MEXICAN LABOR NEWS AND ANALYSIS
Vol. 6, No. 9, November, 2001
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Staff: Editor, Dan La Botz. Managing editor, Larry Weiss. Correspondents
in Mexico: Peter Gellert and Michal Kohout. Regular contributors: David
Bacon.
IN THIS ISSUE:
By Dan La Botz
The recession in the United States, the September 11 terrorist attack on
New York, and the United States war in Afghanistan, together with other
economic and political developments, have brought about a severe economic
crisis in Latin America that threatens whatever economic gains had been
made in recent years, jeopardizes social programs, and makes labor organization
more difficult. Within this context the Mexican people, labor organizations
and social movements face one of the most challenging situations in recent
decades.
The Latin American Economic Crisis
The Latin American economic crisis manifests itself in various ways, affecting
people throughout the Americas.
*The U.S. recession has affected nearly all Latin Americans one way or another,
as U.S. corporations cut back on production, orders, and employment in Latin
American countries.
*At the same time, in the United States layoffs have reduced workers' remittances
to their families in Latin America, an important source of income for countries
such as Mexico and El Salvador.
*The terrorist attack has also affected tourism as U.S. vacationers gave
up plans to travel to Latin America. Airlines, hotels, and the entire tourist
industry have been hurt.
*Many Latin American immigrants in the United States have returned home
after losing their jobs in the U.S., while others have given up plans to
fly to their home countries for the holidays, either because of the fear
of flying, the new stricter controls on immigration and borders, or because
they cannot afford to.
*Various regions of Latin America have been particularly affected by the
crisis, and though the problems often appear to have a local and particular
origin, they usually related to the larger political-economic situation:
*Unable to pay its foreign debt, Argentina threatens to default on a total
of $132 billion in loans, a development that could affect Brazil and bring
down the entire Latin American financial system.
*The government of Venezuela, Latin America's largest oil producer, finds
itself faced with a looming recession as well as with a dramatic fall in
oil prices.
*Coffee producing countries such as Nicaragua and Colombia have been devastated
by the collapse of coffee prices. Tens of thousands of farmers will lose
their farms, workers will lose their jobs, and many families will fall into
poverty and hunger.
*Cuba, with an economy that depends on tourism from Europe and North America
(particularly Canada), and on remittances from Cuban relatives in the United
States, has also been hard hit by the crisis.
The Political Crisis
The economic crisis has contributed to, and in turn been shaped by, an accompanying
political crisis in various countries. While each of the political crises
has its origins in the particular country under consideration, they all
now have certain common elements within the international economic and political
crisis.
The country with the greatest political problems is Argentina, where Fernando
de la Rua's government --known for slashing social programs to pay foreign
bankers--has been threatened with a political rebellion by the provincial
governments that cannot pay their bills without Federal support. At the
same time, poor people block highways demanding that the government maintain
social welfare payments and labor unions periodically take to the streets
in massive marches or engage in general strikes to demand jobs, wages, and
social programs.
But every government in Latin America now watches Argentina=s agony with
great anxiety, wondering if it may be next. Today no government in Latin
America, including Cuba, has immunity from the economic problems that can
provoke political crisis, and one or another sort of realignment. In such
circumstance, we have to wonder if military coups will attempt to overturn
democratic governments, or if we will see the rise of new social movements
that will fight for greater economic justice.
Mexico: Economic Crisis and Political Disappointment
Within this broader context, Mexico's economic crisis continues with corporations
closing plants or laying off workers, and hundreds of thousands of jobs
being lost. According to the Mexican Institute of Statistics, by the end
of August the maquiladoras had lost 140,000 jobs, and by now no doubt tens
of thousands more. The 5.9 percent fall in maquiladora employment by that
date represents the greatest decline since this sector began. Some industrialists
and commentators have referred to the maquiladora sector as being in a "free
fall." Others have suggested that the maquiladora sector may have lost
its place as the cutting edge of manufacture for export, and that some jobs
lost to Asian or Central American producers may never return to Mexico.
(See the report from a maquiladora labor union activist below.)
With a recession in the United States, some Mexican workers have returned
home only to find that they can get no work there either. The government
of the Federal District created a special program in October to deal with
returning workers without resources.
In the first nine months of the year, the manufacturing sector has lost
a total of 305,000 jobs according to La Casa de Bolsa Bancomer. Over one
million unemployed people (out of a workforce of about 40 million) will
receive no winter holiday bonus this year (aguinaldo). Union wage increases
have fallen to about 9 percent, below the approximately 10.5 percent won
in some earlier agreements this year. Employers are calling for a ceiling
on wage increases of 5.1 percent. Meanwhile, workers' purchasing power has
fallen by 9 percent between January 1 and October 15, according to the Center
of Multidisciplinary Analysis of the Economics Faculty of the National Autonomous
University (CAM of UNAM).
The Failure of Fox
Mexico's economic crisis has contributed to the sense of disillusion in
the administration of president Vicente Fox. After 70 years of rule by the
Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), Fox and the National Action Party
(PAN) government which he heads seemed to hold out the hope of change, but
since taking office the president has failed in almost every initiative
he has taken. In particular, Fox proposed a new indigenous rights law that
was gutted by the PAN and the PRI, and Fox raised hopes for Mexican migrants
to the United States which have now been crushed by the terror attack and
the U.S. response. Fox had raised hopes of a new respect for human rights,
now dashed by the assassination of human rights attorney Digna Ochoa (see
story below). Finally, Fox led Mexicans to believe that he would bring them
economic prosperity and a higher standard of living, a promise that cannot
be fulfilled given the current economic crisis.
