AUT: Part 2, Mex Labor News, Jan 1999

[Dan La Botz <103144.2651@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

     PART 2, MEXICAN LABOR NEWS AND ANALYSIS, JANUARY 16, 1999
               Be sure you have parts 1 and 3
-----------------------------------------------------------------
   Mexico=92s Labor Year in Review
     AMIDST CONTINUING DECLINE OF  OFFICIAL  UNIONS,
             UNT EMERGES AS ALTERNATIVE POLE

                    by Dan La Botz

     1998 will be remembered as the year that the independent
National Workers Union (UNT) became the clear political
alternative to the government=92s Congress of Labor (CT) and
Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM), as well as to left-wing
coalitions such as the May First Inter-Union Group (CIPM) and the
National Assembly of Workers (ANT). While still a minority
federation representing less than two million Mexican workers,
and still not the leader of a mass labor movement, the UNT=92s
emergence as the clear alternate pole of attraction reflects both
its own strengths and the weaknesses of its rivals. =


               Congress of Labor and the CTM

     To begin with the latter, the Congress of Labor (CT) under
the leadership of Joel Lopez Mayren, and the Confederation of
Mexican Workers (CTM), headed by Leonardo Rodriguez Alcaine,
failed to provide any sort of leadership for Mexican workers in
1998. The CT and CTM did not offer leadership in the debate over
labor law reform and ended the year rejecting fundamental
democratic changes in Constitutional Article 123 and the Federal
Labor Law (LFT), while at the same time opening the door a crack
to employer calls for more flexible work relations. =


     More important for ordinary workers, the CT and CTM, as well
as the other government federations such as the Revolutionary
Confederation of Mexican Workers and Peasants(CROC), the Regional
Confederation of Mexican Workers (CROM), and the Federation of
Unions of Workers at the Service of the State (FSTSE) proved
unable to defend workers=92 wages which continued to deteriorate.
Wages have lost 76 percent of their purchasing power since the
end of the 1970s. Consequently in the last decade the number of
Mexicans living in extreme poverty rose from 20 million to at
least 30 million. Unemployment, according to the UNT, rose to 25
percent of the economically active population (PEA) or 9 million.
Largely because of the extraordinary growth of the informal
sector or underground economy, half of all workers do not
participate in the public health system. =


               Dramatic Decline in Unionization

     The very survival of many labor unions has been challenged
by political and economic developments. The closing of older,
out-dated factories, the movement of new industrial plants to
non-union areas in the northern regions of Mexico, increased sub-
contracting, and especially the use of temporary employees have
more than decimated the unions. Enrique de la Garza of the
Metropolitan Autonomous University (UAM) estimates that in the
last ten years the level of unionization has fallen from 76 to
only 28 percent of the workforce. The Congress of labor which
once had about 11 million members, today represents only about
5.5 million. Similarly the CTM which once claimed five million
members, today has only two million at most.(Many authorities
believe the CTM and CT membership figures have always been
inflated.)

     Some industries still have a high level of union
representation: 93.3 percent of all electrical workers are
unionized, as are 71.5 percent of all petroleum workers, and 70.5
percent of all miners. But other industries now have rather low
levels of union representation. For example, today only  only
32.3 percent of basic metal workers are unionized. In some cases
the situation is even worse. Only 6.9 percent of petrochemical
and rubber workers and just 5.5 percent of all paperworkers and
have unions. De la Garza says that many Mexican labor unions
today are only  empty shells. =


     Even for some unions with fairly high unionization rates,
the loss of union member has recently been very rapid for some.
The Mexican Railroad Workers Union (STFRM) which sixteen years
ago had 90,000 workers, today has only 36,000. The Mexican
Petroleum Workers Union (STPRM) which in 1992 had 200,000
workers, today has only 72,000. =


                    Protection Contracts

     In any case, it should be remembered that most of the unions
that do exist are controlled by the Institutional Revolutionary
Party's and the Mexican state's "official" federations or by
employers. While Mexico has over 35,000 labor unions of various
sorts, labor experts estimate that between 50 and 80 percent of
those unions deal in so-called  protection contracts,  that is
contracts which protect the employer from legitimate union
organization. Corrupt labor lawyers oversee the commerce in such
 protection contracts,  working with state-dominated union
officials they peddle the phoney labor agreements to employers.
Workers often never known about the existence of these unions and
seldom see the contracts which provide only the legal minimums,
or even less. The employers and government or company unions
enforce such contracts with the use of union goons who offer
their services in the halls of the labor boards (Juntas de
Conciliacion y Arbitraje).

     The greatest weakness of the CT and CTM remains their
failure to break with the state-party and grant their member
unions and individual workers the political and labor union
liberty to which they are entitled. The CT and CTM continue to
deny workers the right to vote for the political party of their
choice. And, with the support of the Secretary of Labor and the
Boards of Conciliation and Arbitration, the CT and the CTM and
other official federations and unions continue to deny workers
the right to vote for independent unions.

