Mexican Labor News and Analysis

MEXICAN LABOR NEWS AND ANALYSIS
November 2007, Vol. 12, No. 11

About Mexican Labor News and Analysis
Mexican Labor News and Analysis (MLNA) is produced in collaboration with the Authentic Labor Front (Frente Auténtico del Trabajo FAT) of Mexico and the United Electrical Workers (UE) of the United States, and with the support of the Resource Center of the Americas in Minneapolis, Minnesota. MLNA can be viewed at the UE's international web site: www.ueinternational.org

For information about direct subscriptions, submission of articles, and all queries contact editor Dan La Botz at the following e-mail address: labotzdh@muohio.edu or call in the U.S.(513) 861-8722. The U.S. mailing address is: Dan La Botz, Mexican Labor News and Analysis, 3503 Middleton Ave., Cincinnati, OH 45220.

If there is no byline, republication is authorized if the reproduction includes the following paragraph: This article was published by Mexican Labor News and Analysis, a monthly collaboration of the Mexico City-based Authentic Labor Front (FAT) and the Pittsburgh-based United Electrical Workers (UE) www.ueinternational.org.

Contact: Editor Dan La Botz at danlabotz@cs.com or 513-861-8722. For a free e-mailed subscription, sign up at: http://four.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/ue_international-update
The UE Home Page which displays Mexican Labor News and Analysis has a complete Index of back issues.

Staff: Editor, Dan La Botz. Frequent Contributors: David Bacon, Fred Rosen.

IN THIS ISSUE:
*Solidarity Results in Stunning Victory at Mexican Jeans Plant, by Robin Alexander
*UNT at 10--A Decade of Mexico's New Unionism, by Dan LaBotz
*Third Assembly of the National Democratic Convention (CND)
*Labor Law Reform Back on the Agenda
* Peace With Democracy Group Issues “Call To The Nation”
*Oaxaca: Teachers and Community Back on the March
*Report on Mine Workers Health Causes Controversy
*Workers, Lawyers Break with Social Security Union Leader
*Telephone Workers Approving Change in Statutes
*Mexican Teachers Union Begins to Fragment
*FLOC Outraged that Authorities Free Muder Suspect
*American Conference against Impunity to Convene
*Social Statistics


SOLIDARITY RESULTS IN STUNNING VICTORY AT MEXICAN JEANS PLANT
By Robin Alexander

Workers at the Vaqueros Navarra plant won a major victory in their struggle for the right to be represented by the garment union affiliated with Mexico's independent Frente Auténtico del Trabajo (FAT). The workers manufacture jeans in Tehuacán, Mexico for many of the major brands, including American Eagle Outfitters, Gap,Warnaco, Tommy Hilfiger, Guess and Dickies.

Intimidation, violence, and corruption, are characteristic of virtually all elections in Mexico, where workers are forced to vote out loud in front of factory owners, supervisors and often thugs. It is an unusual group of workers who have the strength to withstand the pressure. But a group of largely indigenous women in Tehuacán, Mexico won an astounding victory on November 23rd.

Despite hundreds of discharges, harassment, threats and intimidation over many months, workers at the Vaqueros Navarra factory stood up to their employer and voted out loud in favor of the FAT affiliated September 19 Union. The final vote, which included the votes of approximately 45 of the dismissed workers, was 263 for September 19, 187 for the CROM, and a mere 3 for the CROC, the incumbent union. “This was a decisive victory,” said Benedicto Martínez, co-president of the FAT. “We are look forward to having the Labor Board certify the outcome promptly, so that we can begin to provide representation to workers under the contract. It is our hope that the company will not retaliate against the majority of workers who clearly expressed their choice.”

This victory would not have been possible without both hard work on the ground and international solidarity. The Human and Labor Rights Commission of the Tehuacán Valley, the FAT, and many of the workers who had been fired all worked tirelessly over the last months for this victory.

In addition, an international solidarity effort coordinated by the Toronto-based Mexico Solidarity Network (MSN), combined pressure on and engagement with the brands and financial support and solidarity from trade unions in the US, Canada, and other parts of the world. In addition to the alerts by the unions, Labor Start also highlighted the campaign, requesting emails.

While unsuccessful in obtaining a secret ballot election, the international pressure resulted in an absence of overt violence and the presence of US Labor Attaché to Mexico, Kevin Richardson, Angélica Gonzalez of the Jesuit Centre for Reflection and Labour Action (CEREAL), and Lynda Yanz of MSN as observers. “This is a tremendous victory that few of us believed was possible," said Yanz. "It was an incredible show of courage by young, mostly indigenous women. It was an honor to be part of this process.”

