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U.S. Unions Slam Mexican Power Grab |
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U.S. unions put Mexico’s President Vicente Fox on notice that he will not get away with illegally booting out Napoleon Gómez Urrutia, head of Mexico’s independent mine workers union, on trumped up charges of financial irregularities.
AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson expressed her outrage at a March 17 rally at the Mexican consulate in Philadelphia:
We’re here to deliver a message to President Fox and all of the rich corporate interests in Mexico that control him. We know you’re not only trying to bring down Napoleon Gómez and Los Mineros but all of the working people of Mexico and the unions that represent them. We’re here to tell you that when you tangle with our Mexican sisters and brothers, you tangle with us.
Other protests are scheduled throughout the country, including Michigan, Indiana, Minnesota, North Carolina and Utah.
Speakers at the rally compared the abuse of workers’ rights in Mexico to the plight of U.S. Department of Homeland Security workers in the United States who are fighting the Bush administration’s attempts to take away their right to collective bargaining.
The Mexican government targeted Gomez shortly after an explosion Feb. 19 in the Pasta de Conchos mine killing 65 miners. The mine was owned by Grupo Mexico, the country’s largest mining company. Members of USW International Union in Arizona struck Grupo Mexico-owned copper mines for four months last year over the company’s refusal to bargain in good faith.
Many Mexican union leaders say the Fox regime is cynically trying to deflect public criticism of its failure to protect workers’ lives at the mine by shifting blame on to the union.
The Mexican government launched criminal investigations of Gómez based on accusations from a small group of union dissidents who alleged that he had misappropriated a $55 million payment received from Grupo México to settle a 17-year long dispute over the privatization of one of its mines—charges Gómez and his supporters deny.
Even before the investigation could begin, Fox, in an action that violates Mexican law, removed Gómez—who has elected by his membership and who has been one of the most outspoken opponents of Fox’s regime—and installed a hand-picked government supporter to lead the union.
After the rally, Chavez-Thompson and USW Secretary-Treasurer Jim English entered the consulate and delivered a letter to Fox from USW President Leo Gerard. In the letter, Gerard laid the issues on the line:
It is an outrage that there was an absolute disregard for due process, and it is absolutely apparent that the pretext of financial irregularities is an undisputed sham, since pursuing legal recourse would have unmasked you government’s attempt to demoralize and destroy a free and independent labor movement.
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, in a separate letter to Fox, called the Mexican president’s actions “a direct violation of the fundamental freedom of association.”
Gerard promised that the USW would “take forceful action” unless the issue is solved, including going to the United Nations’ International Labor Organization and mobilizing the global union movement to pressure Mexico to comply with the law.
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