     In reality, Mexican workers still do not enjoy the right to
strike, since the Secretary of Labor and the Boards of
Conciliation and Arbitration generally do not permit strikes.
Since Mexico=92s wages and benefits have generally been determined
by tripartite boards made up of government representatives,
employers, and government-controlled union officials, neither do
unions have the right to bargain collectively.

     Whether they have labor unions or not, Mexican workers have
been increasingly subject to the new industrial relations on the
 Japanese  model. Today in the maquiladoras located on the U.S.-
Mexican border where some 800,000 workers are employed, 50
percent of the factors have  just in time  warehousing and parts
delivery; 60 percent participate in  team concept  and 40 percent
hold  flexible  or multi-skilled jobs, according to de la Garza.
With or without unions, with or without changes in the
Constitution and the Federal Labor Law, employers move to impose
new work relations on their employees.  =


     For all of these reasons, both union officials and workers
seek new options. Last year it appeared that the UNT had
succeeded in establishing itself as the most credible alternative
in the eyes of many.

               National Union of Workers

     The founding of the UNT in November 1997 represented an
important, progressive development for Mexican labor. The UNT=92s
founding unions came from both the  official  Congress of Labor
(CT) and from independent unions, and the new organization soon
began to challenge the hegemony of the Congress of Labor (CT) and
the whole "corporative" (state-party-controlled) union structure
dominated by the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM). The UNT
program called for union democracy, political independence, and
an alternative to the government=92s neo-liberal economic program.
Even if UNT leaders and unions did not always live up to those
ideals, the federation=92s very existence legitimized the right of
debate and dissent in the unions.

     More important, the UNT began to pose an alternative in
practice as it began to set forces in motion. In 1998 the UNT
organized two massive labor demonstrations, one on March 25
against government cut-backs and privatization, and another on
May Day, the international labor day. More important, On December
4, the UNT organized a national work stoppage in which tens of
thousands of Mexican workers struck for two or more hours to
protest against the Mexican government's economic policies.
Thousands of other workers, peasants, and community groups
participated in demonstrations in support of the work stoppage.
The national work stoppage was the first such political strike
called by the year-old labor organization and the first such
action by Mexican workerss in over 15 years, and clearly
represented a mostly symbolic, but nevertheless quite significant
minor turning point in the history of the contemporary labor
movement. =


     The UNT today claims to represent 150 unions with a total of
approximately 1.5 million workers, just about the same number of
unions and members it had a year ago. The independent federation
continues under the collective leadership of three officials:
Francisco Hernandez Juarez, head of the Mexican Telephone Workers
Union (STRM); Augustin Rodriguez, leader of the Union of Workers
of the National Autonomous University (STUNAM); and Fernando
Rocha, chief of the National Union of Workers of Social Security
(SNTSS), workers of Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS),
the public health and retirement system. The independent
Authentic Labor Front (FAT) has continued to play a role in the
leadership of the UNT as an advocate of political independence,
union democracy, and militancy toward the employers.

     So far, the UNT has failed to take the lead in turning
itself into the leader of a broad social and political movement
to solve Mexico's deep economic and social problems. The UNT has
not yet succeeded in sparking new organizing efforts or leading
significant strikes, nor has it led a movement to organize the
fastest growing sector of the economy, the maquiladoras. In
short, the UNT has yet to create a broad social movement of the
working class, peasants, and the poor.

     At times the UNT has appeared to move toward the right, back
toward the government-controlled Congress of Labor (CT) and
Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM). For example, the UNT
joined with the CT and CTM in creating a so-called "Workers Bloc"
to negotiate changes in the Federal Labor Law (LFT) with the
government and the employers. Such bureaucratic alliances have
done little to advance worker self-organization.

                    The Left Alternative

     Some unionists on the left have criticized the UNT, arguing
that it has not really broken with the state-party, and does not
represent a genuine political-economic alternative for Mexico.
They point out that Hernandez Juarez had been a close associate
of Carlos Salinas de Gortari, and had supported his privatization
of the Mexican Telephone Company (TELMEX), and that he remains a
member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). The labor
left also argues that Antonio Rosado, the former head of the
Social Security workers union and his successor Fernando Rocha,
also PRI members, have suppressed dissidents and democracy in
their union. Moreover, they feel that the UNT has not gone far
enough in its criticism of the government=92s economic program, and
does not offer a real alternative which would require measures
such as a moratorium on payments or even a repudiation of the
foreign debt. The UNT, claim leftist critics, represents a neo-
corporative solution, a renegotiation of the ruling party=92s
relationship to bureaucratically controlled labor unions.