Victories have been few and far between in Mexico’s maquila industry, and this one was significant in a number of respects. On the ground in Mexico, a group of workers had sought assistance from the Human and Labor Rights Commission of the Tehuacán Valley, which had a relationship with the Maquila Solidarity Network in Canada. Faced with massive discharges, they turned to the FAT, an independent union with years of experience in labor organizing and excellent attorneys.

To build a campaign after workers have been fired is always far more difficult, and it is always difficult to develop a functional alliance under pressure. However, the various groups remained unified and, as in most campaigns of this sort, the heart of the fight was over the timing and conditions under which the election would take place.

The work of the MSN with the brands was critically important, with some – most notably the Gap and American Eagle Outfitters -- playing a positive role. An investigation they requested by Verite documented allegations and was also extremely important, as was a joint letter by six of the brands to the Mexican labor authorities calling for a free and fair vote. The location of the plant in the state of Puebla also permitted the UNT to play a significanttg role. (The UNT, in which FAT’s Martinez is a vice president, has great credibility in the state, as it is the home of the union of Volkswagon workers). In addition, a number of unions played an important role in the solidarity effort including the UE, AFL-CIO and UNITE-HERE!, and many others, especially in Canada, contributed financial support and to the email and letter campaigns.

Yet despite the pressure, the election was delayed a number of times as several “official unions” filed petitions designed to complicate and delay proceedings. However, the labor authorities became directly involved in mediating between the various interests and in the end set an election within days of the final hearing and permitted the presence of credible outside observers. The conditions under which the election took place – by voice vote inside the plant -- were far from ideal and did little to curtail the psychological intimidation, the public attention and outside observers eliminated the overt violence which is often all too common.

But the bottom line was that when the moment came to vote an extremely courageous group of workers remained united and expressed their choice for an independent union.

Whether this choice is respected remains to be seen. However, there can be little doubt that the workers are in a far stronger position having won the election by a large margin, and that victory is due to unity and solidarity both in Mexico and across borders. This is truly a victory to be celebrated!


For more information
This campaign has been covered extensively in earlier issues of MLNA. For more additional information, documents and photos, also visit the MSN web site at http://www.en.maquilasolidarity.org.



UNT AT 10--A DECADE OF MEXICO'S NEW UNIONISM
By Dan La Botz

The National Union of Workers (UNT) celebrates its tenth anniversary this month but from both within and without there are mixed reviews of the federation and its role. While some see the federation as having created the first genuinely independent labor movement in Mexico since the early 1930s, others see it as neither completely independent nor effective in fighting for more democratic, militant, and progressive unionism in Mexico.

The National Union of Workers (UNT) was founded a decade ago on a platform of commitment to union reform, a promise to improve the lives of workers, and a vow to become the center of a new social movement. A decade later it is clear that the presence of the UNT has made a difference in breaking the hold of the government and the former ruling parties over the labor unions; but, as its leaders admit, it has failed so far to achieve many of its goals. Some would say that because the UNT was from be beginning principally based on unions which themselves are bureaucratic and in many respects conservative, it was impossible for it to achieve the goals it had set. A few would go further and argue that the UNT is constructing a “neo-corporativist” model that has become an obstacle to a a more democratic, militant, and progressive unionism.


The Founding of the UNT
The National Union of Workers was founded on November 28, 1997 when unions and labor federations with different experiences came together to create an alternative to the Congress of Labor (CT) and the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM). The CT and the CTM had been for decades controlled by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and the Mexican government, a corrupt relationship which made it impossible for them to function as vehicles that would express the needs and desires of workers. Above all, the UNT was a break from such tight control by the PRI, though many leaders of the UNT would remain affiliated with the party for years.

The UNT adopted five goals at its founding:

1. To democratize Mexico’s labor unions.
2. To change the country’s economy and society.
3. To win economic improvements in the lives of workers.
4. To bring about the creation of more jobs.
5. To participate in all the social movements.

The UNT brought together unions which had been part of the Congress of Labor, some unions that had been part of the university workers movement, and other independent unions and federations which had been part of the labor insurgency of the late 1960s and early 1970s. The three large unions that gave the UNT its weight and significance were the Mexican Telephone Workers Union (STRM), the Union of Workers of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (STUNAM), and the huge Social Security Workers Union (SNTSS). The Authentic Labor Front (FAT), a small federation of unions, farmers and cooperatives with deep commitment to union democracy, years of experience in labor organizing and a sophisticated analysis of Mexico’s economic and political situation, was also a founder of the UNT. The UNT’s principal promise was to be a pole of attraction to workers in search of an alternative to “corporativism,” that is, to the government-party controlled unions of the CT, CTM, CROC, and CROM.

