Mexican Labor News & Analysis

Mexico Labor Year in Review: 2009

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By Dan La Botz

Overview

For most Mexicans 2009 has been a very bad year, and for the organized labor movement, for working people and the poor it has been terrible. The H1N1 Influenza known as ‘swine flu’ began in the spring near Veracruz, led to a week-long shutdown of the country and the unprecedented cancellation of the May 1 International Labor Day march. Eventually Mexico had over 68,000 cases and 825 deaths in 2009. The year was also marked by an expansion of the drug war which took 15,000 lives, by a deepening economic crisis which saw hundreds of thousands of jobs disappear, and by an increase in poverty that left only about 20 percent of all Mexicans safely above the poverty line. Then, in the midst of these crises, the Calderón government fired 44,000 electrical workers at the government-owned Light and Power Company, effectively eliminating the independent Mexican Electrical Workers Union and continued to attack the Miners and Metal Workers Union. Not since Carlos Salinas’s attacks on the unions in the late 1980s and early 1990s had there been anything like this assault on the labor movement.

Moreover, 2009 capped a disastrous decade which began with the inauguration of Vicente Fox in December of 2000, ending the decades-long rule of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). There was hope then, hope for change. But the National Action Party (PAN) of Fox and his successor in the presidency today, Felipe Calderón, failed to deliver on hopes for economic growth and respect for human rights. Mexico today is as bad off under the PAN as it was under the PRI, if not worse. And, 2009 may have been the worst year of a bad decade.

The world economic crisis was detonated by the housing crisis in the United States, and led to a severe downturn in Mexico. In 2009, Mexico’s official unemployment reached 5.7 percent, its highest level in 15 years, and fewer Mexicans could find work in the United States because of the economic crisis there. At the same time prices of basic commodities rose and the number of poor people increased. Although by the end of the year economists saw the beginning of an economic recovery in Mexico, most Mexicans foresaw hardship on the horizon for some time to come.

The mid-term of Calderón’s six-year stint as president coincided with the election of Barack Obama in the United States. Some in both Mexico and the United States had hoped that President Barack Obama’s election would lead to a change in U.S. foreign policy toward Latin America in general and to an improvement in U.S.-Mexico relations in particular. Such hopes, however, have failed to materialize. Obama’s Mexico policy continues that of his predecessor George W. Bush. Despite the Mexican government’s human rights violations, Obama has continued to fund the Merida Initiative (also known as Plan Mexico), thus helping to bankroll Mexico’s disastrous drug war. Obama has also failed to undertake the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a campaign promise strongly supported by the U.S. labor unions that backed him. And Obama has put immigration policy on the back burner during the first year of his administration. The Obama administration has brought no improvement in the lives of ordinary Mexicans at home or Mexican immigrants to the U.S.

War and economic crisis have often been the detonators of social upheaval, and some on the left in Mexico are hoping for revolution in 2010, following the pattern of the beginning of the independence revolution in 1810 and start of the great Mexican Revolution of 1910. Others hope for a whole new era to begin with the cyclical turning of the Mayan calendar and the wheel of human history in 2012. But the conjunction of war and economic crisis does not always lead to the radicalization that some Mexicans are hoping for. And seldom does a series of setbacks such as Mexico’s labor and social movements have suffered during the last decade and especially during the last year lead directly to radical social change.

Still, despite the drug war, the economic crisis, and an attack on the labor movement, Mexico’s labor and social movements, with little alternative but to continue the fight for economic and social justice, ended 2009 with plans to challenge Calderón in 2010—hoping to build a movement that can drive him from office before his term ends. At the same time, the left political parties—the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), the Workers (PT), and Convergence—have created a new alliance planning to defeat Calderón in 2012 if he has not been driven from office before then. Before turning to plans for the future, we look back at the past year in more detail.

The Failure of the Drug War

Soon after he took office, President Calderón declared war on the drug cartels in an attempt to legitimize his presidency. Three years later it appears that he is losing the war. Unable to count on city and state police, many of whom are in the pay of the cartels, Calderón mobilized 45,000 troops of the Mexican Army to suppress the drug lords. So far, 15,000 Mexicans have been killed in the three-year war, most of them alleged drug dealers, though some were also soldiers, police or bystanders caught in the crossfire. This year alone almost 8,000 have been killed.

