I wrote: > The information is a bit telegraphic, but there's > not much in the newspapers.
I'll correct this. Actually, running searches I did find good information on the strike and the history of the conflicts on both La Jornada and El Universal online. So let me start by amending some things I wrote that are flat wrong: I said that there were strikes against 2 different companies. Also that the strike in Sombrerete, against another company, was about to start. Bot things are wrong. In fact, the strike is against companies that, although with different local names, all belong in the same holding of companies, the Grupo Mexico (www.gmexico.com). The main owner of the holding is German Larrea, the "King of Cooper," a big supporter of Salinas and, after him, every other big politician who could help him out. He got the company after a rushy privatization process under Carlos Salinas. Larrea also own railroads -- which he acquired during the Zedillo administration. And the strike in Sombrerete, also against a company of the Grupo Mexico, began at the same time as the other two (on July 30, 2007). I had written erroneously that this strike was about to start. What is still pending about the strike in Sombrerete is the judicial ruling on its "existence." In the previous posting, I didn't finish what I was typing about Sicartsa, the former state-owned company in Lazaro Cardenas, Michoacan. That was another victim of the corrupt process of privatization under Salinas. That one was swallowed by what became the Grupo Villacero (www.villacero.com), sold to the brothers Julio and Sergio Villarreal Guajardo. After the death of Napoleon Gomez Sada in 2002, the son Napoleon Gomez Urrutia -- current leader of the union -- was elected by the board and ratified by union assemblies as the new top leader. However, president Fox and the companies didn't like the idea a bit. Why? This is another case in which the class struggle takes rather ugly forms. Gomez Urrutia, as son of the old union patriarch, was raised as a privileged child in a rich family. You know, being a traditional union leader in Mexico pays. Gomez Urrutia studied economics in the UNAM, the public university, but he then went to Oxford and got a Ph D. He also did graduate work at a university in Berlin. Then, during several years, he was the director of the Casa de la Moneda -- Mexico's mint and member of the board of several companies, state-owned and private corporations. He also tried to run for governor of Nuevo Leon, but failed. He was a prominent bureaucrat in the state-owned industry sector: planning director of the state-owned holding Siderurgica Mexicana (which packaged into one Altos Hornos de Mexico, Sicartsa, and Fundidora Monterrey) during the Lopez Portillo administration. Later on, in the Salinas' administration, he was director of Compania Minera Aztlan, which he dutifully readied for privatization. But then, prior to his father death, he joined the union determined to inherit the father's union empire. In spite of his past, known to everybody, his reputation as a workers' leader took a turn. Nobody seriously disputes his history as a corrupt, authoritarian union leader. It's clear that he expanded the family fortune at the public expense. The workers don't ignore this. In fact, workers seem to like the fact that he's been an insider among insiders in the sector. A worker responded to a question from a journalist about Gomez Urrutia saying, "I know all that. But he can't rob me, because I don't have anything he can steal. On the other hand, I know from experience that the union is know treated with more respect and he's attained benefits for workers that we never had before. He knows how to deal with the companies." Even before he became the leader of the union, he began to debate semi-publicly with Rodriguez Alcaine (see my previous posting), then the main union leader in Mexico. He even tried to lead the Congreso del Trabajo (the coordination board of Mexico's unions, which is often consulted by the government and corporate groups) while his father was still alive. He argued for a tougher attitude in the labor disputes. He advocated a harder attitude against capital and a more aggressive stance against the PAN (at a time when the PRI was collapsing or had already collapsed). To this day, he's remained an staunch PRI guy and believer that the PRI can regain power, although the current leadership of the party is not close to him. He also advocated a greater initiative in contacting U.S. and Canadian unions and inviting their financial support. For those who expect a black-and-white description of Gomez Urrutia, I'm sorry to disappoint them. I can get into his brain and don't care much about his personal motivations. His character embodies very bizarre contradictions, but those contradictions express the realities of Mexico's labor movement. It is what it is. I cannot comfortably say that his reputation as a more "pro-worker" and confrontational leader is entirely unwarranted or even sheer fraud. The fact is that Fox and the industrialists seen him as a threat and have opposed him bitterly since the outset. They conspired with a wing of the union to bump him off. They accused him and prosecuted him for fraud -- supposedly, he stole 55 million of USD from the union. This money was supposed to be given to the workers by the company as it was privatized. Yet, the company dragged its feet for years until Gomez Urrutia forced them to cough it up. The workers are yet to receive any cash from that. In any case, the bulk of the workers sided with Gomez Urrutia, time after time. Fox and the capitalists used a more pliable fellow, Elias Morales, the former lieutenant of Gomez Sada (the father). The conflict -- as well as widespread discontent against working conditions and pay -- were the motivations that triggered the strike in Villacero in 2002. It was a bloody struggle and Fox (with the support of Lazaro Cardenas Batel, the son of Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, governor of Michoacan) used the riot police to try to take over the facilities. They succeeded for a few hours, because the workers regrouped and took them back within 24 hours. This may be the episode that Michael Perelman remembers, in which Fox and allies tried to push Napoleon Gomez Urrutia out of the union. It didn't work. When the strike settled, the union won wholesale. Gomez Urrutia returned as head of the union, and he's been there since. The conflicts with the private companies have continued. And, again, that and the lousy working conditions in the mines and steel mills led to the current strikes in Taxco, Sombrerete, and Cananea. One last thing is that, in the background of the present conflict is a series of accidents in the mines and steel mills. The most significant recent accident happened in the mine of Pasta de Conchos, Coahuila, a mine owned by Larrea (Grupo Mexico), in February 2006. 65 miners died in an explosion. However, apparently to postpone a drop in the value of their shares in Mexico's stock exchange (BMV), Larrea -- knowing that there were no survivors -- lied to the media and pretended that the rescue operations could still find the workers alive.
