What's left of the Mexican left?
After ten years of regroupment and confusion, most of the Mexican left has except for the Greens collapsed into the mainstream parties. Dan La Botz asks whether the Zapatistas closing rally at the Plaza de las Tres
When Carlos Salinas de Gortari was in Mexico dissolved itself into the new
Culturas, where hundreds of students elected president in 1988, he and his centre-left, nationalist and social democwere murdered on October 2, 1968.
brother Raul began to draw various ratic PRD. Many of those former leftists
Above Mexico's streets dangled unleftist groups, mostly Maoists, into their kept their former parties alive as orga told thousands of plastic banners of the
National Solidarity Program (PRONA- nised tendencies with the PRD, hoping other parties. PVEM was alone in sacri-
SOL) and then either into the PRI or into to fight for socialism within or through ficing name recognition to its pledge to avoid using plastic. Instead, the ecolo-
In 1988 most of the Communist left in the PRD impaired the PRD's effectivegists relied on wall paintings and joined the National Democratic Front smaller numbers of paper and cloth posters.
Cuauhtemoc Cárdenas. Those on the out any meaningful socialist propa-
Throughout Mexico, PVEM received left who attempted to resist the trend to ganda or agitation.
well over a million votes, entitling it (by proportional representation) to a federal Senator, Adolfo Aguilar Zinser, an outspoken critic of the PRI. The tan struggle against the creation in that can break the mould the puppet Workers Party (PT). (FDN) supporting the campaign of electoralism and reformism were increasingly marginalised. There was a clear decline in electoral support for the PRD. But the various left groups with ness as a social democratic electoral party, while, in general, failing to carry
The crisis of the left deepened with the collapse of "Communism" in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Many
Rosario Ibarra de Piedra, presidential former Communists and other leftists party also won ten seats in the
Chamber of Deputies. According to results reported in the daily La Jornada,
PVEM fell below 5% in only one district in the capital. In low income District 4, candidate of the Trotskyist Revolutionary
Workers Party (PRT).
Then, in 1989, when Cárdenas organised the Party of the Democratic
Revolution, former Communists, ex-Caslost a clear sense of political identity and purpose. *
The author is editor of Mexican Labor News and Analysis.
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the party polled 14%.
PVEM is weakest in the northern states bordering the US. But the higher vote in Mexico City may well set the trend for elections in 2000. During the
INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH AND EDUCATION next few years, resistance to US efforts to dump toxic and nuclear waste in nor-
Do the workers have a country?
thern Mexico may provide PVEM the opportunity it needs to grow. Its history of anti-nuclear organising is older than
• E2.50/$4. Cheque payable to P. Rousset, IIRE, Postbus 53290, 1007 Amsterdam, Netherlands.
its existence. In the early 1980's, the group which would later become PVEM
INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH AND EDUCATION politics by began environmental opposing the nuclear power plant
Women's lives in the new global economy planned for Vera Cruz. An increase in and cross-border contacts with US is expected.
Canadian greens
[DLB/DF] *
<103144.2651@compuserve.co> www.igc.apc.org/unitedelect/
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troite guerrillas, some Maoists and some Trotskyists joined. Thus most of the left by Jose Iriarte "Bikila" Penny Duggan & Heather Dashner (editors)
Inside the UPS strike allow unlimited part-time labour. That's now in the past. Now we have a union leadership and membership that can win a major victory for all of labour."
* USA We went to press after the UPS strike settlement was announced, but before the final details were published. Based on press reports and speaking with knowledgeable observers, it seems clear that the Teamsters Union won its demands for 10,000 new full-time jobs and significant wage gainsalthough a huge gap remains between full-time and part-time hourly rates. The union also retains contro of the industry's multi-employer pension fund. The main concession on the union side appears to be signing a five-year contract instead of the normal three years. The extent of this victory can be appreciated by recalling that only ten years ago, in 1987, the Teamster leadership, then in the hands of the anti-reform Old Guard, imposed a rotten UPS contract on the members even though fiftytwo percent voted "No." The present victory demonstrates the power not only of the strike, but of union democracy Martha Gruelle The Teamster strike at United Parcel Service was the largest strike in the United States in a quarter century. All thanks to the "new militancy" that John Sweeney promised when he took over as president of the AFL-CIO trade union confederation? Not really. The real origins of the Teamsters' strike are in the twenty-year movement, led by the caucus Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU), to eject the corrupt Hoffa leadership, democratise the union, and fight for "decent contracts and an activated membership."'