When, in December, the Mexican military killed Arturo Beltrán Leyva, head of one of the cartels, it honored a Mexican Marine, Ensign Melquisedet Ángulo Córdova, who gave his life in the fight. The cartel responded by killing his mother and three other relatives. Those murders seemed to many to confirm that the government was losing the war, and also that perhaps the war was not worth fighting.

Human Rights Violations and the Mérida Initiative

Since Calderón’s war on the drug cartels began in 2006, many Mexican states have been militarized, and as Mexican and international human rights organizations have documented, the soldiers involved in it have murdered, raped, tortured, and illegally arrested Mexican citizens, leading to thousands of human rights complaints being filled with authorities. International human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have found that Mexico has violated the rights of its citizens while the military enjoyed impunity. (1) The last U.S. State Department report on Human rights in Mexico, a report for the year 2008 published by the Obama administration in February 2009, found the same sorts of human rights violations as those organizations. Nevertheless it concluded that, “The government generally respected and promoted human rights at the national level by investigating, prosecuting, and sentencing public officials and members of the security forces.” With that positive conclusion, the Obama administrations continued funding for the Mexican drug war through the Merida Initiative.

The Merida Initiative, signed by President George W. Bush, in 2007, promised to provide to Mexico a US$1.4 billion aid package for Black Hawk and Bell 412 helicopters, CASA CN-235 surveillance planes, police training and inspection equipment. President Barack Obama signed a Supplemental Appropriations Act in June 2009 that included $420 million in funding for the Merida Initiative. That brought funding for the Merida Initiative to US$1.12 billion so far. Now, however, Mexico’s drug war, backed by U.S. dollars, has reached the point where it alarms Mexican citizens from all walks of life.

Ciudad Juárez and the Anti-war Movement

Ciudad Juárez, the center of the storm, occupied for two years by 10,000 troops has lost 2,500 lives in the drug wars this year, two-thirds of them young people between 14 and 24 years old. “Well-known prosecutors, professors, attorneys, doctors, executives and journalists have been assassinated. Victims also include a growing number of small-shop owners…” according to the Washington Post. The violence has created 7,000 orphans and caused 100,000 refugees to flee, many of them crossing over to Texas. The city’s business and political elite with the ability to buy or rent homes across the river in El Paso now sleep there rather than at their homes in Mexico. (2)

Where there is a war, there will be a peace movement. In Ciudad Juárez at the end of 2009 some 3,000 people, business owners, academics and workers among them, participated in a march calling for an end to the drug war. “There is an almost unanimous consensus in the city that the strategy hasn't worked,” said Hugo Almada, a sociology professor at the Autonomous University of Juárez (UACJ). (3) Almada has been arguing for sometime that a purely military policy would not work. “What's missing is a social policy,” he told reporters back in April, 2009. “Ten thousand soldiers and police can have a temporary impact on crime, but not on the social reality. We may win a savage war and gain an empty victory.” (4)

Mexicans from many backgrounds have given up on Calderón’s drug war and are coming to similar conclusions. Jorge Castañeda, a former leftist who later moved to the right, serving as Secretary of State in the Fox administration, has also given up on the drug wars. As he recently wrote: “Perhaps the solution would be to proceed by default — gradually allow the drug war to vanish from TV screens and newspapers, and have its place taken by other wars — on poverty, on petty crime and for economic growth. This may not be ideal, but it is better than prolonging a fight that cannot be won.” (5) Mexico’s conservative Catholic Church has also called upon Calderón to withdraw the military and return the soldiers to their barracks because “human rights violations are occurring.” (6)

Shaking the State to Its Foundations

Calderón’s failed war on drugs has shaken the Mexican government to its foundations. Jorge Carrillo Olea, the former head of Mexico’s Center for Investigations and National Security (CISEN) and author of Testimonies: 20 Years of History of the CISEN, recently stated that Mexico presents a “scene of ungovernability.” He suggested that the Mexican government is unable to exert its authority over many states—Baja California, Baja California Sur, Sonora, Sinaloa, Nayarit, Chihuahua, Nuevo Leon, Tamaulipas, etc. “If you have now ceased to govern there, well then we have lost half of the national territory.” (7) While this represents an exaggeration, it is nonetheless true that Mexico’s government has proven unable to assert its will.