Perhaps the UNT’s greatest contribution was its break with the conservative traditions of the Congress of Labor and the Confederation of Mexican Workers which had been run along authoritarian lines and demanded monolithic political unity. The UNT, bringing together as it did unions from different experiences and traditions, became a federation that from the beginning resolved to live with many tendencies and opinions. Instead of a all powerful general secretary whose word was law, the UNT created a co-presidency shared by the general secretaries of three of the major unions. The UNT made decisions based on consensus, rather than by casting votes. While some, like researcher Graciela Bensusán think that the co-presidency made the federation weaker, still it represented an important rupture with authoritarian tendencies.

The UNT has also proven capable of learning. When first created, because the largest and most important unions were all based in public enterprises, the officials had little appreciation of the problem of “ghost unions” and “protection contracts,” that is phony unions that provide contracts with minimum terms to protect employers from real unions.
However, as airline and telephone unions began to face new competitors, the UNT’s leaders came to grasp the significance of this issue for unions in the private sector.

A Decade of UNT Activity
The UNT did become a pole of attraction, winning other unions to its banner and, it claims, growing from 22 unions with 500,000 members to 200 unions with 1.5 million members. Among the unions joining were fire fighters, employees of the Federal Electoral Institute, bank workers, workers at the bullring, pawnshop employees, university workers, and municipal workers.

The UNT formed alliances with other unions, peasant organizations, and citizens groups around such issues as opposing regressive tax increases, fighting to defend the national health care system (Social Security), opposing the privatization of the electrical power industry and fighting a reactionary reform of federal labor law. The UNT contributed to the building of the Indigenous, Peasant, Social and Popular Front of Unity and Union Action which took on many of these issues. At the same time the UNT worked with the Citizens Coalition around issues of a democratic transition and the development of a more just and equitable society.

At the international level the UNT takes pride in having taken an active role in the creation of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) established in 2006. (http://www.ituc-csi.org/) The UNT also brought cases before the international panels established by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) side agreements. The UNT took public positions opposing the neo-liberal free-market economic order, calling for a new political economy and a new social pact.

Arising as it did out of a struggle for independence from the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), the UNT had vowed that it would retain its independence from political parties. The UNT did, however, work with such groups as the Citizens Coalition and the Broad Progressive Front (FAP) of political parties to put forward its positions on issues such as privatization of utilities and petroleum and opposition to Labor Law Reform. In practice, the UNT found that the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) would convey its views to the legislature, though no formal UNT-PRD alliance was established.

Perhaps the clearest and most important example was the UNT’s Labor Law Reform proposal, a very significant document introduced by the PRD to counter what would have been a devastating labor law reform developed by Secretary of Labor Carlos Abascal. The union mobilized its members to demonstrate and engage in civil disobedience to oppose the legislation and mobilized international support as well.


A Difficult Decade
If the UNT has not accomplished everything that it and others hoped for, it is largely because it emerged at a difficult time. The UNT was founded almost precisely at the moment of collapse of the Mexico’s state-party regime. Only three years later, in 2000, Vicente Fox of the conservative National Action Party (PAN) won the presidency ending 75 years of control by the PRI. Under Fox, Mexico continued to embrace the neo-liberal free-market economy and Mexican politics were democratized only in the sense that there was greater party competition. The dominant parties­the PAN and the PRI­had no commitment to democracy in the more profound sense of citizen participation, civil rights, labor rights or human rights.

Moreover, while Mexico gradually came out of the economic crisis of 1994-1996, the economy never recovered in the sense of providing more jobs or higher wages for workers. During the Fox presidency, hundreds of thousands of workers unable to find jobs in Mexico migrated to the United States. Under Fox and then under his successor Felipe Calderón, whom many believe was fraudulently elected, the Mexican government became more repressive and more violent. Without a doubt the political and economic situation made difficult the UNT’s attempt to create the new union and social movement it had promised to lead.

During the last decade the situation has become more difficult in many ways:

* Mexico still fails to create the million jobs necessary each year to employ new entrants into the labor market.
* Mexico continues to hemorrhage about 500,000 workers a year who leave to seek work in the United States, young active workers who might otherwise become part of a more vital labor movement.
* Mexican unions represent many fewer members than they did before 1980.
* With the collapse of the old corporativist system of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, the Congress of Labor (CT) and the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM), Mexico’s labor unions have divided into many rival factions.
* Company and gangster unions have moved into some industries to replace the old government controlled unions.
* Most Mexican workers are member of unions over which they have no control, often violent and corrupt unions that write contracts to protect employers not workers, leading to a well-founded distrust of unions.
* Having failed to reform the labor law, employers are increasingly ignoring the existing law and introducing measures of greater flexibility, including disregard for requirements for a 40-hour work week and 8-hour day, and introducing part-time work.
* Employers have also introduced contracting-out or subcontracting on a greater scale.

