MEXICAN LABOR NEWS AND ANALYSIS
Vol. 6, No. 8, October 15, 2001
About Mexican Labor News and Analysis:
Mexican Labor News and Analysis (MLNA) is produced in collaboration with
the Authentic Labor Front (Frente Auténtico del Trabajo FAT) of Mexico
and the United Electrical Workers (UE) of the United States, and with the
support of the Resource Center of the Americas in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
MLNA can be viewed at the UE's international web site: www.ueinternational.org For information about direct subscriptions, submission of articles, and all queries contact editor Dan La Botz at the following e-mail address: labotzdh@muohio.edu or call in the U.S.(513) 861-8722. The U.S. mailing address is: Dan La Botz, Mexican Labor News and Analysis, 3503 Middleton Ave., Cincinnati, OH 45220.
Most MLNA articles may be reprinted by other electronic or print media.
If the article includes a byline, republication requires the author's approval.
For permission, please contact the author directly. If there is no byline,
republication is authorized if the reproduction includes the following paragraph:
This article was published by Mexican Labor News and Analysis www.ueinternational.org,
a monthly collaboration of the Mexico City-based Authentic Labor Front (FAT),
the Pittsburgh-based United Electrical Workers (UE) and AMERICAS.ORG, www.americas.org.
Contact Editor Dan La Botz at danlabotz@cs.com or 513-861-8722. For a free e-mailed subscription, send a message to mlna@americas.org with "subscribe" in the subject line.
The UE Home Page which displays Mexican Labor News and Analysis has an INDEX of back issues and an URGENT ACTION ALERT section.
Staff: Editor, Dan La Botz. Managing editor, Larry Weiss. Correspondents in Mexico: Peter Gellert and Michal Kohout. Regular contributors: David Bacon.
IN THIS ISSUE
From: Campaign for Labor Rights
Workers at the Kuk Dong factory in Atlixco, Puebla, Mexico have finally won their independent union and a signed collective agreement. This is a precedent-setting victory that could open the door to worker organizing in Mexico's maquiladora sector where, to date, independent unions have not been tolerated.
On September 21, a new collective agreement was signed by the company, which has changed its name to Mex Mode, and the independent union, now known as SITEMEX.
The same day the contract was filed with the Puebla Conciliation and Arbitration Board, the union was granted its legal registration. Of the 450 workers currently employed at the factory, 399 signed the application for the independent union.
The workers had formerly been "represented" by the FROC-CROC, an "official" labor federation linked to the Puebla State government and Mexico's historical ruling party, the PRI. On August 31, an agreement was reached between all parties involved in the dispute recognizing the independent union and terminating the "protection contract" between the company and the FROC-CROC.
The victory is the product of a difficult nine-month struggle by the workers for their right to be represented by the union of their choice. It would not have been possible without the coordinated support provided by the Workers Support Center (CAT) in Mexico, Students Against Sweatshops groups in the US and Canada, labor organizations including the AFL-CIO and CLC, and solidarity groups including the US Labor Education in the Americas Project (US/LEAP), Campaign for Labor Rights (CLR), the Korean House for International Solidarity, and the Maquila Solidarity Network.
You may remember CLR's July efforts to organize delegations to nearly 40 of the 45 Mexican Consulate offices in the US. Many thanks to those of you who organized or participated in those delegations in your communities! The letters you delivered to Consuls about the situation at Kukdong (now Mex Mode) were delivered to President Fox in diplomatic pouches from the US. The delegations are recognized as an important piece of the international pressure campaign in support of the workers' union.
Other organizations that played crucial roles in documenting worker rights
violations at the factory and convincing major buyers such as Nike, Reebok
and a number of US universities to intervene in support of the workers'
right to freedom of association include the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC),
the International Labor Rights Fund (ILRF), Verité, Mexican labor
lawyer Arturo Alcalde, and Professor Huberto Juarez and students at the
Autonomous University of Puebla.
Continued Support for Mex Mode Workers Requested
This important victory will be a hollow one if the major buyers -- Nike
and Reebok -- walk away from the factory and fail to live up to their commitment
to resume and continue placing orders with Mex Mode. We urge you to help
the workers consolidate their victory by writing to Nike and Reebok thanking
them for the positive role they have played and strongly urging them to
demonstrate their ongoing commitment to the right of workers to freedom
of association by placing orders with Mex Mode.
Thanks to all the members and friends of MSN who responded to many urgent action alerts with letters of support for the workers at Mex Mode, formerly Kuk Dong.
Sample Letter
(Please write your own, and send us a copy: CLRmain@afgj.org)
Vada Manager, Director, Global Issues Management
Nike Inc.