Concerns about the drug cartels increased as it was learned that they were involved in siphoning off more than US$1 billion worth of oil from the state-owned Mexican Petroleum Company (PEMEX) and selling it to U.S. oil companies, some of which were aware that it was stolen. The Zetas, former military commandos who went over to the drug dealers, are believed to be responsible for the thefts. “The Zetas are a parallel government. They practically own vast stretches of the pipelines, from the highway to the very door of the oil companies,” said Eduardo Mendoza Arellano, a Federal legislator and head of a national energy committee. (8)

At the beginning of 2009 Joel Kurzman of the Wall Street Journal titled an article: “Mexico's Instability Is a Real Problem: Don't discount the possibility of a failed state next.” He went on to describe the drug violence in Tijuana and then to write, “And, most alarming of all, a new Pentagon study concludes that Mexico is at risk of becoming a failed state. Defense planners liken the situation to that of Pakistan, where wholesale collapse of civil government is possible.” (9) While the Pentagon report and the WSJ story may have been alarmist, the problems they pointed to is very real. And the events of the last year—the thousands of killings and the human rights violations—do nothing to ensure confidence in the Mexican government’s ability to control the situation or to improve the lives of its people.

The Other War: On Labor

Calderón has not only waged a war against the drug cartels, he has also continued his attacks on the labor movement. In a bold move that has been compared to U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s 1980 firing of 13,000 Professional Air Traffic Controllers (PATCO) members and to the UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s crushing of the miners and dock workers, on October 11 Calderón sent Federal police to seize the facilities of the government-owned Light and Power Company, simultaneously liquidating the company and firing its 44,000 employees. His attack effectively eliminated the independent and militant Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME) which had formed the center of the Front Against Privatization of the petroleum and electric power industries. Soon after the attack, the National Action Party put forward in the Mexican Congress its plan for privatizing the electric power industry. Despite three months of struggle on the streets, in the courts, and in the legislature, with widespread solidarity from unions in Mexico and abroad, the SME has been unable to reverse the government’s decision. At this point, chances of reestablishing the company and of restoring workers to their jobs seem remote. The destruction of the SME would represent a significant defeat for the Mexican labor and social movements and for the left. (10)

The Calderón administration, working closely with Grupo Mexico mining company, also continued its nearly three-year-long attempt to destroy the Mexican Miners and Metal Workers Union (SNTMMRM). The Calderón administration first charged the union’s leader, Napoleón Gómez Urrutia, with embezzling US$50 million from the union’s members, leading him to seek refuge in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, from whence he has been leading the union. Then the government attempted to foist a new leader on the union and, when that didn’t work, colluded with Grupo Mexico to create an alternative pro-company union. All of this has been accompanied by repression and violence directed against the miners themselves. The Mexican miners, in the midst of an economic crisis that has cost 20,000 mining jobs, have mostly held firm, carrying out strikes costing the mining companies millions, negotiating contracts, and winning economic settlements far superior to those of other unions. (11) The International Metalworkers Federation (IMF) and the United Steel Workers have provided significant support for their Mexican colleagues.(12)

Teachers have faced a more insidious threat from the Calderón administration. After taking office, Calderón formed an alliance with Elba Esther Gordillo of the Mexican Teachers Union (el SNTE) who had supported him during his campaign. Calderón and Gordillo created the Alliance for Quality Education (ACE). The National Coordinating Committee (la CNTE), an opposition caucus in the union which controls several state organizations, has opposed ACE as the first step in a process of privatization which would be both detrimental to education and harmful to teachers’ interests. Throughout the last year the National Coordinating Committee has led teachers in strikes, marches, and protest demonstrations against Calderón, against Gordillo, and against ACE. Gordillo has used her powerful bureaucratic machine and all sorts of shenanigans against the opposition, while the Calderón government has frequently responded to the teachers demonstrations with violent repression. Yet, the opposition remains in control of several state organizations, continues to mobilize its members, and plans for new campaigns in the new year. For the teachers, as for the miners, the brutal attack on SME is a bad omen indeed.

