26 July, 2010
As the mineworkers’ strike at Gammon Gold’s El Cubo mine in Mexico’s Guanajuato State was deferred to the Federal Conciliation and Arbitration Board, the authority abandoned all activities and took summer vacations until August.
The recess forces workers to continue the strike with no possibility of settlement before labour authorities return to litigate and rule on the legality of the strike. The authority gave no instruction to Canadian-based Gammon to start negotiating with the workers.
The 409 workers are represented by Section 142 of ICEM-affiliated National Union of Mine, Metal, Steel and Related Workers of the Mexican Republic (SNTMMRM), or Los Mineros, at the mine in south-central Mexico.
As previously reported by ICEM, the strike began 30 June, primarily because of Nova Scotia-based Gammon’s refusal to make profit-share payments to workers, a condition that had been agreed to in bargaining with the union in return for a lengthening of miners’ work days from eight- to ten-hour shifts.
In the absence of a profit-sharing arrangement, union leaders took strike action, demanding a bonus of 50,000 pesos (US$3,968) per worker. A further demand was that the company improve safety standards at the mine, following five deaths at the site in recent months, accidents which were not properly investigated or even sometimes not recorded by authorities. The families of the five dead miners have not received any compensation.
As was predicted by the ICEM in an earlier, 28 June, report (see here), the company has moved to restart production with scab labour. This decision was authorised by Labour Minister Javier Lozano, who pushed through a ruling via the Federal Conciliation Board for 70 “emergency personnel.” The obvious anti-union stance of the Mexican government is again illustrated by these rulings and lack of pressure from the authorities on Gammon to negotiate with Section 142.
Gammon Gold has repeatedly claimed that it does not have the financial resources for profit-sharing payments, which are mandated by law, or to make improvements to worker safety at the mine. Los Mineros filed for a fiscal audit to be conducted by the Mexican Treasury into Gammon, in May 2010. In typical government inaction regarding Los Mineros, there has been no response to this request.
In a familiar trend now used in Mexican labour conflicts, workers at El Cubo were physically attacked by the company’s private security team on 18 June.
Gammon Gold recorded US$207 million in revenue from gold and silver mining operations in 2009. The company operates exclusively in Mexico, with a large gold-silver complex in the northern state of Chihuahua, known as Ocampo. Exploration work is on-going at the neighbouring Guadalupe y Calvo gold-silver mine, and Gammon recently acquired the El Mezquite and Venus projects in the states of Zacatecas and Chihuahua, respectively.
Gammon Gold’s director in Mexico, Luis Chavez, was previously the Director of Mines in the Ministry of Finance, and then Director of Mines in Coahuila State government, a position he held when 64 miners died inside the Pasta de Conchos mine in February 2006. After protecting Grupo México in the wake of the accident, Chavez moved to his current position as head of Gammon Gold. The corrupt links between the Mexican government and Gammon Gold are deep.
Politicians in the country’s Senate and House of Representatives demanded that Labour Secretary, Javier Lozano, act as mediator to the conflict.