Manuel Garcia Urrutia M. outlines recent labor meetings which sketch out the strategies which will determine the rise of a new labor unionism in Mexico.
International Viewpoint n° 276 21
DO WE WANT POWER OR NOT?
Another debatable aspect of the Fourth Declaration is the shocking declaration that the Zapatista Front does not struggle for power.
It seems contradictory that a force which emerged calling for the end of the party-state system, which has even declared war on the current government, which has denounced the government and the present system as responsible for the sufferings of the people, which has called for the ouster of Salinas and of the current government, which talks about conquering democracy, it seems contradictory, we repeat, that this same force should say that it does not struggle to take power.
It would be a mistake to equate Zapatismo with a pressure group to achieve some changes or to equate it with an instrument for moral claims and pressures to achieve specific goals, sectional or corporate demands. That is not what Zapatismo has meant, especially since the uprising of January of 1994. Zapatismo has insisted on a political struggle, a national struggle, showing itself as an example while insisting that its demands are not sectional or limited to some municipalities of Chiapas. It has done this precisely against those who shield themselves in radical language to cover particularistic demands.
We think, therefore, that in order to achieve the goals raised by the EZLN one has to carry a struggle fundamentally against the power of the party state system. This has become obvious throughout the trajectory of struggle of the EZLN. Ending the actual party-state system is a must. Partial victories are not enough.
To oust the present powers, to substitute them with the power of the people - as called for in the Fourth Declaration - iS not in contradiction with the statement that the Zapatista Front does not wish to seize power. Indeed, the conquest of democracy is not merely the alternation of the parties in office, no matter how democratic a specific party may say it is or may appear to be. In this sense our objective cannot be simply to substitute the current power of the PRI to put the EZLN or now the FZLN in its place.
It is common that some parties identify the conquest of democracy with the conquest of power precisely for themselves. But this is not necessarily democracy, and instead runs the risk of being converted exactly into its opposite. When a party has the objective of conquering power for itself, all other democratic considerations can be subordinated to that objective. We understand this concept as part of our history as a political current, since we fought from the beginning against the erroneous identification between the
Labor Union Strategies MEETING NUMBER ONE WAS ship of Mexican labor the celebration of the 119th unionism. Regular General Assembly The CTM leadership has of the National Council of miscalculated. Because they the Confederation of Mex- will not be able to keep their ican Workers (CTM), leadership position in the marking its 60th anniver- labor movement with a sary. This meeting repres- strategy that is ever more ented the collapse into docile, servile to the governsenility of a kind of labor ment, tied to the state, isounionism which refuses to lated and corrupt. For there die, but which now has no are other federations place in the development of [CROC, CROM, etc.] which a modern, democratic and do that even better. just Mexico. Three moments It is union democracy, sum up the CTM meeting: respect for differences of • the long applause for opinion within the union, Fidel Velazquez, offered as and the development of homage to the system which wider social alliances, at he has served, accompanied both the national and interby a presidential speech national level, which will about the battered "historical provide the basis for the alliance" [between the union project which the unions and the government], country needs. with special nostalgic The second important reference to old union recent meeting was the leaders who played their part Third Forum of Labor Uniin the deterioration of the onism before the Nation: population's decline in Security and Social Justice, living standards; organized by 21 organiz• the presence of top ations with different hisbusinessman Carlos tories, characteristics and Abascal, representing the perspectives, but which have most conservative employ- as a common denominators: ers' organization, leaders who are representCOPARMEX, asking that ative, are elected, and have we give our selves to the proposals for the challenges Virgin of Guadalupe — an to the productivity of the implicit recognition of how Nation. The drawing power bad things have gotten — of these unions, their key and attempting to inaugur- place in production and ate, for the "n"th time, the services, the richness of their "new labor culture," which analysis in confronting is recognized in the speeches diverse problems derived and agreements which are from their diverse compoimposed upon us from on sition —and their possibility high, which have nothing to of acting in a united, mature do with employer practice and responsible way, not and the everyday reality only represent a milestone which the workers live; for the labor movement in • the CTM's censure of recent years but also aim at "divisive" organizations changing the correlation, within the Congress of shape and hegemony of the Labor (CT). A clear allusion historic leadership. to the Federation of Unions Recent weeks also saw a of Goods and Services San Francisco meeting [FESEBES]. This basically organized to discuss action reflects the CTM leader- against the transnational ship's interest in not being corporation Sprint, under the displaced from the leader- Labor Side Agreements of
Mexico * the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Labor organizations attending from Mexico, the United States and Canada have recognized the necessity of forming some regional labor union relationship to protect the interests of workers negatively affected by NAFTA. They also argue for a Social Compact which would include protection of the rights of migrant workers, independent of their legal status. A similar tri-national meeting in Cuernavaca shared concrete experiences of unity, action and organization, involving union, environmental and farmers groups which have been working together.
