MEXICAN LABOR NEWS AND ANALYSIS
June 2, 1999
Vol. IV, No. 10
----------------------------------------------------------------
About Mexican Labor News and Analysis
Mexican Labor News and Analysis is produced in collaboration with the Authentic Labor Front (Frente Autentico del Trabajo - FAT) of Mexico and with the United Electrical Workers (UE) of the United States and is published the 2nd and 16th of every month.
MLNA can be viewed at the UE's international web site: HTTP://www.igc.apc.org/unitedelect/. For information about direct subscriptions, submission of articles, and all queries contact editor Dan La Botz at the following e-mail address: 103144.2651@compuserve.com or call in the U.S. (513) 961-8722. The U.S. mailing address is: Dan La Botz, Mexican Labor News and Analysis, 3436 Morrison Place, Cincinnati, OH 45220.
MLNA articles may be reprinted by other electronic or print media, but we ask that you credit Mexican Labor News and Analysis and give the UE home page location and Dan La Botz's compuserve address.
The UE Home Page which displays Mexican Labor News and Analysis has an INDEX of back issues and an URGENT ACTION ALERT section.
Staff: Editor, Dan La Botz; Correspondents in Mexico: Bob Briggs, Robert Donnelly, Peter Gellert, Elyce Hues, Jess Kincaid, Jorge Robles, Don Sherman, Jeremy Simer.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Reader,
May has been a particularly important month for the Mexican labor movement. First, the Mexican Supreme Court ruled that workers have the right to form independent unions in the public sector, overturning--at least in theory--60 years of state-control over public employees' unions.
Second, a rank and file rebellion erupted in the Sole Union of Electrical Workers of the Mexican Republic (SUTERM) over the proposed privatization of the electrical industry. Growing numbers of dissident workers call for the removal of Leonardo Rodriguez Alcaine who is also the head of the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM) and of the Congress of Labor (CT).
Third, the Coordinating Committee (la CNTE) of the Mexican Teachers Union (el SNTE) has led massive strikes of hundreds of thousands of teachers to demand not only higher wages, but also for a series of political demands.
The students at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) remain on strike.
There is a remarkable convergence of these labor and social movements. Teachers and university students march together. The teachers raise demands in support of the electrical workers and the Zapatista rebels in Chiapas. In Mexico at the moment we seem to be witnessing an upsurge of the labor and social movements placing enormous strain on the old "corporativist" or state-controlled labor organizations. More than at any time in the last several years, the Mexican working class appears to be on the move.
Dan La Botz,
Editor
-----------------------------------------------------------------
IN THIS ISSUE:
-----------------------------------------------------------------
by Dan La Botz
The Mexican Supreme Court ruled on May 11 that workers in the public sector have the right to form independent labor unions. The high court's ruling represents a fundamental change in labor law, and a departure from the political and legal system of state-party controlled labor unions which has existed in Mexico for decades. Like the death of Fidel Velazquez, the former head of the Confederation of Mexican Worker (CTM), and the organization of the independent National Union of Workers (UNT), this decision represents a fundamental alteration of the legal, social and political landscape of labor unionism in Mexico.
The obvious beneficiaries of this decision, beyond the workers themselves, would seem to be the National Union of Workers (UNT) and the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), but some observers see employers gaining an upper hand. While many have welcomed the court's decision as a fundamental victory for workers' rights and democracy in general, some others have expressed fear that the ruling really represents a neo-liberal (that is, conservative) decision intended to weaken the existing unions and to promote company-unionism. But however one assesses the decision it represents a radical change in Mexican labor law, and could portend a profound change in union organization not only among public sector, but also among private sector workers.
