Mexican Labor News & Analysis

Include MLNA on Your Web Site or Home Page, with Links to the Latest Articles!

You can now get current Mexican Labor News & Analysis headlines incorporated into your web site or delivered to a news reader or Yahoo or Google home page, with links directly to the latest articles!

A new, easy way to keep up with Mexican Labor News and Analysis

MLNA can now be delivered to you and yours on the web or your web site, without you having to dig through spam to find us in your email box.

You may already know that you can visit MLNA on the web (http://ueinternational.org/Mexico_info/mlna.php), where articles are formatted for easy reading and the links help you quickly find what you’re interested in, including archives of past issues.

Now you can also get current Mexican Labor News & Analysis headlines incorporated into your web site or delivered to a news reader or Yahoo or Google home page, with links directly to the latest articles.

How to add self-renewing links to MLNA news to your web site

Copy the simple code below into your web page, and it will display headlines visitors click on to read Mexican Labor News & Analysis articles directly from your site. The headlines are updated whenever a new edition of MLNA is published.

Copy and paste this within the body of the HTML code of your page:

<p><font face=" Verdana, Arial, Helvetica," color=#000000 >
<script language="JavaScript" src="http://www.ueinternational.org/ueinternational.js"></script></font></p>

Feel free to change the formatting to fit into your format. To see how one site did it, check out http://nlginternational.org/news/otherIntNews.php.

Or: Display MLNA headlines with an RSS reader

Like many other news sites, we now have an "XML" button on the site at http://ueinternational.org/Mexico_info/headlines.php. Or go directly to http://ueinternational.org/ueinternational.php to get the RSS feed that will import updated headlines into your news reader or wLike many other news sites, we now have an "XML" button on the site at http://ueinternational.org/Mexico_info/headlines.php. Or go directly to http://ueinternational.org/ueinternational.php to get the RSS feed that will import updated headlines into your news reader or web site.eb site.

What is an RSS news reader?

Really Simple Syndication (RSS) has become a popular format for distributing timely news. Any RSS reader will display feeds from whatever sources you choose, both commercial and grassroots, either on the web or on your desktop. .Most readers are free. The reader shows the latest headlines from each source, with links to the articles.

So when we update Mexican Labor News & Analysis, you see a new group of headlines the next time you look at your reader. MLNA feeds include up to 10 headlines, with links back to ueinternational.org to read each article. If you choose to include "descriptions," the reader will also show a few lines from the beginning of each article.

How to get a reader to view RSS headlines

You can download a reader program or use one online.

Most of the easiest to use RSS readers are free and Web-based. For example, if you use My Yahoo! at http://my.yahoo.com/s/intl/us/about/index_guest.html you can quickly set up a personal page and pick RSS feeds to include. When you visit Google at http://www.google.com/ig?hl=en, do the same thing by clicking Personalize your Google homepage. Then enter http://ueinternational.org/ueinternational.php into the search box, save the page, and you’re done. For more information, see http://my.yahoo.com/s/rss-faq.html

A downloaded news reader, on the other hand, will display the headlines and links to articles on your desktop. After installing a news reader, add the feed from our Web site by clicking on the "XML" button at http://ueinternational.org/Mexico_info/headlines.php.

New and better readers are constantly being developed. To find a reader you like, search the web or try download sites like C|Net's download.com. Their most popular free reader is Snarfer, available at http://www.download.com/Snarfer/3000-9227_4-10499476.html. Some email programs now also offer RSS feeds.

Try it out!

Back to February , 2006 Table of Contents

Marcos and Zapatistas Reach Out to Workers

By Dan La Botz

Subcomandante Marcos, speaking for the Zapatista Army of National Liberation and its “other campaign,” has begun to reach out to workers and unions, including dialogues with workers during campaign stops. The new emphasis on a discussion with workers about their unions represents a qualitative change in the political approach of the EZLN. While the EZLN has always spoken about Indians and the poor struggling for their basic needs, it has never before in its 12 years of public political activity made such an explicit approach to unionized workers, and never before engaged them in dialogue.

Speaking before some 2,000 people in the gymnasium of the Iberoamerican University (the “Ibero”) of Puebla on Feb. 17, Marcos addressed the issues facing many of the blue collar and white collar workers in attendance. He talked about the economic system driving workers to the edge, about the loss of labor union contracts that represented historic achievement of the working class, about the way in which the media portrayed unionized workers as a privileged sector, and about the failure of union leaders to defend the workers’ interests. Marcos expressed his sympathy and solidarity with the situation of the Social Security workers, teachers, and telephone workers. He also praised the Euzkadi and Pascal workers and their worker-run enterprises, suggesting that workers should run the plants of the nation. Finally, he promised that he and the EZLN would be in Mexico City for an “anti-capitalist and leftist” May First (International Labor Day). (You may wish to read the translation of Marcos’s words in the article below before continuing with the analysis presented in this article.)

Attack on the UNT

While Marcos suggested that the EZLN would join workers in the May Day demonstration, he rejected the notion of cooperating with the leadership of the large and important unions of the National Union of Workers (UNT). Marcos singled out for criticism Francisco Hernández Juárez head of the Mexican Telephone Workers Union (STRM) and Roberto Vega Galina leader of the Social Security Workers Union (SNTSS). Hernández Juárez and Vega Galina are two of the three top officials of the UNT.

Presumably it goes without saying that Marcos also rejects the leadership of the Congress of Labor (CT) and the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM), the unions historically affiliated with the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) which have also reached a modus vivendi with the National Action Party (PAN). Certainly Marco’s criticism of union leaders who fail to fight for workers would apply to virtually all of them.

Marcos does not reject all union leaders, however. He has held some meeting with officials from the Mexican Electrical Workers (SME), the union which represents the main force in a third constellation of labor unions, the Mexican Union Front (FSM). The FSM, which has an anti-capitalist program, has expressed support for the EZLN. Marcos and the EZLN’s followers could join with the FSM for the May Day demonstration and, more important, in building the left of the labor movement.

Marcos’s attack on the National of Union of Workers parallels his attack on the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). He argues that the Mexican people should completely reject all of the political parties, including the PRD, the party on the left, and he singles out for attack Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the former mayor of Mexico City who is the PRD’s candidate.