While Calderón’s National Action Party lost its majority in Congress in the July 2009 mid-term elections, the president is still capable of carrying out his political program with the aid of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). Calderón’s success so far in the campaign to break the Mexican Electrical Workers Union puts him in a stronger position to push forward his agenda of privatization of electric power and petroleum production and to pass a labor law reform. The Economist Magazine and others, both in Mexico and abroad, would like to see him take a whack at the Mexican Petroleum Workers Union (STPRM) and the Mexican Teachers Union (el SNTE). (13) Yet the biggest problem for labor may not be the Calderón administration, but rather the capitalist system and its vicissitudes.

The Economic Crisis

The world economic crisis that began in the United States in 2008 and continued through 2009 has taken a heavy toll on Mexico and represents an enormous challenge for the labor movement and working people in general. Mexico saw declines in its four major sources of revenue: oil, manufacturing, tourism and remittances from workers in the United States. In 2009 the Mexican economy contracted by 6.7 percent, dragged down by the great recession in the United States. Economic analysts project that while the rest of Latin America is expected to grow by 4.1 percent, the U.S. will grow by only 2.0 percent, and Mexico, with its ties to the U.S., will grow by only 3.5 percent. (14) Official unemployment in Mexico reached the historic high of 5.3 percent in mid-2009, though actual levels of unemployment will undoubtedly be higher than official figures, especially when underemployment is taken into account. (15)

The broader economic crisis caused a fiscal crisis as the Mexican government’s tax revenues fell. According to the Mexican Secretary of Finance, oil revenues fell 25 percent, while non-oil revenues fell by more than 12.7 percent. At the same time the government was forced by the recession to expand public sector spending by 6.7%. Consequently, Mexico has a fiscal deficit of US$16.67 billion. (16)

What this means for most Mexicans is increased poverty. A recent study by the National Council for the Evaluation of Development Policies (CONEVAL), an agency of the Mexican government’s Secretary of Social Development, found that only 18 percent of all Mexicans have incomes sufficient to provide for their basic economic needs. The study found that 37.5 percent of all Mexicans live on the edge of poverty with some social needs unmet, while 43.5 percent of all Mexicans simply live in poverty. Other studies suggest that about 20 to 25 percent live in extreme poverty, meaning they suffer hunger and significant health impacts. (17)

The Impact of the Crisis on Women

Women have been hard hit by the crisis. However, according to the government agency the National Institute of Statistics (INEGI), unemployment among men rose from 4.68 in November 2008 to 5.32 in November 2009, while for women in the same period it rose from 4.12 to 5.15 percent. INEGI disclosed in 2009 that women make up 42 percent of the workforce today, up from 17.3 percent in 1970. The number of women heads of households doubled between 1990 and 2005, rising from 2.8 to 5.7 million. Women today head 23 percent of the 24.8 million households in the country. In the Federal District and other urban areas, the percentage of women heads of households is even higher. INEGI also published statistics showing that women work 25 hours more per week than men because of the domestic duties they perform. Men work about 52 hours per week outside the home and about 15 hours in the home; while women work about 37 hours outside the home and more than 54 hours in the home. The men’s total work week comes to 67 hours per week, while the women’s comes to 92. Mexican men earn 36 percent more than Mexican women, according to Carolina Ledezma of the Center for Labor Investigation and Union Consulting (CILAS) speaking in March 2009 at the International Forum on Working Women in Mexico.

Economic Crisis the Culmination of a Dismal Period

The current economic crisis represents the culmination of a dismal decade, or for that matter a couple of dismal decades. A recent report entitled “Rethinking Trade Policy for Development: Lessons from Mexico Under NAFTA,” concludes that NAFTA failed Mexico. As stated in the summary: “The evidence points overwhelmingly to the conclusion that Mexico’s reforms, backed by NAFTA, have largely been a disappointment for the country. Despite dramatic increases in trade and foreign investment, economic growth has been slow and job creation has been weak. Now, with its economy so closely tied to that of its northern neighbor, Mexico is suffering the most severe economic crisis in the region.”

While recognizing some economic benefits from the agreement, the study suggests that NAFTA has by and large been a failure in producing growth and economic betterment for the population as a whole. On the question of growth the document states: “Mexico’s economy grew at an annual per capita rate of only 1.6 percent between 1992 and 2007. This is low by Mexico’s own standards—from 1960 to 1979, real per capita growth averaged 3.5 percent—and low by developing country standards as well. Mexico has had one of the lowest growth rates in Latin America. Countries with less orthodox trade and development policies—India, Brazil, and China—have achieved growth rates in the same period that were much higher than Mexico’s. Contrary to Mexico’s emphasis on deficit-reduction, these more dynamic countries adopted pro-growth policies with high levels of public investment to maximize the growth-stimulus of expanding trade.”

