AUT: Part 2, Mex Labor News, July 99

[Dan La Botz <103144.2651@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

     BEGIN PART II MEXICAN LABOR NEWS, VOL. 4, NO. 12, JULY 1999
                    BE SURE YOU HAVE PART 1

          MEXICAN ELECTRICAL WORKERS (SME) ANNOUNCES
          DEPARTURE FROM THE CONGRESS OF LABOR (CT)

     The Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME) has announced--
again--that it is leaving the Congress of Labor (CT). The SME has
been fighting against the privatization of the Mexican electrical
industry, while the Congress of Labor (CT)--which is dominated by
the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM)--has supported the
government's privatization of electric power generation.

     The SME had announced its resignation from the CT several
months ago, but then continued to participate in the umbrella
labor federation while fighting for its anti-privatization
position. However, this appears to be the final and definitive
break.
                              ###

          CTM HEAD RODRIGUEZ ALCAINE ATTACKS PRD,
          STUDENT STRIKERS AT NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

     Leonardo Rodriguez Alcaine, head of the Confederation of
Mexican Workers (CTM), has denounced the student strikers at the
National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), suggesting that
the "super-ultra-leftist" Party of the Democratic Revolution
(PRD) was attempting to destabilize the country.

     The CTM leader said that workers would were not in agreement
with the PRD and the students' attempt cause chaos in Mexico, and
that he supported the breaking of the strike and the reopening of
the university, because "it is the foundation of our country."
However, he opposed the use of violence, and called for further
dialogue.
                              ###

                    CROC PROPOSES TO CTM
            THE CREATION OF A NEW LABOR FEDERATION

     Alberto Juarez Blancas, the head of the Revolutionary
Confederation of Workers and Peasants (CROC) has proposed that
the CROC and the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM) should
create a new labor federation to defend the ruling Institutional
Revolutionary Party (PRI), "like a single man." Leonardo
Rodriguez Alcaine, head of the CTM, said his federation welcomed
the idea when it was first proposed over a year go.

     The proposal will probably not get off the ground, however,
because of bureaucratic and political rivalries. Juarez Blancas
and the CROC support PRI candidate Manuel Bartlett Diaz, while
Rodriguez Alcaine and the CTM support president Zedillo's chosen
successor Francisco Labastida Ochoa.

                              ###

               CROC PLAYS POLITICAL DIRTY TRICK

     Dirty tricks and disinformation play a prominent role in
Mexican politics, just as the do in the United States. And in
Mexico sometimes unions have a part in them. =


     On June 29 Alberto Juarez Blancas of the Revolutionary
Confederation of Workers and Peasants (CROC) announced that his
union would strike the Fox Boot company (Botas Fox) in Leon,
Guanajuato because the firm had failed to pay its profit sharing
to about 125 CROC workers.

     The company belongs to none other than Vicente Fox Quesada,
the governor of Guanajuato and would-be presidential candidate of
the conservative National Action Party (PAN). =


     How can Fox pretend to be for improving the lives of workers
if he doesn't even fulfill the law and pay profit sharing to his
workers, asked Juarez Blancas?

     But a few days later the Local Board of Conciliation and
Arbitration reported that no strike notice had been posted by the
CROC. Nor was there a strike notification at the governor's other
company Don Jose Freezers. It had all been a political ploy by
the union to make FOX and the PAN look bad. It had all been a
dirty trick.
                              ###
               =

           GOVERNMENT DENIES INDEPENDENT UNT SEAT
           ON THE NATIONAL MINIMUM WAGE COMMISSION

     For the first time the Mexican government's National Minimum
Wage Commission (CNSM) will include representatives of unions
other than the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM). But the
Secretary of Labor has refused to include the independent
National Union of Workers (UNT) had also requested representation
on the important commission.

     The CNSM determines the minimum wage for Mexican workers,
and that wage is also used as the basis for the determination of
virtually all other wages in the country. But the secretary of
Labor denied the UNT its request for participation on the
commission, saying that UNT did not meet the requirements which
are a legal registration as a labor federation and 500,000
petition signatures.