The U.S. war against terrorism also poses danger to Mexican social movements
which have often engaged in militant tactics and political challenges to
the status quo. When does a militant or radical social movement engaged
in confrontations with employers or other conservative forces become what
the U.S. considers a "terrorist organization"? Will the United
States consider the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) or other
guerrilla groups such as the People's Revolutionary Army (ERP) to be "terrorist"
groups, and will that lead to possible U.S. involvement or intervention
in Mexico? What about other activist social movements such as peasant leagues
and labor unions? Will they be classified as "terrorists" if they
engage in land seizures, factory occupations, or confrontations with the
authorities. Certainly both the Mexican Secretary of the Interior (Gobernación)
and the Mexican military intelligence (CISENA) must be examining these options,
and consequently Mexican social activists are aware of the dangers.
The Mexican people will continue to fight for democracy as well as economic
and social justice, but now within the context of a recession throughout
both the Americas and the world, and a war on terrorism that threatens to
become a broader war against dissent, protest, and resistance.
Digna Ochoa, a human rights attorney for the Jesuit's
Miguel Augustín Pro Center for Human Rights, was assassinated on
October 19 in her office. Mexican human rights activists who prefer not
to be named for fear of reprisals, believe that she was murdered by the
Mexican Military Intelligence (CISENA) because of her role in bringing a
number of cases against the military over the last several years.
Ochoa has represented environmental activists and people accused of being
involved in guerrilla organizations. Ochoa's clients included Rodolfo Montiel
and Teodoro Cabrera, members of the Organization of Peasant Ecologists of
the Sierra of Petatla y Coyuca de Catalán of the state of Guerrero.
Montiel and Cabrera, who had been organizing against Mexican and foreign
companies engaged in illegal logging operations, were imprisoned on trumped
up charges of drug dealing. After Ochoa was killed, President Fox pardoned
Montiel and Cabrera and they were released from prison. He said he had hesitated
to do so before because he wanted to see them win through the justice system.
In addition to the environmental farmer activists, Ochoa had also represented
individuals accused of being involved in the Indigenous Peoples Revolutionary
Army (EPRI).
On October 29, 1999, Ochoa had escaped an attempt to kill her by binding
her to a chair and leaving her next to an open propane tank. The Inter-American
Human Rights Court had issued a decision on November 17, 1999 calling upon
the Mexican government to protect Ochoa from attack.
Some of those familiar with Ochoa's work and with the Mexican political
situation believe that the Mexican military is responsible for her death,
and that individuals within the military killed her. "She was a thorn
in the side of the military" said one person who has been following
these events closely for the last several years.. "I think that the
Mexican military had her killed."
Hundreds of union doctors and nurses and family
members marched silently through the streets of Tapachula on November 4
to demanded that the government do something about the case of Dr. Francisco
de la Brena Vadillo, an oncologist who disappeared on Oct. 25 last year.
Dr. de la Brena was a member of the executive board of the Union of Workers
of the Secretary of Health. "He was a very peaceful person who had
no enemies, he did not drink, and he was very close to his family and dedicated
to his work as an oncologist," said one of the participants.
Those marching also denounced death threats which had been sent to Dr. Roman
Amaro Campos, another local doctor and union member.
The union also planned to carry out a one day work stoppage by all 5,700
local members to call attention both to the disappearance of Dr. de la Brena
and the threats against Dr. Amaro.
The Union of Workers of the Government of the Federal District (SUTGDF)
elected José Medel Ibarra its president in October. The election
of Medel Ibarra promises to bring an end to the almost continuous political
struggle that has gone on between that union and the government of the Federal
District.
For decades the SUTGDF constituted one of the pillars of power of the Institutional
Revolutionary Party in Mexico City and in the country. The PRI controlled
the SUTGDF leaders, and its leaders engaged in all sorts of graft and corruption,
while the members lacked any sort of union democracy.
When, in 1997 Cuauhtemoc Cárdenas, the leader of the Party of the
Democratic Revolution (PRD), became the first elected mayor of Mexico City,
the SUTGDF launched a series of slow downs, job actions, and strikes intended
to sabotage the city government of Cárdenas and the PRD. The SUTGDF
sometimes took up legitimate demands and concerns of the workers, but the
union leaders fought principally to protect their sinecures, perquisites
and graft. The SUTGDF's sabotage of city government continued under Mayor
Robles and under the current Mayor Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
The election of Medel Ibarra raises the possibility that the union will
now operate as a labor union, not as an arm of the PRI, and that the PRD
city government will not have to devote so much of its energy to dealing
with the sabotage of city services. Most important, in a changed political
atmosphere, rank and file workers may be able to advance their interests,
and the interests of the citizens of Mexico City. During the last several
years of economic crisis and political conflict, SUTGDF workers have lost
some benefits, and now they will have a chance to fight to get them back.
The Mexican indigenous movement is taking its case for a new indigenous
law to the International Labor Organization (ILO). In August the Mexican
congress adopted a new indigenous law under pressure by the independent
National Indigenous Congress (CNI) and the Zapatista Army of National Liberation
(EZLN). But the original bill presented to congress was gutted by the National
Action Party (PAN) and the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), eliminating
those sections that would have given Mexico's Indigenous people some degree
of autonomy. The EZLN and CNI consequently took a position opposing and
rejecting the law.
Now a coalition of indigenous group, the Network of Community Defenders
for Human Rights, is taking the case for autonomy to the ILO. The Network,
which represents seven regional organizations in Chiapas, argues that the
new law violates ILO Convention 169 on indigenous rights, to which Mexico
is signatory. ILO 169, one of the richest and most significant of ILO conventions,
argues that indigenous people live in certain environmental habitats, and
that consequently they have certain territorial rights, as well as sovereignty
rights.