The Decision
The Supreme Court's decision involved a total of six cases: four recent cases of attempts to organize independent or parallel labor unions (that is parallel to the "official" or government- controlled unions) at the Service of Tributary Administration (SAT), the air traffic controllers, the township (ayuntamiento) of Tlanepantla de Baz and the Institute of Social Security of Chiapas, and two earlier cases of attempts to organize independent unions at the University of Guadalajara and in the State of Oaxaca. It is important that altogether six cases were involved, since the Supreme Court must decide on five cases in order for its decision to become law binding on all lower courts.
The decision dealt with the contradiction between Constitutional Article 123, Part B, section X, which grants public employees the right "to associate to defend their common interests," and Articles 68, 69 and 78 of the Federal Labor Law of State Unions (LFTSE) which force workers to join government-controlled unions. Article 68 allowed only one union in each government agency; Article 69 said workers could leave that union only by being expelled; and Article 78 actually required federal employees to join the Federation of Unions of Workers at the Service of the State (FSTSE). By a unanimous vote, ten justices of the Supreme Court overturned those three articles and found that workers had the right to affiliate with any union they desire, and to leave any union when they so choose. Under the court's ruling, as few as 20 workers can form a labor union. The decision affects, federal, state and municipal workers.
While the exact impact of the decision is not yet clear, it would seem to create a new system of labor unionism in government employment in which several unions may compete in the same workplace simultaneously. The new system would appear to be unlike the "sole collective bargaining agent" which exists in the United States, and more like the French system where several different unions (in France they are usually affiliated with different political parties or the Catholic Church) may exist in one workplace.
The Supreme Court decision overturns what is at least a 50-year regime of state control over the public employees' unions. President Lazaro Cardenas first created the state-controlled public employee unions when on November 5, 1938 he decreed the public employee organizing regulation. Cardenas, who had encouraged and supported union organization since his election as president in 1934, wanted to keep industrial workers, peasants and public employees divided and under control. While the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM) organized industrial workers, Cardenas created the National Peasant Confederation (CNC) to organize peasants, and a separate federation for public employees, what later became the Federation of Unions of Workers at the Service of the State (FSTSE). The CTM, the CNC, and the FSTSE became the pillars of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). This decision then, in granting what has come to be called "labor union freedom" (libertad sindical) to public employees also threatens to undermine the power of the PRI.
While private sector legally workers have the right to join whatever union they wish, in fact they do not. The employers, the Mexican Labor Board (JFCA), and the "official" unions such as the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM) collude to make it virtually impossible for independent unions to organize, bargain or strike in the private sector. The Supreme Court decision in favor of independent unions in the public sector may also lead to some test case regrading the de facto denial of workers' rights to organize independent unions in the private sector as well.
Behind the Decision
The high court's ruling reflects various pressures over many decades. While the Mexican government's "official" federations controlled most labor unions, there have been various attempts to escape the state's tutelage. In the 1920s both Communists and Roman Catholics attempted to create independent labor organizations, though without much success. But in the Popular Front period in the mid-1930s, the Communists gave up their opposition to the government and actually helped to create the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM).
In the late 1940s the leftist Vicente Lombardo Toledano, one of the CTM's original founders, attempted to create an independent labor federation, but the government succeeded in isolating it. Throughout the 1950s the Mexican government kept the lid on independent unionism. But in the late 1960s and early 1970s Mexico's "new left" moved into industrial workplaces, peasant communities, and working class neighborhoods. Leftists and worker militants led "the worker insurgency" (la insurgencia obrera), and organized both democratics currents in the "official unions" and some independent labor unions, particularly in the universities.
During the 1980s the "new social movements" such as the urban popular movement (MUP), the environmental movement, the women's and gay and lesbian movements also helped to create more political space, including space for independent unionism. The rise of "civil society" after the Mexican earthquake of 1985, the presidential campaign of Cuauhtemoc Cardenas in 1988 and the organization of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) in 1989, and the Chiapas Rebellion of 1994 led by the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) have also contributed to the building pressure for democratic reform, and particularly for workers' rights.
