29 July, 2010The Mexican Miners' Union and the Mexican Electrical Workers' Union agree to form a strong trade union front in Mexico, starting with sending a solidarity caravan to Cananea to coincide with the third anniversary of the mine workers' strike that began on July 30, 2007.
MEXICO: The Mexican Miners and Metal Workers' Union (SNTMMRM - Mexican Miners' Union) and the Mexican Electrical Workers' Union (SME) met this week for the first time in an effort to form a strong trade union front in Mexico, starting with sending a caravan to Cananea tomorrow in solidarity with the third anniversary of the mineworkers' strike that began on July 30, 2007.
The trade union front also includes a broad alliance of other independent trade unions, the families and widows of the deceased workers at the Pasta de Conchos mine and the mothers and fathers of the Guardería ABC in Sonora, Mexico.
Following the Mexican presidential election in 2006 of Felipe Calderón, the attack on workers' rights in Mexico has escalated sharply, especially against independent unions that have taken a strong stand against its attempts to pursue the neo-liberal policies of privatization and labor law reform such as the Mexican Miners' Union and SME.
In October 2009, President Calderón ordered 6,000 federal police to seize the power plants operated by members of the SME, while simultaneously liquidating the second largest state-owned Light and Power Company (Luz y Fuerza del Centro), and firing a workforce of around 44,000 employees. Five days earlier, the government refused to accord legal recognition to the democratically elected president of SME, Martín Esparza, although this should have been a routine matter.
In what appears to be a breakthrough, the SME lifted its hunger strike on July 23 after they agreed with the Interior Ministry to hold high level talks, which commenced on July 26. This followed a court ruling earlier in the month that while the government had the right to liquidate the company the SME is the legitimate representative of the workers and it may continue to represent those workers before government courts, labour boards and other agencies
In 2007, IMF affiliate the Mexican Miners' Union launched a strike and occupied the Grupo Mexico mine in Cananea to protest the company's refusal to remedy extreme safety hazards. In February 2010, a Mexican appellate court gave the green light to the Calderón government to terminate 1,200 miners and to break the three-year old strike at Grupo Mexico's Cananea mine. The court's decision threatens to effectively eliminate the right to strike in Mexico. It also set the stage for the government's recent invasion of Cananea, dislodging the striking workers, attacking them in their local union headquarters and closing it down.
The attacks on the Mexican Miners' Union in Cananea are part of a systematic campaign by the government against the Mexican Miners' Union, which include the continued persecution of its general secretary Napoleon Gomez. As explained in a protest letter written by the United Steelworkers to the Mexican Secretary of Labor, on July 8, 2010 the courts once again dismissed all charges filed against Gomez by state prosecutors and there are now no outstanding charges against him.