The Significance of Marcos’s Remarks

Marcos’s support for rank-and-file workers in their struggles to protect their collective bargaining agreements and their standard of living and his attack on labor union officials who fail to fight to protect their unions’ members will no doubt contribute to raising workers’ consciousness and inspiring workers to fight. His call for an anti-capitalist and leftist labor movement will help to legitimize these ideas among some Mexican workers.

At the same time, Marcos’s outreach to workers accompanied by a strong criticism of the UNT’s leaders raises interesting and important questions about building a democratic, militant and radical labor movement. Marcos’s words suggest that labor unions should be anti-capitalist, a position nominally held by only a small number of unions and workers, namely the Mexican Union Front (FSM) led by the Electrical Workers Union (SME). His words also suggest a desire to work with the members of unions with more conservative leaders, but a refusal to work with their leaders for common aims. The question arises, will Marcos, if he refuses to deal with the unions’ leaders, be able to get workers to join with the EZLN.

The History of Revolutionary Unionism in Mexico

While the EZLN is a unique organization, sui generis, nevertheless its political position bears an interesting resemblance to other moments in working class history. The anarchist and syndicalist left of the 1910s and 1920s around the world generally refused to participate in reformist labor unions (“yellow unions” they called them). In Mexico, the anarchists organized the General Confederation of Workers (CGT) which fought a decade-long battle with the state-sponsored Regional Confederation of Mexican Workers (CROM). The CROM, backed by the government and often by the employers, defeated the CGT and other independent unions.

The position is also similar to that adopted by the Communist International and its affiliated Communist Parties throughout the world during the period from 1928 to 1935. The Communist International, then controlled by Joseph Stalin, took the position that it could not work with the Socialist Party and that Communist and Socialist labor unions could not work together. The Socialists, the Communist International decided, had become “social fascists,” and no alliance with them was possible. The Communists, refusing to work with Socialist union leaders, appealed for the Socialist labor unions members to join them in mass actions against the bosses and the government. The Communists’ “left turn” and its strategy of the “united front from below,” as it was called, failed, and in Germany the failure of Communists and Socialists to unite in joint actions led to the rise of Hitler.

In Mexico, the left turn led the Communists to withdraw from other labor unions and in January 1929 to form the Unified Union Confederation of Mexico (CSUM). The sudden lurch left led important worker and peasant leaders to resign from the Communist Party and refuse to join the new, leftist labor federation. The Communists expelled others for lack of enthusiasm about the new radical labor federation. The CP and the CSUM denounced the lead left-wing labor and political figures as “social fascists.” The Mexican government unleashed a ferocious repression of the Communists and their new union, driving the party underground. The CSUM carried out some heroic organizing activities, for example among the unemployed, but failed to build a mass left labor movement.

New Leftists Recapitulate Revolutionary Unionism

During the 1960s and 1970s some Mexican new leftists were attracted to this “Third Period” of the Communist Party as it is known (1928-1935), and attempted to recapitulate the building of independent revolutionary labor organizations. However, efforts to create revolutionary unions usually failed when faced with the repression of the Institutional Revolutionary Party government and the opposition of the employers. Eventually some of the new left’s energy went into the building of the independent labor unions created in the labor upheaval (la insurgencia obrera) of the late 1960s and early 1970s. In any case, the idea of creating anti-capitalist and revolutionary unions remains a recurrent theme in the history of the Mexican left.

The United Front

What will Marcos’s proposal of an anti-capitalist and revolutionary labor movement mean for Mexico, and especially for the progressive forces in the labor movement? During the last two years the UNT and the SME worked together to create the Union, Peasant, Social, Indigenous, and Popular Front (FSCISP), bringing together dozens of popular organizations to struggle against government policies. Will Marcos’s call for a more radical union movement contribute to building such broad movements or will it tend to divide these efforts at a united front?

At this point, there is no way of knowing what the impact will be, but for the moment, Marcos suggests workers should fight to build a stronger labor movement to defend their unions and contracts.

Back to February , 2006 Table of Contents

Marcos’s Words to the Workers

[The following translation of Marcos’s words comes from the article by Herman Bellinghausen, “En ambiente de comprensión, conviven en Puebla el EZLN y sindicalistas,” published in the Mexico City daily La Jornada, February 18, 2006. The subheads and text surrounding the long quotations from Marcos are Bellinghausen’s. Translation by Dan La Botz.]

One moment in particular was the dialog between unionized workers and subcomandante Marcos. With their specific trade union concerns, the years of activism, the episodes of the working class struggle, they are not going to heaven and even less keep up with what’s happening in Mexico.

After listening to dozens of workers, Marcos began by saying, “to the sister [compañera] who is worried because they are going to rescind her contract, I believe the person whose contract is going to be rescinded is Marío Marín [the governor of Puebla currently embroiled in scandal]. It’s necessary to demand that they rescind his contract and those of all of the politicians, as has been explained here, they have put themselves completely on the side of the bosses in order to steal from us the little that we have.”

He pointed out: “What we have seen is that there is a kind of operation, a brutal machine that beings to drive workers to the edge, to the precipice, and there is a job done by the mass media to present all workers in the city who have unions as a kind of privileged sector, and to convince the majority of the population that those worker have to lose those privileges, forgetting that often they won them with their blood, their vigilance and their struggle, and that we should all become equal at the same low level. There is a great campaign of disinformation against the Social Security workers, against the brothers and sisters of the teachers union, against the telephone workers, against all workers who have a collective bargaining agreement, who have a wage and a secure job. The media are all in agreement with the employers not only that people like you who are fighting to defend your historic labor contracts lose them, but also that that your defeat should be applauded.

Suit and Tie

Among the hundreds of attentive labor unionists, some wearing suits and ties, which, in a Zapatista event, in my memory, is unusual, Marcos mentioned “the most recent case, that of the brothers and sisters from Social Security, where there was a media campaign to convince the population to take away the rights that they had,.”

“This operation begins to throw the workers and their labor union contracts to the basement of the country. We do not believe that the future of Mexico should be that we are all in the basement, rather the opposite, we want to learn from you and to conquer for all of the workers of the countryside and of the city not only what you want, but even more.

