Mexican Labor News & Analysis

Call to Action in Solidarity with SME: Focus on Consulates, Send Letters, Emails

On the night of October 10, President Calderón ordered federal police to seize the power plants operated by the Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME), while simultaneously liquidating the state-owned Light and Power Company, and firing the entire workforce of approximately 44,000 employees. Some 22,000 retirees and 1,500 union technical school trainees were also affected. Five days earlier, the government refused to accord legal recognition to the democratically elected president of the Mexican Electrical Workers’ Union, Martín Esparza, although this should have been a routine matter.

The Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME) continues its fight for the reestablishment of the Light and Power Company, for the survival of the union, and for the jobs of some 44,000 workers. Hundreds of thousands in Mexico have responded in major demonstrations. On December 4th, SME has called for another mobilization in Mexico and has asked that its international supporters focus their attention on Mexican Embassies or consulates around that date. Please support them however you can: by sending letters, or organizing delegations or demonstrations at your consulate around that date.

Since the message you deliver and manner in which you decide to deliver it may depend on your relationship with the consulate in your area (a number of Mexican consulates are very active in defending the rights of Mexican workers in the US), we leave it to you to determine the best course of action in your area and to modify the following letter which was sent by the UE’s national officers and to decide whether it should be addressed to President Calderón or to your local consul. The important point is to support the SME’s request by letting the Mexican government know that many of us in other countries are aware and outraged about their blatant violation of labor rights.If there is no consulate in your area, please send a letter.

Sample Letter

Felipe Calderón Hinojosa
President of Mexico
Los Pinos, Mexico

Dear President Calderón:

We are writing to you on behalf of the tens of thousands of U.S. workers who are members of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) to express our shock and outrage about your government’s actions in failing to accord legal recognition to the democratically elected president of the Mexican Electrical Workers’ Union, Martín Esparza; to send in Federal Police to occupy the Luz y Fuerza del Centro facilities; and to issue a decree liquidating the company and dismissing some 45,000 unionized workers.

These actions violate both Mexican law and the commitments assumed by Mexico before the international community, specifically conventions 87 and 98 of the International Labor Organization.

We therefore strongly urge that you immediately take the following steps:

• Revoke the decree liquidating Luz y Fuerza del Centro;
• Reinstate the workers who have been fired and respect their labor rights;
• Respect the Mexican Electrical Workers’ Union’s collective agreement; and
• Unconditionally recognize the SME’s democratically elected union leadership and negotiate in good faith with them for a just resolution to this dispute. Our union and other organizations around the world will be closely monitoring your government’s actions in the coming period, and look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

John H. Hovis Jr, General President
Bruce J. Klipple, General Secretary-Treasurer
Robert B. Kingsley, Director of Organization

cc: Lic. Fernando Gómez Mont, Home Secretary
Lic. Francisco Javier Lozano Alarcón, Labor Secretary
Lic. Francisco Ramírez Acuña, President of the Deputies’ Chamber Board
Lic. Carlos Navarrete Ruiz, President of the Senators’ Chamber Board
Ministro Guillermo I. Ortiz Mayagoitia, President Minister of the Supreme Court
C. Martín Esparza, SME
C. Benedicto Martínez, FAT/UNT

Email addresses where copies can be sent:
“Felipe Calderón Hinojosa” felipe.calderon@presidencia.gob.mx,
“Lic Fernando Gómez Mont” secretario@segob.gob.mx,
“Lic Francisco Javier Lozano Alarcón” javierlozano@stps.gob.mx,
“Lic Francisco Ramírez Acuña” fjavier.ramirez@congreso.gob.mx,
“Lic Carlos Navarrete Ruiz” cnavarrete@senado.gob.mx,
“Ministro Guillermo I Ortiz Mayagoitia” administrator@mail.scjn.gob.mx,
“Martín Esparza SME” sinmexel@sme.org.mx,
“Benedicto Martínez FAT UNT” FAT@Laneta.apc.org

Labourstart Alert

Labourstart has also issued an alert prepared by the Mexico Solidarity Network. We encourage you to take a minute to send a message.

In solidarity,

Robin Alexander, Director of International Affairs
United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE)

Dan LaBotz, editor
Mexican Labor News and Analysis

Please Circulate this Alert as Widely as Possible!