The conclusions of these international labor meetings laid out the challenges which the process of regional integration imposes: the construction of trustworthy partners in order to avoid actions such as that of the Teamsters in their opposition to Mexican truck drivers using the highways of the United States; the need to push, in the same direction, an alternative development strategy which gives meaning and priority to the social dimension of integration; and, last but not least, solidarity. Participants were also invited to the meeting against neoliberalism which will take place in April in Chiapas.
These meetings are no longer closed to independent unions. The CTM monopoly has been broken. The Mexican unions which came to relate to their U.S. and Canadian counterparts share different visions of the national reality, and seek agreements on strategy between Mexican organizations. * Source: La Jornada, March 4, 1996.
* Mexico supposed existence of socialism and workers power on the one hand, with the real existence of the power of a party and a bureaucracy at the expense and on the backs of the workers on the other hand even if these parties called themselves "communist").
In this sense, we can agree that we do not fight for power.
For this reason, incidentally, we do not consider as part of the definition of a revolutionary party the seizure of power for itself, as Marcos insists in his messages. The call for a front, however, is not apolitical. It is a call which understands the need for a struggle against the present powers and the need to oust them. The same Fourth Declaration at several points confirms this (against the centralisation power, again the idea that those who rule must do so while obeying the people, government of the people, for the people and by the people, etc.). The Zapatista struggle goes beyond immediate demands and beyond the idea of becoming the moral conscience of politicians, as some have claimed. It certainly struggles for a new power, not for the Zapatista Front, but for the people, recognising the pluralism (regional, political, ethnic, and cultural pluralism, which becomes more evident each passing day. This is implied in the points against the centralisation of power.
All of this has to do with another notion which appears in several documents of the EZLN. We are referring obviously to the document on "the mirrors," but the idea appears in several others. The idea is that make possible the Revolution. Therefore our objective is not power itself.
This revolution, the EZLN remarks, "is not a matter of the conquest of power or the installation (by peaceful or violent means) of a new social system, but something prior to both these things. It is a matter of building the anteroom of a new world, a space where, with equal rights and obligations, the different political forces will 'compete' for the support of the majority of society."
There are, finally, other nuanced aspects in the Fourth Declaration which the Zapatistas themselves or Sub Comandante Marcos have modified. One of them, for example, is the issue of electoral participation. In the Fourth Declaration it appeared as an initial definition, as a matter of principle, to participate in the Zapatista Front. In the message of 4 March, the Sub Comandante Marcos has clarified that the Zapatista Front as such does not participate in elections but that its members could support certain electoral processes. This is closer to a tactical definition in connection with each case and not a general definition against electoral participation without into the level consciousness and organisation of the
The problem with this position is that it should not confuse the criticism and rejection of the current institutional powers with a rejection of all democratic practices, even electoral ones. The EZLN has a commitment on this point since it is one of the positions collected in the National Consultation to achieve a change in the rules of the political game in the country.
Neither should it confuse the current state of the institutional powers, despite their profound level of decomposition, and the current correlation of forces, with a situation which permits the creation of a parallel power to the existing one. Here we should distinguish between the level of consciousness and existing popular organisation in regions like Chiapas, and compare them with the rest of the country, even in important regions where the PAN ( National Action Party) is winning elections. Certainly there is the possibility that the emergence of the Zapatista Front could close this gap in consciousness nationally, but always on condition that its actions take into account the uneven level of development of consciousness and popular organisation.
All these aspects will certainly continue to be discussed and clarified in the months ahead. On some points the last word has not been said yet. Several events in the next months will help to clarify and define the project of the Zapatista Front. Without mentioning the political evolution in the country as a whole, on will have to take into account the results of dialogues between the EZLN and the government in San Andes, the new national encounters of the civilian committees, the encounter of the Zapatista Front in June, the Intercontinental Encounter in July, and the development of the proposal for a Movement of National Liberation and a Left Front, recently raised by the Zapatistas. *