One Bowerman Drive
Beaverton, OR 97003-6433 USA
Fax: (503) 671-6300
E-mail: vada.manager@nike.com
Dear Mr. Manager:
I am writing to thank Nike for the positive role your company played in helping to ensure that workers' right to freedom of association at the Mex Mode factory, formerly known as Kuk Dong, in Atlixco, Mexico are respected.
I am very pleased to learn that the company and the local Mexican labor board have recognized the union of the workers' choice, and that the new union, SITEMEX, and Mex Mode have successfully negotiated a collective agreement.
I would strongly urge your company to demonstrate your ongoing commitment to the right of workers to freedom of association by not walking away from Mex Mode now that a fair resolution to the dispute has been achieved. Please make good on your commitment to the workers at Mex Mode by resuming and continuing to place orders with the factory.
I look forward to receiving word that your company is placing and will continue to place orders with Mex Mode as long as the workers' rights are respected.
Sincerely,
(Your Name)
Please adapt the above letter and send to:
Doug Cahn, Vice President, Human Rights Programs
Reebok
1895 J. W. Foster Boulevard
Canton, MA 02021 USA
Fax: 781-401-4806 or e-mail: doug.cahn@reebok.com
By Dan La Botz
The terrorist attack on New York and Washington, D.C., and the United States government's war on Afghanistan, have had a direct and negative impacts on Mexican workers, the labor and social movements, as well as migrant workers and Mexican immigrants. The U.S. government policies and actions have exacerbated the Mexican economic crisis, leading to more layoffs, weakening labor unions, social movements, and progressives, and threatening to move Mexico's conservative government even further to the right as it embraces Bush's so-called "war on terrorism."
President Vicente Fox, guided by his Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jorge Castañeda, astounded many Mexicans when he leapt to support the United States and its "war on terrorism," breaking with a long tradition of neutrality. Mexico pledged to do everything but send troops to Afgahnistan.
Some Mexican political analysts immediately expressed their objections to the policy, arguing that Mexico should not be drawn into what would be an imperialist and racist war. Mexican author Elena Poniatowska, a leading Mexican feminist and intellectual who speaks out for labor and left-wing causes, was in the Cincinnati, Ohio area to speak at local Miami University. She expressed her opposition to the war, and her concern about the U.S. campaign's possible implications for the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN).
The Immediate Economic Impact
The war's first almost immediate impact resulted from the shutdown of airports
and cancellation of scheduled airline flights between Mexico and the United
States, and the closing of the U.S.-Mexico border. Directly affected workers
included flight pilots and flight attendants. The subsequent decline in
travel and airline bookings has also resulted in lay-offs and lost days
and hours for airline workers.
The U.S. government's closing of the Mexico border also hurt the workers in the 3,500 maquiladora plants employing about 1.25 million workers, an industry already reeling from the economic recession that has gripped both the United States and Mexico. Within the first day of the attacks, plants on the border had to close because of lack of parts imported from the United States and an inability to move finished goods back north across the international frontier. In addition to the manufacturing workers, warehousemen and truck drivers also faced layoffs.
There will also be longer-term economic implications. The terrorist attack in the United States has caused that country's already declining economy to worsen for a variety of reasons, which in turn has led to a further downturn in the highly dependent Mexican economy.
Political Impact
While the most immediate impact has been economic, the political implications
could be even more important. Many fear that Bush's war on terrorism may
affect Mexican social movements, such as the EZLN.
Since January 1, 1994 when it first appeared on the political scene as the leader of the Chiapas Rebellion, an armed uprising of dispossessed Mayan Indians and other poor peasants in Mexico's southernmost state, the EZLN has received wide support within Mexico society. Many Mexican social movements, labor unions, and some political organizations have expressed their support and solidarity for the Zapatistas and their demands for autonomy for indigenous communities, economic well being, and social justice generally.
While the guerrilla group has maintained a cease-fire, and entered into negotiations that led to a broad peace and social justice agreement in February 1996--an agreement subsequently rejected by the Mexican government--the EZLN has never laid down its arms. The question arises whether the U.S. war on terrorism will be extended to armed rebels like the EZLN. For example, the United States has characterized the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) as a terrorist organization.