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Mexican Electrical Workers Continue Fight for Jobs, Union

By Dan La Botz

The Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME) continues its fight for the reestablishment of the Light and Power Company, for the survival of the union, and for the jobs of some 44,000 workers. The union has called for another round of national protests on December 4th and is also seeking international support.

Since the Felipe Calderón government seized the power plants, liquidated the company, and fired the workers on October 11, the union has been in constant struggle with the government. That struggle has now become a protracted and multifaceted battle. While many of the union’s members continue to fight, and there has been strong support from telephone workers, university employees, teachers and many others, this is without a doubt a tremendously difficult challenge for the Mexican labor movement.

The union now fights on many fronts: to maintain the unity of its members, to find economic resources, to win the battle of public opinion, to gain political allies, to garner solidarity from unions abroad, to convince Mexican legislators, to gain relief in the courts and find vindication in the eyes of international legal organizations.

The Union in the Streets

Expelled from their workplaces on October 11 and therefore unable to strike, the Mexican Electrical Workers Union called upon other unions to join them in massive protests of hundreds of thousands on October 16 and again on November 11. The second protest was a national work stoppage, which, if it did not bring the country to a halt, still found support in cities and states throughout the country, with strong support from telephone workers, university employees, and teachers. [See article below by Tamara Pearson for a more detailed account of events.]

The Electrical Workers Union has received support from Andrés Manuel López Obrador and his so-called Legitimate Government of Mexico, the shadow government that he created after losing what many believe to have been the fraudulent election of 2006 that brought Felipe Calderón to power. The speech by Bertha Luján at the November 3 demonstration appears at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpqH_6XD2dk . López Obrador has given his platform to Martín Esparza, general secretary of the Electrical Workers Union, and López Obrador’s dedicated supporters who number in the hundreds of thousands have thrown their weight behind the union, including in massive rallies and demonstrations in the nation’s capital.

The union has called for other demonstrations and for a national general strike before year’s end. Unlike other Latin American countries, Mexico has never had a general strike. Although it has had several hours-long or day long work stoppages, none has ever succeeded in shutting down most businesses and government operations. The call for a general strike therefore represents a daring and risky move.

Leafleting, Collecting Funds, Hunger Strike

With Mexico’s major television networks—Televisa and TV Azteca—providing negative news coverage and rabidly anti-union commentary, and most newspapers too expensive for working class people to buy, the Electrical Workers Union has organized its members and supporters to distribute leaflets putting forward the union’s point of view. Workers have been handing out leaflets at over 150 major intersections in Mexico City. Union members are also passing the hat on the streets, in the metro, and on buses in Mexico City to gain financial support for the union’s activities, now that its members have no jobs, the union receives no dues, and its accounts have been frozen by the government.

Many groups of workers have taken creative steps to show support for the union. For example, dozens of members of a Motorcycle club rode through Mexico City carrying the banner of the electrical workers union to show support for the union. Eleven women union members, many of them heads of their households, began a hunger strike on November 23 in front of the Federal Electrical Commission, the government agency that has absorbed the former Light and Power Company. The women, camped out in tents, have pledged to limit their diet to water, honey, and saline solutions, say they are prepared to take their strike “to its ultimate consequences.” The union has arranged for them to be attended by physicians from the Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS), the national health care system and from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).

The Political Struggle

All of the Electrical Workers Union’s efforts are aimed at overturning President Calderon’s decision to liquidate the company, the decision which led to the termination of the workers and consequently to all intents and purposes the elimination of the union. The Legislature of the Federal District attempted to bring suit in court, but the court ruled that it had no jurisdiction in the matter since the Light and Power Company was a Federal (that is national) issue and not a Federal District matter.

At the same time the union has taken its case to the House of Deputies, the lower house of the Mexican Congress, in an attempt to have the legislature intervene before the Supreme Court. That attempted failed by a vote of 298 to 84, with President Calderón’s National Action Party (PAN) and the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), the party that ruled Mexico from 1928-2000, both voting against. The Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), the Workers Party (PT), and Convergencia - which together have 90 votes - supported the union’s proposal. The union will now take its case to the Senate, which may prove even more difficult.

While pressuring Congress and attempting to involve the Supreme Court, the Electrical Workers Union has also assisted its members in filing tens of thousands of individual petitions for relief (amparos, similar to injunctions) in lower courts, claiming that the government has violated their rights. So far those petitions have not been acted upon.

