Some 5,000 Los Mineros members and their families rallied in memory of two workers slain while on strike. Credit: Lorraine Clewer
Mario Alberto Castillo and Hector Alvarez Gümez were among 500 members of the National Union of Mine and Metal Workers, known as Los Mineros, who had been on strike for 18 days when 800 police moved in to forcibly remove the strikers. Two men were shot dead and 41 injured, two of them seriously, during the break-up of the strike. No arrests were ever made for the murders.
Dressed in red shirts, some 5,000 Los Mineros members, along with their families, marched to a stone memorial erected in memory of the two men. They were joined by 100 Steelworkers from steel plants throughout District 7 in Indiana and Illinois, a delegation of 10 Unite the Union members from across the United Kingdom and four representatives from Peru representing the mine, metal, steel and energy sectors.
Union members from Peru’s mine, metal, steel and energy sectors joined the Los Mineros commemoration. Credit: Lorraine Clewer
Greeting the mineworkers from his exile in Canada, Los Mineros General Secretary Napoleón Gómez Urrutia noted that although the international community recognizes the legitimacy and leadership of Los Mineros, the Mexican government makes it impossible for him to return to Mexico. Mexico’s labor minister has said publicly that he does not recognizeGómez Urrutia‘s leadership of Los Mineros.
Participants in the memorial also condemned the ongoing repression of the Mexican government against Los Mineros and against all independent unions in Mexico, and called for concrete resolutions to violations of workers’ right to freedom of association in Mexico.
The company, Sicartsa, owned by Grupo Vallacero, was sold to ArcelorMittal after the strike. Los Mineros subsequently negotiated a collective bargaining agreement with ArcelorMittal, which included a 42 percent salary increase.
The April 20, 2006, shooting deaths occurred two months after 65 mineworkers, Los Mineros members, were killed in the Pasta de Conchos mine explosion.
Also speaking at the gathering, Lorraine Clewer, Solidarity Center country program director in Mexico, said that the bullets that had killed Mario Alberto Castillo and Hector Alvarez Gomez did not achieve their aim.
“Los Mineros lives on, stronger than ever, and we are certain that soon the international labor movement will be celebrating Napoleon Gómez Urrutia’s triumphant return to Mexico.
More than 2,000 auto workers ended a three-day strike at a major plant in Mexico April 19 after management agreed to increase the amount of employee profit-sharing payments, as required by law. The company also said it would not to retaliate against any worker who went on strike.
Workers at the El Salto, Jalisco, plant each will receive $1,383 in profit-sharing, a big increase from the $25 the company originally offered. In 2011, the company gave the workers a $5,500 profit-sharing payment. The workers went on strike April 16 after management announced a drastic reduction in the state-mandated annual profit-sharing bonus, even though the company’s production and sales were higher in 2012 than in 2011.
The majority of workers are members of the Union of United Mexican Honda Workers (Sindicato de Trabajadores Unidos de Honda de México, STUHM). However, management refuses to recognize STUHM, and instead works with the corporate-backed union, SETEAMI.
Last month, a worker at the plant was crushed to death by a cargo container while painting a loading ramp. Armando Arana had worked for the company for 14 years and had spoken out several times about unsafe working conditions.
The global union, IndustriALL, and the United Steelworkers (USW) were among international organizations urging the company to negotiate with workers and recognize STUHM. In a letter to plant directors, Ken Neumann, USW National Director for Canada, wrote that “the international trade union movement and civil society are paying close attention to this situation,” and were shocked that the company planned to give the workers such a small profit-sharing payment after they increased productivity by 30 percent in 2012.
More than seven years after an explosion at Mexico’s Pasta de Conchos mine killed 65 miners, 63 bodies remain buried in the mine, trapped there because the government and the company, Grupo Mexico, ended the search and closed the mine only five days after the mine collapse.
“We felt that the company and the government were more concerned about damage control than rescuing our colleagues,” said Napoleón Gómez Urrutia, general secretary of the National Union of Mine and Metal Workers, known as Los Mineros. Gómez Urrutia spoke at a press conference April 17 to discuss his new book, Collapse of Dignity, The Story of A Mining Tragedy and the Fight Against Greed and Corruption in Mexico, which describes the February 2006 mine disaster and the subsequent attacks on him and Los Mineros. Most of the victims were temporary contractors with no training and insufficient oxygen supplies.
Gómez Urrutia, who had been removed as president of the 250,000-member union by the Mexican government and replaced with a company-backed rival just days before the mine disaster, was repeatedly threatened and ultimately forced into exile in Canada. He has battled ongoing attacks by the Mexican government, which repeatedly accused him of embezzling $55 million in union funds, a charge struck down multiple times by the country’s courts. Last week, Interpol notified Gómez Urrutia that the information used by Mexico to request a “red notice” against him “raised strong doubts concerning its compliance with Interpol’s rules.” Some 190 countries are members of Interpol, the international police organization, and a “red notice” is akin to an international arrest warrant.
Gómez Urrutia, an outspoken advocate for workers since his election as general secretary in 2002, said the book also offers a “vision of hope for the future.”