The UNT’s Weaknesses
While the political and economic conditions have no doubt militated against the development of the new labor and social movement that the UNT hoped to create, some of the problems have to be attributed to the federation itself. First, the three large unions that dominate the UNT­telephone, university, and social security­have themselves significant problems. While not by any means the kind of violent and corrupt unions that some Mexican workers face, these three unions remain bureaucratic institutions from the ideal of union democracy. Telephone workers complain about the perpetual reelection of Francisco Hernández Juárez as general secretary, now in the post for more than 30 years. There are allegations of corruption in STUNAM, the university workers union. Rank-and-file dissidents complain about lack of union democracy in the SNTSS, the social security workers organization.

Second, while the UNT has often taken progressive positions on economic and political policies, it has been kept on the defensive since it was founded: opposing the reform of the social security system, fighting against a reactionary labor law reform, organizing against the privatization of the electrical and petroleum industries. Although the UNT has expanded into other areas, but it has not put money or resources into organizing new unions in those new areas. While organizing in this period has proven difficult all over the world, still the UNT might have put more effort into organizing and in particular into carrying a campaign into the maquiladoras.

Third, the UNT has mobilized its members in marches and demonstrations around issues such as labor law reform and privatization of energy and petroleum and it has even organized national work stoppages around such issues. Unfortunately, these mostly symbolic gestures have not had the economic and political impact they might have. The UNT has flexed its muscles but, with some notable exceptions, seldom exerted much force.

Finally, when a national crisis erupted over the alleged fraud in the national presidential election, the UNT did not thrown its weight into the balance. The UNT’s leaders have sometimes put the federation on record, but they have less often called upon their members to stand up for the causes the UNT has endorsed. While it is true that Andrés Manuel López Obrador discouraged participation by organizations in the citizen’s movement that protested the election, it is also true that the UNT (as distinguished from the many union members) did not exert its own initiative to enter into the most important and potentially significant political event of the last few years.

Some of the far left argue that the UNT serves to create an illusion of an independent federation, while in reality it functions to keep workers under control, their protests channeled into safe symbolic opposition.

Whatever one thinks of that, Benito Bahena, leader of the Streetcar Workers Alliance and a leading figure in the UNT, observed that while the UNT accomplished some important things in the beginning, “In the last four years we have lost a lot of credibility, because we’re always threatening a general strike that never comes, so that now neither the government nor the workers believe us anymore.”

(The UNT document “Balance de la UNT a 10 Años” can be found at:
http://www.unt.org.mx/docs/balance10aniversario.pdf
Carolina Gomez Mena, “Casi sin credibilidad, la UNT cumple diez años,” La Jornada, 28 and 29 noviembre 2007.)


THIRD ASSEMBLY OF NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION:
LÓPEZ OBRADOR CALLS FOR THE DEFENSE OF PETROLEUM

Tens of thousands of Mexicans filled the Zócalo, the national plaza in Mexico City, for the Third Assembly of the National Democratic Convention (CND) where they heard Andrés Manuel López Obrador call upon Mexicans to defend the nationalized petroleum industry.

The CND is the body formed as the foundation of the “legitimate government” of López Obrador, who claims to be the “legitimate president” of Mexico and the real winner of the 2006 elections. While the crowd gathered in the Zócalo was not as large as those that turned out for his campaign and to protest the alleged fraud of the election, it was still a significant turnout, most of it mobilized by the Party of the Democratic Revolution.

López Obrador told those present that they should be prepared to mobilize in defense of the oil industry and to prevent its privatization by the Felipe Calderón government.
He told the assembly that his “legitimate government” had formed a special commission to coordinate the defense of the petroleum industry made up of former and current government officials and experts.

“We have a rescue plan” for the oil industry he told his followers, one that would save 400 billion pesos in the current budget which would be redirected for exploration and development of oil and gas as well as the construction of refineries, modernization and expansion of plants and maintenance of existing facilities.

The assembly in addition to supporting the call for defending the state oil company also voted to end the common practice of government officials drawing multiple salaries, to increase wages 35 percent and to free political prisoners. The CND’s resolutions have no legal or practical impact but express the sentiments and views of those present.

The Third Assembly seemed to patch over what had been rifts within the Party of the Democratic Revolution and between López Obrador’s “legitimate government.” It also seemed to overcome tensions between the “legitimate government” and the section of the PRD which is involved in the actual parliament, and is forced to deal on a daily basis to deal with the party of the president Felipe Calderón.



PEACE WITH DEMOCRACY GROUP
ISSUES “CALL TO THE NATION”

In mid-November, Peace with Democracy, a group of Mexican intellectuals and political activists, published a critical analysis of Mexico’s current situation entitled “Call to the Mexican Nation.” The document argues that neoliberal globalization and Mexico’s complete subordination and integration into the U.S. economy, together with the increasing violence of the Mexican state, have led to a critical situation.