The Indigenous protest before the ILO is supported by a number of Mexican
labor organizations who have called upon the Mexican government "to
cut the double talk." The labor supporters of the protest include the
Confederation of Democratic Workers (CTD), the Mexican Streetcar Workers
Union, the Center for Labor Information and Union Consultation (CILAS),
and the Union of Workers of the National Autonomous University (STUNAM).
By David Bacon
MONTERREY, NUEVO LEON (10/21/01) - Torreón, Coahuila, is a dusty
city in Mexico's northeast desert. For decades, its workers labored in the
Peñoles smelter and the factories clustered around its mines and
mills. Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, Chihuahua, Tamaulipas - all states along the
border - were the heart of Mexico's heavy industry. Its workers were heavily-unionized,
well-known for their militance.
Today most of those mills are closed. In their wake, a wave of foreign-owned
maquiladora assembly plants has spread out across the desert. Militant unions
have been replaced by ones more amenable to the demands of investors from
Wall Street or Tokyo. And the north's wages, once Mexico's pride, now hover
slightly above, and sometimes even dip below, the legal minimum.
But history and tradition don't die so easily. This spring, Torreón's
streets filled with women chanting and shouting demands for a return to
a standard of living capable of providing something better than cardboard
houses and communities without sewers, electricity and running water. The
city's annual May Day parade witnessed over 2000 women shouting "we
won't be quiet anymore!" and "we want a decent life!"
Further north on the border, in Ciudad Acuña, the power of the factory
owners is palpable and feared. Here women marched with bags over their heads
to hide their identity, presumably protecting themselves from firings and
retaliations. But both in Torreón and Acuña, to the embarrassment
of city officials and leaders of the conservative, government-affiliated
unions, people along the parade routes heard the chants, cheered, and even
joined in.
"In our communities, the whole family works," says Betty Robles,
one of the organizers of the campaign for higher wages. "You see kids
9 or 10 years old bagging groceries in supermarkets or washing cars on the
corners. The daughter of one of our activists was 13 when she went to work
in the factory sewing pants and shorts."
The reason is simple. SEDEPAC, the organization Robles helped start, did
a survey this spring. They found it takes 1500 pesos a week to provide food,
housing and transportation for a family of four. A normal maquiladora worker,
however, makes just 320-350 pesos. "We asked people, 'how do you survive
when there's such a huge gap?' Many told us that two and three families
share a couple of rooms, pooling income to cover rent and basic needs."
The income gap seen by SEDEPAC organizers was extensively documented by
the Center for Reflection, Education and Action, a religious research group,
in a study cosponsored by the Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras
and the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility. CREA found that
at the minimum wage, it took a maquiladora worker in Juarez almost an hour
to earn enough money to buy a kilo (2.2 pounds) of rice, and a worker in
Tijuana an hour and a half. By comparison, a dockworker driving a container
crane in the San Pedro harbor could buy the rice after three minutes at
work. Even an undocumented worker at minimum wage only has to labor 12 minutes
for it in LA.
It's a recipe for confrontation. And in fact, the anger in the streets of
Coahuila is not unique. All along the border this past year, from Matamoros
on the Gulf of Mexico to La Paz at the tip of the Baja California peninsula,
economic pressure is fueling a wave of industrial unrest sweeping through
the factories.
It poses the most serious challenge faced by the new Mexican administration
of President Vicente Fox, who defeated the country's long-ruling Party of
the Institutionalized Revolution by promising greater democracy, employment,
and a rising standard of living. Instead, however, Mexico's economy has
hit the skids. An economic downturn in the US B the market for most of what
the maquiladoras produce - creates havoc in Mexico. Fox promised 1.4 million
new jobs. But economists estimate half a million workers have been laid
off since he took office. The omnipresent signs soliciting workers on factory
gates in border industrial parks have disappeared. And greater competition
among workers for the available jobs is pushing wages down.
Border workers historically have tried to break that downward cycle by organizing
independent unions, free of control by a government which seeks to use their
low wages to attract foreign investors. Many hoped Fox would support the
right to choose such unions freely, discarding the old government-affiliated
labor federations. But the promise of political democracy has been as hollow
as the promise of jobs. "To win votes, Fox made the famous '20 commitments,'
which included union democracy," says Hector de la Cueva, who directs
Mexico City's Center for Labor Research. "But he's made no effort to
live up to the promise."
One of the key parts of that promise was a government commitment that workers
would be allowed to vote by secret ballot in union elections. Traditionally,
because voting has been public, the old official unions favored by maquiladora
owners have been able to identify supporters of the new independent ones.
Following a string of incidents in which independent union supporters in
Tijuana and Mexico City were threatened, fired and even beaten for their
choices, Mexico promised to allow voting by secret ballot instead.
That commitment was put to the test this spring at the Duro Bag plant in
Rio Bravo, just across the river from Texas. And instead of creating an
example of a new era of respect for workers' rights, Duro became the poster
child for their abuse.
On the morning of Friday, March 2, voting began inside the factory, where
workers labor around the clock cutting and gluing chichi paper bags for
the U.S. gift market. On the ballot were two unions - the independent Union
of Duro Bag Workers organized over the last year, and the Revolutionary
Confederation of Workers and Peasants (CROC). a union affiliated to Mexico's
former ruling party.