Some in Mexico fear that pushed by the United States, Mexico may adopt new internal security measures which would affect civil and political rights, and threaten social movements. For decades the Institutional Revolutionary Party government's Ministry of the Interior (Gobernación), something very like the U.S. government's new Secretary of Homeland Defense, engaged in electronic eaves-dropping, spying, and te use of agents provocateurs. With the election of Fox, many Mexicans thought the government might become democratic, granting the people civil and human rights. Now they fear, the U.S. war on terrorism may lead to a new era of snooping, dirty-tricks, and real repression against social movements, such as labor unions. (See the related articles below: FAT FEARS REPRESSION and COPARMEX DENOUNCES "INFILTRATION" BY AFL-CIO). Some have even suggested that the U.S. government might want to intervene in Mexico to eliminate armed groups.
Affect on Migrant Workers and Immigrants
The terrorist attack also has implications for migrant workers and immigrants
to the United States. Before the attack and the war, President Fox and Foreign
Minister Jorge Castañeda were pushing the United States to give a
general amnesty to many Mexican immigrants living in the United States,
and to grant a greater number of visas for new immigrants. Now, however,
after the attacks, with the war, and with a rise in racism and xenophobia
in the United States, such changes in the status of migrant workers and
immigrants will be pushed to the back burner.
In the United States there has been speculation that following the attacks the government may attempt to create a national identity card, as well as new forms of border controls which could make the situation of migrant workers and undocumented immigrants even more tenuous.
All of the developments associated with the terrorist attack in New York and Washington, and the U.S. war in Afghanistan threaten both the immediate economic well being of Mexican workers, and their long-term struggles for social justice.
The Center of Investigation and National Security (CISEN), Mexico's most
powerful intelligence agency akin to the U.S. CIA and FBI, has warned that
guerrilla groups had infiltrated labor unions, leftist organizations and
political parties, according to articles in the Mexican press in September
(before the attack on the World Trade Center).
Jorge Robles, a spokesperson for the Authentic Labor Front (FAT) said that
the CISEN statement "presages a wave of repression" against social
movements and dissidents.
The government, said Robles, has launched "a campaign to destabilize all those political and social forces that continue to speak out about the new government's failures, and its attempts to change the labor law."
CISEN claims that the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), the People's Revolutionary Army (EPR), the The Revolutionary Armed Forces of the People (FARP) and the National Liberation Forces (FLN), armed opposition groups in Mexico have infiltrated political parties such as the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), the Social Democratic Party (DS), the Revolutionary Workers Party (PRT); poor people's movements such as the National Coordinating Committee of Urban Popular Movements (CONAMUP), the National Coordinating Committee of the Teachers Union (la CNTE), and the Authentic Labor Front (FAT), among others.
Robles accused the CISEN of behaving just as it had under the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), "with defamation, and then repression." The CISEN sources, he said, are not reliable. "The FAT does not conspire, it is a non-violent organization that fights for the rights of workers," he said. Robles suggested that the Fox administration should put more emphasis on workers' rights. Robles reminded Fox that during his campaign he had signed a statement on June 7, 2000 recognized 20 demands by the independent labor movement, which had still to be carried out.
The issue of CISEN possibly defaming labor unions in order to attack them later as infiltrated by guerrillas becomes even more significant after September 11 and the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center towers in New York and the United States' "war on terrorism." One can imagine a scenario where Mexican authorities take advantage of the new fight against "terrorism" to move against social critics and activists.
The AFL-CIO came under attack during the Annual Meeting of Industrialists
2001, when Guillermo Campuzano Zambrano, President of the Labor Relations
Committee of COPARMEX, accused it of "provoking labor conflicts with
the objective of equalizing wages with those of American workers in order
to force us out of the market." He claimed that the federation was
complicit with the Frente Auténtico del Trabajo (FAT) in "harming
Mexican Businesses," alleging that such infiltration stretched across
the Northern part of the country from Tijuana to Matamoros. In some newspaper
accounts, the UNT came under fire, as well.
The denunciations were made in front of Carlos Abascal Carranza, Mexico's
Secretary of Labor, who announced that his office would conduct an investigation
together with other agencies and urged the businessmen to submit a formal
complaint "which included specific names." Although he advised
the industrialists that "…we can't ignore that globalization includes
businesses and also implies a certain globalization among unions,"
he stressed that "this does not justify the interference of Mexico
in U.S. labor legislation or in Canadian labor practices, or viceversa."
The FAT responded by delivering a statement to Abascal in which the national leadership of the FAT declared that their organization would continue to "work to build unions (in industrial plants, including in the maquilas in the North), in accordance with the Mexican Constitution, the Federal Labor Law, the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation of NAFTA, and the international conventions of the ILO which have been signed and ratified by the Mexican government." In doing so, "we will build alliances with fraternal labor organizations in Mexico, the United States and the rest of the world." We will "create links of "unity and solidarity with unions and democratic workers organizations throughout the world, and there is no law which prohibits the defense of labor rights."