Mexico, say the authors, has become a transnational zone that has all but lost its independence and finds its social welfare state dismantled and society in a state of social disintegration. The authors call upon the Mexican citizenry to continue in a peaceful struggle for national self-determination and a just society.

Signers of the document are: Pablo González Casanova, Víctor Flores Olea, Miguel Concha Malo, Miguel Álvarez, Luis Hernández Navarro, Alicia Castellanos Guerrero, Gilberto López y Rivas, Héctor de la Cueva, Ana Esther Ceceña, Magdalena Gómez, Higinio Muñoz, Samuel Ruiz García, José Antonio Almazán, Dolores González, Pablo Romo Cedano, Gonzalo Ituarte Verduzco, Juan Bañuelos, Juan Brom, Oscar González, Guillermo Briseño, Guillermo Almeyra, Alfredo López Austin, Carlos Fazio , Rafael Reygadas, María Fernanda Campa Uranga, Manuela Alvarez y Santiago Alvarez.

The manifesto “Call to the Mexican Nation” is available in Spanish in its entirety at: http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2007/11/16/index.php?section=politica&article=024n2pol.


OAXACA: TEACHERS AND COMMUNITY BACK ON THE MARCH

Oaxaca’s teachers and community members were back on the march in mid-November once again demanding the resignation of governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz. As the governor sent his state of the state message to the legislature, Local 22 of the Mexican Teachers Union (el SNTE) and the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO) marched from four points around the city toward the legislature.

The marchers demanded not only the governor’s resignation but also the liberation of political prisoners and the dropping of charges against them, and the return of 185 schools being held by teacher union Local 59 which is controlled by members of Ruiz Ortiz’s Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).

Meanwhile, APPO continues to demand a thorough investigation into the events of last year in which more than 20 people were killed during protest demonstrations in Oaxaca. Evidence has, meanwhile, come to light that indicates that the U.S. journalist Brad Will was killed at close range, suggesting that he was a target rather than a victim of a random shot fired during a melee.

APPO leader Horacio Sosa was released from prison on November 19. His lawyer said he was released because he was able to prove his innocence of charges made against him when he was detained on December 4, 2006.


LABOR LAW REFORM BACK ON THE AGENDA
The Felipe Calderón government, through the Secretary of Labor Havier Lozano Alarcón has begun to lobby for labor law reform in the Mexican legislature and, as in the past, the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM) seems to be supportive of the government while the National Union of Workers and the Mexican Union Front (FSM) both oppose the proposed reforms.

The UNT and the FSM have focused their opposition to the reforms on changes to Article 35 which governs questions of temporary work and apprenticeship or trainees. The employers wish to alter the article to permit employment by the hour. Current law requires full-time employment by the 8-hour day and 40-hour week. The UNT and FSM are also concerned about changes which would permit subcontracting, leading to the cancellation of contracts, loss of social security (health and pension).

The UNT has called for changes in the federal labor law which would require all unions to hold secret ballot elections for officers.

A congressman of the Party of the Democratic Revolution, Carlos Sánchez Barrios, has introduced a reform to Articles 7 and 133 of the Federal Labor Law which would require employers to include in their labor force workers who are older than 60 years, indigenous people, or handicapped. He said he hoped his measure would help overcome the stigmas some workers experience and surmount divisions among working people. His reforms also would require that any firm operating in Mexico employ at least 90 percent Mexicans as technical and professional workers.

REPORT ON MINE WORKERS’ HEALTH CAUSES CONTROVERSY

In mid-November, a team of eight U.S. and Mexican occupational health professionals organized by the Maquiladora Health and Safety Support Network (MHSSN) issued a 58-page report on serious problems with workers’ health in Grupo Mexico’s Copper mine in Cananea, Sonora. The report found that workers suffered exposure to high levels of toxic dusts and acid mist, as well as having to work with failing equipment that suffered from a lack of preventive maintenance. The company, they found, was not implementing its safety program.

At present, the Mexican Miners Union (SNTMMRM) has struck the plant and there is no work going on there, but when in operation it employs 1,300 workers.

The report found:

* A lack of preventive maintenance.
* High concentrations of silica dust which can cause silicosis and lung cancer.
* Substantial elevations in the prevalence of respiratory symptoms in the worker population.
* A lack of comprehensive medical surveillance to determine workers’ exposures to respiratory hazards.
* An inadequate safety program and failure to provide health and safety training as required by law.
* Insufficient industrial hygiene monitoring.
* Lack of effective engineering controls such source pollution controls and ventilation.
* Reliance on inadequate personal protective equipment.
* Unconfirmed reports of 50 separate accidents.