     But the left labor alternative has its own problems. The
Coordinating Committee of the May First Inter-Union Group (CIPM)
and the National Assembly of Workers (ANT), two left-wing labor
coalitions, while taking up many important causes from the
teachers to the railroad workers, have so far failed to challenge
the UNT=92s growing leadership of the opposition labor movement. In
part this is because the left-wing lacks the social weight. CIPM,
for example, has only one important labor union, the Union of
Workers of the Metropolitan Autonomous University (SITUAM), and
some opposition caucuses within other labor unions, such as the
National Coordinating Committee of the Teachers Union (la CNTE).
Most of its other members organizations are either left-wing
political organizations or community groups. The ANT has the
participation of the Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME), but
most of its other participants represent smaller unions or worker
groups. So while the left-wing coalitions stand for important
values, such as political independence, democracy, and militancy,
they have not had the organization or numbers to make those
values a force in the union movement. Some critics suggest that
the left should follow the example of the Authentic Labor Front
(FAT), the independent labor federation, and rather than
criticizing the UNT from without, should--without compromising
their views--attempt to influence its direction from within.  =


     In the last two months of the year the labor-left found
itself under a serious government attack, as the Senate brought
charges against leaders of Local 9 of the Mexican Teachers Union
(el SNTE). Local 9 leaders were arrested in January, charged with
kidnaping, robbery and riot, and are being held for trial without
the possibility of bail, facing a maximum possible penalty of 50
years in prison. Local 9's leaders had been identified with the
 democratic teachers movement  of la CNTE, the most important
labor movement in Mexico over the last 20 years. The Local 9
leaders have come under attack from a wide variety of groups, and
have been criticized by the left-of-center press such as LA
JORNADA for the protest in the Senate which led to the present
controversy. The attack on Local 9 seems likely to further weaken
the labor left and contribute to its eclipse by the UNT.

     So, as the new year begins, the right-wing forces of the CT
and CTM have been losing power, and the left-wing groups such as
the CIPM and the ANT, seems to have been losing influence, while
Mexico=92s most important rank and file movement, la CNTE finds
itself under attack, all of these developments making way for the
emergence of the UNT as the most powerful pole of attraction in
Mexican labor. The UNT has legitimized dissent and with its
demonstrations and workstoppages has begun to set forces in
motion which may begin to challenge both the state and the
employers. And may as they gain momentum go beyond the initial
intentions of the UNT leaders. The next year should be important
in indicating if the UNT will be capable of becoming the leader
of a mass labor and social movement which might begin to turn the
tide which has run strongly against the unions for at least the
last 15 years.

                              ###
          =

               MEXICAN TEACHER LEADERS ARRESTED
                 FOR PROTEST IN MEXICAN SENATE

     Mexican authorities arrested several leaders and activists
of Local 9 of the Mexican Teachers Union (El SNTE) on January 1
for their role in a protest at the Mexican Senate in November.
Among those arrested were Blanca Luna Becerril, the general
secretary (top officer); Elio Bejarano Martinez, Nestor Manuel
Trujano Molina, Alejandro Salcido and Alonso Raul Vargas Vallejo.
In addition, Maria del Refugio Jimenez Floriano, the Local
union=92s press secretary was arrested on January 3. The Mexican
Attorney General charged the teachers on January 7 with
kidnaping, robbery and riot against the Mexican Senate. The
teachers have been denied bail, and the maximum penalty for the
crimes with which they are charged is 50 years in prison.

     The arrest and indictment of the SNTE Local 9 leaders and
activists had become the most important political struggle in the
Mexican labor movement in five years, at least since the strike
by the Mexican City Bus Drivers Union (SUTAUR) against Route 100.

                    Protest Led to Charges

     The charges against the teachers arise from their part in a
protest demonstration on November 11 when dozens of teachers,
mostly from SNTE Local 9, broke into the Senate, took over Senate
offices, and held Senators and Senate employees captive for
several hours. In the course of the protest, a valuable
historical document (the discourse of Belisario Dominguez) was
stolen. Immediately after the protest, the Senate, including
representatives of all three major political parties -the
Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), the National Action
Party (PAN), and the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) -
called upon the Mexican Attorney General to press charges against
those responsible. The PRD has since changed its position,
calling upon the Attorney General and President Zedillo to drop
the charges. =


               Arose from Conflicts in the Union

     For several months the SNTE Local 9 had been protesting
because Tomas Vazquez Vigil, national general secretary of the
Mexican Teachers Union (el SNTE), refused to recognize the new
leadership of Local 9, elected in protracted and controversial
convention in July of 1998. Vazquez Vigil would not acknowledge
the Local 9 officers, would not give the local its share of union
dues moneys and would not process paper work such as grievances,
promotions, or fellowships for teachers or their children. =


     Local 9 leaders and activists claimed that Senator Elba
Esther Gordillo, the former head of el SNTE and the power behind
the teachers=92 union throne, was responsible for the national
union=92s intransigence. So Local 9 militants took their protest to
the Senate in order to confront her. But at the Senate, guards
and teachers reportedly got in shoving match and then things got
out of hand. A group of teachers then left the main body of
protestors, broke into the Senate and took several Senators
prisoner, holding them hostage to demand a meeting with Gordillo.