The national leaders of the FAT flatly denied that such alliances were formed with the intent of damaging Mexican industry, pointing out that businesses which had closed had done so because of obsolete technology which had left them unable to compete in light of the opening of the market to foreign competition, "not because of the remuneration to workers." Rather, "the testimony of businesses where negotiations with authentic unions have become the way to reach the highest levels of quality demonstrate precisely the opposite."
The statement concluded with the protest "that on the one hand we are accused of being 'globalophobics' when we note that commercial agreements are negotiated in terms which harm Mexican industry, agriculture and workers, and on the other hand we are accused of conspiring with foreigners when we join with workers of other countries to defend our common interests."
Meanwhile, labor organizations in El Paso and Juarez denied that any sort of infiltration existed. "We work in our country," Jim Barlow, the spokesperson for the Teamsters stated bluntly.
By Dan La Botz
Mexico's recession, a result of the downturn in the U.S. economy now exacerbated by the aftereffects of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington on Sept. 11, has now reached crisis proportions as the government, employers and labor unions rushed to put forward plans to stanch the plant closings, layoffs, and the spreading economic misery.
Employers have proposed drastic measures to deal with what they fear could become a catastrophic economic situation. Mexican employer associations have suggested employers close plants temporarily for short periods, reduce the workday, make local arrangements on a plant by plant basis, and hold down workers' wages. Mexican employers have also called for strengthening the internal market, to create more demand for products within the country.
Raúl Picard del Prado, head of the National Chamber of the Manufacturing Industry (CANACINTRA), suggested that employers might reduce the workday to five hours, paying workers 50 percent of their wages, if the government of Vicente Fox would forgive businessmen who owe money to the Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS) and to the workers housing program (INFONAVIT).
At the same time, some employer groups have argued that workers have to hold down wage demands. Jorge Espina of the Confederation of Mexican Employers (COPARMEX) has suggested that if workers ask for wage gains of more than 10 percent, there would be more plant closing and layoffs.
The National Association of the Manufacturing Industry (ANIT) proposed eliminating benefits, such as payments to INVONAVIT, and using the savings to pay workers real wage increases up to 17 percent. ANIT accused the government of manipulating workers' wages.
Arturo González Cruz, head of the Confederation of National Chambers of Commerce, pledged to keep its workforce in place by reducing profit margins. He said his confederation would work to strengthen consumers and protect incomes. But such promises will be hard to keep as businesses find fewer consumers because workers have lost their jobs, or have reduced incomes.
The various employer programs, from the altruistic to the opportunistic, show the desperation of the moment-and also the lack of a national program or consensus to deal with economic matters.
In late September, some 905,000 Mexicans could not find jobs, equivalent to an "open unemployment rate" of 2.32 percent. "Open unemployment" refers to the government's official figures, which may not cover all workers since many work in the informal or underground economy where those hirings and layoffs never come to light. The Mexican Institute of Statistics (INEGI) estimates that Mexico has 22,210,562 workers in the formal economy, and 16,395,838 in the informal economy.
Looking at the problem from various angles, the situation is bleak: In Mexico City, 110,000 workers lost their jobs in the last seven months. In the Monterrey region in northern Mexico the glass industry has laid off 3,000 workers. Nationally, in the textile industry, sales to the United States have fallen by 16 percent, and to all external markets by 12 percent, leading to the loss of 5,000 jobs. Mexico has to create one million jobs per year to employ all of those entering the job market, but this year it will create only 170,000 according to the Center of Economic Analysis and Projections for Mexico (CAPEM).
When a group of workers from the Grupo Covarra Confitalia Rivetex, a maquiladora that manufactures garments, attempted to take their labor protest to the state governor, Sérgio Estrada Cajigal Ramírez on Sept. 10, the governor's bodyguards pushed and beat the workers.
The occasion of the altercation was a public meeting where judge, Carmen Quijano Delgado was giving a report on his Tribunal, a local labor court. Dozens of workers attended the event to protest their labor conditions, carrying placards and banners.
Two of the victims, María Luisa Serna Sánchez and María Leticia Ruíz said that they had come to demand that governor Estrada, and the head of the Local Labor Board, Jorge Rendón Montealegre, who is also a major manufacturer of dough and tortillas, deal more fairly with worker complaints. Workers approached the governor to complain about massive as well as continuous repression since the governor took office 11 months ago.
During the last month many maquiladoras and other employers in Morelos have laid off workers, leading to protests over a variety of issues, such as severance pay. Police have been used to suppress the workers' protests on many occasions.
