is the most recent in a series of PEMEX explosions, fires, and ecological disasters which have killed hundreds of persons, including workers, firemen and residents of communities near PEMEX plants in the last 15 years.
The explosion and fire occurred on November 11 in storage tanks at the Satelite Norte plant in San Juanico, a suburb of Mexico City in the Federal District near the border of the State of Mexico. Initially two tanks ignited, one tank containing 80,000 barrels and the other 24,000 barrels of petroleum. The cloud of toxic smoke rose between 950 and 1,200 meters into the sky and could be seen from the Zocalo in downtown Mexico City. Later a third tank also caught fire. The fire consumed over 34 million liters of gasoline, equivalent to the daily use of Mexico City's three million automobiles, adding to the city's already terrible air pollution problem.
The cause of the fire was reportedly a gas leak resulting from the malfunction of an automatic valve. A spark touching the leaking gasoline touched off the fire, local authorities reported.
One thousand soldiers, hundreds of police officers, scores of employees of the Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS), Red Cross workers and hundreds of firefighters from the Federal District, the State of Mexico, and even the state of Morelos to the south joined in working to contain and two days later put out the fire.
The explosion and fire killed three PEMEX workers and one fireman. The dead are: PEMEX workers, Jose Antonio Ibarra, 34; Rafael Martinez Margarito, 31; and Rene Gomez Munoz, 39; as well as fireman Jose Luis Romero del Toro. Two other PEMEX workers remain in grave condition with second or third degree burns: Jesus Antonio Tovar Rivas and Armando Vega Perez. Both are fighting for their lives.
In addition, about 10 other PEMEX workers and firefighters are in serious medical condition in various hospitals. Nearly 1,000 persons received some sort of medical treatment, many for smoke inhalation. Five thousand people were evacuated from their homes, though most had returned by the fourth day. At nearby schools some children passed out from smoke or fumes.
The cost of the fire is estimated at 40 million pesos (about 5 million dollars}. The fire led to the temporary closing of 73 schools in the State of Mexico and the Maximo Gorki school in the Federal District. One fire truck was consumed in the fire.
This explosion and fire was particularly terrifying to the residents of San Juanico because of a similar series of explosions almost twelve years ago. On November 19, 1984, a series of 16 explosions at the same plant in San Juanico left over 400 dead, 4,500 injured, and thousands of damaged or destroyed homes.
Explosions at the Petroleos Mexicanos (PEMEX) Cactus natural gas plant near the town of Reforma, Chiapas killed at least six workers and injured 30 others on July 26 of this year. (See MLNA #14.)
Residents ask PEMEX to move facility
Since the explosion in 1984, residents of San Juanico and other nearby suburbs have asked PEMEX to move the plant and storage facility to another location farther from population centers. Andre Lajous, director of PEMEX, told the press that PEMEX was not considering moving the plants, though president Ernesto Zedillo said that the relocation of the plants could not be ruled out.
Lajous announced that he would not resign his post because of this fire. The Mexican Senate has called upon him to appear and explain the causes of the fire and of PEMEX's record of disasters.
Some members of the political opposition complained that PEMEX has not put enough money into preventive maintenance. However PEMEX argues that the annual budget for maintenance has increased as a proportion of the total budget, despite the economic crisis.
In an unrelated incident, on November 13 two workers of the ATACSA company in Dos Bocas, Tabasco--Jorge Alberto Green Gomez and Roger Angulo Angulo--died while cleaning PEMEX storage tanks when they were overcome by a toxic gas leak. PEMEX had contracted out the tank cleaning work to ATACSA.
So far this week, then, PEMEX has killed five of its workers, and one firefighter.
Two weeks ago we reported that Joaquin Hernandez Garcia, known as "La Quina," was expected to be released from prison where he has been since 1989. However, the Minister of the Interior (Gobernacion) decided not to release La Quina as expected. The opposition Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) has called for the immediate release of La Quina.
During the November 11-13 fire at the PEMEX plant in San Juanico, La Quina was reportedly kept incommunicado so that he could not comment on the issue.