The team concluded that “there are serious health and safety hazards at the Cananea mine operation that require immediate and long-term correction in order to protect workers at the facility from both instantaneous death and chronic exposures generating occupational diseases.”

The United Steel Workers, which represents workers in Canada and the United States and paid for the investigation in Mexico, sent a letter calling upon the government of Felipe Calderón to protect workers’ health and safety.

(The full report and other related materials are available at the MHSSN website: http://mhssn.igc.org/ A summary can be found at the United Steel Workers site at: http://www.usw.org/usw/program/content/4374.php )

Government’s Response Ignores Worker Health Issue
The Mexican government’s response was to declare that the report had no legal validity because it had been conducted without authorization. Such an inspection, said a letter from Under-Secretary of Labor Álvaro Castro to Dr. Robert Cohen and Garret Brown, should not have been conducted without permission of mine owner Grupo Mexico. Also, since there has been a strike at the mine for several months, it should not have been conducted without the permission of the Mexican Labor Board (JFCA). Only federal work site inspectors have the right to carry out such an investigation, the letter said.

Company Response
Grupo Mexico denied that its mining operations at Cananea caused any sorts of dangerous exposure to workers. At the same time, they blamed both the Mexican Mine Workers union and the United Steel Workers for what they called an “illegal strike” that had gone on for more than four months and cost over US$400 million.


WORKERS, LAWYERS BREAK WITH SOCIAL SECURITY UNION LEADER

Workers who are members of the National Union of Social Security Workers (SNTSS) and lawyers who represent the union have both rebelled against general secretary Valdemar Gutierrez Fragoso after he signed an agreement with the management of the Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS) that would give lower benefits to new hires.

The Democratic Coalition of Workers of Social Security, an opposition caucus in the union, called for the removal of Gutierrez Fragoso for having “betrayed the workers.”

Attorneys Néstor de Buen and Arturo Alcalde Justiniani both resigned from their positions as legal advisors to the union, saying they could not support Gutierrez Fragoso’s action in negotiating an agreement behind the backs of the workers that would adversely affect new hires who would be union members. De Buen said that for IMSS to have entered into such an agreement with the general secretary of the union was unconstitutional since it took away from workers constitutionally protected benefits.

Gutierrez Fragoso denied that he had signed such an agreement, though information about the agreement from the lawyers and others had circulated in the press.


TELEPHONE WORKERS APPROVING CHANGE IN STATUTES

Members of the Mexican Telephone Workers Union (STRM) appear to be approving changes in their statutes which would, among other things, permit the reelection of the general secretary, according to the current general secretary Francisco Hernández Juárez. With 16,000 votes cast, 91% were in favor he reported. The passage of these reforms allows him to be reelected. Hernández Juárez is also one of the three co-presidents of the National Union of Workers (UNT).

The statute changes also raise dues for retired workers and create an assistant general secretary.

The reform of the statutes has been opposed by the National Telephone Workers Network (RNT) which accuses Hernández Juárez of “legalizing and perpetuating anti-democratic practices and centralizing power in the general secretary and in that way increasing authoritarianism and concentrating power in too few hands.” The opposition says these reforms will increase the tendency toward “union bosses” (cacicazgos sindicales).


MEXICAN TEACHERS UNION BEGINS TO FRAGMENT

The Mexican Teachers Union (el SNTE), which represents teachers and other workers employed by the Mexican Secretary of Education (SEP) and claims to be the largest union in Latin America with over one million members, has begun to fragment. The splintering of the union is in part a response to bureaucratic control by Elba Esther Gordillo who since the early 1980s has controlled the union.

During the 1970s union dissidents rejected the strategy of trying to organize an independent union and opted instead to create a national rank-and-file opposition group called the National Coordinating Committee of the Teachers Union (la CNTE). Now, almost 40 years later, teachers appear to have given up on that strategy and instead are opting out, creating local teachers unions. In some cases, the leaders of these new independent unions wish to chart a course away from both el SNTE and la CNTE.

In Locals 9, 10 and 11 of el SNTE in Mexico City, teachers have organized the Independent Teachers Union of Mexico (SITECIM). They are now one among several independent teachers unions that exist in Puebla, Tlaxcala and Morelos. In 2005 teachers in Baja California created the State Union of Education Workers (SETE) and in Tabasco they created the Independent Union of Education Workers in Tabasco (SITET).

Teachers in the National Politechnical Institute (INP) have created the Union of Workers of the National Politechnical Institute (STIPN) which they see as part of a process of destroying the existing National Teachers Union (el SNTE). Silvio Lira Mojica says that the SNTE “no longer represents teachers but rather has been coopted by a bureaucratic elite (elite charra) for more than twenty years, and consequently there is no real democratic union life nor can the union guarantee the rights of teachers and employees.”