The Union Association of Airline Flight Attendants (ASSA), withdrew its threat of a strike against Mexicana airlines, and settled for an 8.5 wage gain on Sept. 15. With the Mexican economy in recession, and air travel and tourism plummeting after the September 11 attack on New York and Washington, the union had little alternative. The company had originally offered 5.8 percent, the union was seeking a wage gain over 10 percent.
"This has been our best negotiation, given the scenario we faced," said Alejandra Barrales, the head of ASSA.
Only a few days after the settlement, Mexicana and Aeromexico, the two major Mexican airlines, announced the layoff of 2,000 workers.
By Ricardo Hernández
[October 8, 2001] Arneses y Accesorios de México, a maquiladora subsidiary of Alcoa Fujikura Ltd., fired 186 workers in Ciudad Acuña on August 21, 2001 for participating in a work stoppage at Plant 5 that day. Among them were nine members of a rank-and-file committee recognized by the company.
In October of 2000, that committee achieved important victories for the 11,000 Alcoa workers in Ciudad Acuña, state of Coahuila, including a raise of up to 30 percent on their benefits and real wages. Members of this committee have also participated for many years in the Border Committee of Women Workers (Comité Fronterizo de Obrer@s, CFO), an organization of maquiladora workers that defends labor rights in several border cities.
With the support of responsible Alcoa shareholders, individuals and unions, the Alcoa workers and the CFO have met several times since 1996 with the company's top executives, including Paul O'Neill (former CEO and now U.S. Secretary of Treasury), Alain Belda (CEO), and Robert S. Hughes (CEO of Alcoa Fujikura), in Pittsburgh, San Antonio and Ciudad Acuña. In this Mexican border city, Mr. Hughes himself listened for four hours, without the presence of local management, to a group of 70 workers in May of 2000.
In the last five years, as a result of the workers taking action in the Alcoa plants and raising their demands to U.S. executives, they have obtained two wage increases, more safety equipment, improvements in the hygiene of the facilities, and the recognition in July of 2000 of the above-mentioned workers committee. The committee would be in charge of bringing the workers' concerns to meetings with plant managers. The CFO and Alcoa executives reached consensus on the decision to address and try to solve the problems at the plant level.
In the absence of a union in those Alcoa plants, the workers committee
was fulfilling the role of a real union, negotiating benefits for the rank
and file and deterring abuses committed by supervisors, managers and foremen.
Although some top executives encouraged their Acuña management to
engage in dialogues with the workers committee, the local management never
demonstrated a real desire to talk. Instead, they always tried to delay,
to not honor agreements made in meetings, to provoke members of workers
committee, and finally to exasperate the rank and file.
The main demands raised during the work stoppage were:
1) Respect and consideration for pregnant workers;
2) A stop to harassment and bad treatment by supervisors and managers; and
3) Continuation of dialogue with the Arneses general manager.
Alcoa justifies the firing of the 186 workers by asserting the illegality
of the stoppage. That factor would exempt the company from responsibility,
a situation that has translated into the refusal of Alcoa to pay severance
to those workers. However, Alcoa also was acting illegally when it called
the city police to force the workers out of the Plant 5 a day after the
stoppage without any warrant. It was also illegal for a "world-class"
company, like
Alcoa affirms it is, to keep the doors of other plants chained and locked
so as to hold other workers captive and prevent them from joining the stoppage
and subsequent protests.
Labor stoppages have been customary for many years in Ciudad Acuña. If they are considered illegal, the truth is that they also are an expression of dissatisfaction with existing labor conditions in the maquiladoras and with the absence in that city of unions, a labor and conciliation board and other normal channels through which workers may redress labor issues.
Since August 21, the workers of Plant 5 have remained mobilized in Ciudad Acuña. For almost a month they camped at the city main plaza, organizing 12 arches that crossed the city and many of the 11 Alcoa plants in Acuña. Different community groups and respected public figures of Acuña, including the city's parish priest and a former city mayor, were very supportive of the workers. On Friday, August 31, 500 workers people participated in a March for Dignity. Further, from September 25 through October 2, three dismissed workers, including one woman, held a hunger strike outside Plant 5.
Some members of the Mexican media, as well as business and maquiladora associations have paid for ads and utilized the radio and TV to accuse the workers of "destabilizing" the maquiladora industry, blaming in particular Juan Tovar, an Alcoa worker, and Julia Quiñonez, coordinator of the Comité Fronterizo de Obrer@s. They both got mainstream coverage last February 15 when the New York Times published a front page article about Alcoa in Ciudad Acuña.