     UNT leadership called the new commission a farce, and said
that the government intended to continue to use the CNSM to hold
down wages. The government did give seats the Revolutionary
Confederation of Workers and Peasants (CROC), the Revolutionary
Confederation of Mexican Workers (CROM), the bank workers, the
railroad workers, and the mining and metal workers seats. All are
"official" unions, loyal to the Institutional Revolutionary Party
(PRI) and have adhered strictly to its economic policy. The new
board will hold office until June 30, 2003.

     Since it was created 30 years ago, the tripartite commission
has been made up of government, business and workers
representatives. But workers have been represented only by the
Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM), an "official" labor,
federation and the most loyal to the ruling Institutional
Revolutionary Party (PRI). =


     Though it denies it, the CNSM has for decades imposed a wage
ceiling and functioned to keep workers' wages low both to benefit
Mexican capital and to attract foreign investment. The current
wage ceiling, for example, stands at about 20 percent in wages,
plus 2 or 3 percent in benefits.  =


                              ###

          MEXICO CITY GOVERNMENT SIGNS WEAK AGREEMENT
            WITH CHAIN STORES ON UNPAID CHILD LABOR

     The administration of Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, Mayor of Mexico
City, signed an agreement in June with the National Association
of Self-Service and Department Stores dealing with the grocery
chains' 7,000 unpaid grocery baggers. The agreement could affect
some 70,000 unpaid child workers throughout the country, as well
as other forms of child labor and unpaid child or adult labor
common throughout Mexico.

     Mexico City's chain grocery stores such as La Comercial
Mexicana use some 7,000 children, known as "cerrillos" or matches
because of their red-capped uniforms, as part-time help to bag
groceries and carry them to customers cars. The child laborers
between 14 and 15 years of age, mostly from low-income families,
receive no wages, only tips. =


     For several years the Mexico City government has been
attempting to force the chain stores to take some responsibility
for these young workers. The grocery chains deny that the
children are their employees, since they don't pay them. An
agreement signed by a previous mayor, Manuel Camacho Solis,
indicated that the children worked "voluntarily" having no
relationship to the grocery companies but only to the customers.

     Under the current agreement, the stores still do not
recognize that the youngsters are their employees, but the stores
do concede that the children carry out a service valuable to the
store, the customer and themselves. The Mexico City government
will provide an identification card and medical services for the
grocery baggers. =

                              ###

          International Solidarity

               TRI-NATIONAL WORKER-TO-WORKER EXCHANGE:
                 COMMON FRIENDS AND COMMON ENEMIES

[For the third year, a UE delegation visited Mexico together with
a group from CISO, a Quebec labor solidarity alliance. The
tri-national delegation, hosted by the FAT, consisted of members
of the UE as well as representatives from three labor federations
from Quebec (the FTQ, CEQ, and CSN), representatives from the
public workers' union (the SFPQ), a representative of a
solidarity organization which brings together unions and popular
organizations (SPQ), and the Director of CISO, who organized the
Quebecois part of the delegation.  This article is reprinted with
permission from the UE News]. =


                         by Peter Gilmore, =

                         editor, UE NEWS

     For five Americans visiting Mexico, observation of the
Fourth of July this year carried unmistakable irony. These UE
members spent Independence Day with some 200 desperately poor and
determined workers who had declared their independence   from a
U.S.-based fruit company.

     Mostly women, the Irapuato packers range in age from 13 to
80.  For 50 cents an hour, they cut, peeled, pitted and sometimes
pureed fruit, working between 10-12 hours most days, up to 16-18
hours some days, seven days a week. Speed-up has led to injuries;
one 13-year-old told UE members how she had been burnt by acidic
juices on arms and stomach. Management insisted that packers buy
gloves, an impossible demand to fulfill on such low wages. The
final indignity came when the company refused to pay the
profit-sharing required by Mexican law because supposedly there
were no profits. "How could there not be any profits with all the
work we're doing?" the packers asked. =


     Workers organized with a union affiliated with the Authentic
Labor Front (FAT). They filed for certification on June 23; three
days, later, the bosses for the South Carolina company that had
refused to allow the workers to go home until all the fruit was
packed now said there was no work at all for them.