     Such protests involving the seizure of buildings and the
holding hostage of public officials have been common in Mexico
over the last several decades, and were often perceived by the
public as legitimate because of the lack of alternatives in a
repressive one-party state. But in the last few years public
perceptions have changed. With the development of a multi-party
political system (even if the PRI still retains political power),
this sort of protest appears less acceptable to many. This
particular protest- breaking into the Senate and taking Senators
prisoner -have been presented by the press, including the
independent and left-wing press as an affront to Mexico=92s
developing democracy.

               Political Motives Behind the Charges

     At the same time, there is a powerful political motive
behind the PRI-government=92s arrest of the Local 9 teachers. While
the national leadership of the Mexican Teachers Union (el SNTE)
is loyal to the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), Local 9
has been led since 1989 by teachers affiliated with the National
Coordinating Committee of the Teachers Union (la CNTE), a
dissident faction within the union which demands both internal
democracy and political independence. Beyond that, Local 9
leaders have tended to support the left-of-center Party of the
Democratic Revolution (PRD) whose leader Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, the
Mayor of Mexico City, is expected to run for president in the
year 2000. In the year 2000 election, Local 9's 58,000 mostly
female pre-school and primary public school teachers could play a
key role--and that may be one of the motives behind the charges
against and the arrest of the Local 9 leaders.

     Perhaps even more important from the point of view of the
labor movement, la CNTE, or the  democratic teachers=92 movement =

as it is often called, has been the most important progressive
force in the Mexican labor movement for two decades, and Local 9
has been seen as one of the bastions of that movement since 1989.
Consequently the government=92s indictment of the Local 9 teachers
has been perceived by many union activists as an attack on all
those in the labor movement who oppose the PRI and its policies.

     Local 9 and la CNTE have formed part of the far left of the
Mexican labor movement, often closer to the radical Coordinating
Committee of the May First Inter-Union Group (CIPM)and the
National Assembly of Worker (ANT) than to the cautiously
reformist National Union of Workers (UNT). But the attack on
Local 9 should be seen as a warning and a threat to the UNT and
to social movements such as El Barzon, the debtors' movement.

               Most Important Political Fight =


     Mexican labor unionists, social and political activists have
quickly come to see that the struggle over the fate of the Local
9 leaders has become the most important fight in the labor
movement in the last five years, since the strike by the Mexico
City Bus Drivers Union (SUTAUR) strike Route 100. The Party of
the Democratic Revolution (PRD), the left-wing newspaper LA
JORNADA, and many leaders of labor unions and social movements
have issued statements or written open letters calling upon the
government to withdraw the charges and release the teachers from
prison.

     Teachers union supporters have called upon labor unionists
and teachers throughout Mexico, and in Canada and the United
States and in other countries to join them in demanding that the
teachers (Blanca Luna Becerril, Elio Bejarano Martinez, Nestor
Manuel Trujano Molina, Alejandro Salcido, Mar=EDa del Refugio
Jim=E9nez Floriano and Alonso Ra=FAl Vargas Vallejo) be released
immediately. Canadian and U.S. labor unionists have already
responded offering their support to the Local 9 activists, and
calling for their release from jail and the dropping of the
chrages against them. =


     [Message of protest against the government and of support
for the teachers may be sent to:

C. Procurador Jorge Madrazo Cuellar =

Reforma Norte n=FAmero 75, =

Col. Guerrero, C.P. 06300, M=E9xico, D.F. =

Electronic mailbox:
http://www.pgr.gob.mx/frames/framej.htm

Senado de la Rep=FAblica
Xicot=E9ncatl No.9,.Centro Hist=F3rico
Distrito Federal
C.P 06010 Tel=E9fono:130-22- 00
Electronic maibox:
http://www.senado.gob.mx/buzon.html

Presidencia de la Rep=FAlica
Residencia Oficial de Los Pinos,
Col. San Miguel Chapultepec, 11850 M=E9xico, D.F.
Tels. 516.70.59, 515.71.80
Fax 271.48.67
dmelo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Copies of letters of support should be sent to:
Centro de Investigaci=F3n Laboral y Asesor=EDa Sindical A.C. =

Tabasco 262-402
Col. Roma
C.P. 06700
M=E9xico D.F.
Tel=E9fono y fax 207 4147
cila@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

     END OF PART 2, MEXICAN LABOR NEWS AND ANALYSIS, JANUARY 1999
               BE SURE THAT YOU HAVE PARTS 1 &3



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