On July 17th, Grupo Mexico, one of the world's largest copper mines, fired their entire La Caridad workforce to break a five month strike. According the Reuters roughly 2000 workers' contracts were canceled with prior approval from the Fox government (the Reuters article can be found here). Simultaneously, in response to workers' attempts to take over the huge Sicartsa steel plant in the state of Michoacán, several workers have just been killed, some forty more have been injured, and parts of the plant have been taken over by the Mexican Army and Navy. (Both of these companies are owned by major financial backers of Mexican President Fox.)
According to a recent article by David Bacon in The Nation Magazine entitled "Mexico's Labor Rebels," these strikes and others sweeping through the Mexican border region offer one key to unlock the mysteries of the on-going Mexican election debacle.
In the lead-up to the election, as Mexican President Fox -- who is a member of the same party as conservative presidential candidate Felipe Calderón -- was trying break the miner's legal strike, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, candidate of the left-leaning PRD party, outlined his labor policy on a campaign swing through Sonora, the state where the La Caridad miners were on strike. "We will promote respect for union democracy," he told reporters. "And there will be no intervention in the life of the unions. Workers can freely elect their own leaders." According to Bacon, "if it's up to the unions in Mexican mines and mills, the conservative wave of the past decade will soon be history." More than four million Mexican workers protested in support of the miners during the lead-up to the election. (Read more here)
At the same time, the Mexican unions haven't put all their eggs in the electoral basket. Building on previous solidarity actions with U.S. steel and mine workers, the campaign has reached across the border. The US Steelworkers and the National Union of Mine, Metalurgical and Allied Workers of Mexico "formed a strategic alliance last year, but their ties go back much further. Copper miners on both sides of the border come from the same families. In the cold war era, the left-wing Mine Mill union, now part of USW, supported Mexican copper strikes. That tradition was renewed in 1998, when union caravans from Arizona brought food and help to Cananea, where workers were striking against the Larreas over workforce cuts. "Grupo Mexico now owns mines on the US side, so we're facing the same employers," explains Gerry Fernandez, USW international director. "We're directly affected by the Mexican government's attack on the mineros, and we're going to defend them." Most recently the US Steelworkers helped Gómez Urrutia, General Secretary of the Mexican mine workers union, to escape to a secret location in Canada to avoid continual death threats. Unions around the world are also calling for Urrutia's reinstatement after being refused his elected position by Mexico's secretary of labor.
The outcome of the presidential election is still unclear. According to Bacon,"Mexico has traveled so far down the road of neoliberal transformation that union democracy alone cannot reverse its course. But the ability of workers to control their unions is the key to electing leaders willing to challenge corporations and the government policies protecting them. Despite their weakened state, unions are still a powerful force. And rank-and-file miners and teachers have been willing to face repression and violence to defend their leaders who demand a change in direction."
The fate of the striking workers is also unclear. Mexican unions are calling for solidarity and support. More information can be found here. And to read more on the USW's solidarity actions in support of Mexican miners follow this link. We will try to keep you posted.
N.H.
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