The stage was set the day before, when observers outside the plant watched
as automatic weapons were unloaded from a car and carried in through the
plant gate. Then, the following morning, workers from the swing and grave
shifts were prevented from going home as their shifts ended. Instead, they
were held behind doors blocked with metal sheets and the huge rolls of paper
used to feed machines on the line. A few observers from the independent
union reported that they could hear cries of "Let us out!" until
company managers began playing music at deafening volume on the plant speaker
system.
Then, observers reported, workers from the arriving day shift were taken
in small groups into the room where voting was taking place. They were escorted
by CROC organizers, who handed them blue slips of paper on which the union's
local number was printed. At the voting table, representatives of Mexico's
national labor board asked each voter to declare aloud her or his choice.
Both company foremen and government-affiliated union representatives wrote
notes as the voting took place.
Only 502 workers voted, in a workforce the company says numbers over 1400.
And of them, only four workers openly declared their support for the independent
union, while 498 voted for the CROC.
"While the Duro election is clearly a tragic defeat for the workers
and their efforts to win better wages and conditions," said Robin Alexander,
director of international relations for the U.S.-based United Electrical
Workers, which supported the independent union, "I hope the violations
here were so blatant that they'll serve as a wake-up call."
Workers at Duro had a long history of agitating for better wages and conditions,
which led to their effort to form an independent union. According to Eliud
Almaguer, a fired rank-and-file leader, many people lost fingers in machinery
because of fast production and little protection. Duro's vice-president
of manufacturing, Bill Forstrom, says wages start at 60 pesos a day (about
six dollars). A gallon of milk in a local supermarket costs 25 pesos - almost
half a day's work.
The Duro Bag Manufacturing Corporation, based in Ludlow, Kentucky, also
operates seven U.S. plants, and belongs to the family of CEO Charles Shor.
For years, it's had a protection contract with a Mexican local of the Paper,
Cardboard and Wood Industry Union, part of the Confederation of Mexican
Workers (CTM). The CTM has been a pillar of support for the country's ruling
bureaucracy since the 1940s. With a protection contract, the company paid
CTM union leaders to guarantee labor peace.
Two years ago, the workers in the Duro plant decided to try to negotiate
better terms for that contract. They elected more militant union leaders,
including Almaguer, who was then fired in October, 1999. In April of 2000,
a further 150 workers were terminated. The CTM signed a new agreement with
Duro, at the same low wages, and with none of the increased safety demands
the workers sought. They began organizing an independent union in response.
The CTM, which had grown increasingly unpopular, finally withdrew from the
process the morning of the election, and was replaced by the CROC. When
the election finally took place, none of the fired workers were allowed
into the plant to vote. Many workers didn't even know the name of the union
they were told to vote for.
Throughout their long saga, Duro workers had help from the north, organized
by the Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras, based in San Antonio,
Texas - a group of unions, churches and community organizations in the U.S.,
Mexico and Canada. Help also came from Mexico's new independent labor federation,
the National Union of Workers (UNT), based in Mexico City. Last summer they
pressured the governor of Tamaulipas state, where the plant is located,
into granting the independent union legal status.
U.S. support was particularly controversial, leading to charges by Mexican
employers and the government-affiliated unions that U.S. unions were trying
to chase the company's work back into its U.S. plants. Rick de la Cruz,
a vice-president of Local 6-314 of the U.S. Paper, Atomic, Chemical and
Energy Workers (which represents three Duro plants in the U.S.), visited
Mexico with fellow unionists from his Texas plant to support the independent
union. He said charges were ridiculous. "If that work leaves Mexico,
it's not coming back to the U.S. - it's going somewhere workers have even
fewer rights," he responded. "'We just think everyone should have
human rights, and not just in Mexico - in the U.S. too."
Duro's V.P. Forstrom admits that the company only keeps automated operations
north of the border, while its labor intensive operations are concentrated
in Rio Bravo. "We're in Mexico to take advantage of inexpensive labor,"
he says. And in reaction to a protest outside Duro's Kentucky headquarters
just prior to the election, company managers refused to allow the president
of the PACE local at its Ludlow plant, Dave Klontz, to travel to Rio Bravo
as an election observer.
Border employers watching the Duro fight felt threatened. Duro is just one
of 3,450 foreign-owned factories, employing over 1.2 million Mexican workers,
according to the National Association of Maquiladoras. If more of these
workers ran their own unions, negotiated their own contracts, and raised
wages, it would be very costly to the foreign owners. As a result, the Mexican
employers' association, COPARMEX (the equivalent of the U.S. National Association
of Manufacturers) took charge of Duro's legal battle. COPARMEX's former
chief Abascal is now Fox's Labor Secretary.
Abascal denied requests for a secret ballot, and the federal labor board,
under his control, ran the election in Rio Bravo. That decision violated
an agreement which supposedly guaranteed secret ballot voting, negotiated
between his predecessor, Mariano Palacios Alcócer, and former U.S.
Labor Secretary Alexis Herman. The agreement grew out of two celebrated
cases filed under the NAFTA labor side-agreement -- at the Han Young plant
in Tijuana, and the ITAPSA plant just outside of Mexico City.
Since NAFTA went into effect in January, 1995, over 20 complaints have been
filed under the labor side-agreement. Almost all have charged that Mexico
does not enforce laws guaranteeing workers the right to form unions of their
choice, and to strike effectively when they do. A few have been filed against
the U.S., charging a similar unwillingness to enforce workers' rights.
No remedies have ever been imposed which would have required rehiring a
single fired worker, nor has a single independent union been able to negotiate
a contract as a result of any NAFTA ruling. In Tijuana last year, independent
unionists in its most publicized case - the strike at the Han Young factory
- were even beaten and expelled from a meeting convened by the government
to discuss their case. (LA Weekly, June 28, 2000). Nevertheless, the Mexican
government promised that in future elections workers would be able to vote
by secret ballot.