La Quina and six other former leaders of the Mexican Petroleum Workers Union (STPRM) remain in prison after President Carlos Salinas de Gortari had them arrested and charged with gun running and murder in 1988.
A group of Mexican railroad workers calling themselves the "National Commission in Defense of the Collective Bargaining Agreement" (Comision Nacional Pro Defensa del Contrato Colectivo de Trabajo y Prevision Obrera) organized a demonstration on November 6 in Mexico City to oppose the privatization of the Mexican railways and to protect their union contract. Reportedly a few hundred workers participated in the demonstration.
In a full-page advertisement appearing the Mexico City daily newspaper LA JORNADA on November 6 the workers opposed the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI)-government's proposed privatization of the railroads. "The railroad workers are convinced that the railroads can and should be modernized without privatizing them and while respecting our labor rights," said the advertisement. The advertisement was signed by railroad workers and leaders, and a variety of well known members of the civic and political opposition to the PRI.
The leadership of the Mexican Railroad Workers Union (STFRM) responded on November 7 by placing its own full-page advertisement in LA JORNADA in the form of an open letter to President Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon, which read in part:
"The process of the re-structuring of the Mexican National Railways is being carried out without setbacks thanks to the understanding, the attitude of dialogue and the love of union progress of its workers. The privatization goes ahead on schedule as planned. Railroad workers when we promise something, keep our word." The letter was signed by Victor F. Morales, the national secretary and other officers.
On that same day, November 7, the national "Day of the Railroad Worker," Morales told a press conference, "there is no change, we support privatization." He then embraced Luis de Pablo Serna, director of the Mexican National Railways, in front of photographs which also showed the two embracing under the slogan: "Together We Go Forward."
RR Privatization Goes Ahead
The government's program to privatize the railroads was stymied earlier this year when there were no reasonable bids on one line put up for auction. But the next attempt will probably be successful.
The government is now selling off the Railroad of the Northeast (FFCC Noreste), considered the plum of the Mexican railroad system. The Railroad of the Northeast runs from Laredo to Mexico City, with lines serving Monterrey-Matamoros; Aguascalientes-Tampico; Mexico-Veracruz, via Xalapa; and Mexico- Lazaro Cardenas, via Toluca. The line is 4,282 kilometers long, includes 371 locomotives, 8,763 freight cars, 134 cabooses and 122 repair cars. The Railroad of the Northeast also has 33 yards, 94 stations, eight storage facilities, four warehouses, and five repair shops.
Bidders for the Northeast line are: ICA with the Union Pacific and Grupo Carso; TMM and Kansas City Southern Industries; Gec Alsthom with Grupo Olmeca and the French Railways; Grupo Mexico with the Denver Central Railroad and Illinois with Grupo Acerero del Norte y Penoles.
Two caucuses within the Union of Workers of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (STUNAM) have engaged in protests and work stoppages affecting 13,000 students, demanding the university fulfill promises and raise wages. Spokespersons Adrian Pedrozo, Luis Bravo, Pablo Gomez and Armando Solares called for the university to fulfill its promises to provide training to workers of the Maxima Casa de Estudios, part of UNAM.
The two caucuses of the STUNAM have demanded that the university fulfill contractual promises and raise wages by 17 percent. Forty workers belonging to these caucuses struck the College of Sciences and Humanities of the South (CCH-Sur), stopping classes for 13,000 high school preparatory students affiliated to the University.
On October 31, STUNAM members voted 7,190 to accept the university's proposed contract, versus 5,870 who wanted to strike for a better deal.
Humberto Davila Esquivel, head of the National Teachers Union (el SNTE), is reportedly preparing a set of reforms of the union statutes which would reduce the representation of political minorities in the union and permit union members to hold both union and political office simultaneously. However, Davila Esquivel denies that he has any such intentions.
The Democratic Fractions, a caucus in the teachers union, has announced that it will go to the Mexican Congress to seek an increase in the education budget for 1997 so that it will equal 8 percent of the gross national product (PIB).
The National Coordinating Committee of the Teachers Union (la CNTE), another caucus in the union, has called for joint coordination between the CNTE and the Democratic Fractions to achieve union reform.