     When the packers saw trucks loaded with fruit coming, they
blocked the entrance to the factory. "I am willing to fight to
the death," a striker told Becky Burke, a child abuse inspector
from Cedar Rapids, Iowa and member of the UE Local 893, IUP
executive board.

     The trip to Irapuato "had an emotional impact on me,"
commented John Payne; in the words of Ed Havaich, it was the
"defining moment" for the delegation: the five UE members and six
trade unionists from Quebec gave up a free day of sightseeing in
Mexico City to endure an uncomfortable, nine-hour bus ride. They
were joined by three of the fired ITAPSA workers and their
families.

                    Corporate...Imperialism

     The conditions at the U.S.-owned fruit-packing plant
outraged delegation members, but as Tom Dunne told the UE NEWS,
the American presence in Mexico is unmistakable. "The dominance
of American corporations is obvious as one travels through
Mexico. Everywhere you go  you  see the names of major U.S.
companies on the facades of brand new manufacturing facilities.
Corporations have imposed an economic and cultural imperialism
that has enslaved Mexico," Dunne said.

     From reading the UE NEWS and hearing reports at UE National
conventions, Havaich was aware of the FAT's hard work to bring
democratic unionism to Mexican workplaces. "Nothing, however,
could have prepared me for the experience of walking through
Mexican manufacturing facilities," he said. "We toured a number
of factories, some with state of the art equipment and others
that faced the challenge of competing with antiquated machinery."
Havaich pointed out that the average Mexican worker earns between
$4 and $20 a day. "Most of the Mexican workers we talked to fell
on the bottom of the scale," he said.

     "Mexico is a land of many contrasts," commented Dunne.
"Ultra-modern skyscrapers overlook growing settlements of
impoverished people. Billboards advertise products that the vast
majority of Mexicans will never be able to afford. Multi-lane
expressways carry traffic past villages with dirt roads. Chic and
trendy restaurants stand side by side with street vendors hawking
everything from food to motor oil."

     "My overall impression was one of a poor country where
workers have little to lose in organizing in many ways, because
the conditions are so bad and management is so exploitative,"
said Payne. The 10 day trip saw the UE members taking part in
meetings and tours with a delegation from Quebec. "At times the
information came so fast that I felt like I was drinking from a
fire hose," said Havaich. Burke especially appreciated the
comraderie among the Canadians, Mexicans and Americans. (Having
spent part of her childhood in Argentina, Burke speaks Spanish
fluently.) Living so close to Quebec, Payne was particularly glad
to make contact with the Quebecois trade unionists. And he also
welcomed the opportunity to give a first-hand report to his local
about UE's international work.

                    FAT...Dedicated Crew

     "The FAT is a really dedicated crew, working under very
difficult conditions," Payne said. "Our enemies are not the
Mexican workers, but instead the profit driven corporations that
have taken advantage of their poverty," said Dunne. "There is a
lot we can learn from their struggles in the face of adversity...
the FAT has persevered despite a corrupt system of government
that has conspired with corporations against Mexican workers."

     "Every UE member should be alarmed by the relentless march
of transnationals as they rush into Mexico to exploit cheap labor
and a vulnerable workforce," suggested Havaich.  "Good-paying
factory jobs in the U.S. are being sacrificed in the name of
globalization. Workers in both Mexico and the U.S. share the pain
of corporate greed. Therefore, our battle cry continues to be
solidarity."

     Dunne added, "As corporations exploit global markets, the
labor movement must aggressively act to organize the unorganized
on a global basis as well. Educating our members is the first
step toward realizing that goal." =


                              ###

          Book Review
               COCKCROFT'S "MEXICO'S HOPE":
               MASTERFUL HISTORY OF MEXICO

                    by Dan La Botz

James D. Cockcroft. "Mexico=92s Hope: An Encounter with Politics
and History." New York: Monthly Review, 1998. 435 pages; tables,
notes; index.