“During these last several years, since Salinas, and perhaps before, then with Zedillo, now with Fox and what will continue with whomever heads the Mexican government, there has been an offensive against labor, to make workers lives more precarious, to remove all impediments in the way of capital and to treat us like slaves. This places us then, if memory doesn’t fail us, in the great worker and peasant mobilizations that preceded the Mexican Revolution of 100 years ago.”

A Kind of Dream Fulfilled

Even though everyone who is present doesn’t agree with every aspect of the other campaign [the non- electoral campaign of the Zapatistas], the ambience of acceptance and mutual understanding represents a kind of dream fulfilled. An encounter between the indigenous poor peoples’ army of 1994 with the independent workers of 2006. And they talked with each other directly; not that they didn’t know each other but now they are building something together.

Marcos insisted in his warning. “It is a question of workers losing their conquests, the collective bargaining agreements. That unions become converted into a thing of the past or a caricature with what they are today putting forward. Yesterday there was a meeting of Francisco Hernández Juárez [leader of the Telephone Workers Union and of the National Union of Workers or UNT] with some of the union locals and he announced that he was reuniting with the Chapultepec Pact [the business alliance created by Carlos Slim, a longtime Salinas ally], with the political parties and with all of those that want to help him defend the workers. That he was ready to meet with Marcos, even though the idea didn’t appeal to him very much. Well, it doesn’t appeal to us at all, not even a little and for that reason we will not meet with him.”

A recognition of the workers’ struggle: “We remember that a few years ago, up there in the mountains, we received news of workers’ mobilizations to advance their historic conquests, and in the last 12 years we have only received news of workers fighting to keep what they have or to keep them from taking it away. This process, which has us on the defensive, against the wall, doesn’t only affect city workers, but also the peasants, the Indian communities and all of those who work through these lands.”

And once more the sense of urgency: “The only way to keep from falling over the precipice which would make us disappear from the country, is to go over to the offensive, it may sound exaggerated right now when we are talking about one thing or another that they are taking away from us, but we think, and this is the proposal of the other campaign, that we have to go over to the offensive on a national level. To take the offensive, to go for them, to put them where they ought to be. Where Marín [governor of Puebla], Slim [Mexico’s richest man], and Fox [the Mexican president] ought to be is in jail.”

“A Frightening Show”

There are also successful resistance struggles, like those of the EZLN: “There are the workers like those of Euskadi [rubber worker who defeated a plant closing effort and created a kind of worker cooperative] and Pascual [a worker-owned bottling plant], who have demonstrated that they can run the plants and make them produce for the workers, and we think the same thing.” And he announced, “We are going to be in Mexico City on May 1st [International Labor Day] and our proposal is to make May Day a demonstration throughout the entire country. In every city where there are brother and sister workers they should come out and we should make a frightening show, because all this time we have been accumulating fright. Let’s change things, so that those who will have to be afraid are those on top.

“Above all, it is a question reaching the Indian people, so that they understand that in the labor movement the people are not on the other side, but rather the labor movement is a brother, just as we signed the Sixth [Zapatista declaration] and said that we want another country and a new Constitution. And we are not just talking about the rights and culture of the Indians. We say that this new Constitution should have labor rights but now in a new Mexico without bosses and with out charros [bureaucratic union leaders]. The paradox is that the neocharrismo [new group of bureaucratic union leaders, presumably referring to Hernández Juárez and the UNT] is only 30 years old.”

The other campaign, like the covered faces of the Zapatistas, has revealed that which nobody wanted to see, that “there are people that have absolutely nothing and that these people are our brothers and sisters. People like this are those that touch the heart and put before us the challenge that we have to do things for them and for ourselves. Another country, there is no other choice. That’s why our proposal is to look down, to magnify the voices of each one, the struggle of each one, and together create a great uprising, a great upheaval.”

To the working class that responded to the call of the Sixth declaration of the Lacondón Jungle, Marcos observed, “we think that it is not just that only we have this privilege of being students. The entire other campaign should learn just what the working class of Mexico is, not that of Roberto Vega Galina [head of the Social Security Workers Union] and Francisco Hernández Juárez [head of the Telephone Workers Union, both are leaders of the UNT], but of the other. And where better than in Puebla, beginning with a call to the workers of the other campaign so that the whole country can begin to work toward another May 1st, anti-capitalist and leftist.”

Back to February , 2006 Table of Contents

Congress of Labor Divided

The Congress of Labor (CT), founded in 1966 to bring together the major labor federations, industrial unions, public employee organizations, and craft unions, appears about to break apart. The immediate cause of the deep split in the umbrella organization to which most Mexican unions belong is the Labor Law Reform proposed by President Fox with the support of Mexican business. The deeper cause, however, is the continuing crisis of Mexican unions and workers under neoliberal policies, a crisis which jeopardizes the very existence of the labor movement. At the moment, the largest workers’ organization in Mexico is up for grabs.

Two factions, one led by Victor Flores Morales, head of the Mexican Railroad Workers Union (STFRM) and the other led by Isaías González Cuevas of the Revolutionary Confederation of Workers and Peasants and Napoleón Gómez Urrutia of the Miners and Metal Workers Union (SMMRM) have broken out into a bitter struggle for control of the Congress of Labor. The government of president Vicente Fox, through the Labor Department, has proclaimed Flores to be the new president, but the dissidents, who call themselves the Coalition of National Unions and Confederations for Renovation, have declared that the government is meddling in the CT’s affairs. With neither side willing to compromise, it seems very likely that in the next few weeks the Congress of Labor will blow apart.

The Congress of Labor

Forty years ago, with the blessing of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), Mexico’s labor movement—at least what was known as its “official” labor movement—united in the Congress of Labor. The Congress brought together seven rival national federations—most important among them the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM), the Confederation of Revolutionary Workers and Peasants (CROC), and the Revolutionary Confederation of Mexican Workers (CROM)—as well as seven industrial unions such as the Petroleum Workers Union (STPRM), trade confederations such as the Federation of Unions of Workers at the Service of the State (FSTSE), and finally independent craft unions. The CT at its founding claimed to represent almost 16,000 unions with 3.1 million members.