By refusing to negotiate, Alcoa forced many of the workers to declare their resignations and to accept a meager cash sum of not more than the equivalent of $200 dollars. The workers' families could not stand to endure more time at the city plaza after a month without wages. Nevertheless, around 100 dismissed workers remain firm in their demand of being reinstated by Alcoa. In fact, they have already filed a lawsuit and continue to put pressure on the Coahuila state government and labor authorities and on the Alcoa management.
Many of the dismissed workers are having difficulties finding another job because Alcoa, in complicity with maquiladora owners and the city government, has circulated black lists with the names of the workers involved in the struggle. Meanwhile, at least 50 more workers were fired by Alcoa in the weeks following the stoppage, for the only reason of being perceived by the management to sympathize with the workers committee. The rest of the work force inside the Alcoa plants faces new restrictions, such as not being able to leave the cafeteria area during lunch time.
The dismissed Alcoa workers and the Comité Fronterizo de Obrer@s are alerting national and international labor organizations of these events so that they may remain attentive to the development of the struggle, including he lawsuit for reinstatement; inform their constituents; and, if necessary, send solidarity in the ways the CFO may request.
To express solidarity, or if you have questions or comments, please contact:
Ricardo Hernández
AFSC Mexico-U.S. Border Program
Philadelphia, PA
215-241-7132
RHernand@afsc.org
By Kevin Murray, Grassroots International
[Mexico City] Social movements and organizations from 39 countries gathered in Mexico August 11-14 under the slogan "Globalize resistance, globalize hope." The meeting took place against the backdrop of worsening economic and political conditions in Mexico, a country facing all of the contradictions of global economic restructuring.
The economic downturn in the U.S. has led to an immediate recession in Mexico. Industrial production has declined for the last two quarters, and even the massive service sector is limping noticeably. This downturn comes on the heels of a long period of decline in the non-export agricultural sector. Vicente Fox remains a free market enthusiast, but even for the ex-CEO of Coke, the free market only goes so far.
With coffee prices at historic lows, President Fox announced that Mexico would be relying on the free market to adjust supply and demand for Mexican coffee. The government would limit its action to a publicity campaign trying to get Mexican's to buy more domestic coffee (it turns out that the Mexicans drink very little coffee). Just a few days later, the governors of the country's eight coffee-producing states came to Mexico for an emergency meeting with the President. Soon thereafter, Fox announced a plan for government subsidies for coffee producers. News reports did not make clear how these subsidies will affect indigenous producers of small amounts of coffee, such as the members of Grassroots International's Oaxaca-based partner, CEPCO. The governors, however, were clearly pleased.
An interesting group of four organizations called this meeting: CUT (Brazilian trade union federation of the left); ATTAC-France (the Tobin Tax organization), Focus on the Global South (a policy NGO based in Bangkok) and Via Campesina (an international peasant federation now headquartered in Honduras). The meeting had three basic goals:
1. To developed shared analysis of the current balance of power between
those promoting and those opposing corporate globalization;
2. To evaluate the efforts over the past three years to build an international
anti-globalization movement;
3. To consider next steps in the construction of a global justice alliance
with a strong alternative vision.
After three long days, the meeting closed, not with the customary declaration, but with a call to all social movements and organizations to find their places in this emerging global alliance for an alternative to the current forms of globalization. The document called for both continued resistance and reflection on the alternatives to the economic restructuring now underway. The September mobilizations in Washington and the World Conference Against Racism were included in a list of a dozen activities that all organizations are called upon to support in the next period. The next World Social Forum in Porto Alegre was given special attention as a space in which "based on even greater participation of organizations from around the planet, we can advance in this process of building an international social movement."
The day after the meeting closed, the much-discussed Law for Indigenous Rights and Culture came into effect. This law, which was altered by the Mexican Congress to the point that the Mexican National Indigenous Congress (CNI) opposed it, is seen as a major setback to efforts to end the conflict in the indigenous areas of the country, especially Chiapas. With the Mexican Army increasing its level of readiness in Chiapas and other areas, no one I spoke was particularly optimistic about the possibilities for any sort of reconciliation in the next period. The main question seems to be whether or not it will be humanly possible for people to continue to travel the difficult road of resistance.
[The following presentation by Bertha Elena Luján Uranga, Chief Financial Oversight Officer for the Government of Mexico City, was delivered on September18, 2001 at the 66th national convention of the United Electrical Workers (UE) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.]
Brothers and Sisters of the UE: I bring greetings from the Brothers and Sisters of the Authentic Workers Front of Mexico, a neighboring country with almost one hundred million inhabitants. Of those, ten percent, some ten million can be found today in the U.S., working in the fields, factories, hotels and restaurants of your country. They are ten million workers who should organize and struggle together with you for better conditions for working people in this country.
