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Why are workers around the world mobilizing in solidarity with Mexican workers?



Mineworkers: February 19, 2013 marks the 7th anniversary of an explosion at a mine site owned by the Mexican company Grupo México. The explosion killed 65 men in an act that 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. Gómez Urrutia currently lives in exile in Canada, unable to return to Mexico despite having successfully fended off eleven lawsuits filed against him. The union is under attack at several mine sites owned by Grupo Mexico and Canada’s Excelon Resources. During the 2012 holidays, Finnish wire harness company PKC Group fired 122 Los Mineros sympathizers, including the entire executive committee, after rigging a vote in favour of a company union.



Electrical Workers: On October 10, 2009 the security forces occupied all of Luz y Fuerza del Centro’s worksites, forcing 44,000 unionized electrical workers out of their jobs. 16,599 members remain in active resistance today, refusing to accept pay-offs. In a travesty of justice, on January 30, 2013 the Supreme Court reversed a previously successful appeal that granted reinstatement, back pay and pension payments to all of those workers with a successor employer. Ten SME members are currently in jail on bogus charges, held ‘hostage’ to the conflict.



Airline Workers: 8000 Mexicana de Aviación pilots, cabin and ground crew are still grounded three years after the bankruptcy of the company. It is widely believed that the company used loans it brokered with the government and private banks to invest elsewhere. Despite the presence of interested investors, routes have been sold to low-cost non-union airlines and Mexico’s highly skilled air transportation workers have been forced to look overseas for work.



Telephone workers: In June 2009, young students and recent 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 voted for authentic union representation in 2010 and 2011 fearlessly stood up to violent intimidation by hired thugs and the corruption of the company and local authorities. Hundreds have been fired as a result. The world’s number two call center is now owned by Bain Capital, and the repression continues.

Factory Workers: On July 18, 2011 the transnational shoe company Bata Internacional closed the Sandak plant in an attempt to eliminate the independent union and to have the employees work from their homes for piecework and without benefits. The workers remain on strike, demanding that their plant be re-opened, their right to strike be respected, and that their jobs should not be converted to homework, with the consequent use of child labor, health risks, and lack of labor protections.



The Global Days of Action provide an opportunity to focus on the deterioration of Mexican trade unionists' and workers' rights and denounce the dangerous and unprecedented abuses of workers’ human rights in this country. Annually, they bring the global labor rights community together to demand that Mexico uphold its internationally recognized obligations and constitutional commitments to workers.



Mexico is a NAFTA partner and new entrant to the Transpacific Free Trade Agreement. But rather than creating fair competition and sustainable growth, its low-wage model creates a vicious cycle of poverty and insecurity with an impact throughout North America. Until workers rights are respected in Mexico, the global union movement will not be silent.





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.





The Mexican government has acted in blatant disregard of the ILO recommendations



The widespread use of protection contracts and their violation of fundamental union rights was presented to the ILO Committee on Freedom of Association in 2009. In June 2012, the ILO called on Mexico to investigate and report back to the Committee regarding:

“(1) the questions relating to the trade union security clauses, “exclusion clauses”, which were declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court and which may give rise to the kind of situations contemplated in the complaint;

(2) questions relating to the minimum representativeness of trade unions in order to

bargain collectively; and

(3) the alleged lack of impartiality of the conciliation and arbitration boards (JCAs) and the allegedly excessive length of their proceedings.”

The Committee stated that it “firmly expects that a dialogue will take place with the most representative national workers’ and employers’ organizations, as well as the six organizations that are complainants in this case or that have supported it,” adding that

the Committee “trusts that legislative and other measures will be taken in the near future to strengthen protection against anti-trade union practices in breach of collective bargaining principles.”



Instead of following the ILO Recommendations for social dialogue, the Mexican government has intensified its crackdown on independent unions and freedom of association. And instead of addressing these issues in the recent labor law reform, it actually made matters worse.



In 2013 the conditions for workers are likely to worsen due to the recent labor law “reform.”



On December 1, 2012 President Peña Nieto presided over the entry into effect of a massively and undemocratically overhauled Federal Labor Law. The law does little to correct obsolete legal provisions that facilitate the existence of protection contracts, but does everything to weaken workers’ individual protections and promote precarious work, by:



- Increasing sub-contracting by greatly expanding the number and types of temporary and hourly contracts;

- Allowing subcontracting without clear liability for working conditions, compensation and other benefits;

- expanding the range of causes for termination and eliminating the need to inform the worker directly and in writing of the dismissal;

- Adding a new stage to the legal proceedings for claiming unjust dismissal, while capping back-pay at 12 months.



Rather than creating decent jobs this model of employment will only serve to keep wages low, worker turnover high, and discourage the formation of unions.



What are we demanding?



1. Respect for the rule of law. That the government of Mexico uphold its constitutional obligations to bring domestic law into line with international treaties; not interfere in the legal challenges to the regressive reform of the Federal Labor Law filed by hundreds of thousands of workers in January 2013; and adhere to the ILO’s repeated recommendations on protection unionism and occupational health and safety.



2. Guarantees of the basic conditions for trade union democracy and an end to the repression and persecution of trade union leaders and activists. That the government of Mexico guarantee union jobs for former Luz y Fuerza del Centro y Mexicana de Aviación workers; cease to pursue politically motivated charges against Los Mineros and SME leaders and release jailed members; that Grupo Mexico restore dialogue and ensure a negotiated end to the almost 6 year-old strikes at Cananea, Sombrete and Taxco; promote the necessary investment to permit Mexicana de Aviación to once again take to the skies; ensure that BATA/Sandak respects the labor rights of its workers including the right to strike; and order the following companies to reinstate unlawfully fired union activists and workers and ensure free and fair union elections: PKC Group, Excelon Resources, Bain Capital/Atento Mexico, Grupo Modelo, and Honda



3. Immigration. Ccomprehensive immigration reform is a top priority for the U.S. labor movement. We have been in the front lines fighting to ensure that the labor and human rights of undocumented workers in the country are respected. We understand that one of the best ways to guarantee inclusive economic growth is by guaranteeing the fundamental rights of all workers. As the United States Government considers comprehensive immigration reform, we hope that Mexico will reaffirm its commitment to not only protecting the rights of immigrant workers in the United States but also to ensure that the rights of all workers are rigorously protected and enforced in Mexico.



4. Demonstrate a commitment to improving occupational heath and safety standards. Investigate and hold employer and government officials accountable for the Pasta de Conchos mine explosion that killed 65 miners on February 19, 2006; provide family members with adequate compensation; ensure that improvements to mine-safety law address mines beyond the coal sector





Justice Will Prevail: Success of Solidarity So Far



In February 2011 los Mineros Secretary Treasurer was released after spending 2 years, 2 months and 20 days in jail and being subjected to 19 mistrials.



In May 2012 the Supreme Court held that Napoleón Gómez Urrutia must be recognized by the government as the legitimately and democratically elected leader of Los Mineros, in a decision that limits government interference in internal union affairs.



In October 2012, arrest warrants against the leadership of the SME were lifted and one jailed leader was released





But most importantly, Mexican workers -men and women, young and old- are still organizing. With your solidarity, they will succeed.