20 November, 2012IndustriALL’s Mexican glass worker affiliate, SUTEIVP, is now in its fifth year of struggle for the right to organize and bargain collectively at the plant producing glass bottles for Corona beer in Potosí, northern Mexico.
The combative Sindicato Único de Trabajadores de la Empresa Industria Vidriera del Potosí (SUTEIVP) has refused to accept the 2008 summary dismissal of 220 workers covered by a collective agreement. The mass dismissals in 2008 included the entire executive committee of SUTEIVP, and preceded the signing of a protection contract with a corporate yellow union with corrupt leaders.
IndustriALL salutes the committed struggle of its affiliate SUTEIVP.
The company Industria Vidriera del Potosí is a subsidiary of the global beer company Grupo Modelo. It is one of the four bottle manufacturers who produce for the famous Mexican beer Corona, and is owned by Mexico’s richest woman, María Asunción Aramburuzavala. Grupo Modelo is in the process of being bought by global market leader AB InBev, producer of Budweiser, Stella Artois and Becks beers. The combined company has projected sales in 2013 of US$47 billion. This sale will not change the plant management’s anti-union stance.
A group of 33 remain campaigning for their jobs back, as vindictive management have labelled these workers as “trouble-makers” and distributed the black list to other employers. A management smear campaign against the 33 has included their contacting the wives, children and families of the SUTEIVP officials.
Unsurprisingly the Mexican authorities have been complicit in this union crushing of SUTEIVP. Labour authorities employ the usual tactic of drawing out the legal process at every opportunity.
SUTEIVP attempted to file a complaint under the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Companies, using Mexico's OECD National Contact Point. In 2010, the Mexican NCP, part of the Mexican establishment, dismissed their case for "insufficient evidence". The union also issued a complaint to the ILO Committee on Freedom of Association mid-2011, supported by one of IndustriALL's predecessor organizations, the ICEM. The union actively joined all other independant and democratic unions to fight against the recently passed reform of the labour law in Mexico and continues to fight for labour justice at Grupo Modelo and elsewhere in Mexico.