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What are we Demanding During the 2012 Days of Action and Why?



February 19, 2012 marks the 6th anniversary of an explosion at a mine site owned by the Mexican company Grupo México. Grupo México is owned by the 2nd richest man in Mexico, German Larrera. The explosion killed 65 men in an act of what Los Mineros General Secretary, Napoleon Gomez Urrutia, calls "industrial homicide". The bodies of 63 of the men are still buried underground. No one has been held accountable for the explosion. Just days before the explosion, the Government of Mexico declined to recognize the leadership of Los Mineros, whose twice elected General Secretary has since been forced to operate from exile in Canada for more than half of his term. The union's Secretary Treasurer was released after spending 2 years, 2 months and 20 days in jail and being subjected to 19 mistrials, just days after the 2011 Global Days of Action for Trade Union Freedom in Mexico.



The 2012 Global Days of Action for Trade Union Freedom in Mexico take up the same - mainly unheeded- demands as in 2011. They provide an opportunity to focus on the deterioration of Mexican trade unionists' and workers' rights in the twelve months since the international community denounced the dangerous and unprecedented abuses of workers’ human rights in this country. And the global labor rights community comes together at this time to demand that Mexico uphold its internationally recognized obligations. It is important to remember that Mexico is a NAFTA partner, G20 host and member, WTO host and member, aspiring Transpacific Partnership member, and as a member of the United Nations is party to the International Labor Organization conventions.



Last year's demands from the global union movement were that the Government of Mexico:

1. Hold employer and government officials accountable for the Pasta de Conchos mine explosion that killed 65 miners on February 19, 2006.
2. Abolish systemic violations of workers’ freedom of association, including employer-dominated “protection contracts” and interference in union elections.
3. End the use of force—by the state or private parties—to repress workers’ legitimate demands for democratic unions, better wages and working conditions, and good health and safety conditions.
4. End the campaign of political persecution against the Mexican Miners’ and Metalworkers’ Union (SNTMMSRM) and the Mexican Electrical Workers’ Union (SME).

Examples of ongoing abuses that demonstrate the worsening of labor rights protections this year are:

1. Lack of recognition of independent and democratic unions and their democratically elected leaders.
2. Mass firings of workers as a result of the illegal or fraudulent closure of unionized companies.
3. Manipulation of legal and administrative processes for determining union representation and collective bargaining rights and the sudden appearance of charro or "ghost" unions in false representation of workers.

And in order to address the root causes of Mexico's anti-democratic stranglehold on labor relations, this year's demands from the global labor movement to the Mexican government are summarized as:

• Respect the ILO's recommendations on protection unionism (Case 2694) to
  
  • engage in good faith social dialogue with independent and democratic unions
  • seek out legislative measures to end the practice of protection contracts
• Respect the ILO´s recommendations to hold those responsible for the Pasta de Conchos explosion accountable and that adequate sanctions be applied.

Understanding the Issues



Protection Unionism



Protection unionism is the cornerstone of legally sanctioned anti-unionism and union-busting in Mexico. Protection unions are corrupt union rackets that operate with the acquiescence of government and employers, making huge amounts of money out of keeping wages and working conditions to a minimum by falsely representing workers. Workers usually don't know they are 'represented' until they seek to organize themselves and learn that they have been represented for years by people they don't know. Some protection unions are linked to organized crime. Others are linked to the corporatist (or "charro" or “official”) unions that began as instruments of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). Many labor lawyers argue that protection unions are not legal, as the government, political parties and employers claim, because Mexican labor law and administrative structures have some fundamental flaws, such as exclusion clauses which allow unions to exclude members seeking a democratic alternative, and tripartite labor boards which - in reality - include representatives from the government, business and charro unions, but exclude real worker representation.



Legal Recognition and Bargaining Rights



In Mexico you need to demonstrate to the labor authorities that you have 20 members in order to form a union. There can be more than one union in a workplace. If there is no other union, and your union is legally recognized, you automatically have the right to bargain a collective agreement with your employer, and to issue a strike notice if the employer refuses to bargain. If there is a union that is legally recognized already, you must win bargaining rights by having a majority of workers vote in an election process for your union to represent them. Habitually, workers are prevented from exercising their voice at both the recognition and election stages of the unionization process. For example, the government violates its international obligations by denying legal recognition to unions it does not like (independent and democratic unions), and the Labor Boards hold unfair and fraudulent elections to ensure that even if an independent and democratic union is legally recognized, it can't win bargaining rights or delay elections repeatedly to provide time for an anti-union campaign and erode support. Until recently, elections in Mexico were held by voice vote, where workers were forced to vote out loud in front of representatives of the labor board, company, unions, and often thugs. Although this practice was recently declared illegal by the Mexican Supreme Court, new practices such as providing very limited notice prior to an election that has been delayed for months or even years and throwing elections by allowing management or other people not even employed at the workplace to vote, are increasingly common.



Other forms of Union Busting



It is not only through protection unions and the clever manipulation of legal and administrative frameworks that employers and the Mexican government bust unions. Other tactics, no doubt familiar to unionists in other countries, include unjust and illegal firings of activists, threats, harassment and intimidation of activists and their family members, illegal lock-outs, use of scab labor, and sudden and illegal company closure. In Mexico the security forces are often present to observe these tactics (and do nothing to stop them) or they use their authority and weapons to support the union busting. In other cases, criminal groups or randomly hired thugs substitute for or supplement the security forces in their use of intimidation or force.



Some of the most egregious cases:



ASPA and ASSA: 8000 Mexicana de Aviación pilots, cabin and ground crew are still on the streets more than two years after the paralysis of the company despite the availability of investors. It is widely believed that the company used loans it brokered with the government and private banks to invest elsewhere while routes were sold to low-cost non-union airlines.



