AUT: Mex Labor News, Sept 2, Part 1

[Dan La Botz <103144.2651@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

MEXICAN LABOR NEWS AND ANALYSIS
September 2, 1999
Vol. IV, No. 13
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               About Mexican Labor News and Analysis

     Mexican Labor News and Analysis is produced in collaboration
with the Authentic Labor Front (Frente Autentico del Trabajo -
FAT) of Mexico and with the United Electrical Workers (UE) of the
United States and is published the 2nd and 16th of every month.

     MLNA can be viewed at the UE's international web site:
HTTP://www.igc.apc.org/unitedelect/. For information about direct
subscriptions, submission of articles, and all queries contact
editor Dan La Botz at the following e-mail address:
103144.2651@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx or call in the U.S. (513) 961-8722.
The U.S. mailing address is: Dan La Botz, Mexican Labor News and
Analysis, 3436 Morrison Place, Cincinnati, OH 45220.

     MLNA articles may be reprinted by other electronic or print
media, but we ask that you credit Mexican Labor News and Analysis
and give the UE home page location and Dan La Botz's compuserve
address.

     The UE Home Page which displays Mexican Labor News and
Analysis has an INDEX of back issues and an URGENT ACTION ALERT
section.

     Staff: Editor, Dan La Botz; Correspondents in Mexico: Bob
Briggs, Robert Donnelly, Peter Gellert, Elyce Hues, Jess Kincaid,
Jorge Robles, Don Sherman, Jeremy Simer.
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Dear Readers,

     Hope you had a nice summer.

     Sorry that for a variety of reasons we were unable to
publish an August issue of Mexican Labor News and Analysis. We
hope to overcome these problems and bring you two issues in
September.

     In solidarity,
     Dan La Botz
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IN THIS ISSUE
Part 1:
     *The Mexican Presidential Election and Labor
          - by Dan La Botz
     *The United States and the Mexican Elections
Part 2:
     *Electrical Workers and Allies March Against Privatization
     *TAESA Tries to Make Deal with Flight Attendants Union
     *Maquiladora Workers Wages Fall by 23 Percent in Five Years
     *Farm Workers Riots in San Quintin Again
     *Mexico City Government Agency Calls Housewives' Strike
     *Social Statistics
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     THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS AND THE LABOR MOVEMENT

                         by Dan La Botz

     The Mexican presidential election next year will take place
under two clouds: first, the 1988 presidential election in which
the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) denied victory
to the real winner, Cuauhtemoc Cardenas; and, second, the 1994
assassination of the PRI?s candidate, Luis Donaldo Colosio, which
remains unsolved to this day, at least to the satisfaction of the
Mexican people. Those two events have put a question mark over
the Mexican elections, and have created a creeping crisis of
legitimacy for the PRI-government. There has been speculation for
some time that 2000 could be the election that finally ends 70
years of rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and
brings governmental legitimacy and democracy to Mexico. But then
again, it may not happen.

     Pundits frequently compare an election to a horse race.
While it is still too early to say who will win the race, we
might observe that at the first turn, authoritarianism and
elitism hold the lead, while democracy and social justice are
bringing up the rear. Old-style ruling-party politics wearing the
colors of populism is making an impressive bid on the outside.

     The Mexican "official" labor unions in the Congress of Labor
(CT) once key to the election of the PRI appear today as weak and
divided, while the new independent unions of the National Union
of Workers (UNT) have failed to put forward a significant
political alternative. Workers and their interests do not seem to
find a genuine expression in any of the major parties and
candidates.

               The Parties and the Candidates

     The Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) has won every
presidential election, and controlled most political offices in
Mexico since its founding in 1929. The year 2000 elections,
however, will see some new developments.

     For the first time presidential candidates of all three
major parties will be chosen by primary elections. The National
Action Party (PAN) will hold its primary on Sept. 12, the Party
of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) on Oct. 10, and PRI on Nov. 7.
So far there seem to be four leading contenders for the Mexican
presidency: Labastida, Madrazo, Fox and Cardenas.