Duro was the first real test of that agreement. Despite protests from the
U.S. Labor Department, Abascal refused to honor it. "The Duro election
strips away any idea that the NAFTA process can protect workers rights.
The sideagreement is bankrupt," declared Martha Ojeda, director of
the Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras.
"It shows that for both the U.S. and Mexican governments, when the
chips are down, their interest in promoting investment and free trade clearly
outweighs any commitments they make about labor rights," Alexander
added. "Workers in the U.S. can't expect they'll be able to maintain
decent standards here if a company like Duro can go across the river and
violate the rights of workers in the interest of paying low wages."
To make matters even worse, the Tamaulipas labor board this fall recognized
two CROC officials, Juan López Carera, a resident of the state of
Mexico, and Jesus Isidro Moreno, who is actually the CROC national secretary
general, as the new executive committee of the Duro independent union. (See
story below) The two then wrote a letter back to the board recognizing the
legitimacy of the CROC's election victory, and rejecting the challenge previously
filed by the independent union. Meanwhile, most of the fired workers have
been unable to get hired at any other maquiladora in the area, and charge
that Duro has circulated a blacklist. Some have become so desperate because
of lack of work and food that they have been feeding their children quelite,
a wild grass that grows in the countryside.
Neither the wrecked election at Duro nor the beatings in Tijuana have stopped
the wave of efforts to organize independent unions, however. And workers
in many other maquiladora battles this year have also counted on support
from US unions. In Coahuila, a cross-border solidarity effort has helped
to sustain SEDEPAC's living wage campaign. Local unions in California and
Oregon have organized a loose network called Enlace (which in Spanish means
"links.), and have sent organizers to help. They include Los Angeles'
big hotel union, Local 11, as well as the janitors' Service Employees Local
1877, and units of the Longshore and Warehouse Union.
Before the May Day march, SEDEPAC activists began setting up grassroots
committees inside a number of factories, including the huge garment sweatshops
run by Sara Lee. Many of those committees are clandestine, since open activity
often leads to termination. According to Robles, Sara Lee fired over 1000
workers last year, many of whom had been injured on the job, when they made
an effort to form an independent union.
Inside the plants, women activists are called "promotoras," because
they promote organization among their fellow workers. The promotoras go
to workshops for training in identifying health and safety hazards, and
in what's called "identidad," or self-identity. "Many of
the women are migrants from indigenous communities far away, and feel torn
from the cultural roots which give them a feeling of self-respect,"
Robles explains.
"They get very depressed, so we talk a lot about self-worth, to raise
their expectations for better treatment and respect at work, and to get
them to demand their rights." Women in the committees in turn are linked
to organizations in the poor communities around the plants, which fight
for elemental services like sewers, water lines, paved streets and electricity.
This spring workers at another maquiladora - Kukdong - in the central Mexican
town of Atlixco, Puebla, also organized an independent union. And on September
21, they won a contract -- the first such agreement in a garment maquiladora
in a decade. The new collective agreement was signed by the company, which
changed its name to Mex Mode, and the independent union, now known as SITEMEX.
Of the 450 workers currently employed at the factory, 399 signed the application
for the independent union.
After protesting broken promises of wage raises, bad food in the company
cafeteria, and the firing of a group of supervisors, workers occupied the
Kukdong plant for three days in January. They were beaten and evicted by
local police. But Kukdong workers were able to use the power of the growing
anti-sweatshop movement in the US. They contacted the Mexico City office
of the AFL-CIO, whose representative, Jeff Hermanson, was formerly the organizing
director for the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (now the Union
of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees, UNITE). Hermanson has
a long history of developing ties between US garment workers and their colleagues
in other countries, and he helped Kukdong workers publicize their case on
US campuses. United Students Against Sweatshops took up their cause, and
mounted picketlines at universities around the country to publicize the
fact that Nike and Reebok sportswear was being sewn in the plant.
In response to exposes of terrible working conditions in Nike contract plants
in Indonesia and southeast Asia, the company developed a code of conduct,
which, at least on paper, calls for respect for labor rights. US protests
focused on the violation of those self-imposed standards, and the pressure
forced Nike to send inspectors to Kukdong to take a look. That led eventually
to the recognition of the independent union.
And garment workers in one of the most remote corners of Mexico, on the
tip of the Baja California peninsula, also told CJM delegates of the firings
they'd suffered in their efforts to organize an independent union. In 1998,
Leonel Cota, a PRD candidate, was elected governor of Baja California Sur.
Because he therefore controlled the state labor board, workers at the California
Connections and Pung Kook factories won legal status for their independent
union in 1999.
Nevertheless, eight days after that decision, every worker named as a union
officer on the legal documents was fired. "We've been fighting for
the right to negotiate ever since," said union president Raquel Espinoza.
"At first Cota supported us, but now the companies say they'll close
the factories if we win bargaining rights. That threat really scares him,
especially in the current economic crisis."
As in Coahuila, union organizing in the factories remained clandestine as
a result. The closure threat acquired a new reality when the area's third
major maquiladora employer, the Baja West garment factory, announced abruptly
it was going out of business on September 11. The company still owed workers
two weeks of wages when they were terminated. Delegations called on the
governor, who found some subsidies to enable workers to pay immediate bills.
But the threat to challenge bad economic conditions was also frightening
to many who still had jobs in the other plants.
Baja West produces clothes for the Los Angeles market under several
labels.