Jose Davalos, an advisor to the Mexican Attorney General, has suggested that the Mexican National Human Rights Commission (CNDH), a government agency, should be able to intervene in labor matters. At present the CNDH refuses to consider any labor union issue.
Davalos said, "There is no reason that the commissions which protect national and state human rights should not deal with complaints regarding workers' rights. There is always the danger that some workers either out of ignorance or because of a lack of economic resources, do not come forward to defend their rights before the labor courts."
In a paper entitled "The Federal Labor Law: Advances and Retreats," Davalos wrote that "The workers need the protective hand of the human rights [commissions] to come immediately to the rescue of their fundamental rights, without formalities and without bureaucratic arrangements."
He went on: "It is necessary that the Constitution be reformed so that the agencies which protect human rights can inform themselves about substantive labor issues, both individual and collective, given that the gravity of the attacks on labor rights has gone beyond what could have been expected. There is a social outcry for this reform in the Mexican Constitution."
For decades Mexican workers, independent unions, and democratic currents in the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI)-government controlled "official" unions have complained that the Mexican labor courts such as the Junta Federal de Conciliacion y Arbitraje are rigged against the workers.
The tripartite courts are made up of representatives of the employers, the "official" unions, and the government. Manuel Fuentes, a labor attorney in Mexico City, has called the Juntas great freezers where the workers complaints are put into suspended animation.
Common human rights violations involving workers in Mexico in recent years include murder, torture, beatings, kidnapping, threats, firing without just cause, explusion from the union, and blacklisting. (See: Dan La Botz, MASK OF DEMOCRACY: LABOR SUPPRESSION IN MEXICO TODAY.)
In another indication of the stresses and strains that the economic crisis is causing in the Mexican labor and political movements, Alberto Juarez Blanca, general secretary of the Revolutionary Confederation of Workers and Peasants (CROC) has threatened to leave the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) if it does not listen to labor. Juarez Blanca complains that the PRI is not democratic and does not take the CROC and the labor movement into account.
Juarez Blanca and the CROC complain that the party has become dominated by groups outside the official labor and peasant organizations. In a document sent to all general secretaries of affiliated unions, Juarez Blanca called upon the PRI to "once again take up the banners of social justice, to come out in favor of the rights of workers contained in the Constitution and the Federal Labor Law, and against the high cost of living, inflation, and the lower purchasing power of wages, and the increases in the prices of the workers' basic needs."
Juarez Blanca claims that the CROC has five million members in the country, out of 35 million persons in the economically active population of the country. He complained that the PRI only listened to the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM) led by Fidel Velazquez. The CROC's claim of five million members would seem to be an exaggeration.
The CROC is also demanding a 25 percent wage increase and not the 17 percent recently agreed to by the Congress of Labor, the major employer associations and the government.
Hector Valdes Romo, the leader of the Federation of Union of Workers At the Service of the State (FSTSE), the huge Mexican public employees' union, has called for the democratization of the organization.
Valdes Romo's proposals call for: *The democratic election of union
officials.
*Complete disclosure in the use of union funds and property.
*Complete accounting to union representatives.
*The prohibition of forced
affiliation with any political party.
*The development of long-term action
programs.
*The systematic training of union cadres.
Valdes Romo told the union think-tank (Instituto de Estudios Sindicales y Administracion de la FSTSE), "We are at the point of collapse and the workers no longer believe in us, their leaders."
The FSTSE has recently suffered layoffs resulting from government budget cuts. The Federal government has about 1,600,000 employees represented by FSTSE. There has been talk of cutting the jobs of 100,000.
The FSTSE forms part of the Confederacion Nacional de Organizaciones Populares (CNOP), which in turn makes up one of the three major historic organizations of the PRI (together with the Confederation of Mexican Workers, CTM, and the National Confederation of Peasants, CNC).
The Sugar Workers Union (STIAAySRM) representing 55,000 workers and the sugar industry employers continued their negotiations in an attempt to reach a new agreement. Enrique Ramos Rodriguez said the union was asking for a 55 percent wage increase, though that was negotiable. The STIAAySRM was also fighting the employers demands for a layoff of 10,000 workers; Ramos Rodriguez said the union might be able to consider a layoff of 1,900 at most.