     President Ernesto Zedillo, who will step down in 2000 after
his legal limit of one six-year term, has made it clear that for
the PRI's candidate he supports Francisco Labastida Ochoa who
served as his Secretary of the Interior (political police). Also
seeking the PRI's nomination is Roberto Madrazo Pintado, governor
of Veracruz, who has adopted the posture of an outsider and a
populist opponent of the PRI's economic policies.

     The PAN's primary so far has only one candidate on the
ballot: the wealthy rancher and businessman, Guanajuato Governor
Vicente Fox. The PRD will almost surely once again nominate
Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, the Mayor of Mexico City, who ran for
president in 1988 and again in 1994. Most observers believe that
Cardenas actually won the 1998 election, though Carlos Salinas de
Gortari assumed the office.

     In addition, to those four leading candidates, Porfirio
Munoz Ledo, a leader of the PRD and the rival of Cardenas, has
announced that he will run for president as the candidate of the
Authentic Party of the Mexican Revolution (PARM).

     There was attempt to create a block of the PAN, the PRD and
other minor parties in the hope of mustering a majority that
could defeat the PRI. But by late August it was pretty clear that
that effort had failed. Political differences were one reason for
the breakdown in negotiations: the PAN is a conservative pro-
business party, while the PRD adopts a more populist or social
democratic position. Process was another point of contention. THE
PAN wanted to conduct a consultation between party leaderships,
while the PRD wanted to old a broad primary of coalition party
members. Personalities were also a factor: neither Fox nor
Cardenas was likely to step down for the other.

               The Elections and the Labor Movement

     The prominent spokespersons of the most important Mexican
labor federations, both the "official" federations in the
Congress of Labor (CT) and the independent federation, the
National Union of Workers (UNT), have focused their attention on
the PRI.

     The support of the Confederation of Mexican Workers for the
PRI is axiomatic. In the 1930s the PRI was organized on three
pillars, all organizations of working people or the poor: the
National Peasants Confederation (CNC), the National Confederation
of Popular Organizations (CNOP), and the Confederation of Mexican
Workers (CTM).

     In all elections into the 1980s, the CTM played a central
role in delivering the vote in national, state and local
elections for PRI candidates, and most important for the ruling
party's presidential candidate. For this work, PRI leaders were
rewarded with positions as congressmen and senators in the
Workers' Sector of the PRI.

     In the last 20 years the CTM's importance has diminished,
and in 2000 it will be even less significant. In part this is
because of the shift from machine-style politics based on
patronage, to an advertising model of politics based more on
television, polling, and focus groups. Still the CTM plays a
significant role, even if its organization can no longer deliver
the vote as it once did.

                    The CTM with the PRI

     Leonardo Rodriguez Alcaine, head of the Sole Union of
Electrical Workers (SUTERM), leader of the Confederation of
Mexican Workers (CTM), and president of the Congress of Labor
(CT), recently reiterated the classic statement of the famous
"historic alliance" between the Mexican state and the unions. The
CTM, he said, will prevent reaction from coming to power in
Mexico and will vote for the PRI.

     "We the workers of Mexico are on the side of the party which
arose from the Mexican Revolution and of the principles which we
have inherited from Madero, Zapata, Villa, Carranza, and we shall
remain faithful and so we pledge to the President of the
Republic, Doctor Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon," said Rodriguez
Alcaine at a publc ceremony on August 13.

     The CTM has also put forward its program to the PRI, calling
for higher wages, job security, and greater public safety, as
well as expressing concerns about tax issues and the environment.
In general the CTM calls for justice for the workers--but almost
no one believes that it is really committed to any of those
issues or to justice.

     The CTM leaders' real concern is to maintain their positions
in the state-party system. Consequently the old guard of most of
the "official" or state-party controlled unions have lined up
with Zedillo and his candidate Labastida. For example, Francisco
Grajales, spokesperson for Victor Flores, head of the Mexican
Railroad Workers Union (STFRM) affirmed "we know Labastida's
project and we believe in him as a candidate."