If attracting and holding onto foreign investment is the key consideration
determining the Fox government's national labor policy, that war will get
even hotter. Fox, a former Coca-Cola executive, shows every sign of catering
more to investors than minimum wage maquila workers.
In May, the World Bank released a series of recommendations to the new Mexican
administration, "An Integral Agenda of Development for the New Era."
Its theme was greater "flexibility," a word now feared by border
workers, who translate it as layoffs, fewer benefits, and downward pressure
on salaries.
The bank recommended rewriting Mexico's Constitution and Federal Labor Law,
eliminating protections in place since the 1920s. Those include giving up
requirements that companies pay severance pay when they lay off workers,
that they negotiate over the closure of factories, that they give workers
permanent status after 90 days and that they limit part time work and abide
by the 40-hour week. The bank recommended other changes that would weaken
the ability of unions to represent workers and bargain, including eliminating
the historical ban on strikebreaking. And Mexico's guarantees of job training,
health care and housing, paid by employers, would be scrapped as well.
The recommendations were so extreme that even a leading association of employers
condemned it. Claudio X. Gonzales, head of the Managerial Coordinating Council,
called the report "over the top," noting the bank didn't dare
to make such proposals in developed countries. "Why are they then being
recommended for the emerging countries?" he asked.
But Fox embraced the report., calling it "very much in line with what
we have contemplated," and necessaary to "really enter into a
process of sustainable development."
Not all political parties agree, however, and some seek to enforce existing
rights rather than eliminate them. In Mexico City, where the leftwing Party
of the Democratic Revolution has been in power for six years, the new mayor,
Andrés Manuel López Obrador, appointed the dean of Mexico's
labor lawyers as the head of the local labor board for the capitol region.
For decades, those appointees have been government bureaucrats or employer
representatives. But Jesus Campos Linas marked his appointment by writing
a letter to the city's workers, in which he promised to make public all
the sweetheart protection contracts between the old unions and employers.
And he promised to ensure workers could vote by secret ballot, without violence
or intimidation.
On September 15, a new website will hit the internet, containing a list
of all the protection contracts in Mexico City. Campos Linas estimates there
are 70-80,000 such agreements, whose existence is usually unknown to the
over 1 million workers they cover. The main function of the agreements is
to keep independent unions out, and ensure that workers don't organize themselves
to stop production or demand higher wages.
To avoid crooked elections like the one at Duro, Campos Linas has ordered
all union voting to take place at the labor board office itself. "I
was a lawyer for the workers at ITAPSA before taking my present position,"
he says, "and I won't permit the abuses that workers suffered there."
So far, the PRI-affiliated unions haven't protested much, "but that's
because they don't really believe we'll carry out these changes. They think
this is business as usual - that we'll just talk about changing things,
while on the ground nothing happens. They're in for a big surprise."
Two separate and very different ideas about workers' rights are becoming
evident in Mexico, and the controversy over protection contracts and the
secret ballot is just its most visible symbol. The differences are much
deeper, over whose priorities will prevail - those of workers or those of
investors with a stake in the free-trade based economy.
"I don't oppose reforms in general, such as those guaranteeing people
the freedom to choose their own unions," Campos Linas explains. "But
the changes proposed by the bank would be a gigantic step backwards for
workers, who would lose the stability and rights the present law gives them.
They're only proposing to take things away, not to give workers anything.
They don't understand that it took a revolution, in which a million people
died, to get our constitution and labor law. Our problem isn't that we need
a new law - it's to enforce the one we have. That's what will make Mexican
workers confident about their political system."
Campos Linas rejects the argument raised by Fox and his allies for gutting
legal protections - that it will make the economy more competitive, attract
greater investment, and create more jobs. "No labor law reform will
accomplish this," he charges. "Mexico already has one of the lowest
wage levels in the world, yet there's still this cry for more flexibility.
The minimum wage in Mexico City is 40.35 pesos a day - no one can live on
this. And now we've lost 400,000 jobs since January alone. Changing the
labor law will not solve this problem."
A battle is brewing -- over which direction Mexico will take. Unlike its
revolution at the turn of the century, it will not be fought mainly by farmers
with guns. In large part, it will take place on the floors of the maquila
plants. And since maquiladora production has spread far beyond the border,
to encompass cities all over Mexico, it will be a national convulsion.
In August, the Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras met in Monterrey
to discuss this new reality. "We can no long afford to be just a border-based
organization," de la Cueva warned. "We have to be ready to assist
workers in all parts of Mexico."
And because maquiladora workers have become a key part of the country's
economy, the independent union movement is slowly recognizing the need to
devote resources to helping them. For 40 years, these workers have been
viewed, and indeed have viewed themselves, as living on the country's fringe
- geographically, politically and socially.
But independent unions in Mexico won't survive if maquila workers remain
marginalized. And increasingly, workers in the border plants are affected
by the same problems suffered by the rest of the country's workers.
This spring the UNT signed a strategic alliance with the Coalition, pledging
a greater commitment to organize in the maquiladoras. On its part, the Coalition
agreed to do more to resist free-trade reforms like the continued privatization
of the economy, and the restructuring of Mexican labor laws.
"If the country's electrical generating system is privatized, for instance,"
reminds de la Cueva, "all workers will pay the price, including those
in the maquiladoras. Protection contracts exist in all parts of the economy,
not just on the border. And labor law reform is not a problem of central
Mexico, nor just of workers who belong to the old unions. Everyone is affected
by the same problems, and they are forcing us all together, like it or not."
It's no wonder that the labor upsurge on the border feels like the rumbling
of a not-too-distant and not-so-dormant volcano.
