Read this article in:
1 December, 2008
The ICEM has received a request for affiliation by the National Miners' and Metalworkers' Union of Mexico (SNTMMSRM), a progressive trade union of 250,000 members. Although formal acceptance of the affiliation is subject to approval by the regional committee and the ICEM Executive Committee, it is anticipated that approval will be unanimous.
ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda, in a letter to SNTMMSRM Secretary General Napoleon Gómez Urrutia and the union’s executive board, welcomed the application for affiliation: “We view your affiliation as an historic step to not only align with mining unions throughout the world but also to further integrate the struggle for free and democratic trade unionism in Mexico with both the North America and Latin America regions of the ICEM.”
The ICEM has joined a global campaign, initiated by the International Metalworkers Federation (IMF), to bring more public attention and pressure on the Mexican government to stop efforts to destroy the union. Numerous ICEM affiliates have sent letters to Mexican President Felipe Calderóne, protesting the collaboration of the government with Grupo México to crush one of the few examples of democratic trade unionism in the country. The ICEM encourages additional letters, please refer to here.
Napoleon Gómez and his family, fearing assassination or incarceration on trumped up charges by the Mexican government, have been in exile in Canada under the sponsorship of the United Steelworkers. In May 2008, he was unanimously was re-elected as general secretary while in exile.
In February 2006, a coal mine explosion killed 65 miners and only two bodies were ever recovered. The government has refused to investigate the cause of the accident. The government has also refused to investigate Grupo Mexico’s involvement in the murder of Reynaldo Hernández González, a miner who was applying for reinstatement, and the detention and torture of union members in Nacozari, Sonora.
In April 2006, the government of Mexico sent 1,000 armed officers in an unsuccessful attempt to crush a strike in the State of Michoacan which resulted in two workers being killed and more than 100 persons injured. Strikes, prompted partly by health and safety concerns, continue at Grupo México mines.