     Alberto Juarez Blancas, head of the Revolutionary
Confederation of Workers and Peasants (CROC), took the risk of
supporting another candidate, Manuel Bartlett Diaz, the governor
of Puebla, but Bartlett's candidacy has fallen far behind those
of Labastida and Madrazo. Whoever wins, the CROC can expect to be
punished.

               Hernandez Juarez and the UNT

     Francisco Hernandez Juarez, head of the Mexican Telephone
Workers Union (STRM), and the most prominent spokesperson of the
National Union of Workers (UNT), the independent labor
federation, has also placed his hopes in the PRI, though not in
any particular candidate.

     Until last just last month, Hernandez Juarez was a member of
the PRI's National Political Council, but was dropped from the
party's leading body on the orders of the CTM's leader Rodriguez
Alcaine. "Today more than ever I would not leave the PRI," said
Hernandez Juarez. "That's what they want me to do, but I won't
give them the satisfaction." Rather than abandoning the state-
party, Hernandez Juarez calls for its reform, calling upon
democratic forces to resist the reactionaries in the party.

     "I believe that it is fundamental to support and push
forward the process, because there are hard forces in the
interior of the party which feel threatened by the advance of
democracy and will try at all costs to dilute it, detain it,
block it, or use this situation as a pretext to return once again
to the old undesirable methods which would be the worst thing
that could occur to the PRI," said Hernandez Juarez.

     Several months ago Hernandez Juarez and other UNT leaders
created the Social Movement of the Workers (MST), suggesting at
times that it would be a kind of labor or working class party in
Mexico. Nevertheless, the MST has not played any significant role
as an independent voice for organized labor or the workers'
movement more broadly in this pre-election period.

               Madrazo: Populist Candidate

     The most interesting political phenomenon has been the rapid
rise of Roberto Madrazo Pintado, the governor of Veracruz, who
has put himself forward as the candidate of the working class and
the poor for the PRI nomination. Though he has a reputation for
fishy campaign financing, vote fraud, and dubious political
morals, in just a few weeks Madrazo has become the populist and
popular candidate of the PRI's rank and file.

     From the beginning Madrazo has shown spunk. He challenged
the PRI's rule that candidates had to resign their current
offices--in his case he would have had to resign the governorship
of Veracruz--and won.

     Madrazo has attacked Zedillo's neo-liberal (i.e.,
conservative) economic policies such as maintaining a low federal
budget, creating open markets, and promoting manufacture for
export. Madrazo calls instead for more spending on social
programs for the poor. "I'm in total disagreement with a policy
that has brought great result for a few, but few results for the
great majority," said the Veracruz governor in a speech to
cheering working class PRI members.

     The Veracruz governor's populist rhetoric worries some
international investors who fear financial instability if he
should win. While Madrazo's campaign has been burgeoning, it
seems unlikely the PRI establishment or the U.S. government would
permit him to win the election.(See article below on the U.S. and
Mexican elections.)

               The PRD and Cuauhtemoc Cardenas

     In 1988 and again in 1994 there was a sense of excitement
and anticipation on the left. In 1988 Cuauhtemoc Cardenas led the
Democratic Current out of the PRI to run an independent campaign
for president, and won but lost!. Then in 1994 the Chiapas
Rebellion led by the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN)
challenged the myth of the miracle of the Salinas administration.
For a moment in the summer of 1994 it seems as if the EZLN, the
non-governmental Civic Alliance (AC), and the PRD might together
somehow bring about the defeat of the PRI and a new democratic
Mexico. Today the same sense of hope on the left is far feebler.

     The center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD)
suffered a black eye because of the March election for party
president in which the two contenders, Amalia Garcia and Jesus
Ortega, accused each other of fraud. The election had to be re-
run in July, and Garcia, with the support of many of Ortega's
followers, defeated senator Felix Salgado by 55 percent to 27
percent. But the party's image was badly tarnished by the whole
affair. The PRD could no longer claim to be the squeaky clean
alternative to the corrupt PRI.

     Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, who will almost surely be chosen the
candidate of the PRD, hoped to use his election as mayor of
Mexico City as a stepping stone to the presidency. But the
stepping stone proved slippery and at times Cardenas slid off
into a swamp of urban social problems: increasing poverty among
under- and un-employed workers, rising crime rates, terrible
pollution, and the opposition of the PRI-controlled labor unions.
While somewhat successful in challenging corruption in
government, attempts to democratize urban government through non-
partisan citizens' councils proved a failure.(See: Robert
Collier, "Special Report: A Battle to Tame Mexico City," SAN
FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, August 23, 1999.)

     For those who thought Cardenas might prove to be the
candidate of the social movements and the left, he has been a
disappointment. The Cardenas mayoral administration and the
radicals within it did take up many issues of workers, women, and
the poor, as well as defending democratic rights. While Cardenas
will probably still win the support of many labor unionists,
particularly public school teachers and other public employees,
and of many peasants from his father?s and his traditional areas
of support such as Michoacan and the La Laguna region, he has
failed to make himself the candidate of the new independent labor
movement represented by the UNT and the May First Inter-Union
Group (CIPM). And Cardenas long ago lost whatever rapport might
have existed between himself and the Zaptista Army of National
Liberation (EZLN) which has taken an abstentionist position on
national electoral politics.

     While it is still much too early to say who will win the
year 2000 elections, the PRI leadership and its machine seem well
positioned to push Labastida into power. The other principal PRI
candidate, Madrazo, could pose a threat, as does the PAN's
charismatic conservative candidate Fox. Cardenas seems to be the
underdog in this election as he was in 1994. Munoz Ledo's
candidacy is more than a long-shot.

     Most of those who cast votes in the election will be working
people, but workers' organizations seem not to be playing a
central role in this election. Ironically it is not Cardenas but
Madrazo, with a reputation as one of the PRI?s most corrupt
politicians, who claims to speak for workers and the poor who
have been deserted by the government. However, there is little
likelihood that Madrazo would make good on his promises.

                              ###

          THE UNITED STATES AND THE MEXICAN ELECTIONS:
                    AN HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

     The Mexican presidential election will be conducted in
Mexico but they may be decided in the United States. Since the
Mexican Revolution, the United States has played a large and
sometimes a decisive role in Mexican presidential elections,
attempting to maintain the political stability and business
climate which is essential for U.S. investors in mining, oil,
agriculture and manufacturing, and for U.S. banks and their
loans. The U.S. government attempts to guide candidates and
manipulate the election process in a variety of ways, and usually
with great success.

                    The U.S. and the PRI

     Since shortly after 1927 when Dwight Morrow, Morgan banker
and U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, made peace with Mexican president
Plutarco Elias Calles, the U.S. government has generaly preferred
the Insitutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) as a reliable defender
of U.S. interests. (The PRI was founded in 1929, though it has
had two other names.)

     Only when president Lazaro Cardenas's expropriated and
nationalized U.S. and British oil companies in 1938 were
relations to the state-party pushed almost to the breaking point,
but then quickly restored because of the approach of World War
II. Throughout the period from 1940 to 1980 the U.S. smiled on
PRI candidates. Political instability beginning in 1968 created
friction, and in the 1980s Republican administrations in the U.S.
flirted with the National Action Party (PAN), but never deserted
the PRI.

     The U.S. has been especially strong in its support of the
three technocratic or neo-liberal (i.e., conservative) PRI
presidents: de la Madrid, 1982-88, Salinas, 1988-94, and Zedillo,
1994-2000. Those three oversaw Mexico's integration into the
process called "globalization," as Mexico joined the General
Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT, now WTO), joined the North
American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and opened its economy to
more U.S. investment.