FLOC: In April 2007 Santiago Rafael Cruz was bound with rope and beaten to death in the offices of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) in Monterrey where he worked as an organizer. His assassination was an act of intimidation meant to stop the union from aiding farm laborers. To date neither the murderers nor the masterminds behind the crime have been brought to justice, despite repeated calls from FLOC and the intervention of the Interamerican Commission for Human Rights.



Los Mineros: Napoleón Gómez Urrutia still operates from exile. His leadership of the union is still not recognized. 1300 troops provide daily safe passage to an equivalent number of scabs at the Cananea mine site owned by Grupo Mexico, where workers have been on strike for 4.5 years for improved health and safety conditions. No formal investigation has been carried out in the Pasta de Conchos explosion, 63 bodies remain unrecovered, and families have not been compensated. The union is under attack at several other mine sites, including Sombrete, Taxco and La Platosa where three protection unions operate in complicity with the Canadian mining company Excellon to prevent a new Mineros local (Section 309) from gaining bargaining rights for 400 workers. The union is also under attack in places where auto parts assembly plant workers are choosing to join. The most important example of that is at the Finnish owned PKC wire harnesses plant in Ciudad Acuña where 7000 workers are now facing a legally sanctioned protection union and a concerted anti-worker campaign in a bid to prevent them from having the right to a voice on the job.



Sindicato Independiente de Trabajadores de Sandak: In December 2010, some 250 members of the Independent Union of Sandak Workers initiated a strike to prevent the company from violating their contract illegally removing equipment and closing their plant. With the assistance of the FAT, they won an important legal victory rejecting the employer’s claim that they could not engage in a legal strike because the employer had previously shut the plant, since the closure had violated the union’s collective bargaining agreement. Although the employer has challenged the ruling, many workers remain on strike, determined to keep their jobs.



SME: The security forces occupied more than 100 electricity sector worksites in Mexico City and surrounding states in October 2009, after having denied legal registration to the union´s leadership. 44,000 workers lost their jobs overnight as the company and its operations were handed over to an anti-union public company and private sector subcontractors in an anti-constitutional presidential decree. The union has since gained legal recognition, but no agreement has been reached for the reinstatement of 16,599 workers who have held out and not taken severance pay. This has continued despite a 6 month occupation of Mexico City's central square that ended in September 2011 with an agreement with the government to resolve the conflict. A NAFTA complaint against the government of Mexico was recently accepted for review by the governments of Canada and the USA.



STRM: In June 2009, young high school and university students and graduates working at a call center owned and operated by Telefónica/Atento Mexicana tried to escape a “protection contract” by joining the independent Mexican Telephone Workers’ Union. Workers who tried to vote for real representation in a 2010 ballot faced intimidation by thugs carrying brass knuckles. The election was found to have been fraudulent in early 2011 and after almost a year, a rerun of the vote was suddenly called with just 48 hours’ notice. This time the vote was called off after eligible workers finally broke through a cordon of 300 thugs (who had been watched carefully by non-intervening riot police) to reach the door of the Labor Board. Within less than 10 days another election had been called, and this time non-eligible voters were held for hours in the basement of the Labor Board prior to voting, whilst a beefed-up contingent of riot police told eligible voters that they were not authorised to let them in to vote. The vote was to determine the bargaining rights for 10,000 workers.



STUHM: In 2010 workers at the Honda Mexico plant in Jalisco started to organize with the intent of removing a protection union. In 2011, after several refusals by the authorities, they were given legal recognition of their independent union. Firings of the union's executive committee were to quickly follow, and today 6 workers remain out of work. Despite this, and other forms of anti-union harassment, the union filed for an election to determine bargaining rights. While STUHM was waiting for a date to be set, the incumbent union changed its name. The labor board dismissed STUHM’s petition, ruling that it could not proceed because the incumbent union no longer existed. In the meantime, at least four workers were hospitalized after a bus contracted to transport 28 Honda workers home at the end of their shift, suffered an electrical fire. No extinguishers were on board and the emergency exits didn't work.



SUDUACM: Workers at the autonomous university of Mexico City were recently denied their right to register their union.



SUTEIVP: Four Januaries ago, and only a few days after they successfully negotiated a 19% salary increase as a result of dislodging a protection union, 400 skilled glass workers were fired from a factory producing bottles for Corona Export beer. Three years later and a new protection union in place, the men and their families are still fighting for their reinstatement and the right of workers at the Grupo Modelo owned plant to be represented by the union of their choice. The ILO has recommended that the Government of Mexico guarantee that the Labor Board expedite the case, but so far to no avail.



SUTIEMS: Workers at the High School and College Institute were recently denied their right to register their union.



UNTyPP: Some 30,000 technical and professional employees of PEMEX have struggled for several years to organize and obtain recognition for their independent union. Their third attempt was successful, and on December 19, 2009 a federal court forced the government to recognize the union and its officers.



PEMEX has continued to resist real negotiations, deferring to the official union, STPRM. (This despite the fact that a decision by the Mexican Supreme Court several years ago held that more than one union could represent workers in the same bargaining unit, putting an end, at least in theory, to the stranglehold of the official unions over public sector workers

In addition to dozens of workers fired during the organizing efforts, more recently, a worker has been forced to relocate to a part of the country where there is a high level of violence and where he is forced to work in isolation, and other union leaders have been fired – in one case after being reinstated as the result of lengthy legal proceedings.



PEMEX is a member of the UN´s Global Compact on corporate social responsibility and as such is obligated to upholding the UN's recommendations on the operations of multinational companies with respect to labor rights.