---------------------------------------------------------------
david bacon - labornet email david bacon
internet: dbacon@igc.apc.org 1631 channing way
phone: 510.549.0291 berkeley, ca 94703
---------------------------------------------------------------
The Revolutionary Confederation of Workers and Peasants (CROC), a union
affiliated with the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), has once again
circumvented the law and violated the rights of the workers who had struggled
so hard to acquire a union registration in order to legally participate
in an election to gain representation rights at Duro Bag. Workers at the
plant have been fighting for over a year for a democratic and independent
union, and lost an election badly after the labor board refused to order
a secret ballot election and the workers faced major intimidation. (See
previous MLNA issues and the article above for a discussion of the Duro
Bag situation.)
While the appeal which challenged the conduct of the election was still
pending, the Secretary General of the CROC union, Jesús Isidro Moreno,
and Juan Lopez Cabrera acted illegally to usurp the leadership of the independent
union -- the Duro Workers Union of Rio Bravo Tamaulipas -- and replace its
real Secretary General and Executive Committee by registering themselves
as the new leadership, without presenting any of the legal documentation
which is required. They then utilized the authority which they had fraudulently
acquired to move to dismiss the appeal and to withdraw the legal authority
previously granted to the union's legal representatives. Reptresentatives
of the Frente Auténtico del Trabajo (FAT) and their attorneys had
been assisting the Duro workers by handling the legal aspects of the Duro
workers' struggle.
Upon discovering what had occurred, they immediately filed a legal document
protesting the flagrant violation of Mexican law, and the true Secretary
General of the Duro Workers Union, Felipe de Jesús Barrón,
traveled to Mexico City the following day to protest the egregious deprivation
of rights. The CROC responded to the affidavit filed by Barrón with
further documentation of meetings which were alleged to have occurred.
In a scathing response, attorneys for the independent union pointed out
that under the union's constitution the leadership was elected for a period
of four years, and could only be removed through expulsion proceedings or
in a general meeting called by the general secretary, by three members of
the executive committee or at the request of 33% of the members on the list
filed with the government when the registro was granted. In the documentation
filed by the CROC, none of this has been demonstrated, the new secretary
general does not even appear on the list of members and Barrón is
listed as an ex-member, without any documentation showing that his membership
was ever legally revoked. Even more astounding, the CROC's claim is based
on a new constitution which was elaborated by the "new leadership"
and supposedly approved prior to the date that they were elected!
Alerts were circulated by both the Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras
and the Maquiladora Solidarity Network of Canada, and letters protests were
sent by various unions and other organizations, including the United Electrical
Workers (UE). letter to both governor Yarrington of Tamaulipas and to president
Vicente Fox of Mexico, as well as to the magistrates who had been assigned
to handle the appeal, where the matter is still pending.
Meanwhile, over the past months both the UNT and CROC had applied for admission
to the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions. An Investigative
committee sent to Mexico by the ICFTU had interviewed both organizations
extensively. Although recommending admission of the UNT, they addressed
a series of questions to the CROC regarding its position with respect to
political parties, secret ballot elections and protection contracts. The
CROC had provided an extremely perfunctory response.
However, given the events described above, one of the attorneys handling
the matter for the independent union wrote to the ICFTU, setting forth the
events described above, and concluding:
"The supposed change in union leadership of the DURO UNION in order
to remove FELIPE DE JESUS BARRON VALDEZ and replace him with representatives
of the CROC occurred in a clandestine and illegal manner, since an assembly
by the real members of the union never took place, the union constitution
which is legally registered was not respected in that the supposed notices
and assemblies were not effectuated in compliance with such constitution,
that the union leadership which was supposedly removed was never notified
so that it could come defend itself, and most serious of all, none of the
workers who appear on the membership list of the union appeared at any of
the supposed meetings, at which the only ones to appear were JESUS ISIDRO
MORENO MERCADO whose name is accompanied by a list of signatures and marks
by supposed workers whose names do not coincide with the list of members
- which is to say that the assemblies were conducted by persons who were
not members of the DURO UNION, the elections for the supposed new leadership
of the union were conducted under a new union constitution which had not
been registered nor approved, and in addition despite the fact that it was
from three weeks prior to the election of the false committee it was signed
by that committee and was never accompanied by documentation supporting
the changes in said constitution; Despite all of these irregularities, the
LOCAL LABOR BOARD approved this matter via Fast Track, abstaining from verifying
that which is most basic: if the supposed assemblies were convened in accordance
with the union constitution and if those who supposedly participated in
them were or were not members of the union and consequently had the legal
right to intervene in the internal affairs of the union."
At the ICFTU meeting last week, since there was no consensus regarding the
question of admission, the agenda item regarding the admission of both the
UNT and CROC was postponed.
[The following article has been taken from a
report by Matías Pecero, a labor activist with Pastoral-Juvenil Obrera,
an organization which works with maquiladora workers on the Mexican side
of the U.S.-Mexico border. He is also a member of the Executive Committee
of the Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras (CJM). Translation by Dan
La Botz.]
The situation of men and women workers in the maquiladoras at this time
is very difficult. Here are some excerpts from the local press.
"The economic recession in the United States and the problems in the
world market caused by the military conflict, have led to the imminent closing
of important maquiladoras plants in the region, in addition to those which
have already been closed." (from Contacto [newspaper] Wednesday, November
7, 2001.]
The plants which are said to be most affected include: Autorim, Kemet of
Mexico, Tecor of Mexico, Pebac, Delphi Deltronicos, Trico components, among
others.
Curiously they are the ones that pay the highest wages until now. These
firms have been carrying out massive layoffs of personnel, as well as reducing
workdays. Autotrim has laid off more than half of its men and women workers,
so that today only about 500 remain, who will be laid off in December.