Throughout the last 40 years the CT on the one hand represented the labor bureaucracy in dealing with the ruling state-party the PRI, and on the other hand acted as a transmission belt from the PRI to the unions and rank-and-file workers. The CT’s main leaders became the “sector obrero,” the labor union officials who were chosen to serve as PRI representatives and senators in the legislature. In return, they turned out their members – who were all required to join the PRI – to support the PRI during elections. The leaders of the CT’s affiliated federations and unions also served as the labor representatives to the tripartite labor boards (JCAs) and other government panels such as the minimum wage board. The CT provided the labor bureaucracy with an organization with which to pressure government for their own benefit, and provided the government an organization with which to control the working class. The system worked well for about 30 years.

The First Major Split in the CT

During its 40-year history the CT suffered various challenges and splits, but overcame them all until the 1990s. In the spring of 1996, twenty-one unions, including ten from within the CT, held a series of presentations which they referred to as the Forum: Unions Face the Nation, promoting a debate about a variety of issues of importance to labor. These unions became known as the Foro group, and eventually the discussion led to a more serious debate about the role of unions in Mexico. In November, 1997, the Telephone Workers Union, the National Union of Social Security Workers (SNTSS), and six other unions pulled out of the CT and joined independent unions such as the Union of Workers of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (STUNAM) and the Authentic Labor Front (FAT) to create a new labor federation, the National Union of Workers (UNT).

Now a second major split seems to be occurring, one that could lead the Miners Union and the CROC to leave and create yet another rival labor organization. This most recent fight could represent the final collapse of the old labor union system of the PRI, though the largest “official” federation, the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM), would still remain a force.

Back to February , 2006 Table of Contents

Mine Explosion and Cave-in Leaves 65 Miners Trapped

As we go to press, an explosion and collapse in a mine called “Unidad Pasto de Conchos” in the town of San Juan de Sabinas, Coahuila in northern Mexico has injured a dozen workers and left 65 miners trapped some 150 meters underground. The accident occurred on Feb. 19.

Rescue workers were racing to pump out gas before miners ran out of oxygen. The Mine and Metal Workers Union (SNMMRM) has been involved in a recent struggle over health and safety with the Grupo Mexico company that owns the mine.

Consuelo Aguilar, a spokeswoman for the union, told the press, “We have pressured for better safety conditions as well as for better pay at the mines.”

Back to February , 2006 Table of Contents

Armed Assault on Nuevo Laredo Newspaper El MaÑana

This story from: Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras www.coalitionforjustice.net

El Mañana, Nuevo Laredo’s largest daily newspaper, was attacked by armed men on Feb. 7. Jaime Orozco Tey, a twenty-eight year old reporter, was shot five times and went to the hospital in critical condition. The attack on the newspaper may have been motivated by its coverage of drug dealers, political corruption, and labor union issues.

El Mañana is a member of the Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras and its owner, Ninfa Deander serves on CJMs board of directors. The paper has a reputation for honest reporting, the courage to cover narcotics and the maquiladoras, and for giving a voice to workers and the poor in Nuevo Laredo. Consequently, it has been a frequent target of narco traffickers, corporate interests, and government repression.

It happened again Feb. 7 when the newspaper was invaded by gunmen at 7:45 P.M. At least two men wearing hoods entered the newspapers offices carrying high caliber weapons and opened fire on reporters and staff who were at work on the morning edition. Carrying AR-15 and AK-47 rifles and grenades, the intruders shot up the reception area and proceeded to the editorial office where they continued firing.

“We were working at our computers…”

A reporter later wrote, “We were working as normal at our computers. Suddenly I heard the sound of breaking glass. I felt something sting my face. I heard blasts and my immediate reaction was to throw myself to the floor. I hid under my computer table and listened to more shots. All the reporters were trying to hide. Our fear grew when we heard the explosion of a fragmentation grenade. Someone yelled, ‘They’re going to kill all of us.’”
The grenade exploded in front of the offices of the editorial directors. A couple of meters away was Jaime Orozco Tey, a twenty-eight year old reporter, who was shot five times. He had two bullets in the chest, two in the upper abdomen, one of which had hit his spine. Orozco was taken to a private hospital where he is in critical condition. Doctors say that if he lives, he’ll never walk again. Others were injured from flying glass and debris, but Orozco was the only one shot. He appears to have been targeted by the gunmen.

Orozco reported on the narco wars. Just this week El Mañana co-hosted and reported on a national conference on Drug Trafficking and the Role of the Media. Orozco had also been covering the struggles of maquiladora workers who are challenging the decades-long legacy of corrupt unionism of the recently deceased CTM leader Chema Morales.

Muckraking Newspaper

The paper recently denounced the mayor for his crooked management of the city’s water
system and for the eviction of the residents of colonia Blanca Navidad, where maquila workers lived. Early last Thursday morning, police burned down many houses, and by Friday city bulldozers had destroyed the rest. Orozco was covering the repression of the families who were sitting in in the city’s central plaza demanding justice. In one article he quoted Martha Rubio Quirino, an eleven-year-old who lived in Blanca Navidad Colonia, “The police arrived and took everything. The machines uprooted the houses. My mother yelled at me and I got out. Later I saw her crying. I saw everyone running. It scared me because the machines didn’t wait, and they killed some people.”

Not the First Attack

This is not the first time El Mañana has been attacked. In March 2004, the paper’s editor, Roberto Mora García, was murdered under very mysterious circumstances, and the crime was never solved. At that time, because the drug war was so out of control and because there was no protection for reporters, the paper took measures to protect itself on delicate and risky matters. According to an editorial, “We decided to cover only the facts, not mention names of the drug cartels, handle information so we could survive this war. . .”

The current editor, Daniel Rosas, told Reuters that the gunmen's methods and weapons left little doubt they were involved in the drug trade. It is very early to tell, but given the type of arms they used, you draw your own conclusions, he said. Attacks on journalists who cover the drug wars are common in Mexico, but Rosas said there had been no recent death threats against the paper.

An editorial said, “This war is insane. Its not Nuevo Laredo’s war, nor the media’s, nor El Mañana’s, nor society’s but all of us suffer the consequences of the violence. The editors also said, “Who was responsible? We don’t know. It could have been anyone. They are phantoms. Often they use the media attacking us to blame an opposing gang and justify some supposed authorities’ reaction against a rival group. It’s a form of terrorism.”

