29 June, 2011The Mexican miners' union has indicated that with that ruling the country is moving toward the establishment of real justice in relations between Mexican unions and the government.
MEXICO: The Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) has issued a ruling which is important for the labor movement in Mexico, as it favors freedom of association and trade union independence. On Monday, June 20, the SCJN prohibited government authorities from interfering in any way with the free expression of the will of the workers to elect or re-elect their leaders in exercise of their full freedom of association and union independence.
That ruling comes after the National Union of Workers (UNT) and the National Union of Miners declared that for the representative and independent unions of Mexico, it was "necessary that the SCJN amend the jurisprudence and determine that the registering authority may not deny the taking of note to a union that fulfills the formal requirements."
In the view of the National Union of Mining, Metal and Similar Workers of Mexico, with that ruling "the Justices of the Court are beginning to dispel the suspicions that a decision of the year 2000 was going to be wrongfully upheld; that decision violated the provisions of the Constitution and the Federal Labor Act, as well as International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention 87, which constitutes a part of Mexican law and promotes freedom of association.
Following the ruling, the President of the SCJN, Justice Juan Silva Meza, said that the State must respect the internal elections of the unions, and "may not interfere or participate in such a way as to hinder the execution of decisions taken by its members." He added that "it is not up to the administrative authority to judge the statutory legality of a union election."
The Miners' union indicated that with that ruling the country was moving toward the establishment of real justice in relations between the unions of Mexico and the government. However, it added that "there still remains pending the resolution on protection ("amparo") submitted three years ago by the National Miners' Union, led by Brother Napoleón Gómez Urrutia, against the refusal of authorities to grant him official recognition as the head of our Miners' Union."