The leadership of the AFL-CIO is somewhat more active than in previous years. But their strategy does not include strikes like this one. John Sweeney would probably have preferred for the Teamsters to throw their
### LOCAL 278
AMSTERS
LOCAL 278
AFAIR LABOR
PRACTICE CE
STRIKE AGAINST AGAINST
UNITED PARCEL
SERVICE While the UPS strike was partly about the future of living-wage jobs in the United States, it was also a test. How well had management done on winning the loyalty of its work force, and how well have the new democratised union and TDU counteracted UPS Corporate Culture?
UPS policies predate recent versions of "team concept" (though the company has also launched team concept programs in the last few years). But Big Brown makes its full-time workers part of the team in other less "warm and fuzzy" ways.
The crisp, unitormed image and "tightest ship" slogan influence both the public's and workers' view; the brown shirts carry status (and some say sex appeal), and evoke efficiency. UPS consistently uses internal promotions to capture the aspirations of workplace leaders-the current CEO was
The cultural, some say cultist, atmosphere of reward for self-sacrifice is combined with a constant scrutiny of workers' pace. This keeps many of them working through breaks. Meanwhile, decades of comfortable relations with Teamsters International leaders have led less politically sophisticated workers to think that management chose to pay drivers decent pay and
TEAMSTERS
LOCAL 278
TO THE PUBLIC
UPS
UNFAIR TO TEAMSTERS LOCAL No. 856 benefits.
Until the early nineties, the union did almost no internal organising, while the bargaining unit grew to include more and more part-timers-younger, more exploited, and for obvious reasons less trusting of the union. When the strike started, part-timers comprised about sixty percent of the unit. The company's risky bet
UPS is one of the smartest companies around. So why did they provoke this strike? The company seemed to be betting they'd won the hearts-and-minds of the workforce. That there would be significant scabbing as the weeks wore on. They lost the bet.
Members were shocked to learn that of the 43,000 new jobs created since 1993 35,000 are part-time. The union's flagship issue the demand to turn part-time into fulltime jobs turned out to be wonderfully unifying, as well as a cause for widespread public sympathy, a rarity in today's industrial disputes. One public opinion poll suggested that 55% of the population supported the strikers, with 27% for the company.
UPS started part-timing work in 1968. That was before they negotiated a national contract. In 1968, the company got Teamster President Jimmy Hoffa (Senior) to agree to
"This victory is in part a culmination of two decades of Teamster reform. Teamster efforts into organising a company like members worked hard to get our union ready to fight and win on big issues like
Federal Express, UPS's main competitor, good, full-time jobs. A decade ago our International officers were orchestrating rather than taking on a giant like UPS in a secret deals with UPS management, and were forcing UPS Teamsters to accept head-on confrontation over part-time work.
contracts that were rejected in a vote by the majority. They were making deals to
But the Teamster leadership is more on a somewhat different course from the AFL-
CIO leadership. Though they are, of course, organising at Federal Express too!.
8 International Viewpoint #292
Ken Paff, National Organiser for
Teamsters for a Democratic Union.
* USA/Canada TDU comment Who won this war?
The agreement appears to fall about 90 percent on the union side. We won because we built a reform movement over two decades that got our union in a place to lead this fight.
We won because we elected Teamster International leadership willing to fight, not sell out. We won because a contract campaign was waged for six months. We targeted the right issues, we took them to the members and the American people, we unified the members- in short, our union did what a union should be all about.