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Maquila Solidarity Network Update
August 17, 2000
As newly elected Mexican president Vicente Fox prepares to travel to Canada and the US for "get-to-know-you" visits with Jean Chretien and Bill Clinton, the tri-national Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras (CJM) is holding an important executive meeting in San Antonio, Texas. Trade issues will be the topic of Fox's visit; the lack of democracy in Mexico's original free trade zone will be the focus of the CJM meeting.
The defeat of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in Mexico's federal elections, after 70 years of uninterrupted rule, raises new hope for more profound democratic change in Mexican society. But recent events in three Mexican border communities underline serious concerns that democratic change in Mexico does not yet apply to Mexican workers. The "official" party may have lost an election, but its "official" unions are not prepared to give up their role as the employers' ultimate defense against worker organizing.
A small crack in the system was made on August 11th, when workers at the Duro Bag manufacturing maquila in Rio Bravo finally received the registration for their independent union. However, at the time of this update the one hundred workers who have been locked out for the past two months have not yet won reinstatement to their jobs. They also face the difficult challenge of winning an in-plant election against an "official" (government-controlled and employer-friendly) union to determine which union will represent the Duro workers. As events unfold, they will continue to need our support.
On August 14, over 250 maquila workers, democratic labour leaders and human rights activists from Mexico and the US gathered in Reynosa, Tamaulipas to shine a spotlight on increasing attacks against the right of Mexican workers to form and choose their own unions and democratically elect their union leaders. The International Forum for Freedom of Association was addressed by representatives of the Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras (CJM), the Mexican National Workers Union (UNT), and the Mexican Committee for Freedom of Association. Speakers denounced recent accusations of terrorism made against US and Canadian unions and solidarity groups, and acts of violence and intimidation against maquila workers and local support groups in Mexico.
Also participating in the forum were workers from Custom Trim and Auto Trim maquila factories. They gave testimonies about the attacks they have suffered for making a complaint under the NAFTA labour side agreements, including employer and police harassment, threats by unidentified thugs, and being publicly labeled as subversives in league with foreign agitators. Even lodging a complaint under the virtually unenforceable NAFTA labour side agreements is becoming a dangerous and "subversive" act for Mexican workers.
Below is a brief history of the recent attacks on Mexican maquila workers' right to freedom of association that were exposed at the forum. In the coming weeks, we will be sending you additional information on how you can support the workers involved in these important struggles.
On June 18, police attacked striking workers at the Duro bag factory in Rio Bravo, threatening them with pistols and automatic rifles, beating a number of the workers, and arresting their leaders. While an international solidarity campaign secured the release of the arrested strike leaders, Duro management refused to allow over 100 workers to return to their jobs, and the state government refused to grant the workers a registration for an independent union.
Faced with growing local, national and international pressure, including letters from many MSN members and supporters, at the end of June, the Governor of the state of Tamaulipus made a verbal agreement with the leader of the UNT to allow the workers to return to their jobs and to be granted the certification of the union of their choice. A month and a half later, this agreement has still not been fully implemented.
On July 13, the house of Eliud Almaguer, a leader of the Duro workers, was broken into. Union documents, including copies of the registration papers for an independent union, were stolen and Almaguer's dog was poisoned.
On two occasions, the government-controlled Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM) staged unannounced union local elections at the Duro plant in an attempt to replace the current union executive. In both cases, the vast majority of workers refused to vote.
On August 11, Duro workers staged protests at a number of events during a visit by Governor Yarrington to cities in the area. Meanwhile, Almaguer was meeting with the labour department in the state capital of Ciudad Victoria, where he was finally granted the registration for their independent union.
On June 24, two dozen members of the independent October 6 Union of workers at the Han Young maquila entered a seminar on Freedom of Association in Mexico carrying banners calling for the right of workers to join unions of their choice and condemning government attacks on local strikers. The seminar was the result of a NAFTA labour side agreement complaint filed with the US National Administrative Office (NAO), charging the Mexican government with violating the right of Han Young workers to freedom of association.
As the Han Young workers reached the front of the hall, they were physically attacked, beaten and driven out of the hall and on to the streets by officials of the Revolutionary Confederation of Workers and Campesinos (CROC), a labour central controlled by the Mexican government. US Department of Labor officials attending the seminar failed to intervene or to leave in protest. The seminar on freedom of association continued, without the Han Young workers present. No arrests were made.
On June 30, current and former workers at Breed Technologies' Custom Trim/Auto Trim plants in Matamoros and Valle Hermoso joined with labour, religious and worker rights organizations in Mexico, the US and Canada (the MSN) in submitting a complaint to the NAO. The complaint charged the Mexican government with failing to enforce its own health and safety legislation at the two Breed plants.
On July 19, three workers were interviewed about the complaint on a Matamoros television program. That same day, two of the workers were interrogated by company management in front of a special employee meeting, and the wife of one of the former employees who had signed the complaint was visited at her workplace by three large, unidentified men, inquiring about her husband.
On July 23, dozens of state judicial police and municipal police arrived at the plant and ordered all workers out to the parking lot, while the police apparently searched the workers' lockers. On July 24, managers denied workers entry to the factory, citing a bomb threat. However, managers remained in the plant along with police, army and fire personnel. That same day, the three men returned to the workplace of the wife of the former Auto Trim worker. They told her they knew her husband was working with Manuel Mondragon, whom they called an agitator. (Mondragon is a local leader of the Catholic youth group, the Young Workers Ministry (PJO).) They offered her money to reveal where Mondragon lived, and asked if she wasn't afraid about what could happen.
On July 31, the three men again appeared at the woman's workplace asking about the whereabouts of Mondragon. They grabbed her purse and tore up her pay cheque, threatening her with "hunger" if she talked.
In numerous newspaper reports, representatives of the CTM accused US and Canadian unions of carrying out a "dirty war" against the establishment of new maquila factories in Mexico. CJM executive director Marta Ojeda was accused of being a "destabilizer" working with 15 "professional agitators," and was threatened with arrest. CJM officials also informed eight workers who had spoken to the media about the NAO complaint that they would be fired.
Beyond congratulating Fox for his electoral victory, it is unlikely that Chretien will raise questions about needed democratic change in Mexican society. The weak NAFTA labour side agreements are proving to be not only ineffective, but down right dangerous for Mexican workers. At the very least, Canada could urge the new Mexican president to ensure that the democratic rights of Mexican workers making products for the North American market are respected, and that workers are not harassed, beaten and arrested when they protest violations of those rights.
Maquila Solidarity Network (MSN)
Ethical Trading Action Group (ETAG)
606 Shaw Street,
Toronto Ontario M6G 3L6,
CANADA
416-532-8584 (phone) / 416-532-7688 (fax)
perg@web.net / http://www.web.net/~msn
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