The Role of the ILO
By the 1990s, Mexican workers were carrying on sophisticated campaigns for democratic and independent unions, using a variety of strategies and tactics. In the 1990s the workers from the University of Guadalajara and the state of Oaxaca decided to take their case to the International Labor organization (ILO) in Geneva, Switzerland claiming that the Mexican government's requirement that all workers affiliate with the "official" or state-controlled unions was a violation of ILO Convention 187 which states that workers have a right to organize or join or leave any union they so choose.
Mexico had adopted the ILO convention at the ILO Conference in San Francisco, California in 1948, and it had subsequently been approved by the Mexican Senate and become law in 1950. In 1996 the ILO found in favor of the Guadalajara University and Oaxaca public workers, and recommended that the Mexican labor courts give those workers the right to organize independent unions. The Mexican Tribunal for public employees, following the ILO's advice, upheld the workers' right to organize independent unions in May of 1996. Now the Mexican Supreme Court has also upheld their right to do so.
IMF and World Bank's Role
Other analysts have pointed out that pressures from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank may also have played a role in the Supreme Court's decision. The IMF has demanded in Mexico, as it does elsewhere, that in return for supporting its appeal for loans from foreign banks and international agencies, that Mexico cut its Federal budget. One response of the Mexican government has been to decentralize formerly Federal social services such as education and public health, dividing up responsibility among the states. That decision has tended to weaken the national labor federations and unions, and to create pressures for new forms of labor organization corresponding to the new decentralized reality. This too could have been a factor in the court's decision, argue those who see this as a neo-liberal (that is a conservative) political and economic reform.
Reaction to the Decision
As would be expected, the strongest opposition to the Supreme Court ruling on public employees' rights has come from Jose Ayala Almeida, head of the Federation of Unions of Workers at the Service of the State (FSTSE), the union federation most directly affected by the decision. Two of the unions pleading in the Supreme Court case were rivals to FSTSE affiliates. In an interview with PROCESO, the important weekly magazine of news and politics, Ayala stated that the decision represented a "grave problem," and that his federation could not permit it to take effect because "it would open the possibility of the pulverization of the labor unions." Ayala predicted that the court's decision would lead to "complete anarchy" because it had destroyed the basis for determining a democratic majority.
"We don't understand why [this decision was made] since for more than 60 years we have always maintained an alliance with the government, and the proof of that is that on May 11, the Minister of the Interior ratified this relationship," said Ayala. "We have labor relations with the three powers [of the government], including with the executive branch, and we don't understand why the judicial branch pronounced a decision which alarms and worries the federation."
Ayala has argued that there was no basis for the decision since within the 88 unions belonging to the FSTSE there has been democracy, freedom, and broad participation. Ayala attributes the decision to "ultra-conservative, ultra-right interests" who want to promote the further privatization of Mexican industry and services. He argues that the Supreme Court decision will lead to the proliferation of company unions (sindicatos blancos) within the Federal government, to inter-union squabbles, and that it will hurt public services, particularly medical services. FSTSE will fight the Supreme Court decision in the courts, in the legislature, and if necessary on the streets, even asking the Congress of Labor (CT) to call general strikes against the ruling, he says.
CTM Horrified by Ruling
The Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM), the most important of the "official" federations which support the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), has also been horrified by the Supreme Court decision. Abelardo Carrillo Zavala, the former governor of Campeche and a member of the executive committee of the CTM called the decision an error which threatened the labor movement and workplace productivity. He said the decision would lead to the creation of "tiny unions" and of "crazy strikes." Carrillo Zavala also believed it would lead to friction between workers and employers. He claimed that the ruling would affect both the productivity of individual firms, and the overall state of the economy.