Laid-off workers, retirees and widows of sugar workers plan to take legal action against Ramos Rodriguez for the closing of several union benefit funds. A group of laid off workers seized the Emiliano Zapata sugar mill in Zacatepec Morelos to protest the proposed layoffs and the closing of the union benefit funds.
Three traits, perhaps four, have characterized the union group, which since 1946 has been known as the CTM, the acronym of the workers' organization started by Fidel Velazquez and those then known as the "five little wolves." [The CTM was created in 1936, but some date its degeneration from 1946. Velazquez and four of his cronies were known as the five little wolves.-DL]
The first characteristic of this organization is that it was created with the support of the government in order to function as a mass base for the administration of president Avila Camacho.
The second was that it oriented itself so as to maintain a strict adherence to the labor political line of the government, which included the praiseworthy creation of the Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS), the not so positive position of controlled wages, the current privatization of social security, and the recent lowering of salary levels, and the reduction of employment.
The third characteristic was the use of its mass support to turn union leadership positions into political bureaucratic careers. Together with that went the misuse of union funds, either dues taken from the members, or kickbacks taken from the employers to insure that their companies would have no problems. The result was that in not a few occasions, union leaders rose from unhideable poverty to even less hideable wealth, which is still a distinctive sign of many union leaders of the CTM sort.
Perhaps the most aggressive and the most anti-democratic trait and tactic of the CTM was the systematic use of violence, that is, internally in order to avoid the insubordination of its affiliates or the formation of groups with independent aspirations, and externally in order to avoid the formation or consolidation of other workers' centers or the strengthening of the powerful national unions. For those tasks, the CTM did not hesitate to use the services of well known gangsters such as the now deceased Wallace de la Mancha.
But, as it seems, the use of violence has not disappeared from the tactics of the government-protected CTM, according to newspaper reports which recount a gangster attack by strongmen of the CTM against labor attorneys Maria del Carmen Fernandez Alonso, Margarita Alvarez Sanchez and Edith Ramirez, carried out within the very chambers of the labor courts (Junta Federal de Conciliacion y Arbitraje).
I do not believe, given the impunity which Carlos Salinas de Gortari and [his advisor] Jose Maria Cordoba Montoya, or the assassination of the judge Abraham Polo Uscanga or the many other criminals who are well known and amply identified, that we can hope that the CTM henchmen who perpetrated this attack will be legally punished. But I do believe that it will be one more case that may help the consciousness of the citizens and the dignity of the labor movement, to lay the basis for the improvement of the Mexican labor movement.
The rank and file of the unions and the legal profession, as well as human rights organizations and journalists who defend legality, should coordinate themselves in order to defend the right to free union association and the right of full exercise of professional activities in the protection of workers. Both will be seriously affected by the violence of the CTM attackers who beat the attorneys Fernandez, Alvarez and Ramirez, outstanding legal battlers for the respect of the workers and outstanding members of the National Association of Democratic Attorneys (ANAD).
This is not a case of an isolated aggression, which alone would be condemnable, but rather we should recognize the true import of another symptom of the violence with which the groups which support the government want to solve social problems.
No more union leaders in the service of a "new labor culture" who serve to increase the exploitation of labor! No more leaders enriched with union dues and the employers' financial support! No more submission of the union movement to the arbitrary will of the [labor] authorities tied to the employers for the registration of their unions or the recognition of their leaders! No more governors, senator or congressmen lifted up on the shoulders of the workers affiliated to the unions of Mexico! No more violence, no more assaults, no more abuses, no more assaults nor acts of violence perpetrated by a corrupt labor movement protected by the neoliberal regime which today misgoverns Mexico for the benefit of the new global imperialism!
So far this year the Mexican government has sold bonds worth 13 billion dollars. (Felipe Gascon, "Cuestionan condiciones para deuda," REFORMA 8 November 1996.)