The collection of ideas and reflections that are shaped in the following presentation attempt to bring together what has been the daily work over the last few months of some members of organizations of civil society and of the Authentic Labor Front (FAT), who are currently working in the government of Mexico City. I, myself, after twenty five years at the FAT, an organization in which I am still active and in which I held various posts, today am part of that government, due to a decision which was both personal as well as a formal decision by the leadership of the FAT.
Our participation is a challenge. We are attempting to bring to the forefront specific programs of our social agenda to improve the life of Mexico City's inhabitants, some 20 million people in the capital of Mexico and the surrounding areas.
The new and varied responsibilities we have taken on as leaders and members of social movements now in the government administration, are a direct product of the history in which we have participated and for the most part, are the result of the internal workings and the relationship between advocacy organizations and organizations of civil society. They are also the result of a political process where a vote at the ballot box brought people expressing positions of the democratic left into the government of Mexico City.
In Mexico, we live under the predominance of a party of the State which, the PRI - the Institutional Revolutionary Party - for more than 70 years has exercised corporativist control over social, political and economic organizations, imposing an authoritarian and extraordinary anti-democratic culture which has denigrated all social sectors.
Yet beginning in 1998, in our nation's capital, the Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRD) led by Cuauhtemoc Cárdenas, won the election and did so again in the subsequent election in 2000. People voted for the PRD as an expression of their support of a democratic government.
In that same year, 2000, Vicente Fox, from the National Action Party (PAN) - a party which is considered to be of the right - won at the federal level. Today there are three parties in our country: the PRI, the PAN, and the PRD which govern various states and municipalities. Of these three parties, we believe that the PRD is the closest to the interests of the workers.
Therefore, the PRD governments have confronted adversaries of democracy, justice, and freedom who opposed and continue to oppose the demands of a society which is increasingly aware of its needs and of the possibilities for meeting those needs through cooperation, solidarity, and through initiatives which incorporate components of sustainability, justice, and dignity.
From December 2000 on, Mexico City's Government, headed by Mr. Andrés Manuel López Obrader, has incorporated hundreds of members of social organizations into a great variety of government positions, and it is those people who today are responsible for effectively governing one of the largest cities in the world.
These social activists represent years of work in social organizations and they continue to work to build a democratic government that is part of the plan to create an egalitarian state which prioritizes social programs for the most vulnerable in our society (the elderly, children, women, unemployed and the poor), dedicating to these programs the great majority of the public resources of our city.
The government of which today I am part, has raised the wages of the workers it employs several points above the wage cap which marks the economic policy of the regime of the President Vicente Fox. On the other hand we are experiencing a low intensity conflict with the leadership of the unions which cover the workers in Mexico City, because a large number of them answer to the inertia of the old system that even though it has been given a fatal blow still has not passed onto a better life.
Today, the Frente Auténtico del Trabajo has recently affiliated a large group of transportation workers, 2,500 workers who have decided to join the FAT. With the conditions which exist under the new government, we believe that there are excellent possibilities for an advance of democratic trade unionism in the City, because the FAT is developing specific areas of organizing work among the different sectors of workers of Mexico City. We hope that this will mean that new members will be incorporated into our organization in the near future.
To define new projects - what it is that we want and what it is that we can do - from this new position within the government, constitutes a challenge for us: how to efficiently and effectively use the government's resources which for the years were the fountains of wealth for corrupt politicians, including the brothers of presidents, and which were oriented only towards reproducing conditions of marginalization and injustice for the great majority of the inhabitants of our city. This is a task which we are taking up with commitment and optimism.
To do so, the City Government is relying upon the experience of many years of struggle by civil society. We can talk about the programs that encourage participation of our citizens with the formation of almost 1500 neighborhood committees that have been organized to do community work and coordinate social programs led by known activists from peoples' movements. We can also talk about the work in the area of labor and more specifically, the administration of Mexico City's Labor Board which is now in the hands of democratic lawyers who bring with them a well known history of honesty and militancy. This is an organization which has also been close to the UE through its lawyers and due to the participation of Robin Alexander in its meetings and conventions.
In my case, I was invited to participate as the Chief Financial Oversight Officer of the Mexico City government whose offices are responsible for the control, auditing and overview of the public administration's funds. This agency is now charged with a very important governmental function: the fight against corruption. If we speak of a country where for seventy years one party governed with total impunity, utilizing public resources with impunity, one can see the challenge that we face in dismantling the various corrupt networks which were created in our country over all of those years. The reason I was invited to participate in the government was an attempt to incorporate someone from civil society who was independent and had an honest and democratic history, and who would contribute to the credibility of the government in its fight against corruption.