Leonardo Rodriguez Alcaine, head of the CTM, has said that his federation would consider a national strike to demand that the Supreme Court reconsider its decision. Unlike most Latin American countries, Mexico has never had a national general strike. The CTM which has virtually eliminated the strike from its tactics, has in the past declined to call a general strike even over violent attacks on labor. The CTM did not strike over the arrest of the leader of the Mexican Petroleum Workers Union (STPRM) or the Mexican Army's occupation of the Cananea copper Mine, both of which took place in 1989. Rodriguez Alcaine has also declined to strike over the devastating privatization of the railroads or the current proposal to privatize electric power generation. But apparently the court's threat to bureaucracy's power warrants consideration of the strike weapon, and the far-fetched threat of a general strike.
CROC Also Against Decision
Alberto Juarez Blanco, head of the Revolutionary Confederation of Workers and Peasants (CROC), another "official" federation, also spoke out strongly, and with typical vulgarity, against the Supreme Court decision. "I am not in agreement with this dirty trick they've pulled," said Juarez Blanco. "I would just like to see a firm controlled by the CROC in which 20 workers against 1,000, 500 or 200 try to create their union. I would pull them out by their feet. The majority rules."
SME Critical of Court Ruling
Even an independent and militant union has criticized the Supreme Court decision. The Mexican Union of Electrical Workers (SME) has been involved in a major battle with President Ernesto Zedillo and the legislature over the privatization of the electric power industry. SME recently left the Congress of Labor (CT) and allied itself with the independent National Union of Workers (UNT) in the May Day march this year. But SME too has come out against the Supreme Court ruling.
Rosendo Flores Flores, general secretary (top officer) of the union, told reporters. "We see this as an attack. This will make it easier for the government and the employers to strike at the unions, and make it more difficult for us to achieve the unity we need to defend ourselves. Even the CTM people are critical of this. We know that they have never criticized anything, whatever the government says they applaud even though it hurts their workers, but now they are criticizing."
PRD of Federal District Welcomes Ruling
Lilia Vazquez, the secretary of Labor Affairs of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) of the Federal District, however, called the Supreme Court decision a blow to corporativist (state-controlled) unionism, and that it represented a positive development for public employees. Nevertheless, she said, this legal decision still does not eliminate the political control over the unions.
Rosa Albina Garavito, former guerrilla and PRD Senator, declared, "Welcome to labor union liberty! The Supreme Court decision represents an inescapable precedent for the construction of a new union reality and with it for the elimination of corporativist control of the workers by the state." The urged workers and citizens to join in the process of creating a more democratic Mexico.
UNT Leaders Cautiously Optimistic
Augustin Rodriguez Fuentes, one of the three co-presidents of the National Union of Workers (UNT) also called the Supreme Court ruling a direct blow to corporativist unionism, but indicated that the UNT would watch carefully to see that no obstacles were put in the way of attempts to form new independent unions. He also expressed the fear that political parties might attempt to use the law to their own advantage.
Alejandra Barrales, head of the Mexican Flight Attendants Union (ASSA) and another important figures in the UNT, said that independent unions should not start celebrating this decision too soon. "Personally," she said, "I am a little confused and taken aback, because on the one hand it talks about labor union freedom (libertad sindical), but on the other hand this freedom is prohibited or frustrated, as in the case of our Flight Attendants Union in the TAESA company. When we have called for a representation election there, it has not been respected." (In a recent representation election ASSA was defeated by a CTM union in what ASSA alleges was an unfair process.)
"So," she continued, "if it really promotes free unionization, and not the pulverization of the unions, then we will support it, but if it is the other way around, then we are disposed to work with FSTSE and the Congress of Labor, if they really want to defend the workers."
Alcalde Supports Decision
Arturo Alcalde Justiniani, a labor lawyer who works closely with the National Association of Democratic Attorneys (ANAD), the Mexican Airline Pilots Union, and with the Authentic Labor Front (FAT) welcomed the court's decision as a victory for labor union freedom (libertad sindical). "It's necessary to make a correct reading of this decision," he told PROCESO, "because if not, one runs the risk of misinterpreting it. Some people are going to consider it a neo-liberal and anti-union measure." But he argues it is not.