     Under the pressure of U.S. banks and the tutelage of U.S.-
trained economists, presidents de la Madrid, Salinas and Zedillo
made a 180 degree shift in Mexico's economic program, from a
protected national market engaged in development by the
substitution of imports, to an open market platform for
manufacture for export. When the PRI stole the 1988 election won
by Cuauhtemoc Cardenas and installed another free marketeer in
office, Carlos Salinas, the U.S. government backed its reliable
partner, the PRI.

                    The U.S. Role Today

     The United States plays an ever greater part in Mexico's
political life and particularly in its elections. At one time,
the United States simply set the political parameters and let the
Mexican governments run its own elections, corrupt and fraudulent
as they were. Today the U.S. government and poltical parties and
non-governmental organizations intervene in Mexico to take direct
charge of many aspects of both the campaigns and the election
itself often in the name of free, fair and transparent elections.

     How does this happen? First, the United States plays an
enormous role in the environment in which Mexico's elections take
place through loans, investments, and credit ratings. For
example, Moody's Investors Services just raised Mexico's credit
rating to one level below investment grade, and is expected to
raise the stock to investment grade in the near future. Amounting
to a clean bill of health for Mexico. this enhances the chances
of a PRI in the coming election.

     As became clear during the Salinas administration, which
proved to be as much free racketeer as free marketeer, no amount
of nepotism, corruption, or violent repression would break the
bond between the United States and Mexico, as long as the PRI
stuck to the economic program set by the United States. Even
though Canadian auditor Michael Mackey found that the Zedillo
government had lost more than 10 percent of the US$68 billion
bank bailout through corruption, the U.S. will stick with the PRI
which remains firm on the North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA) and encouraging more investment by U.S.-based
multinational corporations. That, after all, is the bottom line.

                    Organizational Links

     But ultimately, insuring the right economic environment for
the election is not sufficient. Everything in electoral politics
comes down to money and organization. The U.S. government and
political parties provide both. Since the 1980s U.S. involvement
and influence in Mexico has grown through both governmental
agencies such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and
the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), but also
through non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as the Carter
Center.

     Many other NGO's left, right and center play a part, as do
U.S. labor unions. Such organizations, for example, worked as
election observers in 1988 and 1994, often to try to prevent
fraud by the PRI. But whatever their intended goal, they also
come to form another part of the growing U.S. influence in
Mexican politics.

               Clinton, the Democrats and the PRI

     The Clinton administration, like other administrations
Republican and Democratic before it, has been unwavering in its
support of the PRI. Clinton backs Zedillo, and also clearly
supports his choice of Labastida as his successor. During visits
to Mexico last year, Clinton avoided meetings with PRD and PAN
candidates, while meeting on government business with Zedillo and
Labastida.

     In the last 25 years Mexico's traditional organizational
politics based on patronage, barbeque and beer has declined while
U.S.-style Madison Avenue television advertising campaign has
grown in importance. U.S. campaign consultants and advertising
companies have also moved into Mexico. In this election, James
Carville, who headed up Clinton's 1992 campaign, is advising
Zedillo's man Labastida.

     Madrazo, the other PRI candidate, will have the assistance
of Tom O'Donnell, former chief of staff for Richard A. Gephardt
(D-Mo.), the House minority leader. Also on the Madrzo staff will
be pollster Douglas E. Schoen, who worked for Clnton, and Zev
Furst who worked for Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley.

     PAN candidate Vicente Fox will have the assistance of
consultant Dick Morris who helped Clnton with the Lewinsky
scandal. This new job has some similarities to his old one, as
Fox recently revealed that he had an out-of-wedlock daughter.
(Information on the consultants from Esther Schrader, "Mexico
Tastes U.S.-Style Campaigning," LOS ANGELES TIMES, August 27,
1999.)

     Elections may be compared to horse races. Once again in
2000, as in almost every election since 1929, the Institutional
Revolutionary Party holds the lead at the start, and once again
the U.S. government sits in the saddle and holds the reins.

                              ###

               MEXICAN LABOR NEWS AND ANALYSIS
          END PART 1, BE SURE THAT YOU HAVE PART 2


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