A New Day for Mexican Workers
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- Published on Monday, 14 January 2019 01:48
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 1739 ... January 14, 2019
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A New Day for Mexican Workers
David Bacon
NAFTA had been in effect for just a few months when Ruben Ruiz got a job at the Itapsa factory in Mexico City in the summer of 1994. Itapsa made auto brakes for Echlin, a U.S. manufacturer later bought out by the huge Dana Aftermarket Group. In the factory, asbestos dust from brake parts coated machines and people alike. Ruiz had hardly begun his first shift when a machine malfunctioned, cutting four fingers from the hand of the man operating it.
It seemed clear to Ruiz that things were very wrong, so he went to a meeting to talk about organizing a union. When Itapsa managers got wind of the effort, they began firing the organizers.... Nevertheless, many of the workers joined STIMAHCS, an independent democratic union of metalworkers.
Itapsa workers filed a petition for an election, but then discovered that they already had a "union" -- a unit of the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM). They’d never seen the union contract -- in essence, a "protection contract," which insulates the company from labour unrest.
The plant’s HR manager told Ruiz that Echlin management in the U.S. said any worker organizing an independent union should be immediately fired. "He told me my name was on a list of those people," Ruiz recounted, "and I was discharged right there."
Nevertheless, there was a vote, in September 1997, to decide which union workers wanted. But before the election, a state police agent drove a car filled with rifles into the plant. Two busloads of strangers arrived, armed with clubs and copper rods.
During the voting, workers were escorted by CTM functionaries past the club and rifle-wielding strangers. Some workers were forcibly kept in a part of the factory to keep them from voting. At the polling station, employees were asked aloud which union they favored, in front of management and CTM representatives.
STIMAHCS tried to get the election canceled. But the government body administering it, the Conciliation and Arbitration Board (JCA), went ahead, even after thugs roughed up one of the independent union’s organizers. Predictably, STIMAHCS lost.