“This is a story which brought about stronger international solidarity,” he said. The United Steelworkers, which is helping promote the new book, partnered with Los Mineros in 2005 and in 2011, created a North American Solidarity Alliance to build common organizing and bargaining across North America. Worker rights activists have rallied worldwide in support of Los Mineros, as have organizations such as the International Trade Union Confederation and the International Labor Organization. In 2011, the AFL-CIO gave Gómez Urrutia the George Meany-Lane Kirkland Human Rights Award.
Steelworkers have set a goal of selling 44,000 copies of Collapse of Dignity to bring nationwide attention to the ongoing worker struggles in Mexico. You can purchase individual or bulk copies at the website, www.collapseofdignity.com . Discounts apply to bulk orders of 50 copies or more.
Workers in Mexico launched a hunger strike for justice at PKC autoparts plants. Credit: Javier Zuniga/Los Mineros
Eleven workers from PKC wire harness plants in Mexico launched a hunger strike yesterday. They were among 122 workers fired by the Finnish autoparts company in mid-December for what they say is retaliation for seeking to form a union. They plan to continue the hunger strike until they are reinstated and their right to trade union freedom is recognized.
The fired workers include 18 members of the executive committee of Local 307 of the National Mineworkers Union (Los Mineros). The union believes the action was in retaliation for their pro-union vote at a rigged representation election in October.
According to Los Mineros, “workers were called individually to the human resources office and told to sign a ‘voluntary’ resignation letter. Officials of the Federal Labor Board were present and encouraged the workers to sign.” The union says workers were told that “the company has decided it no longer needs your services.” Further, the dismissals were distributed across PKC’s five plants and not concentrated in a particular production line, a fact Los Mineros says shows the dismissals cannot be linked to the loss of a client order, which is often given as a reason for mass dismissals.
Ten workers at the plants, located in Ciudad Acuña, did not sign the resignation letters and with the union’s support, have filed legal demands for reinstatement with the Federal Labor Board.
The Border Workers Committee (Comité Fronterizo de Obreras, CFO) and Los Mineros, long-term partners in educating and assisting workers who wish to form independent unions, are working together on the organizing campaign, which has gained global support
Shortly after the company rejected Los Mineros’s request for collective bargaining in 2011, PKC announced that it had signed a contract with a corporate-backed “union,” CTM, to “protect” the company from other union interests. After successful appeals by Los Mineros, the Mexican government authorized the union election, and in October 2012, the union won 2,311 votes.
All Los Mineros’s election observers were among those fired in December. International support—which includes IndustriALL, the metal workers unions in Finland and Sweden, the United Steelworkers (USW), the United Auto Workers (UAW) and the AFL-CIO—has exposed PKC’s efforts to impose a protection union and rig the election and a major Finnish television network ran an exposé on the company’s operations shortly before the corporation’s annual shareholder meeting.
Attorneys are challenging the results of a July 5 union election at a Canadian-owned silver mine in Durango, Mexico, that a team of international observers says was marred by “serious irregularities.” The Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores Mineros, Metalúrgicos, Siderúrgicos y Similares de la República Mexicana (SNTMMSSRM, known as Los Mineros) lost by a single vote amid a climate of intimidation and ballot discrepancies.
According to a preliminary report, 129 workers at the La Platosa mine, owned by Excellon Resources of Canada, were eligible to vote for one of three unions: “Presidente Adolfo López Mateos” Union of Workers and Employees in Commerce and General, the National Mining and Metallurgic Union “Don Napoleón Gómez Sada” (SNMMDNGS), and Los Mineros.
The official vote count was 45 for Los Mineros, 46 for SNMMDNGS, and 32 for the Adolfo López Mateos union, which currently controls the labor contract at the mine. The latter two unions are widely regarded as company-dominated “protection unions.” There were six challenged ballots.
The team noted that although many election procedures appeared proper, a number of irregularities severely marred the results. Despite a request by Los Mineros to hold the election in a neutral location, it took place on company grounds. On the day of the vote, some 100 men, many armed with sticks, arrived in a convoy of buses, trucks, and cars. Identifying themselves as members of SNMMDNGS, they attempted to block entrance to the mine. “These individuals were quite aggressive in their behavior,” said the report, “surrounding and photographing observer team members when they attempted to talk to workers.” In addition, a large contingent of municipal, state, and federal police with automatic rifles patrolled the mine entrance.
“There must be about two dozen heavily armed state police at the mine site right now,” reported Ben Davis of the United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial & Service Workers International Union (USW), a member of the observer team. USW has long supported Los Mineros.
Other members were Lorraine Clewer, Solidarity Center country program director in Mexico, and representatives of the International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace, and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW), IndustriALL Global Union, Project on Organizing, Development, Education and Research (PODER), Project on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ProDESC), and Labor Justice Center, El Paso.
Workers told the observer team that they had been pressured to vote for one of the two protection unions over the independent Los Mineros. “These practices occurred over a long period of time, as the request to hold an election was filed on October 7, 2011, and the election did not occur until nine months later,” said the report. The workers have been struggling for nearly two years to gain democratic union representation.
“Unfortunately, this flawed electoral process demonstrates once again how Mexican workers are locked into a system that excludes them from having a voice on the job,” said the Solidarity Center’s Clewer. “In a job as dangerous as mining, we see time and again the consequences of this exclusion on the lives and livelihoods of miners and their families.”
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