"The worst thing was that those laws punished those who joined a different workers' organization, by cancelling their union registration (registro) and refusing to legally recognize their executive board. This is an historic decision because it confirms and vindicates the right of association as found in Article 123 and in the context of ILO Convention 87.
"The Supreme Court is pushing toward modernization, so that people will understand the dimensions of labor union freedom (libertad sindical). This decision should not be seen as a limitation of rights, because to do that would be to have a retrograde and bureacratic vision. There is a confusion when it is said that the Supreme Court breaks the union and integrity of the union. That argument is not valid, because if it is true that union unity is good, including the ideal that there should just be one union, that unity should be voluntary, not decreed from above by the law, because that is not unity, it is corporativism."
First Independent Unions Formed Under New Ruling
Almost immediately after the Supreme Court Ruling, 25,000 workers left the "official" National Union of Workers of the Secretary of Health to form the new Independent Union of Health Workers (SITS). SITS is being advised by PRD Senator Rosa Albina Garavito, by labor lawyer Nestor de Buen, and by the National Association of Democratic Attorneys (ANAD). Eduardo Marin Leon, the SITS secretary of organization, says that the new union began to organize before the ruling some two years ago, and that it did so in the face of goon squads sent by Jose Ayala of FSTSE. Marin Leon says the new union will hold its founding convention in June. The union will begin in the Federal District but plans to organize health workers in all 31 states.
In addition to the two unions involved in the suit, FSTSE may see two unions leave almost immediately, the Union of the Secretary of the Environment, Natural Resources and Fisheries (SEMARNAP) and the union of workers of the Secretary of Agriculture, Cattle, and Rural Development (SAGAR). Several other unions within the Federal employees' union could also decide to escape from the control of Ayala, FSTSE and the PRI, though most workers and unions will move cautiously. Leaders of several dissident groups within the FSTSE have pledged not to break up the public employee federation.
Teacher Dissidents Reject Parallel Union Strategy
Within the Mexican Teachers Union (el SNTE), the largest union in Mexico with over one million members, both dissident and opposition groups reject the strategy of organizing a parallel union. Spokespersons for the 25-year-old National Coordinating committee, la CNTE, says that they will not attempt to organize a new union. Likewise with the Democratic Plural Council of Teacher Unity (CDPUM), the pro-government minority within the Mexico City teachers union.
In the long run, the Supreme Court decision on the right of public employees to form independent labor unions is historic, and seems likely to benefit most rank and file workers, the National Union of Workers, and the Party of the Democratic Revolution. But if the workers and their new independent unions don't take the initiative and prove creative and aggressive in the organization of workers, public employers, politicians and union bureaucrats could turn the high court's ruling into simply another way to keep workers down.
Thousands of members of the Sole Union of Mexican Electrical Workers (SUTERM) marched several miles through Mexico City from the Angel of Independence monument to the Legislative Palace on May 22 to protest the government's plan to privatize the electrical industry. The rank and file rebellion by SUTERM electrical workers represents a challenge to the entire Mexican labor establishment.
President Ernesto Zedillo announced plans earlier this year to privatize both the Light and Power Company of central Mexico represented by the Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME), and the Federal Electrical Commission represented by SUTERM. While the SME leadership has opposed privatization, SUTERM's leaders have supported Zedillo's plan.
But the more than 3,000 workers from 40 union locals who marched on May 22 not only opposed privatization, but called for the removal of Leonardo Rodriguez Alcaine who heads not only their union but also the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM) and the Congress of Labor (CT). The revolt in the SUTERM thus threatens the whole "official" labor union structure.
Union Dissidents Call for Alliance with SME
The National Coordinating Committee of the SUTERM, the hastily assembled alliance of local unions and rank and file activists which called for the demonstration, claims to represent more than 15,000 SUTERM workers "located in all the nerve centers of the system." The National Coordinating Committee has threatened to leave the union if Rodriguez Alcaine and the union's national executive committee don't change their line and come out against privatization.