According to the report, the NAFTA model has failed to produce jobs: “With slow growth and overall investment weak, it should come as no surprise that employment growth has been poor. Still, it is striking that NAFTA could bring Mexico such large increases in trade and foreign investment but generate so few jobs. Overall, limited employment gains in manufacturing and services have been offset by large employment losses in agriculture. With roughly one million Mexicans entering the labor force each year, the NAFTA model has failed to deliver what Mexico needs the most.”

Nor has it produced improvements in wages: The record on wages is disappointing, if unsurprising. Real wages in manufacturing fell after the 1995 peso crisis and recovered to their pre- NAFTA levels after 2001. But they are up only slightly (8 percent) in the maquiladora sector, while wages in non-maquiladora manufacturing remain at pre-NAFTA levels. This is in sharp contrast to the impressive growth of productivity in the sector. Those gains have not been shared with workers.”

It is not surprising then that: “Mexico remains one of the hemisphere’s highly unequal countries. By all accounts, NAFTA contributed to growing geographical inequality between Mexico’s southern and northern states. There was growth in states along the U.S. border and those with transportation infrastructure and/or industrial trade with the United States, as well as tourist areas. States in southern Mexico languished behind.” (18) The economic weakness of the past period plus the recession of the last year leaves labor in a weak position.

How will the progressive forces in the Mexican labor movement respond to this challenge? During the past decade, the hope was that the independent National Union of Workers (UNT), a federation of labor unions, and the Mexican Union Front (FMI), a coalition of unions and social movements, would provide leadership to the broad front of labor unions, peasant leagues, environmentalists, indigenous peoples’ organizations and other groups known as the frentote (the big front). The attack on the Mexican Electrical Workers Union also represents a heavy blow against the Mexican Union Front (FSM) which it led. The UNT, however, has also had some problems. Valdemar Gutiérrez Fragoso, the leader of what is by far the UNT’s largest member organization, the Union of Workers of the Mexican Institute of Social Security (SNTSS), was elected to Congress on the slate of the National Action Party (PAN). While the UNT remains an independent labor federation, the affiliation of several of its leaders to the PRI or the PAN compromises its political effectiveness as a representative of the workers. Meanwhile, Francisco Hernández Juárez, another of the UNT’s top leaders was elected to the Mexican Congress as a representative of the PRD, generating internal dissension within the Telephone Workers Union and a complaint to Mexican labor authorities.

Jorge Robles, a leader of the Authentic Labor Front (FAT) has laid out a strategy for rebuilding the Mexican workers movement, from organizing at the grassroots to building international labor solidarity. While it represents an important attempt to rethink and chart a course for the labor movement, it is also a tall order that leads one to appreciate how much remains to be done. (19)

The Authentic Labor Front (FAT), which will celebrate its 50th anniversary this year, has been deeply involved resisting the effects of the economic crisis. The FAT has both participated in the large mobilizations against the crisis and in the defense of its members in unions such as STINCA, a union that provides technical training to small farmers and overcame the threat that it would be eliminated by federal budget cuts through a vigorous public campaign. Despite the crisis, FAT organizing efforts continue with representation petitions pending, including for a UE sister shop. FAT assisted the Tornel rubber workers in their successful fight for an independent union. The progressive leadership at Tornel has won two elections, but now face a third. FAT members have also been involved in the defense of the Mexican Electrical Workers.

The Prospects of the Left: The PRD

While some on the Mexican left hope for a radical change in Mexico in 2010, the end of 2009 found the Mexican labor movement and left in crisis and prospects for progressive reform look dim at the moment.

During the past year and throughout the last decade the hope vested in the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), founded in 1989, gradually diminished as the party frittered away its credibility. Internecine battles between rival cliques, fraud in internal party elections, and the corruption of payoffs to party leaders for political favors transformed the once idealistic left nationalist party. At the same time, many Mexicans gave up hope in the conservative National Action Party of Calderón. Consequently, in the July 2009 mid-term elections, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) which for 70 years, from 1929 to 2000, ruled Mexico as a one-party state and according to some the “perfect dictatorship,” won a decisive victory.