Nuevo Laredo—A War Zone

Nuevo Laredo is the largest port of entry into the United States. It connects to I-35 which goes north into America’s heartland. Six thousand trailers cross the border each day, and, according to the editors, US customs only inspects fifty to sixty. For at least the last year, the State of Tamaulipas and especially Nuevo Laredo have experienced a marked increase in drug-related violence spurred by Mexican President Vicente Fox’s declaration of war on drug cartels and wars between rival cartels fighting over turf and political patronage. The attack on El Mañana, however, represents a new, more blatant level of violence.

In the midst of the tragedy, El Mañana reiterated its proposal for a solution and called for redirection of the enormous drug war budget toward free, accessible drug rehabilitation programs for addicts and the decriminalization and control of less addictive and dangerous drugs.

El Mañanas crusade for peace and justice has won substantial support from the people of Nuevo Laredo. When they heard that Jaime Orozco needed a transfusion, dozens of citizens went to the hospital to donate. As news of the attack on the paper spread, thousands called to express their support.

After the Red Cross left and with police still in the building, many of the workers began cleaning up. Someone said, “The paper will go out. It must.” And it did. El Mañanas web page is at www.elmanana.com.mx. There are photos.

How You Can Help

Send a letter or email to Mexican President Vicente Fox demanding an investigation and protection for freedom of the press in Mexico.

Vicente Fox Quezada
Email: vicente.fox.quesada@presidencia.gob.mx

Write the Interamerican Commission on Human Rights of the OAS and request that they investigate the violation of human rights and the failure of the Mexican government to protect freedom of the press in Mexico. Address: Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, 1889 F St., NW, Washington, D.C., USA 20006. E-mail: cidhoea@oas.org

Back to February , 2006 Table of Contents

Brinks Affilliate Fires Workers, Denies Severance Pay

Alert provided by ENLACE: www.enlaceintl.org

One of our members, SINTTIM, needs your support; with your emails they can get justice for 7 people who were fired unjustly and gain respect for labor rights for workers of Servicio Panamericano de Protección S.A. de C.V. (SERPAPROSA), an affiliate of Brink's, operating in Baja California Sur.

Example of the letter:

Please send an email to the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA): media@fifa.org; contact@fifa.org; with a copy to: cat@serpaprosa.com.mx; Corporate.relations@brinksinc.com; info@enlaceint.org


Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA),

We are aware that the Soccer World Cup has been transported around Mexico by Servicio Panamericano de Protección S.A. de C.V. (SERPAPROSA), an affiliate of Brink's, and that the cup will be visiting many other countries.

We wish to inform you that in the city of La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico, SERPAPROSA is violating the Mexican labor laws by unjustly firing 7 workers that had been denied the severance pay that is required by the Mexican Constitution and labor law.

For this reason, we are asking that you, as clients of SERPAPROSA and Brink's, demand that they stop violating the workers’ constitutional rights and that they instead pay the workers what Mexican labor law provides.

The World Cup brings honor to the 28 countries it visits. This tradition should not be allowed to be tarnished by the lawless behavior of SERPAPROSA of Brink's in Mexico.

Sincerely,

NAME

ORGANIZATION

Back to February , 2006 Table of Contents

Lajat Workers Win Independent Union; Supporters Rally

This story from: Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras www.coalitionforjustice.net

In an unprecedented ruling on January 17, a Mexican Federal Labor Tribunal ordered the local Labor Board of Gómez Palacio to recognize the independent and democratic Union of Workers of Lajat Manufacturing. Lajat is a major jeans-maker with nearly 12,000 employees operating in the states of Durango and Coahuila.

The Lajat Workers Union is the first independent union to gain legal recognition in north central Mexico. All but one member of its executive committee are women workers. The Tribunal’s decision was in direct conflict with the actions of the Durango state and local authorities and of Lajat Manufacturing, which has waged a year-long battle to stop its workers from organizing.

U.S. Supporters Show Solidarity

The Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras demonstrated at Levi Strauss and the Company’s headquarters in San Francisco on Thursday, February 16 in support of the new independent Lajat workers union in Mexico. Speakers at the rally included Fernando López representing the Lajat Workers in Gómez Palacio Durango, Alejandra Domenzain of Sweatshop Watch, David Bacon, a Bay Area journalist, and Judy Ancel, a CJM board member from Kansas City. Levi Strauss is a major customer of Lajat Manufacturing, a consistent labor rights abuser in Mexico.

The goals of the rally were to pressure Levi Strauss to secure compliance from Lajat on the following:

1. Reinstatement of all fired workers from the Gómez Palacio plant either by reopening the plant or providing jobs at the Torreón plant including transportation;

2. That Lajat stop its union busting and fully respect the rights of its workers to organize in a union of their own choosing;

3. That Lajat remove workers’ names from the black list and cease using it;

4. That all workers be paid what is owed them including unpaid wages, unpaid overtime, and that Lajat pay all outstanding contributions to government benefits funds including IMSS-Social Security and INFONAVIT-housing funds;

5. And, if Lajat refuses to reinstate the workers, Lajat must also pay full severance in accordance with Mexican Law.

At the demonstration CJM displayed a solidarity banner signed by dozens of students from United Students Against Sweatshops who held their national convention last week in San Francisco. The demonstration is organized by CJM, along with its affiliates: Marin Interfaith Task Force, Sweatshop Watch, and Global Exchange. Co-sponsors included SF/LCLAA, Campaign for Labor Rights, National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, and Asian Law Caucus.

Lajat’s Record

Lajat has gone so far as to close a plant in order to prevent workers from realizing their human rights. It has fired and blacklisted workers, and it has unleashed dozens of police on workers inside its plant to beat and arrest them. From the start, Lajat has pressured the local labor board and the Governor who has authority over it, but finally on Friday February 10, after delaying as long as it could, the labor board complied with the Tribunal’s decision. Now the workers’ independent union has the right to organize in all of Lajat’s plants.