Labor Solidarity

Mexico’s independent and more militant unions and federations have backed the Electrical Workers Union. Most important has been the backing from the Mexican Telephone Workers Unions (STRM) whose members participated in the November 11 work stoppage. The Union of Workers of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (STUNAM) have also come out strongly in support of the electrical workers, as has the National Coordinating Committee of the Mexican Teachers Union (la CNTE), which is an opposition caucus with great support in the states of Chiapas, Oaxaca, Michoacán and in Mexico City. The Authentic Labor Front (FAT) has also backed the movement.

International Solidarity has been offered by unions around the world, including from Canada, the United States, the European Union countries, and Latin America. (See Mexican Labor News and Analysis, October 2009 for statements of support by several unions.) Since then, many others have issued statements of support, and a delegation of trade unionists from the US and Canada is slated to arrive in Mexico next week.

Taking the Case to the World

While continuing to fight on the streets, in the courts, and in Congress, the Electrical Workers Union is also taking its case to international organizations. The union is sending delegations to the International Labor Organization (ILO), part of the United Nations, to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and to the European Parliament.

The union will argue before all of these organizations that the government has violated the labor rights, the human rights, and the individual civil rights of its members. While these venues do not provide mandatory relief, they do provide an opportunity to bring the case before world public opinion.

An Uphill Battle

Still, this remains an uphill battle. The Mexican government reports that 62 percent of the workers have accepted their severance pay—they were offered a big bonus to do so—which means that they give up any legal claim to their jobs. The Federal Electrical Commission, which has absorbed Light and Power, has said that it will hire at least 1,000 former Light and Power workers, but has not yet announced exactly what categories of workers it will be employing.

Meanwhile, former Light and Power workers say that because they were members of the militant Mexican Electrical Workers Union, they are being blacklisted by both government and private employers.

The Mexican Electrical Workers Union has called for continued actions in December, a month when many Mexicans will be traveling or celebrating with their families, and it will be difficult to maintain the momentum of the movement. Still, the union plans to try, and many have indicated that they are prepared to sacrifice time, tradition, and the festivities to fight for the electrical workers.

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A New United Movement Stops Mexico for a Day

By Tamara Pearson

upsidedownworld
November 17, 2009

http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2214/1/

In the many metro stations of giant Mexico city, amidst the ugly mell of Pizza Hut and the newspapers vendors yelling out, "Grafico! 3 pesos!", youth crowd around the hand written posters recruiting for the national police daily. At 12,000 pesos (US$1000) per month, and with increasing unemployment and harder prospects for the country's youth, the offer is very tempting.

Since the US-Mexico trade agreement, NAFTA, the number of Mexicans illegally crossing the border into the US seeking employment has risen to 500,000 a year. Add to this the financial crisis (Mexicans repeat to me "When the U.S sneezes Mexico gets pneumonia") and Mexican president Calderon's measures to handle the crisis, which consist in a "fiscal package" of an increased consumption tax including food and medicine, new communication taxes and decreased government spending.

Then add the fact that the minimum wage in Mexico today buys a third of what it bought twenty years ago, and you can see how the government's firing of 44,000 electricity workers, members of the county's most combative and independent union, SME (Mexican Electrical Union), became catalyst for a movement of people deeply angry at both an unfair economic system, and towards a president who, most studies admit, used fraud to win the elections in 2006.

The electricity workers were fired on October 10th. On October 16th, around 500,000 people marched in the capital in protest. One month after the firing the people's anger still had not cooled, and on November 11th there were again massive marches, road blocks, full strikes and partial strikes all across the country.

The Assembly

The decision to strike was taken on November 5th, in a massive meeting of the newly formed National Assembly of Popular Resistance. This is a convergence made up of around 400 unions, student, rural workers, and indigenous movements, women and gay rights organizations and left and revolutionary political parties from across the country.

The meeting was meant to start at 5, but at quarter to, the hall was already full and the streets outside where loud speakers were setup were also starting to fill up and block traffic. The chair was already welcoming each group, "Comrades from the teachers union, welcome. Compañeros of the Socialist Front, welcome," and so on.
It took about 25 minutes to welcome everyone.

There was an atmosphere of excitement, support and solidarity. In fact "support" ("This support really is seen!") was the chant of the day as speaker after speaker from various unions declared that their union would also march and strike on November 11th, and, for
four hours running, each organization declared that they would contribute to the campaign, hold their own assemblies, print leaflets, rally and march in the lead up to the strike. After and during each speaker, the audience stood tirelessly, waving their fists in the air and chanting.