The SUTERM dissidents have called for an alliance with the Mexican Electrical Workers, and have called for a convention in Tapachula, Chiapas on June 26 and 27. (Tapachula is on the other side of the mountains from the area controlled by the Zapatista Army of National Liberation - EZLN - and this has nothing to do directly with that movement.)
The dissident SUTERM workers marching in Mexico City carried placards with the following slogans (among many others):
First Opposition in the Union in 20 Years
The SUTERM demonstration represents the first public manifestation of dissent in the union in more than 20 years. In the early 1970s under the leadership of Rafael Galvan, the SUTERM led a movement called the Democratic Tendency which called for democracy in the unions and a new progressive direction for Mexican society. Galvan's Democratic Tendency and the SUTERM union were smashed by the Mexican government and the army. The union's democratic and militant leaders were removed, and the government used force to impose its own loyal leadership.
For 23 years the PRI controlled the SUTERM bureaucracy, and the bureaucracy controlled the local unions and the rank and file, and hardly a peep was heard from anybody. But when Zedillo called for privatizing the electric power industry, he set off a chain reaction he didn't expect. The other electrical workers' union, the SME, began opposing privatization, the movement then spread to the SUTERM. Many SUTERM members now express their admiration for the SME leadership, and demand the removal of Rodriguez Alcaine as a worthless puppet of the government. The attack on Rodriguez Alcaine also threatens the CTM and the CT because he heads both of those organizations as well.
Zedillo's plan to privatize the electrical industry has not only run into stiff opposition from
both electrical workers' unions, but it may have provoked the crisis that could conceivably contribute to the collapse of the old labor union system dominated by the CTM and CT.
More than 200,000 teachers in several states struck for higher wages--and a long list of other demands--throughout the month of May. Rejecting the 20 percent increase (17% in wages, 3% in improved benefits) negotiated by Tomas Vazquez Vigil, general secretary of the Mexican Teachers Union (el SNTE), teachers in the Federal District, Chiapas, Guerrero, Michoacan, Oaxaca, and the Federal District struck during some part of the month of May.
Primary school teachers, the lowest paid in the system, with the 17 percent wage increase, will see their salaries go from 3,538 to 4,091 pesos per month. Some 35 percent of all teachers earn these wages. Most of the rest will receive 5,207.45 pesos per month. (9.6 pesos=US$1.00).
Protests in 20 States; Strikes in Half a Dozen
The National Coordinating Committee of the Teachers Union (la CNTE) and other opposition groups within the union, together with local union leaders and rank and file activists called and coordinated the massive strikes. Some strikes began around May 1, but others started after May 15 when SNTE leader Vazquez Vigil accepted a wage increase of 17 percent plus 3 percent in improved benefits.
With the announcement of the settlement, teachers in a score of states either struck or engaged in protest demonstrations. The strikes in May involved 45,000 teachers in Chiapas; 20,000 in Guerrero; 55,000 in Michoacan; 57,000 in Oaxaca; and 48,000 in the Federal District. Thousands struck in other states as well.
Sit-In at the SEP--a Tradition
In Mexico City thousands of teachers have been camped for weeks now around the offices of the Secretary of Public Education (SEP) to protest the 20 percent wage increase. At the SEP there are 2,400 teachers from Guerrero, 700 from Oaxaca, 1,500 from Michoacan, 300 from Tlaxcala, 200 from other states, and hundreds from the Federal District.
The teachers have conducted several mass marches through Mexico City, perhaps the most impressive a march of tens of thousands of teachers and students from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) who are also engaged in a strike to protest the imposition of the first tuition at the huge public university. The teachers and students marched together to the presidential residence, Los Pinos, to demand an increase in the Federal budget for education, raises for teachers and no tuition for students.