Levi Strauss proudly claims to be “the first worldwide company to establish a comprehensive ethical code of conduct for manufacturing and finishing contractors working with the company.” Since April 2005 the Lajat workers, through The Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras, have been asking Levi Strauss that Lajat be accountable and respect their ethical code. Levi Strauss has agreed that Lajat has violated their code; they have urged Lajat to reinstate fired workers, and after meeting with CJM, they issued a Corrective Action Plan for Management. However, after Lajat closed its Gómez Palacio plant late last year, Levi Strauss said, “We can’t tell them how to run their business.”

Then, early this year, workers reported that Levi Strauss gave Lajat new orders for jeans. This was despite the fact that Lajat refuses to comply with Levi’s Corrective Action Plan, refuses either to reinstate workers or to pay the workers $400,000 in back wages, unpaid overtime, and severance pay, and it fails to make legally required contributions to federal social security and housing funds.

Martha Ojeda, Executive Director of The Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras thinks Levi Strauss should practice what it preaches and quit pampering Lajat. “They can’t have their ethical code and sweatshops too. We call on Levi Strauss to become a leader for labor rights in Mexico and help these workers become the first since NAFTA to win justice on the job.”

Back to February , 2006 Table of Contents

Hunger On The Border

Interview with Julia Quiñones, by David Bacon

January 25, 2006

Today the US/Mexico border is the subject of intense political controversy. Most of the fireworks focus on the idea that more enforcement can keep people from crossing it. Lost in this hysteria is the reality that the border is a huge place, where millions of people live and work. Not only that, but here free trade policies hold down living standards and prevent union and community organizing. That, in turn, produces pressure on people to seek a better standard of living elsewhere.

To explore the real conditions for border workers, David Bacon interviewed Julia Quiñones, coordinator of the Border Committee of Women Workers, the Comité Fronterizo de Obreras, with offices in Piedras Negras, Mexico.

David: In Spanish, the name of the border committee uses the word obreras, which means women workers. Why is the name of the committee in the feminine?

Julia: The Comité Fronterizo de Obreras (CFO) is an organization of rank and file women, led by women and men who work in the maquiladoras. The organization was born out of the needs particularly of the young women who work in the factories. In the beginning the industry was especially interested in employing women, and even though this situation has changed over time, we continue to maintain a focus on their experience. We look for a greater level of participation by women, inside their unions and at all levels of leadership.

David: What does the Comité do?

Julia: The CFO is working in three Mexican states -- Tamaulipas, Coahuila, and Chihuahua. Our purpose is to educate and organize workers around their labor rights. We try to engage workers in learning and talking about the impact of free trade, and focus on violence against women. We have a program to build economic self-sufficiency and we've created our own maquiladora, making products and giving employment to women.

David: What are the effects of free trade and NAFTA, as you see them in your section of the border?

Julia: Maquiladoras began to arrive in our region over 40 years ago. With the advent of the North American Free Trade Agreement 11 years ago, the working conditions in the maquiladoras got much worse. Even those plants, which over the years had achieved better benefits and wages, began to move south into the interior of Mexico, where the salaries were much lower and the conditions worse.

David: What about the plants that have remained on the border? Have salaries gone up in the years that NAFTA has been in effect? The Mexican government promised when NAFTA was negotiated, that free trade would produce more jobs, and that those jobs would pay more. Mexico would become a first world country, according to then-President Carlos Salinas de Gortari.

Julia: The workers on the border think that was all a big lie. The problem of unemployment wasn't resolved at all. Salaries have not gotten better; in fact, they're completely insufficient for anybody to live on. Workers continue to live in extreme poverty, and at the same time, many people still arrive in the border region looking for work. The cities are overloaded, and don't provide basic services or infrastructure. Look at Ciudad Acuña. It's a disgrace. There are large transnationals, such as Alcoa and Delphi, operating there, yet workers have to build their houses out of cardboard, or materials taken from the factories.

David: What is an average maquiladora factory wage? What will that wage actually buy in the supermarket?

Julia: The average salary for a maquiladora worker is US $45 a week. This allows workers to buy pasta, beans, rice, potatoes, maybe oil - just the basic things to eat. They can't buy cereals. They buy milk on rare occasions, if there are children. No meat.
David: In a Mexican supermarket on the border, how much does a gallon of milk cost?

Julia: There is a mistaken idea that just because we live in Mexico all the products we buy are cheaper. In reality, the basic food we buy is more expensive on the Mexican side. If you go over to the American side, a gallon of milk will cost about $2.50, or 27 Mexican pesos. On our side of the border, in Piedras Negras, it would be 45 pesos or about US $4.50 - twice as expensive. The salaries simply are not enough to permit a family to survive. It's always the case that in any family two or three people have to work to provide for basic necessities. If there's just one head of the family working, other members have to supplement their income by selling things like beauty products. Often people cross the border to sell their blood.

David: That really means that somebody has to work almost half a day just to buy a gallon of milk?

Julia: Approximately, yes.

David: So what does it look like in the neighborhoods where workers live, what are the conditions in which people live?

Julia: It really is a shock, even to workers who come up from the interior, from the Mexican countryside, because they are used to living in houses that are bigger, that have patios, that have space. When they arrive, they see there are very few options for workers here. Perhaps the lucky ones can acquire a house through the Mexican housing program, INFONAVIT. But if they do so they're really in debt to the Mexican government for the rest of their lives. Those houses are in slightly better condition. Otherwise, workers are forced to build their own houses out of whatever materials they can find, in places that are completely inappropriate - along the sides of cliffs or in areas prone to flooding, like stream beds. They have to live in areas unsafe to raise their families.

David: What about basic services, like sewers, like running water, like electricity in those neighborhoods? Are the municipal authorities providing those services?

Julia: In some of the neighborhoods there are such services. For example, in the houses built by INFONAVIT, the government does provide electricity. The problem there is that the bills are very high. A monthly electricity bill might get up to 450 pesos, or US $45, and a water bill 150 pesos per month, or US $15. And the water is not drinkable. In other neighborhoods, where people squat and build their houses the best they can, the government doesn't provide services. People are reduced often to robbing power from electrical lines.

David: That must be pretty dangerous, if you bring in electrical power on wires hooked up illegally to the poles, and you're living in houses made of cardboard and shipping pallets. Fire must be a big danger too.
Julia: It is very dangerous, but it's also very common. Many times when you go into people's houses, you can see the wires run along the ground, where kids are walking and playing around them.