FLOC OUTRAGED THAT MEXICAN
AUTHORITIES FREE SUSPECT

From the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC)
A suspect in the assassination of Santiago Rafael Cruz, an organizer for the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) was freed on November 17 by Mexican authorities. Eduardo Rodríguez Cervantes was captured by the Border Patrol when he tried to enter the U.S. and was handed over to the authorities of the State of Sonora. Sonoran authorities reportedly notified authorities in Nuevo Leon, who are supposedly investigating the murder of Santiago Rafael, but they freed Rodriguez just a few hours later.

FLOC is extremely concerned about what took place. “This omission by the authorities does not help the advancement of the investigation,” indicated FLOC president Baldemar Velasquez.

FLOC has asked the Mexican federal government to take over the case of Santiago Rafael Cruzbecause authorities of Nuevo Leon have shown both inefficiency and disdain for conducting a serious and transparent investigation. Nuevo Leon officials have been shown to have corrupt ties with criminal elements whom FLOC suspects are involved in Santiago's murder.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has ordered Mexico to provide for the security of FLOC personnel, but the lack of a complete investigation leaves FLOC staff and members in a constant state of fear. For more information see www.floc.com

Take Action

FLOC asks that you write Mexican President Felipe Calderón and ask that the Mexican government conduct a thorough and open investigation of the assassination of Santiago Rafael.

Thank you for your support! As always, all the gains for justice that FLOC has been able to achieve over the years has been because of the strong support of people like you who believe the values of human rights that we all hold should be a reality.


AMERICAN CONFERENCE AGAINST IMPUNITY TO CONVENE

[The following is a letter of invitation from the organizers of the conference. – Ed.]

For more than five decades Latin America has suffered an authentic GENOCIDE, a product of military coups, military dictatorships, dirty wars, and wars of low intensity under the guise of so-called National Security, led by the United States. From Mexico to Chile, hundreds of thousands of illegal violations of freedom, torture, disappeared citizens, and deaths document this genocide.

In reality, the common denominator in our countries is the impunity guaranteed by the system. The criminals of acts against humanity are granted impunity through procedures and laws designed for that purpose, through obstruction of access to information, and through innumerable other devices and resources. This results in the blatant protection of genocide and the exculpation of those responsible. It effectively guarantees the current and future implementation of genocide.

During the last fifty years, the tireless fight for justice for the disappeared and murdered, and for bringing the truth to light, waged by the victims, their families, and human rights organizations has not ceased even for one minute. However, thousands of trials now lie dormant in the tribunals and supreme courts in each county, while the number of incarcerated criminals can be counted with the fingers on one hand.

Minor efforts by some governments have proved insignificant. Truth commissions and programs of reparations have not changed anything. To the contrary, they have masked real efforts to achieve justice.

Thousands of murderers and torturers and their superiors have been reincorporated into society, retaining their privileges and resources while hiding their past. Through their positions of power, they maintain and continue their former practices of human rights abuses. This is now fortified under the Doctrine of the War Against Terror, newly imposed by the United States since September 11th, 2001. It is a wider version of the doctrine responsible for genocide in our continent of the 1970’s.

Recently, “anti-terrorist” laws have been passed in Mexico and other countries. These laws can be utilized to legally justify torture, illegal detention without limits, and “disappearance” of any who question or oppose those in power.

The only major accomplishments against genocide in the continent, provoked by the governments in power, have been achieved by the hundreds of victims, their families, human rights organizations, women’s groups, sons and daughters of the disappeared, good-will lawyers, and investigators and individuals who struggle to achieve justice.

Conscious of this, we, the victims, families, and organizations consider it fundamental to propose the organization for the First Continental Conference Against Impunity to be held in Mexico City on the 19,20,21 and 22 of July, 2008.

Conference Goals

The goals of the conference are:

1.- Exchange experiences of struggle to bring the truth to light. To find justice by identifying, denouncing and condemning those guilty of illegal detentions, tortures, murder and disappearances of people in our countries, and to devise a definite clear and strong plan of action against amnesty for those guilty of these crimes, based on the needs of victims.

2.-Simultaneously, to facilitate a conference of sons and daughters of the victims, from Canada to Chile.

3.- To exchange information on international crimes and genocide. Included in our archives would be information obtained from testimonials of archives and witnesses from different regions. To create an organization that would collect and diffuse this information so it is available to all. To demand that all governments open the archives of their armed forces, the government and tribunals. We would have as a model the archives of the Condor Operation discovered by Martin Almada in Paraguay. Likewise, to disclose the archives of the "DINA" in Chile, the archives of the Guatemalan Police, and those of responsibility Clavel recently freed in Argentina.

