Mexican Electrical Workers Fighting for All Workers

by James Parks, Feb 1, 2010

Mexican electrical workers Humberto Montes de Oca, left, and Pipino Cuevas at AFL-CIO headquarters.

Members of the Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME) are vowing to fight as long as it takes to defeat the government’s heavy-handed, anti-union moves to break its independent union.

Speaking at a brown-bag luncheon last week at the AFL-CIO in Washington, D.C., Humberto Montes de Oca, SME’s interior secretary, and union Health Secretary Pipino Cuevas said workers are determined to fight the privatization. Montes said:

 We are fighting for the rights of the 44,000 workers. We are using all means to resist the oppression of [the Mexican government].

Last October, federal agents and police seized the country’s second largest electrical power distributor, Luz y Fuerza (Central Light and Power). President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa used an executive decree to dissolve the utility, but, in doing so, he also fired the entire 44,000-person workforce and disbanded their union, the 95-year-old SME, the country’s oldest union and a frequent critic of the government’s policies.

You can help provide material support to the fired workers and their families through a tax-deductible donation to the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center’s Mexican Electrical Workers Relief Fund. Click here to make a donation.

The union says contract workers have been brought in to work at the utility resulting in numerous power outages and unsafe working conditions.

The workers are gaining strong support across North America and around the globe. During their trip to Washington, D.C., last week, they have met with officials in the U.S. Department of Labor and congressional staff. Both the AFL-CIO and the Canadian Labor Congress have called for the Mexican government to end the occupation of the plant and reinstate the workers.

The workers also have filed complaints against the Mexican government with the International Labor Organization (ILO) and under the side agreements of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

What is sad, Montes said, is that the inhumane and repressive tactics of the Mexican government are not unique. As they travel around telling their story, he said, the SME workers have heard similar reports in other countries of efforts to break unions. He added:

Our action is an action for all workers. We are resolved to go on until we get respect for our workers.

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