Labor Realignment Opens Space for Radicals
Leaders of Mexico's labor unions have begun a process of political and organizational realignment which may open space for democratic workers' initiatives from below.
the bureaucratic and substitutionist deformation of political organizations, and for the building of a mass revolutionary international. In this process, we ask for by Dan La Botz At the end of 1995, during a also played a key role in debate over the Institutional Salinas' privatization of Revolutionary Party (PRI) TELMEX, the Mexican Telegovernment proposal to phone Company. But also in "reform" and in part privatize the 21 union coalition are the Mexican Institute of Social unions such as independent Security (IMSS), a political Union of Workers of the Metal, split developed within the Steel and Iron Industry Congress of Labor (CT) (STIMHCS) which is affiliated between the long-dominant with the independent AuthConfederation of Mexican entic Labor Front (FAT). The Workers (CTM) and the young new group is frequently Federation of Unions of Goods referred to as the "Foro" or and Services (FESEBES). Forum because of a number While the CTM fundamentally of public forums on labor and supported the PRI's IMSS social issues which they have reform, FESEBES was more organized. critical and helped to organize Veteran labor bureaucrat Fidel a large public demonstration Velazquez is watching the against the PRI-government unfolding reorganization of the
Mexican labor bureaucracy Now the split has deepened, from hospital. Velazquez, who will be 96 years old in April, which form FESEBES have has played a leading role in been joined by a number of the Mexican labor bureaucracy since the mid 1930s, and has been the dominant figure since the late 1940s in controlled Congress of Labor the PRI-government-controlled (CT), and some independent. CTM. If pro-longed illness or FESEBES is led by Francisco death removed Velazquez from the scene, a struggle for the Mexican Telephone control of the CTM and the CT Workers Union (STRM), a would immediately develop.
Velazquez has promised in any case to step down in with former president Carlos 1998 Salinas de Gortari during the Velazquez and other CTM leaders have criticized Hernandez Juarez has been Hernandez Juarez, FESEthe leading Mexican advocate BES, and now the Foro group of a "new unionism" pre- as "those who seek to divide dicated upon union cooperation with the employers to increase productivity. He
24 International Viewpoint April 1996 ance" with the PRI. But it seems as if for the first time in decades, some section of Mexican labor officialdom is now prepared to look for a new strategy. What that strategy will be is not yet clear. One of the central questions facing the Foro group is whether or not to remain within the Congress of Labor (CT). Several of the Foro's 21 member unions are independent of both confederations. So far Hernandez Juarez, FESEBES and the Foro have not laid out a clear program of action, but have confined themselves to a critique of positions take by the CT and the CTM. Some of the independent unions within the Foro group are also members of the independent and more radical "May 1st Inter- Union Coalition" which formed late last year. The May 1st coalition grew out of the 1995 May Day demonstrations in Mexico City and out of union solidarity with the 13,000 bus drivers who were fired when the government of the Federal District (Mexico City) privatized the Route 100 bus company. Independent unions and democratic currents within the official unions see this realignment within the labor bureaucracy as opening up space for discussion and debate, and perhaps in the future for joint action. * your understanding and support.
Lastly, and even though this not quite usual, we want to say to you, and through you to all our comrades in the IVth International, that we hold you all very dear; that we have always had your support and solidarity, that you are as human beings the best in the world, and what unites us is not just words or pieces of paper but a vision of the world as radically different, that is radically humane. 34 years of membership of the IVth International has left us only conviction, commitment and confidence; there will be not a single act of any one of our ex-militants which is not influenced by this example and these motives. * Long live the Fourth International! Long live the Zapatista National
Liberation Front! Notes 1 J. C. Mariategui was a founder of the communist movement in Peru and is often described as the first and most original theorist of an authentically Latin American marxism. His attention to the cultural specificities of marxist strategy has led to frequent comparisons with Antonio Gramsci, working in Italy at about the same time. He was politically and theoretically hostile to the development of soviet marxism under Stalin and adhered to something like a version of permanent revolution for the reality of Latin American societies. 2 The reforms to Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution were a key part of the neo-liberal programme pursued by the administration of Carlos Salinas (1988-1994). They sought to enable increased privatization and concentration of land ownership, in particular by breaking up the "ejidos" or communal lands which derived originally from pre-colonial forms of social organisation and the right to which was nhrined in this article of the Mexican Constitution, as a central plank in the social pact emerging from the "interrupted" Mexican Revolution.