In the month of October two plants closed, leaving the workers without any
severance pay: Ideal Equipment and Lepco of Mexico. [Companies in Mexico
are required to pay workers a severance pay based on previous service, so
leaving them without severance was a violation of Mexican labor law.] Without
any doubt these runaway shops have now been set-up in some other part of
the country or the world, and continue to produce, though under another
name, of course, if they are not still using their own. Until now no one
has spoken up for the workers, not even their own unions. No labor authority
has done anything to punish these companies for their illegal acts, and
together with what has happened at Duro Bag I think this is the upshot.
Looking at this from another angle here is what the leaders have to say
about the unemployment issue:
Alfredo Bazan Serrata, leader of the Regional Federation of Workers of Tamaulipas
(FRTT): With regard to the layoffs, "this is hardly even the beginning,
since the most serious part will take place at the end of 2001 and the beginning
of 2002, and the recuperation will begin only in the middle of 2002, so
that it is feared that various firms will not survive and in the end there
will be grave losses of jobs in the maquiladoras industry."
Roberto Mattus Rivera, director of the Maquiladoras Association of Matamoros:
"The Maquiladoras Association believes that the economic recuperation
in the industrial sector will take place slowly and that it could be delayed
as long as six months. Meanwhile the layoffs will continue to add up, creating
uncertainty among the workers. So far the unemployment recorded in the industry
in Matamoros has reached extraordinary numbers representing 50% of the total
unemployment recorded in the state of Tamaulipas."
Joél Amaro Vázquez, leader of the Union of Day Laborers and
Industrial Workers of the Maquiladora Industry (SJOIIM-CTM) in Matamoros:
"The problem has caused a series of crises in the labor sector, keeping
thousands of workers of the maquiladora industry in great uncertainty, and
there exists the fear that the layoffs could continue adding up."
Javier Hernández Salas, general secretary of the federation of workers
of Reynosa: "In spite of the slowdown in the economy of the United
States, and the military conflict, in Reynosa, there has been no unemployment.
However, the plants have canceled the workers' overtime which allowed them
a greater weekly income, and at the moment none of the maquiladoras in Reynosa
are hiring. The recommendation that is being made to all men and women workers
is that they take care of their jobs, because if you lose your job today,
there is no guarantee of getting another one."
Leocadio Mendoza Reyes, general secretary of the Union of Industrial Workers
of the Maquiladora and Assembly Plants (SITPME) of Matamoros: "This
is no time for confrontations, we should take care of the companies. Our
option at this time is to adopt the "New Labor Culture" and to
reject the alternative of strikes to pressure the companies to give wage
increases. The SITPME has maintained the same workforce (during and after
the recession and the military conflict in the United States), the 15,000
workers in the 54 maquiladora plants are working. In this time the most
important thing is to maintain a close relationship to the employers, that
is to say, the unions must not be aggressive with them when contract negotiations
come up. They should protect investment in order to maintain the sources
of employment, because if they don't behave that way, they will aggravate
the problem we are seeing now (namely the plant closings)."
As you can see from these quotations, no one is speaking up for the workers
(I am referring to the employers or the union leaders). There are plants
with wheels or wings which are here today and gone tomorrow leaving the
workers with nothing.
For the men and women workers it is very important not to lose sight of
the reality that we are confronting at this moment. In my opinion from what
I see at the moment they have us tied up, on the one hand by the uncertainty
about employment that is being promoted by the employers and the union,
and on the other by the blackmail and extortion, that is the threat of layoffs.
The employers will use any pretext to fire workers. I think that these unions
and the bosses have taken the frying pan by the handle, and any organizational
action by the workers will lead to being fired. I was very sad to learn
about a woman worker last week who was laid off, just because she did not
clean the dust off of her machine, and she like many others was working
under this pressure and threat of layoffs. I have the workers own comments
very much in mind. In a talk we had the other day with several of them from
various maquiladoras one of them said, "It's a real bitch to get sick
or injure yourself now " "We really have to take care of our jobs
" "We have to work like hell so as not to lose our customers."
"The union is up to here with people looking for jobs " While
this seems to be a very conservative outlook, it is the reality and we have
to see it as it is. The challenge at the moment is to find out how we can
move forward.
The Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM), affiliated with the Institutional
Revolutionary Party, has demanded that the Mexican Supreme Court (SCJN)
stop its attack on the unions. The CTM leadership is furious that the Court
has supported workers' rights to join unions of their own choosing (a mostly
theoretical right at present), and that it has nixed the "exclusion
clause."
The "exclusion clause" which exists in most Mexican union contracts,
give the union leadership the right to expel members from the union, usually
resulting in their being fired from their workplace, because they have been
"disloyal." While the exclusion clause may have its origins in
a more militant period when it was meant to protect the union from pro-employer
workers or scabs, it has mostly been used to eliminate shop-floor activists,
union dissidents, and political troublemakers.
The CTM sees the SCJN decision on the exclusion clause as another blow to
its waning power.
Between ten and fifteen thousand of the 35,000 members of the Sugar Workers
Union of Mexico (STARM) affiliated with the Confederation of Mexican Workers
(CTM), have left their union and federation fo join the National Union of
Workers (UNT). The CTM has historically been allied with the Institutional
Revolutionary Party and the government, while the UNT is a relatively new
independent labor federation.
The sugar workers' affiliation with the UNT represents an on-going decline
in the CTM, and a significant gain for the independent federation.
END MEXICAN LABOR NEWS
AND ANALYSIS, VOL. 6, NO. 9, NOVEMBER, 2001