David: Julia, are there unions in the factories?

Julia: On the border you have to understand there are many different situations. In Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez, for example, the most common arrangements are known as protection contracts. These are union contracts that the workers don't know anything about, but which protect the company instead. In Tamaulipas or Coahuila, most of the maquiladoras have unions, but these are called charro unions, because they are unresponsive and corrupt and don't support the workers. In Ciudad Acuña, unions are actually prohibited and there is not a single one.

David: The Border Committee has been very active helping workers at the Alcoa Fujikura plant in Piedras Negras, not only to improve their conditions, but also to form an independent union. What happened to them?

Julia: At Alcoa in Piedras Negras, at first workers organized a rank-and-file movement to reform the union from within. There was a charro union there, a union that belonged to the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM). It was not responsive to workers, so they tried to take it over. They wanted to take control of their own collective bargaining, in order to improve their salaries and their benefits. They saw that the CTM leaders were partial to the company, and not representing them. These workers won election to leadership positions on the plant level, but then found that everything they tried to do was undone by higher leaders of the union, who made secret agreements with the company.
So they formed an independent union, and left the old one. Under Mexican law, they had to get their union registered by the government. They filed the paperwork with the local Conciliation and Arbitration Board, but the agency denied the registration. This case is still not resolved. In fact, after appealing within the Mexican legal system, they filed a complaint with the International Labor Organization, accusing the Mexican government of failing to guarantee its citizens the right of freedom of association.

David: What happened to the workers involved in that effort?

Julia: Some of the leaders were fired, but others continued the organizing work. That's really the key to maintaining a movement with an organized rank-and-file base. When the company fires some leaders, other leaders emerge and keep going. Today there are hundreds of workers involved in this movement.

What they went through is a logical evolution, and you can see it develop in many factories. First workers begin to make changes in their individual lives and in their individual conflicts. They begin to organize and act together along the same assembly line, and then at a plant-wide level. Ultimately because they want more say and control, they try to find a union structure that represents them.
David: The story you're telling here is very similar to many others. Workers can't get their independent unions recognized, and get fired as a result of their efforts. I'm sure you could name a lot of different plants where the same thing has happened. At Sony, in Nuevo Laredo, people were actually beaten up in front of the factory. It happened at Custom and Auto Trim, at the Han Young plant in Tijuana, and at the Duro Bag Co. in Rio Bravo. But NAFTA had a labor side agreement that was supposed to guarantee labor rights in Mexico, so that this wouldn't take place. What about it? Was the NAFTA labor side agreement useful to workers? Could they use it to stop the kind of violations you're describing at Alcoa Fujikura?

Julia: No. The labor side agreement supposedly protects the principle of freedom of association, the issue here. But it's obvious that this labor side agreement hasn't forced anybody to take responsibility. Complaints are filed, and after a long process, the only thing that comes is a recommendation which never translates into actual enforcement. It's not an effective guarantee of anyone's rights.

David: If that's the case, is there any form of labor protection that can be incorporated into agreements like NAFTA, that would guarantee workers rights? Or do you think that workers have to guarantee their labor rights in some other way?

Julia: I think both are possible. NAFTA could be renegotiated, to include effective and obligatory measures to enforce workers' rights. Holding transnational corporations accountable for complying with the law would be helpful to workers. At the same time, even if you have such protections as part of trade agreements, organizing workers at the grassroots level, forming workers' organizations, is vital. Otherwise, we can't enforce any rights recognized by those agreements.

David: What about support from unions on the other side of the border? I know that CFO has relationships with U.S. unions. Do they help guarantee labor rights on the border?

Julia: We've been creating alliances with some U.S. labor unions because we're working for the same companies, and we need to connect our struggles across the border. At the same time, we want these relationships to respect the autonomy of our own organizing style and our own work. Right now, what's most important to us is developing a greater level of commitment to Mexican workers among U.S. unions.

David: What about the Mexican labor movement? Is it going to become more effective and responsive to border workers?

Julia: I think so. When workers take control of their lives, they can make great changes. That's our hope. Ultimately we want an independent labor movement in the maquiladoras. Genuine unionism is the best hope for our families and our future. And we've been able to build important alliances with other unions and movements within Mexico. We share common objectives with unions like the Authentic Labor Front (FAT), and with the independent union called Alcoa Puebla. This union was formed at the Alcoa factory in Puebla, with the help of the independent union at the Volkswagen plant there. Some groups of miners are part of this network also. All these organizations are looking for ways to support maquiladora workers more effectively. We also have an agreement with the National Union of Workers, Mexico's large, new progressive labor federation. It's vital for Mexican workers to form a common front, and work together to revitalize our labor movement.

David: There are a number of other maquiladora worker organizing projects along the border in different cities. There is one in Tijuana, CITTAC, and another one in Torreón, Enlace or Sedepac. The Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras includes many of these. Do you foresee any efforts to try and bring these groups together, to create an umbrella under which maquiladora workers can organize in different cities all along the border?

Julia: All of these organizations have the same objective. They're looking for social justice, justice for workers. We find different ways to work, but we are seeking the same goals, the same justice. This process has its ups and downs. We win sometimes, we lose other times. The challenge we all face is to be consistent, so that when workers organize there is a movement to help them. Sometimes when there's a bunch of firings, the organization falls apart. The hard thing is to build organizations that can survive these blows.

David: What can an ordinary worker in the US do to be part of this?

Julia: The first thing workers can do is organize themselves and fight for their own jobs where they are. This is the first step towards building international solidarity. For the companies, there are simply no borders anymore, or barriers to the movement of capital. We need to take a lesson from their mentality, and build the same borderless solidarity and support for one another. If workers in the U.S. understand that Mexican workers face huge economic difficulties when they try to organize themselves, they can contribute economic support. Mexican organizations don't have the same capacity as organizations in the United States.

Supporting Mexican workers in the United States is important too. The effort of Mexican and other immigrant workers to legalize their status is connected to our rights as workers in Mexico. If workers in the U.S. can't exercise fully their rights, it brings everybody down. Ultimately, the economic level of everybody has to come up. Corporations are very good at looking around the world to see where conditions are the worst, and move to that place. If we can help each other come up, they won't be able to do that.