La CNTE Strikes for Raise--and Much More
The National Coordinating Committee (la CNTE), the 25-year-old rank and file movement within the Mexican Teachers Union (el SNTE) not only called for its traditional demand of a 100% raise, but also a long list of other economic, social and political demands. La CNTE calls for:
Secretary of Public Education Tells Teachers to Go Home
The Secretary of Public Education (SEP) has told the teachers camped out at the offices in Mexico City that the country has a decentralized education system, and that the teachers should go home to their respective states to negotiate with the governors. But teachers continued to march and maintain their sit-in at the SEP.
The same day that the Mexican Supreme Court granted public employees the right to form independent unions, that is on May 11, the country's federation of public employees meeting in convention in Mexico City endorsed Francisco Labastida Ochoa of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) as its choice for president. The endorsement was accompanied by fervent applause from the union delegates.
Jose Ayala Almeida, the head of the Federation of Unions of Workers at the Service of the State (FSTSE) told the press that in the 88 unions affiliated with the federation "the workers' and leaders' identification with his political figure is palpable."
Labastida Ochoa recently resigned his position as Minister of the Interior in the cabinet of President Ernesto Zedillo. As Minister of the Interior, he was Mexico's principal political fixer. The Minister of the Interior which oversees the country's political police, generally handles all politically sensitive issues in the country, from negotiations with the Zapatista rebels to labor union strikes.
Labastida Ochoa pledged to maintain the "basic alliance" that has historically existed between the Mexican government and the labor unions, an alliance which he said had allowed Mexico to recuperate rapidly from the economic crisis of 1994. At the same time, Ayala Almeida reiterated the "permanent alliance" between his union and the ruling party government.
Labastida Ochoa is the chosen candidate of president Ernesto Zedillo, though under new party rules the president's endorsement is no longer sufficient, and he will have to participate in a primary election, where he is expected to win. He will likely contend in the national elections against Vicente Fox, the governor of Guanajuato, of the National Action Party (PAN) and Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, the Mayor of Mexico City, of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD).
Ayala Almeida said that in the new spirit of democracy and pluralism, that of course the FSTSE would respect the right of each worker to affiliate with the party of his or her choice, but that evidently the majority of the union's leaders and activists supported the Institutional Revolutionary Party.
But just as the FSTSE was endorsing Labastida Ochoa on the basis of the "historic alliance" between state-party and union, the Supreme Court ended the FSTSE's monopoly control over the workers--leading Ayala Almeida to question the state's persecution of his union.
The First National Encounter of PAN Worker Unionists took place in Juriquilla, Queretaro on May 15, and led to calls by some union leaders for the creation of a labor federation allied with the Conservative National Action Party (PAN). The PAN labor meeting, called by PAN Senators Francisco Xavier Salazar Saenz and Maria Elena Alvarez de Vicencio, brought together some 200 labor unionists from 27 different states. Public employees predominated over private sector and industrial workers.
The PAN union activists, particularly those from Sinaloa and Tlaxcala, called for the creation of labor unions and a federation with close ties to the PAN. However Senator Salazar Saenz used all of his authority to keep the conference as a whole from adopting such a resolution. The senator argue that party affiliated labor unions represent "a very evil threat" to labor unionism, and he argued that each union worker ought to be able to participate in and vote for the party of his or her choice.
In the end the PAN unionists called upon PAN governors to support the unions, and called upon the legislature to pass labor laws which benefit workers.
The PAN union gathering did not take any position on the Supreme Court's ruling on the right of public employees to join labor unions of their own choosing.
Rosendo Flores Flores, the general secretary of the Mexican Union of Electrical Workers (SME) took advantage of the PAN unionists meeting, to meet with the PAN unionists and discuss their objection to the privatization of the Light and Power company of central Mexico and the Mexican Electrical Commission. The PAN unionists took no official position on the Mexican government's plan to privatize the electrical power generation industry.
Steelworkers at SICARTSA steel mill (also known as Las Truchas) in Lazaro Cardenas, Michoacan are demanding a 70% wage increase in the 1999-2001 contract. Wage increases in recent contracts have been running between 17 and 22 percent.