The PRI won 37 percent of the vote, the PAN 28 percent, and the PRD, with just 12 percent, suffered by far the worst defeat in the race. In terms of total votes cast, the PRI received over 12.5 million the PAN over 9.5 million and the PRD just a little over 4 million. The PRD stands in danger of being virtually eliminated from Mexican politics in the 2012 elections, while the PRI foresees winning the presidency in three years.

The PRD held a “refoundation” convention in December 2009—but without the presence of either of its former presidential standard bearers, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas and Andrés Manuel López Obrador. The convention was intended to put the bad blood between the rival groups behind it. However, many still have their doubts about the party’s future. Some in the PRD’s right wing would like to form alliances with the PAN against the PRI, while the left wing rejects alliances with either. The PRD is now in the process of carrying out the renovation of the base organizations through the election of some 157,804 local representatives. Whether or not this process at the grassroots will help to heal and strengthen this sick party remains to be seen. (20)

Legitimate President: Andrés Manuel López Obrador

After the victory of the right wing of the PRD led by Jesús Ortega in the internecine struggles of 2009, Andrés Manuel López Obrador moved away from the party, drawing closer to two smaller left parties, the Workers Party (PT) and Convergence. His electoral posture in the July 2009 elections was to support only certain PRD candidates and the candidates of the PT and Convergence. His approach strengthened his position, in what was a dismal showing for the PRD.

López Obrador, however, has not been relying on the parties, but building his own organization. After Mexico’s Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) declared Calderón the winner in the 2006 election, López Obrador rejected the outcome as a fraud and declared himself to be the “Legitimate President” of the “Legitimate Government of Mexico,” a shadow government that he sometimes suggests is a provisional government ready to take power. Since then he has spent three years traveling throughout every state in Mexico, visiting small towns and big cities, railing against the “usurper,” the “mafia,” and the oligarchy in power.” He has constructed a network of local organizations loyal to him and his program of reform and sufficient to support him through a presidential campaign in 2012. (21)

Meanwhile the PRD, the PT and Convergence came together in December to create a new electoral front, Dialogue for the Reconstruction of Mexico or Dia, replacing the Broad Popular Front (FAP). While Andrés Manuel López Obrador has spent almost three years running for office already, he is not the only possible candidate. Also mentioned have been Amalia García, governor of Zacatecas, and Marcelo Ebrard, mayor of Mexico City. Whoever runs will face a stiff contest against a resurgent Institutional Revolutionary Party—and those in its orbit, such as the Green Ecological Party—in 2012. (22)

The Revolutionary Socialist Left, the Zapatistas, and the Guerrillas

The Mexican political universe contains not only the parliamentary parties already mentioned, but also several small revolutionary socialist groups: Maoists, Trotskyists, and neo-Stalinists. While some of these groups have a base in one or another working class movement, so far none of them has been able to distinguish itself much from the others in terms of dynamism, size, and ability to lead important social movements. These groups remain on the fringes of Mexican society, much weaker than they were in any decade in the past forty years.

The Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), which led the Chiapas Rebellion in 1994 and which played an important role in pushing the indigenous agenda at the beginning of the Fox administration, ran its own anti-capitalist “Other Campaign,” a non-electoral propaganda campaign in 2006. Since then, however, the EZLN has played little role in Mexican politics outside of the state of Chiapas where it continues to build its autonomous communities while facing intermittent repression from ranchers, political parties and the state government.

While the EZLN turned away from violent revolution after the January 1, 1994 uprising, other armed guerrilla groups did not. Hoever, even they showed little activity in 2009. The People Revolutionary Army (EPR), which calls itself Marxist-Leninist, continued to carry out violent attacks, its most significant being the 2007 attacks on PEMEX pipelines. In 2008, however, the EPR began negotiations with the Mexican government dealing in part with EPR leaders whom it claimed had been disappeared. Since those negotiations began, violent guerrilla attacks in Mexico have virtually stopped. (23)

