Veteran of Mexico City Workers’ Occupation Shares Strategy with Occupy DC
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Solidarity Center’s Lorraine Clewer sends us this report.
Humberto Montes de Oca, an union leader from the Mexican electrical workers union, Sindicato Mexicano de Electricistas (SME), knows a few things about long-term public occupations to protest injustice. He recently shared some of his knowledge with the activists of Occupy D.C., now nearing the two-month mark at McPherson Square Park in the nation’s capital.
In September, SME ended its six-month occupation of Zocalo, Mexico City’s main square. The action was one the strategies the union has employed since the Mexican government forcibly disbanded the union in 2009.
Montes de Oca visited the McPherson encampment with Julia Kahn from the Metropolitan D.C. Council, AFL-CIO. Despite the cold and rain, the pair drew a crowd of Occupiers who wanted to know how the long-term action was conducted.
He talked with the activists about the best ways to conduct community outreach, building sustainable ally networks and growing the occupation in a stressed-out city where people barely have time to stop and breath. Read the rest of this entry »
Mexican Electrical Workers Union Goes Global With Its Struggle
Leaders of the Mexican electrical workers union, along with the AFL-CIO and more than 100 global unions and human rights groups, are asking the U.S. government to negotiate with Mexico to stop the attacks on the union and workers or face sanctions. The Mexican government forcibly disbanded the union in 2009. The union movement has come under constant attack since Mexican President Felipe Calderón took office in 2006. Click here, here and here for more.
In a petition filed with the U.S. Office of Trade and Labor Affairs (TLA) Sindicato Mexicano de Electricistas (SME) is asking that the United States find that the Mexican government has failed to enforce its own labor laws and protect workers’ rights. The Trade and Labor is the office within the Department of Labor that handles labor rights violations.
If the U.S. government finds that the Mexican government has failed to live up to its labor rights obligation under international labor and trade agreements, it would negotiate with the Mexican government. If talks fail to reach an agreement on enforcing labor and workers’ rights, sanctions could be applied.
A similar complaint was filed with the Canadian government in late October. This tri-national effort to win justice for thousands of SME members will be followed by a global call to action in solidarity with Mexican workers later this month.
Mexican Leaders Call for Solidarity Against Injustices
Brenda Loya in AFL-CIO Media Affairs sends us this report.
Mexican independent union leaders traveled to Washington, D.C., to brief, educate and express urgency to congressional leaders on the labor struggles and issues they’re currently facing in Mexico. Members of the Mexican Electrical Workers’ Union (SME) have remained in Mexico City’s main square (Zocalo) for the past six months, demanding justice over the administration’s war on unions. The government fired the SME’s 44,000 members in October 2009 and over the past two years, the fight over the privatization of electricity and the repression of one of Mexico’s oldest and most democratic unions has escalated. The briefing shed light on this ongoing struggle and the need for U.S. solidarity.
Sponsored by the United Steelworkers (USW), the AFL-CIO and Rep. Mike Michaud (D-Maine) on behalf of the Congressional Labor Caucus and International Worker Rights Caucus, the briefing focused on cross-border economic, social and family ties that bind the United States and Mexico. Mexican workers shared stories of how workers’ rights in Mexico have diminished since the approval of NAFTA. With the pending Colombia, Panama and Korea trade agreements in mind, workers emphasized that NAFTA and free trade agreements lower living standards for both U.S. and Mexican workers and have increased violence.
Mexican Electrical Workers Fighting for All Workers
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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].
Global Unions Condemn Mexico’s Move to Bust 44,000-Member Union
The global union movement is accusing Mexico’s president, Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, of systematically trying to bust independent unions and is demanding that he respect the rights of workers to form unions.
The latest example of Calderón’s anti-worker bias is the takeover last month by federal agents and police of the country’s second largest electrical power distributor, Luz y Fuerza (Central Light and Power). Calderón 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 Mexican Electrical Workers’ Union (SME), a frequent critic of the government’s policies.