On the few occasions when unions declared their support in the march, but said they would but not strike, everyone stood up and demanded, "Strike! Strike! Strike!"

The speaker from the telephone union detailed the union's donations of food to the fired workers, while the left parliamentary party, Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) spokeswoman, a legislator, said the PRD had agreed to support all the SME's decisions and to promote any marches, and handed over a cheque for 154,000 pesos (US $11,700).

University students promised to organize a range of political- cultural events and an "information week" to counter all the misinformation in the mainstream media, while a rural worker said the SME demands were their demands, but that they would also add the demand for food sovereignty. Even the association of retired people had a detailed and ambitious schedule of action to prepare for the national strike.

Martín Esparza, general secretary of the SME, was the last speaker. He told the meeting, "With this movement we're going to define what kind of country we want. We have to advance and organise the people of Mexico.We create the wealth, and they socialise the losses. We pay to import what the Gringos (U.S) don't want."

"They're after our collective contracts and our unions," he concluded, talking of inequality, the need for dignity and for organization.

With more chants of "It's a struggle of all workers of this country", "Here the workers' movement is forming", "Give me an S, M, E. what does it spell. SME! SME! SME!" and "Unions united will never be defeated!", the meeting concluded with a vote to strike on November 11th and to allow the SME to form a temporary organizing committee of movement representatives to coordinate the strike plans and campaign.

The Campaign

It was an intense week of campaigning. The next morning, the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) students had already put large stickers for the strike all over the insides of the trains, and there were hand painted banners in most faculties of the university, calling for assemblies and covering the walls with virtual articles on what had really happened to the SME workers.

Many workplaces held their own assemblies and even high school and primary school students marched 10 kilometres on 8 November, placards such as `Don't steal my future". SME workers marched in the thousands in the centre of the capital on 9 and 10 November.

The March

The long anticipated November 11th march was due to leave at 4 PM, but when I arrived at 2.30, and already there were thousands of people. Many were taking a snooze on their banners, while others were sitting on curbs reading the news. One group was spray painting a huge SME logo on the road, joking about needing Whiteout to fix their mistakes, and chanting when they finished it.

The street vendors, which really make up an ever growing army of their own in Mexico as the unemployed look for alternative ways to stay alive, sold corn, chips, and nuts from carts with posters for the strike taped all over them. When the march left they pushed their carts along with it. One woman with an SME bandana and placard alternated between joining the chanting of the march and calling out, "Two gum packets for 5 pesos!"

One street vendor, Octavio Manzera, wasn't working that day. "I'm supporting the movement; I think it's a just struggle. The government is acting in an unconstitutional way, violating the laws and constitution of Mexico, for commercial reasons and in order to privatise," Manzera said.

Bernando Mejia, a young worker, said "I'm here to support the Mexican people, I'm one of those who doesn't support the government we have here."

"I'm here to support the union," said Ana Laura Flores, a self-described "wife of a worker."

"I'm supporting the SME. I'm here for the solidarity more than anything," said university student Omar Vazquez.

"I'm an SME worker, I'm an electrical engineer and I was unjustly fired. This government is a sham, it's a government of thieves, they took our jobs unconstitutionally, violating our rights as workers and as humans," said Omar Ruiz. Ruiz was eager to say much more, but the march had already started to leave.

Marchers chanted "If there's no solution there'll be revolution!" and "From north to south, east to west, we'll take on this struggle, no matter what it costs!", while others sang, and some stuck flags in the arms of the various metal statues that line the wide main
avenue.

An hour later, we arrived at Mexico City's huge Zocalo plaza, filling it, squashed together to the point where an interesting system of lines of humans with hands on shoulders formed in order for people to move through the crowd. Members of this march kept arriving for another two hours, while marches from six other locations also continued to arrive.

One of Many

Organizers estimated that 200,000 people participated in the march, while the newspaper La Jornada reported that police estimated 60,000. However, the march in Mexico City was just one of many, with large marches taking place across the country and in outer suburbs, and workers and movement members blocking roads from 6 in the morning.