Back in 2006, a virtual civic uprising in the state of Oaxaca brought forward another model for social and political change when local citizens created the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO). Working at first with Local 22 of the Mexican Teachers Union (el SNTE), led by the dissidents of the National Coordinating Committee (la CNTE), APPO appeared for a while to be creating an alternative to the violent government of Ulises Ruiz of the PRI. This led some to refer to it during its brief heroic period as “The Oaxaca Commune.” Radicals created other Popular Assemblies modeled on it in other Mexicans towns and cities, and some even tried to promote the model abroad. The combination of Ruiz’s violent repression with more than 20 killed by police or death squads, the studied neglect of the issue by the Fox government, and the divisions within the left, debilitated the APPO. By 2009 APPO had virtually disappeared and its model faded from the national scene, and no new model of social struggle had emerged. Although the Supreme Court finally ruled against Ulises Ruiz in 2009, it failed to hold him accountable.

Preparing for a Coming Year of Struggle

While working people and the poor have taken a beating in 2009—from the cancellation of the May Day march because of swine flu to the firing of the electrical workers—they have not given up the fight. Mexico’s independent labor movement is girding itself for struggle, with some hoping to drive Calderón from office in 2010 and others looking forward to defeating the PAN and the PRI in the 2012 elections.

The Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME) continues its fight to return its members to work, and while in the legal and legislative arenas it has called for the restitution of the Light and Power Company and the rehiring of its 44,000 fired members, in its public statements it now talks about finding jobs for about half of those members with the Federal Electrical Commission (CFE), the state company that took over light and power. The problem there is that the CFE’s workers are represented by the Sole Union of Electrical Workers (SUTERM), a pro-government union. Still, the SME plans to mobilize its members and its allies in new actions to fight for its members, hoping to assemble forces broad enough to carry out national work stoppages and even a general strike.

The tireless Miners and Metal Workers Union (SNTMMRM), led by Napoleón Gómez Urrutia from his exile in Vancouver, B.C., and supported by the United Steel Workers (USW) and the International Federation of Metalworkers (IMF), has proven capable, despite vicious and violent attacks by Grupo Mexico and the Calderón government, of continuing to conduct its union business, not only negotiating contracts with employers, but negotiating the highest wages for its workers of any union in the country. The Miners can be expected to continue to fight on, though they must also be bracing for a frontal assault from the government after the experience of the electrical workes.

The National Coordinating Committee (la CNTE) of the Mexican Teachers Union (el SNTE), which has for the last thirty years been one of the most dynamic force in the Mexican labor movement, will begin the new year with a campaign to build 10,000 committees and to collect 15 million signatures with the goal of forcing President Felipe Calderón from office. The campaign clearly aims to unite the country’s teachers, wrest power from Elba Esther Gordillo, who controls the Mexican Teachers Union (el SNTE), and, finally, to drive Calderón from power. (24) Some see a popular movement for the impeachment of the president as the first step in the convocation of a new Constituent Assembly to create a new more democratic, more nationalist, and—some would say—socialist Mexican government. (25) The Mexican workers movement and its allied social movements—farmers, environmentalists, and indigenous peoples—will after the dark days of 2009 first have to rebuild the strength and confidence of the movement from the grassroots before they can succeed in accomplishing these broader goals.

Notes

1) Amnesty International’s latest report at: http://www.amnesty.org.uk/uploads/documents/doc_19988.pdf
Human Rights Watch’s Mexico reports at: http://www.hrw.org/americas/mexico

2) William Booth and Steve Fainaru, “Mexico weighs options as lawlessness continues to grip Ciudad Juárez,” Washington Post, Dec. 27, 2009 at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/26/AR2009122601774.html?hpid=topnews
See also LA Times “Mexico Drug War” interactive map:
http://projects.latimes.com/mexico-drug-war/#/its-a-war

3) “Mexico reassesses as Juárez strategy deemed a failure,” Washington Post, Dec. 27, 2009, at: http://www.statesman.com/news/world/mexico-reassesses-as-ju-rez-strategy-deemed-a-151573.html?imw=Y

4) Julian Cardona, “Mexico troops calm border city; mayhem shifts,” Reuters, Apr 8, 2009, at: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN08533393

5) Jorge Castañeda, “President Calderón is to blame for Mexico’s bloody drug war,” Taipei Times, Dec. 21, 2009, at: http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2009/12/21/2003461434 ; Castañeda and Rubén Aguilar, both former officials in Vicente Fox’s PAN government, have just published a new book El Narco: La Guerra Fallida" (“Narco: The Failed War”) which argues these points at greater length.