The main office for the Comite Fronterizo de Obreras (CFO) is in Piedras Negras, Coahuila. Their website, www.cfomaquiladoras.org. has materials in Spanish and English.

Thanks to David Bacon, Photographs and Stories, http://dbacon.igc.org

Back to February , 2006 Table of Contents

Mexico’s Minimum Wage the Most Eroded in Latin America

Mexico’s minimum wage has been eroded over the last twenty years so that today it is the most deteriorated minimum wage in Latin America, according to several recent studies. Mexico’s minimum wage is established by the National Minimum Wage Commission made up of government, employer and union representatives. The union representatives come from the old “official unions” of the Congress of Labor, such as the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM).

The minimum wage which took effect on January 1, 2006 can buy only 16 percent of what a worker could buy with the minimum wage two decades ago. Today the minimum wage is 48.67 pesos in zone A, 47.16 in zone B, and 45.81 in zone C. (That is less than $5.00 per day.) This wage would allow a worker to buy one or two of the basic products each day, such as meat or chicken, but no more.

Studies by the Center of Multidisciplinary Analysis of the Nacional Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), by the Workers’ University of Mexico (UOM), the Center for Labor Reflection and Action (CEREAL) and the Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME) agree that the new minimum wage does not meet the Basic needs of workers as stipulated in the Mexican Constitution.

Back to February , 2006 Table of Contents

Mexico and Merosur: A Trojan Horse?

By Laura Carlsen

Laura Carlsen directs the Americas Program of the International Relations Center, online at americas.irc-online.org. Translated from: México en el Mercosur: ¿Un Caballo de Troya? by Katie Kohlstedt. Published by Americas Program, International Relations Center (IRC) americas.irc-online.org

[January 9, 2006] Mexico's absence was noted in the most recent meeting of Mercosur. Neither President Vicente Fox nor Foreign Relations Secretary Luis Derbez, invited to represent the second-largest economy in the region, attended the event in Montevideo, citing previous commitments. For many observers, the real reason they left the duty to the Mexican Ambassador to Uruguay was to avoid the obligation to congratulate Venezuela and President Hugo Chávez on its induction as a member of Mercosur. Mexico and Venezuela mutually withdrew their ambassadors in November due to a difficult ‘conflict of ideas' resulting from the Fouth Summit of the Americas in Mar del Plata.

The President and Chancellor of Mexico were invited as observers to the Mercosur Summit. Mexico presented its formal application for addition to Mercosur as an Associated Nation at the summit in Puerto Iguazú in July 2004. However, the follow up on the application was weak, showing Mexico's vision of a future more based upon their northern relationships as part of NAFTA.

The 2005 Summit of the Americas in Mar del Plata, Argentina, highlighted the distances between Mexico (faithful promoter of the U.S. proposal for the creation of the Free Trade Area of the Americas) and the countries of Mercosur, who rejected the proposal to put the FTAA on the Summit's agenda.
Despite the differences exposed at the Summit, a day later President Fox expressed his peculiar version of the relationship, declaring, “My love for these agreements is complete and encompassing, Mercosur and the FTAA... and I will continue to pursue and to love them.” Mexico has signed free trade agreements with 42 countries, but this market promiscuity has had little benefit for the Aztec-rooted country, which has shown a negative balance of trade in the last seven straight years.

In a letter addressed to the Uruguayan President on December 2nd, the Mexican government emphasized its desire to be integrated into Mercosur, saying that “Mexico wants to be a part of the integration efforts that Mercosur promotes.” It emphasizes the need to create economies of scale, as a result of its own incorporation, “Mexico's participation as an Associated Nation of Mercosur will contribute to the strengthening of Latin America and its positioning on the international market.” Also mentioned was that “an important step in the process of Mexico's association with Mercosur consists of reinforcing political dialogue oriented at democratic consolidation.” Mexico openly expresses its desire to participate in Mercosur's Forum on Consultation and Political Agreement.

These two goals (participation in the political decisions made by the block as well as forging a larger commercial block) raise many questions. What is Mexico looking for with its integration into Mercosur? After its role in the Fourth Summit, some see Mexico's insistence on democracy as another attempt to promote the U.S. agenda and a new campaign to connect ‘liberty' with free trade and attacks on countries that do not share its world vision (most of all Venezuela) for the south. On the other hand, Mexico's persistence in promoting commercial blocks with leanings towards massive global trade liberalization contradict some versions of the plans of Mercosur, which lean towards national and regional economic strengthening as a basis to improve competitiveness on the world market.

Perhaps it is an exaggeration to say that Mexico is a Trojan horse presented to Mercosur representing U.S. interests. However, without a doubt their application pushes a model of economic integration that is important to evaluate carefully. Before leaning more towards NAFTA, Mercosur has the task of refining its own criteria in order to redefine a new integration strategy that today does not seem to have found its new course.

Back to February , 2006 Table of Contents

Resources

Articles of interest:

The NAFTA Corridors: Offshoring U.S. transportation Jobs to Mexico by Richard D. Vogel in Monthly Review, February 2006, http://www.monthlyreview.org/0206vogel.htm

"Global Commodity Chains and Endogenous Growth: Export Dynamism
and Development in Mexico and Honduras", by Jennifer Bair and Enrique Dussel Peters, World Development 34(2), pp. 203-221. This document may be viewed in the magazine itself or at http://dusselpeters.com under "nuevos".

Back to February , 2006 Table of Contents

Correction

The last MLNA, incorrectly identified the new general secretary of the CTM, Joaquín Gamboa Pascoe, as head of the Union of Workers of the Federal District (SUTGDF). In fact Gamboa was and is the general secretary of the Federación de Trabajadores del Distrito Federal, the CTM state organization in the DF. The SUTGDF, whose president is Enrique Hanff Vázquez, has a progressive leadership closely linked to López Obrador (although it is still technically part of the FSTSE). Notably, SUTGDF signed the NAALC complaint against the Abascal labor law reform.

Back to February , 2006 Table of Contents

Back to Table of Contents of Mexican Labor News & Analysis articles.

Archived MLNA issues.