Exports
Mexican exports reached a record high in September when they amounted to eight billion 377 million dollars, 20.7 percent higher than in the same month of 1995, according to the Secretary of Finance.
Construction
In the last nine months of 1996, construction fell 5.88 percent compared with 1995. (Arturo Barcenas, "Cae 5% sector de la construction," REFORMA 12 November 1996.)
Auto Sales
In the first 10 months of 1996, the sale of automobiles in the Mexican national market reached 245,927 units, or an increase of 84.1 percent compared with the same period of 1995, according to the Mexican Association of the Auto Industry. (Roberto Aviles, "Crece un 84.1% venta de vehiculos," REFORMA 15 November 1996.)
Employment
The Mexican Institute of Social Security reports that in October it affiliated another 134,652 workers bringing the total to 9,078,045. This represents a 6.77 percent increase compared with the end of 1995. This is the highest membership of IMSS in its history.
Wages
The rises in basic products and energy will "pulverize" the 17 percent wage increase of the most recent tripartite pact, according Luis Lozano of the Center of Multidisciplinary Analysis of the Economics Department of the National Autonomous University of Mexico. So far during the Zedillo administration's first two years prices have risen 229 percent while wage have rise only 148 percent. (Patricia Munoz Rios, "Pulverizaran las alzas de precios el aumento salarial," LA JORNADA, 6 November 1996.)
In 1995 real wages in the Federal District reached their lowest point in 30 years, according to information from the Bank of Mexico. In 1995 real wages lost 22.6 percent of their purchasing power, said the bank. (Alonso Urrutia and Victor Ballinas, "Los salarios en el Distrito Federal, en su nivel mas bajo en 30 anos," LA JORNADA 5 November 1996.)
Average Wage Increases
The average wage increase that employers gave to their workers in October was 18.9 percent, and the yearly average is 19.1 percent, or eight points higher than for 1995 when the average was 11 percent. Benefits remained almost constant at 2.8 percent when last year they were 2.9 percent. This information from the Mexican Association of Industrial Relations Executives.(Jesus Castillo, "Disminuyen las revisiones de los salarios," REFORMA 5 November 1996.)
Wage Gap
The difference in wages between the highest and lowest paid people in Mexico continues to widen, according to the Workers University (Universidad Obrera), basing its study on statistics of the Mexican National Institute of Statistics (INEGI). The wages of the best paid families in the country rose from 28 to 45 times higher thanthose of the poorest paid, whose wage are about 30 pesos per day. Some 30 percent of all families receive only 7.3 percent of wages, earning 30.5 pesos per day. About 40 percent of families which include workers receive 25.1 percent of the wages and earn 78.46 pesos per day. Professional, technical, and administrative workers representing 20 percent of all families receive about 27 percent of the total or about 170.2 pesos per day. Businessmen, professionals, supervisors, department heads and directors and the highest levels of the bureaucracy get about 40 percent of the wages, earning about 505 pesos per day. (At present there are 7.90 pesos to the dollar.) (Yanireth Israde, "Sigue en aumento la concentracion salarial," LA JORNADA 10 November 1996.)
Price Increases
The National Index of Prices to the Consumer rose 1.25 percent in October, compared with the same month of last year. (Tomas de la Rosa, "Aumentan precios 1.25% en octubre," REFORMA 8 november 1996.)
The Federal District intends to raise public transportation prices by 60 to 85% next year. (Alberto Najar, "Aumentara de 60 a 85% la tarifa del transporte urbano," LA JORNADA 10 November 1996.)
Basic prices continue to increase. Bread rose 8 to 13 percent, sweet rolls 20 to 50 percent, detergent 28.5 percent, according to information from the wholesale market (Central de Abastos) of Mexico City. (Patricia Munoz, "Continua la escalada de precios en productos de consumo basico," LA JORNADA 12 November 1996.)
Childcare
The childcare centers of the Mexican Institute of Social Security serve 65,000 children, or 12 percent more than their capacity of 57,350. Still they satisfy only 15 percent of the national demand which is calculated at 400,000 four year old children. (Angeles Cruz, "Sobrecupo de 12% en guarderias del IMSS," LA JORNADA 14 November 1996.)