6) “La Arquidiócesis pide el retiro del Ejercito,” El Universal, Dec. 14, 2009, at: http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/645813.html

7) Gustavo Castillo García, “La seguridad nacional está en pañales”: titular del CISEN,” La Jornada, December 27, 2009, at: http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2009/12/27/index.php?section=politica&article=003n1pol

8) Steven Fainaru and William Booth, “Mexico’s drug cartels siphon liquid gold,” The Washington Post, December 13, 2009, at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/12/AR2009121202888.html

9) Joel Kurzman, “Mexico's Instability Is a Real Problem: Don't discount the possibility of a failed state next,” Wall Street Journal, Jan. 16, 2009,” at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123206674721488169.html

10) I provided a running account of the Calderón administration’s attack on the Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME) in a series of articles that can be found on my webpage, danlabotz.wikidot.com/, under “Journalism” scrolling down to “Articles on Mexico.”

11) “Big Job Losses in Mexico’s Mining Sector Due to Crisis,” Latin American Herald Tribune, article undated, but sometime in December 2009, at: http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=348844&CategoryId=14091; “Mexican Mining Sector Loses $3.2 Billion to Strikes,” Dow Jones Newswires, Dec. 10, 2009;

12) Åke Adolfsson, “Defend Union Autonomy in Mexico,” on the International Metalworkers Federation website, April 24, 2009, gives a good statement of the issues and of global labor’s position on them. At: http://www.imfmetal.org/index.cfm?c=19308

13) See, for example, “Mexico’s troubled oil industry: How many Mexicans does it take to drill an oil well?” The Economist, Oct. 1, 2009, at: http://www.economist.com/world/americas/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14548839

14) “UPDATE: UN's Eclac Sees Latin America GDP Growing 4.1% In 2010,” Wall Street Journal, Dec. 10, 2009, at: http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20091210-711121.html, reporting on: ECLA/CEPAL, “CEPAL proyecta recuperación de la región más rápida de lo previsto, con un crecimiento de 4,1% en 2010,” http://www.eclac.org/prensa/noticias/comunicados/0/38080/tablaPIB_CP1-Balancepreliminar.pdf

15) “Mexico January-November Deficit MXN218.1 Billion – Government,” Dec. 30, 2009, at: http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20091230-708060.html

16) “Mexico January-November Deficit MXN218.1 Billion – Government,” Wall Street Journal, Dec. 30, 2009, at: http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20091230-708060.html

17) “En México, sólo 18% de la población no sufre pobreza,” Milenio, Dec. 14, 2009, at: http://impreso.milenio.com/node/8688703

18) Eduardo Zepeda, Timothy A. Waise, and Kevin P. Gallagher, “Rethinking Trade Policy for Development: Lessons from Mexico Under NAFTA,:” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, at: http://www.carnegieendowment.org/files/nafta_trade_development.pdf
19) Jorge Robles, Jorge Robles, “Movimiento Obrero en México 2009: apuntes para definir una estrategia,”Authentic Labor Front, at: http://www.fatmexico.org/

20) Francisco Reséndiz, “El PRD incia proceso de refundación,” El Universal, Dec. 2009, at: http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/644515.html

21) Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s official page which publishes his speeches and other documents can be found at: http://www.amlo.org.mx/

22) Alma E. Muñoz, “PRD, PT y Convergencia crean el frente Diálogo por la Reconstrucción de México,” La Jornada, Dec. 9, 2009, at: http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2009/12/09/index.php?section=politica&article=009n1pol

23) Sylvia Longmire, “Mexico’s EPR ‘Guerillas’: a Nuisance or a Threat,” Mexidata.Com, August 24, 2009, at: http://www.mexidata.info/id2376.html

24) Mariana Norandi, “Busca la CNTE recolectar 15 millones de firmas para revocar mandato a Calderón,” La Jornada, Dec. 18, 2009, at: http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2009/12/18/index.php?section=politica&article=011n2pol

25) “Proclamation to the Peoples of Mexico Regarding the Recall of Felipe Calderón,”
Mexican Labor News, Dec., 2009, at: http://www.ueinternational.org/Mexico_info/mlna_articles.php?id=160#1074

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