We are talking about the emergence of a democratic government confronting seven decades of the Institutionalized Revolutionary Party (PRI) in power. These years were equated with corruption, a deterioration of a social covenant and a distortion of what should be the relationship between government and society. We believed that it was important to contribute to this historic stage from a position in government. We believed that forming a part of the government would be a way to push forth an agenda that demanded clear accounting, transparency, honest use of resources and citizen participation. We believe we were correct in making this decision.
As part of this government we've also been able to push for the demands of democratic trade unionism. For example, we have pushed for a public registry of union contracts in an atmosphere where the collective bargaining agreements which govern relations between workers and management are a state secret. In Mexico, this information is jealously guarded by the state and this has encouraged the existence of "protection contracts" which are signed behind the backs of workers, and which permit control over the workers. We have also pushed for secret ballot elections in Mexico City, in an atmosphere where union elections have been conducted by voice vote which facilitates the immediate discharge of workers who oppose official unions. We believe that both of these questions - the demand for a public registry of union contracts and secret ballot elections - both of which are among the historic demands of independent trade union movement, have both received a positive response from the government of Mexico City, which constitutes an incredibly important advance in the labor arena, and an example to the other states and to the Federal government.
Within the agency for which I am responsible, we are developing a program which we have called Citizen Oversight. Today there are more than 200 people known for their honesty who, without any form of compensation, are participating with a voice and vote in decisions within government agencies regarding the management and use of public resources of the City. At the same time we are proposing laws regarding the need for information and for transparency in government operations, so that, by means of access to information and transparency, it will be possible to struggle against corruption and to end the regime of impunity that existed - and still exists - in many parts of the country.
As I said earlier, from our different government positions, we are supporting the historic demands of Mexico's labor and social movements. We want to tell you, that our thoughts and actions today have been enriched also by those who just a short time ago were ignored and seen as an unpleasant aftertaste of a remote past in extinction, the Zapatista Indians. Their call of attention to Mexico and to the world has given us a very important space for reflection.
Their motto of fighting for a world where all worlds have a place took up the need of millions of us to search within our own specific demands for new collective identities, ones which include all peoples, ones which are generous and open to the future.
Their call reminded us of what the neoliberal technocrats have taken pains to have us forget: that today need not be a repeat of yesterday, that tomorrow can be different from today, that human beings can have plans for their nation or for their lives which are new and original and that are far from the uniformity and the inequality that neoliberalism has proposed.
We believe that the situation which you have confronted since last Tuesday, today it has been a week, provides an opportunity to reflect on the type of country and world that we as workers want and need, and to turn our anger, anxiety and anguish towards the true enemies of the interests of the majority of the world's people, against those who don't permit people to live with dignity - to struggle against those entities which provoke violence and to find the best roads which will peacefully resolve the problems of the majority, of all of the inhabitants of the world, where ever they live.
Those of us who have a perspective on life that collective action in which unions and the fight to achieve better working and living conditions for workers is crucial, have found some spaces that are particularly favorable to that struggle. At the same time they are exceedingly complex. Yet we can start from a place where left parties can occupy positions of power and open the possibility of participation of social leaders who share a democratic plan.
Those of us who are government functionaries today, fought yesterday from the trenches of Mexico's civil society, and we have not given up our banners. Rather, we continue to lift them from new positions and with different possibilities and we believe better positions from new fields.
The challenge is to give new content to institutions that were created to control and mediate social struggles. The challenge is to build a new relationship between the government and civil society in which respect and collective interests rule over personal interests or those of a single group. We are not alone in this struggle. We are accompanied by a society that is ever more aware and organized and that said "Enough!" to one regime whom many considered immovable.
That's why we believe today as in other decades that change is found in the deepest depths of our society, in the common people, the workers who fight and who organize every day with greater effectiveness.
Our constant task is to contribute to the organization and the voice of millions of workers, with whom those at the summit of power haggled over spaces within which they could express their legitimate demands and needs. Our work is to consolidate a democratic government that truly attends to the needs of the people and is in fact a government of the people.
We are here with you today, joining in your convention, with the desire to share our experience in a honest and frank way, to enrich our daily work and the perspectives for action that our labor movements and organizations share.
We continue to fight with you shoulder to shoulder for justice and democracy. Today, as yesterday, we are convinced that we will triumph and that there will be a better future for our children and the children of our children. Tomorrow is up to us. It is up to us to build that future!
Thank you very much for listening to me.
Thank you for letting me share this convention with you.
Long live the workers of the world!
Long live the UE! Long live the FAT!