Interest Rates
Interest rates in Mexico remain very high, making things difficult for consumers and small business. Credit card rates in November were 33.21%; direct loans at 21.50%; auto loans at 23.15%; and housing loans between 10 and 18 percent. ("Pesada carga crediticia," (table) REFORMA 15 November 1996.)
Child
Labor
The International Labor Organization calculates that about 250 million children between 5 and 15 years of age work; 120 million work eight hours and another 130 work fewer hours. Seven percent of these 250 million are in Latin America (most are in Asia, 61 percent and Africa, 32 percent). So in Latin America about 117.5 million children work.
Consumption, nutrition
The consumption of beef fell by 40%, according to Cesar Gonzalez Quiroga, president of the National Confederation of Cattle ranchers (CNG). He gave no time period for the fall. (Marial Zuniga, "Baja 40% el consumo de carne," REFORMA 8 November 1996.)
Poverty
The Secretary of Social Development (Sedesol) publishes a study called "Regional Priorities" in which it says that in its 91 priority regions with the highest levels of poverty and marginality live 24 million people. (Mexico's total population is 91 million.) 43% of these people are under 15 years of age. (Angelica Enciso, "Viven 24 milliones de personas en zonas de alta marginacion," LA JORNADA 11 November 1996.)
Fighting Poverty
The Mexican government will spend $30,508,000,000 pesos to fight poverty in 1997. (Felipe Gazcon, "Destinaran $30,508 milliones para luchar contra la pobreza," REFORMA 14 November 1996.
Fighting for Votes
The Mexican government will increase its expenditure by 6 percent in 1997, a crucial election year. ("Mexico planea un aumento del 6% del gasto publico," WALL STREET JOURNAL AMERICAS in REFORMA 8 November 1996.)
Violence
Tijuana has had 225 murders this year, part of a rising trend in border cities. (Jorge Alberto Cornejo and Arturo Solis, "Creciente violencia en Tijuana; 225, los homicidios este ano," LA JORNADA 8 November 1996.)
Torture
The Attorney General of Mexico City reports that torture and other abuses are now a thing of the past. ("Segun la PGJDF, se erradico ya la tortura," LA JORNADA 10 November 1996.) Over the years groups such as Amnesty International and America's Watch have argued that Mexican police commonly use torture.
Manuel Ceballos Ramirez's El Catolicismo Social represents an important contribution to Mexican social and labor history. For years most Mexican historians ignored or wrote out of history altogether the Roman Catholic "social Christian" organizations. El Catolicismo Social will help to correct this distorted view. Ceballos Ramirez documents the rise of the social Christian movement in Mexico, including the creation of dozens of different workers' organizations in many states of Mexico. These various workers' organizations came together under the umbrella of the Operarios Gaudalupanos and the Union Catolica Obrera. Ceballos Ramirez estimates that by 1911 as many as 30,000 workers were associated with these Catholic workers' organizations. This book which discusses Roman Catholic theology, and gives a detailed account of a great variety of Mexican social Christian organizations is a book for specialists. But its central argument remains of more general interest and importance.
Jean-Pierre Bastian. Los disidentes: Sociedades protestantes
y revolucion en Mexico, 1872-1911. Mexico: Colegio de Mexico and Fondo de
Cultura Economica, 1989. Second printing 1993. Appendices, bibiography, index. 373
pages.
Jean-Pierre Bastian's Los disidentes is the story of Protestant churches in Mexico from the beginning of the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz until the Revolution. The book describes the attempts by President Juarez to create a schismatic church and his failure, and then the arrival of the Protestant missionaries from the United States. Bastian shows the relationship between Protestant congregations, rebellious peasants, and groups of artisans and workers in textiles, mining, railroads, and other industries. Protestant church groups sometimes worked alongside or with union and socialist groups in Mexico during the Porfiriato, and later in the movements of Ricardo Flores Magon and Francisco I. Madero. Well written, extremely intelligent and thought-provoking, Bastian's book will be of interest to those who study Mexican labor, the Mexican Revolution, and U.S. influence in Mexico.