     Jim Cockcroft has written a score of books which have
educated a generation or two of Americans about Mexico, Latin
America, and Latinos in the United States. He began brilliantly
with the "Intellectual Precursors of the Mexican Revolution:
1900-1913" in 1968 and has periodically punctuated his career
with some major revision of our understanding of Mexican history.
Fifteen years ago Cockcroft published what was at the time the
best historical analysis of Mexico available: "Mexico: Class
Formation, Capital Accumulation and the State" (New York, Monthly
Review, 1983). Over the years I recommended it to scores of
people as the most comprehensive and compelling explanation of
the economic, social and political forces that shaped Mexico. But
now I will have to recommend a new and better book. =


     Cockcroft -having written a dozen books in the meantime- has
returned to write a new, and yet more comprehensive and
compelling synthesis: "Mexico=92s Hope: An Encounter with Politics
and History." What began as a re-writing of the earlier book
became an entirely new work, one which incorporates not only
recent scholarship, but also reflects the impact of new social
movements, particularly those of indigenous people and women.
This is a history of Mexico informed by the struggle of the
Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) and by the
contemporary women's movement. It is a history of the Mexican
people in all of their diversity, of the country in all of its
complexity.

     At the heart of "Mexico=92s Hope" is Cockcroft=92s view that
capital accumulation, class struggle, revolution and reaction
have driven Mexico=92s history as he traces it through the
conquest, the colonial period, the Bourbon reforms, Independence,
the Great Reform, the Porfirian dictatorship, the Revolution, and
now through the era of neo-liberalism. This is fundamentally a
political-economic history, a Marxist anlysis, which sees
capitalism and its combined and uneven development as the driving
force of Mexico=92s 500 years of history. In Cockcroft=92s book
ordinary men and women engaged in the daily struggle for survival
not only shape their own lives but also shape Mexico and its
history. But they do so not simply as they wish, but within the
context of Mexico=92s particular development, in many ways a
distorted development, the legacy of Spain=92s relative
backwardness, a series of unfinished revolutions, and a failed
great leap forward into the neo-liberal future.

     But what strikes me as particularly original about "Mexico=92s
Hope" is Cockcroft=92s integration of an historical materialist
analysis with feminist and indigenist perspectives, creating a
new synthetic understanding of Mexican history. In "Mexico=92s
Hope" women and Indians have become integral to the texture of
life, to the history of the country, to questions of power and
politics as they so seldom appear in other histories. While
maintaining his convincing Marxist analysis of Mexico=92s economic
development, Cockcroft has also written a multicultural and
gendered history of Mexico which responds to the contemporary
problematic. =


     Yet, above all, this book is a good read. The political-
economic, indigenous and women's viewpoints are not just
juxtaposed, they are analytically integrated in a vigorous prose.
Clearly and forcefully written, accompanied by 17 tables, and
with extensive notes, Cockcroft=92s "Mexico=92s Hope" represents the
most forceful analysis, and at the same time the most
sophisticated and subtle general history of Mexico available.
"Mexico=92s Hope" will no doubt become a standard in Latin American
and Mexican history courses, but labor unionists, human rights
workers, social movement activists, and anyone interested in our
nearest neighbor should buy and read this book. University, high
school and public libraries should add this book to their
collections, for it will find many readers.

                              ###

Short Reviews:

Raul Ross Pineda. "Los Mexicanos y el voto sin fronteras,"
(Mexico: UAS, CEMOS, Salcedo Press, 1999). =


     With the Mexican elections fast approaching, there will no
doubt be interest in Raul Ross Pineda's new book "Los Mexicanos y
el voto sin fronteras" ("Mexicans and the Vote Without Borders").
The book is a collection of essays which Ross Pineda wrote for
EXITO!, LA JORNADA and other publications. The book is available
in the United States from E. Youniss at 2255 S. Marshall Blvd.,
Chicago, Illinois 60623.
                              ***

Oscar F. Contreras et al. "Cananea: Tradicion y Modernidad en una
Mina Historica." (Mexico, D.F.: El Colegio de Sonora y Porrua,
1998). =


     Several distinguished sociologists and historians--Oscar F.
Contreras, Alejandro Covarrubias, Migael Angel Ramirez and Juan
Luis Sariego Rodriguez--have written essays for this study of the
Cananea copper mine since the privatization in 1989. The dean of
Latin American sociologists of labor, Francisco Zapata, is the
author of the introduction.
END MEXICAN LABOR NEWS AND ANALYSIS, VOL. 4, NO. 12, JULY 1999


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