The plant's 3,000 steel workers belong to Local 271 of the Miners and Metal Workers Union of Mexico which is headed at the national level by Napoleon Gomez Sada. He generally reaches agreements acceptable to employers and the government, as he did most recently at the Cananea mine where he helped to squelch a strike.
The Independent Proletarian Movement (MPI), a leftist political party, organized an anti-war demonstration at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City on May 20 to protest the U.S.-NATO bombing and war in Yugoslavia. The MPI is the group which led the important Route 100 Bus Drivers struggle to preserve jobs and an independent union (SUTAUR) a few years ago.
SOCIAL STATISTICS
World Unemployment
The World Bank reports that there are 150 million unemployed persons and 750 million underemployed persons in the world at present. (Yazmin Rodriguez Galaz, "Desempleadas, 150 Millones de personas en el mundo, dice BM," EL UNIVERSAL, May 25, 1999)
Unemployment in Mexico
Secretary of Labor Mariano Palacios Alcocer reports that Mexico's open unemployment level is the lowest in eight years at 2.9 percent for the first trimester of this year. In 1998 the open unemployment rate was 3.2 percent. (Arturo Gomez Salgado, "El indice de desempleo, el mas bajo de los ultimos 8 anos, dice Palacios Alcocer," EL FINANCIERO, May 17, 1999.)
Unemployment in Veracruz
The Secretary of Labor reports that unemployment in the gulf coast State of Veracruz has reached 20% under governor Miguel Aleman Velasco, who recently dropped out of the bid for nominee for president of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). (Violeta Pacheco, "Asciende ya a 20% el Indice de Desempleo en Veracruz: STyPS," EXCELSIOR, May 22,1999)
Future Employment
The deceleration of Mexico's economy means that in the next two years Mexico will not create the one and a half million new jobs it needs to, according to the Center of Economic Analysis and Projections for Mexico (CAPEM). (Antonio Vazquez, "Se crearan menos de 700 mil empleos anuales: CAPEM," LA JORNADA, May 10, 1999.)
Wage Increases
In the first trimester of 1999 there were 639 contract wage negotiations averaging 17.17 percent, while benefit increases averaged 2.39 percent, according to the Mexican Association of Industrial Relations Executives (AMERI). According to the report, the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM) did best with union wage increases averaging 17.73 percent; the Revolutionary Confederation of Mexican Workers (CROM); did next best with 17.38 percent; the Revolutionary Confederation of Workers and Peasants (CROC) followed with 16.79 percent; and finally the independent unions did worst with gains of only 15.15 percent. [It is not clear whether "independent unions" here refers to company unions or the independent unions which are not controlled by the government or the company, the term is used for both. - ed.] By sector the gains were as follows for the best: insurance companies, 20 percent; petro-chemical companies 19.60 percent; chemical companies 19.60; chemical companies 19.51; textile companies 18.85 percent. Those doing worst were: cinematography 10 percent; asbestos-cement, 11.29 percent; auto, 12.25 percent; transport, 15.25 percent. (Notimex, "Alzas salariales de hasta 17.73% en el primer trimestre," LA JORNADA, May 9, 1999.)
Social Struggle: Strikes
It has long been recognized that employers and corrupt unions organize phoney strikes for various reasons. The Federal District's Under-secretary of Labor recently sent investigators to inspect some 38 workplaces which have remained on strike since 1991. In 13 cases they found that the firm which had supposedly been struck had moved and been replaced by a private residence, a bar, school or other business. In another nine locations there were no physical signs of strike activity. In 12 locations the traditional red-and-black strike banner was found nailed over the door, but there was no workers' picketline. In one other location the firm was operating without any sign of a strike. In three the workers maintained a picketline, but complained of constant threats by the management. ("Detecta el gobierno huelgas fantasmas," LA JORNADA, May 20, 1999.)