4.- To investigate the role of the antiterrorist laws and doctrines of national security in the massive violations of human rights, and to give those who struggle for universal justice a role within this reality. To investigate the responsibility of different governments and hold them accountable for their actions, beginning with the US government.

5.-To facilitate a conference of lawyers and judges who are committed to truth and justice. To study the role human rights organizations can play within the USA to advance those efforts. This is particularly important, due to the fact that there are already many documented cases in the U.S. courts against central American torturers and assassins (where they have sought refuge), that have reached sentences and fines of millions of dollars in compensation to victims of torture.

6.-To study the role of the press and society as a whole as accomplices in some cases and denouncers in others, of amnesty cases, as well as to facilitate the work if investigators and journalists committed to the clarifying of the truth.

7.- To consolidate the need for Human Rights Organizations to assume the sole and permanent role of protectors and maintainers of human rights in society, at the same time assuring the financial support needed to achieve those goals This, independently from the roles and responsibilities of government.

8.- To establish a clear link between crimes of the past and present, that are a product of the impunity given to its perpetrators.

9.- To create a continental coordinated effort against impunity, composed of organizations and individuals so that those crimes against humanity never happen again.

Proposals to the Conference

The organizers propose that the conference will undertake:

1.- The writing of a detailed document justifying the need for such a conference.

2.- To collect signatures from victims, organizations, and individuals to support this document.

3.- To raise money to cover expenses of those who could otherwise no be able to attend, as well as money to rent adequate space for instance a hotel with conference room in Mexico City.

4.- The agenda will be developed based on the ideas and input given by its participants. The day would end around 17:00, thus giving enough time to attend other public events such as debates, lectures, etc, starting around 19:00 in different sites throughout the city, (UNAM, Tlatelolco, etc) thus giving the public the opportunity to participate.

5.- To create a committee as soon as possible that would promote the conference, by encouraging the formation of groups in each country that would organize and promote this noble and necessary task. If possible, to organize regional and national conferences before the final continental conference.

6.-To create a website where each country could submit information from its participants as well as information on the actions taken to strengthen and make possible this conference.

7.- To organize a large cultural event for the closing ,inviting protest singers like Daniel Viglietti, Silvio Rodríguez, Pablo Milanes, Oscar Chávez , Mercedes Sosa, Quilapayún, Paco Ibañez, Mejia Godoy, and many more authors and groups that have supported the victims and brought hope with music and word.

We hope that with this first invitation being distributed sent to interested people and organizations we can start off this project. For this task, we need your opinion and your input so we can contact all people and organizations in the different countries of the American Continent who deserve and need to participate.
no pardon
no forgetting
Un Afectuoso Abrazo,
Beatriz Aurora Castedo
Victim of the Pinochet Regime


SOCIAL STATISTICS

Mexico Fails to End Poverty: BM
The Bank of Mexico released a study in November arguing that in recent decades Mexico had insufficient growth to end poverty. The study suggested that Mexico’s wealthy prefer to live off their interest rather than contribute to productive activities. Mexico invested too little in research and development and therefore made little technological progress and also had a low level of human capital.

Mexico has to Create Better Jobs to Reduce Poverty: ECLAC
Mexico will not be able to reduce poverty unless it creates higher quality jobs according to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).


Industrial Activity Stagnant
Industrial activity in Mexico grew by only 0.4 percent in September compared with 5.0 percent for the same month in 2006 according to the Mexican Institute of Statistics (INEGI).


Gross Domestic Product Grows
Mexico’s gross domestic product for the third quarter of 2007 grew by 3.7 percent compared to the previous year, principally as a result of growth in agriculture and the service sector.


Unemployment in Mexico
Unemployment in Mexico rose in July-September by 245,538 people bringing to 1.750,000 the number of unemployed in the country, raising unemployment from 3.5 to 3.9 percent. Mexico has no unemployment insurance program.

Exports from Mexico to EU Increase by 166%
Mexican exports to the European Union increased by 166 percent since 2000, according to Eduardo Ramos Ávalos of the coordinating unit of International Commercial negotiations.


Minimum Wage Raise Debated
The Confederation of Employers of the Mexican Republic (COPARMEX), the most politically important employers’ association, asserted that the country could not afford to raise wages 10% as requested by the Mexican Confederation of Workers (CTM). The Revolutionary Confederation of Mexican Workers (CROC) conceded that because of inflationary pressures wages should not be raised by more than one digit, that is, by 9 percent. The National Democratic Congress (CND) called for an emergency wage increase of 35 percent.

END MEXICAN LABOR NEWS AND ANALYSIS, VOL.12, NO.11, NOV., 2007

Robin Alexander
United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE)
UE Director of International Labor Affairs
One Gateway Center, Suite 1400
420 Fort Duquesne Blvd.
PGH., PA. 15222-1416

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412-471-8999 FAX


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