14 June, 2010
Scores of letters were sent to Mexico President Felipe Calderón from ICEM affiliates last week, responding to an ICEM call for dialogue not brute force to resolve the three-year long strike by 1,200 workers of Section 65 of the Mexican National Miners’ and Metalworkers’ Union (SNTMMSRM) at the Cananea copper mine in northern Sonora State. On 6 June, Mexican federal police used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse strikers at the mine and inside Section 65’s union hall. (See ICEM report here.)
By the end of last week, following a 10 June skirmish between miners and police that injured eight, a truce was declared by leaders of Section 65, as they held meetings on 10 and 11 June with Sonora Governor Guillermo Padrés Elías in Hermosillo and the Mexican Interior Secretary, Fernando Gómez-Mont.
In the latter meeting on 11 June, Gómez-Mont said he would work to arrange a meeting between the union and the Southern Copper Corp. of Grupo México, owners of the mine, this week. Following the meetings, Section 65 Secretary-General Sergio Tolano Lizarrágo said the government now appears committed to bringing the two sides together for dialogue.
For the union’s part, the Strike Committee is adamant that Southern Copper halt all “illegal hirings” of contractors in order to re-start the 230,000-ton copper mine. The 10 June confrontation started in the early morning hours when strikers rolled huge rocks on to an access road of the Cananea mine to block contractors from entering. Federal police responded by taking control of the entrance, and then fired tear gas and pepper spray at some 150 miners, who had retreated into nearby hills.
According to reports, in four days of altercations, 16 people have been injured, including four miners, 2 police, and the remainder civilians, mostly family members of strikers and others overcome with gas poisoning.
Responding to the ICEM for intervention, South African affiliate National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) said it would organise protests at the opening World Cup match on 11 June between South Africa and Mexico. The action involved members of NUM, the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA), the Chemical, Energy, Pulp, Paper, Wood, and Allied Workers’ Union (CEPPAWU), and the South African Transport and Allied Workers’ Union (SATAWU).
In coordination with the taking of Cananea, federal forces also forcibly took control of Grupo México’s coal mine at Pasta de Conchos in Coahuila state. There, they overcame the widows and family members of 65 dead miners still entombed in shafts following a methane gas explosion in February 2006. The women and family members had been on a long vigil, with demands that the state and company recover the bodies of their cherished ones.
The Mexican government and Grupo México refused that plea, and stopped others in search by cutting off electricity. Halting the search, many felt, served to hide evidence of management responsibility for the accident. The mine was sealed permanently following police actions on 6 June. Widespread criticism has been made of the company's continued failure to properly compensate families of the dead.
The legal strike at Cananea began on 30 July 2007 when Section 65 of SNTMMSRM, or Los Mineros, refused to work in dangerous conditions, similar to those causing the Pasta de Conchos explosion. During the attack of 6 June, police arrested five Los Mineros members, Rodolfo Valdez Serrano, Everardo Ochoa Ballesteros, Luis Alonso Borbón Pérez, Luis Alonso Torres, and Marcelo Lara López.
Sergio Tolano and Juan Gutiérrez Ballesteros, a Los Mineros National Executive Member from Section 65, also faced arrest warrants on 6 June, but both won court injunctions preventing their incarcerations.
At an economic forum Friday, 11 June, in Peru, where Southern Copper also holds mining assets, President and CEO Oscar Gonzalez Rocha said the police takeover of Cananea enables the US-based subsidiary to begin an investment plan and re-start copper production early next year. He said Southern Copper will invest US$50 million in Cananea.
On another level, at the ILO’s International Labour Conference in Geneva on 10 June, the Mexican situation was brought up before the Committee on the Application of Standards. Specifically, debate arose with regard to ILO Convention 155, the Health and Safety at Work Convention. Although Mexico’s government and employers’ representatives, together with a Grupo México representative, pointed to increased numbers of inspectors at worksites, workers’ representatives from around the world criticised the disregard for working people shown by the government of President Felipe Calderón.
It was argued that work performed by employees on short-term contracts or through labour agencies accounts for 60% of the entire Mexican workforce. Those workers are given few social protections, thus leading to statistics that are askew, including occupational safety accidents. On the issue of health and safety in Mexico, it is the worker who must provide burden of proof for accidents or injuries, and since labour tribunals often take years to issue rulings, companies tend to act with impunity.