University students closed off the roads leading to TV Azteca, one of the most right wing TV stations in the country, and there was also a protest by "the Other Campaign" in front of the US embassy. Universities went on strike, and students and teachers joined the march after their own protest on campus. The telephone and judicial power unions also went on strike, and some shops had signs saying they were turning off their lights or electricity in solidarity, while many shops were simply closed. Miners sent a contingent to the main march and held other marches in seven of the main mining cities and towns, and the National Organisation of Administrative, Manual and Technical Workers of National Anthropology and History Institute organized partial blockades of museums and archaeological zones of the country.

La Jornada reports that 14 toll booth points were also taken over. At one road block, on a main road to Puebla, one of the closest cities to the capital, national police dispersed the blockade with tear gas.

La Jornada reported four injured protestors and three police. Eleven protestors were arrested and, on Thursday, Esparza told the press that they had been detained incommunicado and some had been beaten.

The Zócalo

Standing, listening to the speakers in the Zócalo, with my feet at unnatural angles in the little ground space available, a man in a mask shared his mandarin with me, and everyone around me listened with good humour and concentration to the speakers. A group wedged their way in front of us with a large plastic SME banner tied to ladders.

"Lower the banner! We can't see!" yelled out the crowd around and behind me. The banner holders did, and the crowd called out, "Thanks compañeros!"

Meanwhile, the students to my left were having a ball chanting vehemently, laughing and smiling and jumping up and down and sharing bags of apples.

By 7:30, it was dark and freezing, and I watched the end of the march arrive. In it came a group with drums, a dancer and a violinist. Someone in the plaza set off fireworks and the palace was lit up. The smell of roasted corn rose above the milling people as they
drummed and sang, some with large paper maché masks of politicians. A group of chanters defied their audibly sore voices, and a truck with music arrived, then more
drums.

Covered and Uncovered

The next day, Mexican mainstream media chose to highlight an incident involving tear gas, with headlines of "Violence" and "Chaos." The Excelsior headlined with "Patience tested," and its biggest photo was of the tear gas. It bemoaned "children left without
classes" and naively stated: "We can't see what Chiapas is protesting about; SME has nothing to do with them."

What the media did not want to talk about was a new solidarity that has formed, and how the movement has gone well beyond a labour conflict, with much more youth participating than during the protests against the electoral fraud of 2006.

An SME leader (who prefers to be described as a member), Jose Hernández, told me the mobilization was much bigger than any previous ones, but that it was less apparent as it was spread out in various places and times.

"Up until now," Hernandez said, "we've heard of 16 marches in other states, and just in the state of Michoacán for example, 11,000 schools went on strike, as well all the higher education institutions."

"It's also necessary to consider the amount of disorganization and domination which the large part of the Mexican working class has found itself in. What happened today signifies, without any doubt, a `leap' in the consciousness of the Mexican working class. We need to be patient, but it seems to me that we're on the threshold of qualitative change."

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Nationwide Actions Protest Layoffs

Weekly News Update- Nicaragua Solidarity Network Of Greater New York: 11/15

Tens of thousands of unionists, campesinos, students, and members of grassroots organizations and left and center-left parties demonstrated in Mexico's Federal District (DF, Mexico City) and more than 20 of the country's 31 states on Nov. 11 to express solidarity with some 44,000 electrical workers laid off when President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa abruptly liquidated the government-owned Central Light and Power Company (LFC) the night of Oct. 10.

Mexico City was paralyzed as members of the Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME), which represents the LFC workers, led marches from five different points in the city starting early in the morning of Nov. 11. Miners, telephone and transportation workers, and employees and students from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), which suspended classes for the day, joined the protesters as they moved around the city, rallying at various government buildings. Adding to the disruption of traffic, protesters blocked major arteries in the states surrounding the capital.
Actions Outside Mexico City

The actions outside the city were sometimes violent. There were 10 arrests and a number of injuries as protesters and agents of the Federal Police (PF) confronted each other near Tlalnepantla, México state, north of Mexico City on the México-Querétaro highway. Shots were fired; the government blamed the protesters, who said that they were unarmed and that the police had shot in the air. Protesters also blocked roads in Ecatepec de Morelos and Nezahualcóyotl.

Some 400 SME members massed on the Peñón-Texcoco turnpike, joined by students and teachers from the Chapingo Autonomous University and by activists from the Front of the Peoples in Defense of the Land (FPDT), a campesino organization based in San Salvador Atenco, México state. The protesters took over the tollbooth and let cars drive on the turnpike without paying. Other activists opened up the México-Pachuca turnpike to traffic at Pirámides. PF agents used tear gas and anti-riot equipment to disperse protesters blocking the entrances to the city from Puebla state and Cuernavaca, Morelos, in the east and south. Residents of Mexico City's Xochimilco and Tlalpan boroughs who had been blocking the Cuernavaca highway regrouped and hurled rocks at the police.

