11 January, 2010
At a press conference on 8 January in Mexico City, during an ICEM North American Regional Coordinating Committee meeting there, Canadian and US ICEM leaders denounced the Mexican government of Felipe Calderón Hinojosa’s anti-union conduct in dissolving the Mexican Electrical Workers’ Union (SME) and its continuing persecution of the National Miners’ and Metalworkers’ Union (SNTMMSRM, or Los Mineros) and its General Secretary Napoleón Gómez Urrutia.
The regional forum, led by ICEM North American Vice Presidents Ken Neumann of the United Steelworkers (USW) and Dave Coles of the Communications, Energy, Paperworkers (CEP) Union of Canada, stressed that the repressive tactics heaped upon trade unions by the Calderón government is an affront to human rights and that these actions will receive world-wide attention.
ICEM North American leaders at press conference
The North American ICEM leaders also said the anti-union policies subject millions of Mexican workers to poverty. They also called attention to Mexican trade union leaders like Los Mineros’s Juan Linares Montúfar who have been jailed for their legitimate union activities. The press conference was attended by members of Los Mineros, by several ICEM North American delegates, and by ICEM’s Director of Industry and Corporate Affairs Joe Drexler.
Napoleón Gómez himself has escaped jail in Mexico by fleeing to Canada, with the Mexican government now seeking his extradition.
Neumann, the USW’s National Director for Canada, said that there is evidence that the charges against Napoleón Gómez are unfounded and purely an invention by the Mexican government in sync with the mining company, Grupo México. “Mexico is a NAFTA partner with Canada and the United States and we will not sit back and allow these repressions to occur,” said Neumann.
On 10 October 2009, the Calderón government swept in with federal agents and armed police to shut down the country’s second largest utility, the Mexico City regional Luz y Fuerza del Centro (LyFC), or Central Light and Power. Calderón used an executive decree to merge the electric power distributor with the Federal Electricity Commission and to disband the 95-year-old and 60,000-member SME.
The North American ICEM representatives condemned the government for not proceeding through legal channels if it suspected there were misdeeds inside the utility.