At the end of 12 hours of actions, many of the protesters went into the capital to join a march and rally in the central Zócalo plaza. More than 200,000 people participated in the closing demonstration, according to the SME; the DF police put the number at 60,000. Two well-known activist bishops, Samuel Ruiz García, former bishop of San Cristóbal de las Casas in Chiapas, and Raúl Vera López, bishop of Saltillo, Coahuila, sent solidarity messages.

in Other Regions

In the southeastern state of Chiapas solidarity actions also targeted recent tax hikes and the arrests of farmer leaders accused of having links with armed groups. In the southern state of Oaxaca, an estimated 70,000 school teachers carried out a one-day strike, and
the leftist Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO) took over the offices of the Federal Electrical Commission (CFE), the country's larger publicly owned electrical company, into which the LFC is being merged. In the north, hundreds of telephone workers, leftists and social activists held public marches in Chihuahua City
and Ciudad Juárez, in Chihuahua state.

An editorial in the left-leaning Mexican daily La Jornada called Nov. 11 "a day without precedent in the history of the country's popular causes," an action which brought together "the different sectors of the opposition--the parties, the unions, the social organizations." The paper called this "the possible birth of a broad bloc antagonistic to the political-business-alliance that holds the country's power (public and private)."

SME general secretary Martín Esparza Flores raised the possibility of planning a national general strike. He noted that in 2010 Mexico will celebrate the bicentennial of its war of independence from Spain and the centennial of the revolution against the Porfirio Díaz dictatorship: "And as before, we will defeat the transnationals, the dictatorship, tyranny and violations of the Constitution. It's time for the people to organize."

Government Says General Strike Will Flop

On Nov. 12 Labor Secretary Javier Lozano Alarcón discounted the ability of the SME and its supporters to mount a general strike. He said that 24,149 laid-off LFC workers, 54.2% of the total workforce, had already signed up for the government's severance package; in the government's view, workers lose the ability to challenge their termination if they accept the severance agreement. On Nov. 14, the deadline for signing with the government, reporters found a low turnout at the centers where the former employees could file their papers.

One young worker arrived with his wife, who needed treatment for a kidney ailment, and their two children. "I'm coming here against my will, from necessity," he told a reporter. "I support the compañeros all the way, I'm a unionist and I'll put up with blows, insults and what have you...but not my children."

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Electrical Workers Fight Is Fight of All Mexican Workers

By Bertha Luján on behalf of the Legitimate Government of Mexico; Translation by Dan La Botz

For decades we have been pointing out the way that the Mexican government, whether under the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) or the National Action Party (PAN), has violated the workers’ right to self-organization in defense of their interests, as protected under Article 123, Section XVI of the Constitution.

History itself has shown how leaders who submit to the government or to the employers are rewarded, giving up the defense of their union members in exchange for economic and political perks. At the same time, we know how the authentic struggle for workers to organize themselves in an independent and autonomous way is punished.

Movements against corruption, against employer domination and for the legitimate rights of wage earners led by railroad workers, doctors, electricians, nuclear workers, teachers, and numberless industrial workers have been mercilessly repressed under the pretext of “maintaining social peace.”

National organizations such as the Authentic Labor Front (FAT) have for almost 50 years been frustrated in their democratic and honest attempts to organize by the systematic opposition of the official union bureaucrat-government-boss triple alliance that proclaims that it “would rather die” than permit workers to organize themselves.

Since the 1980s, the neo-liberal economic policies of privatizing public enterprises and of converting them into private companies have lowered labor costs and favored what’s been called “modernization.” These policies are based on strategies that begin by dismantling workers’ organizations, beating them on the head, in order to get on to the real business which is handing over to the new owners companies which are “clean,” union free and without collective bargaining agreements.

This is the context of the war that Calderón and his henchmen have unleashed against the Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME). That’s why it is important to emphasize that their struggle involves all Mexican workers who are threatened by a government that doesn’t care one bit whether or not it complies with the law, but rather simply wants to get on with demonstrating “who is strong” and “who can govern.”

[Luján is the former co-president of the Authentic Labor Front (FAT) and Secretary of Labor of the Legitimate Government of Mexico.]

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