Mexico's new labour federation
* Mexico The Mexican labour movement took an important step forward in November, with the founding of the National Union of Workers (UNT), a new labour federation independent of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party. As Dan La Botz reports, The UNT is committed to internal democracy, and proposing a struggle for economic improvements, social security, and political reform. New UNT vice-president Alejandra Barrales Magdaleno commented that the challenge of the UNT would be "to avoid repeating the history of leaders who base their power on the annihilation of the opposition, on a false democracy, and on their relationship with the employers or national political groups." Many observers believe that indeed avoiding the formation of a new dependence on the government will be the new federation's greatest challenge
At the founding convention held in Mexico City on November 28, 650 voting delegates and 13,000 fraternal delegates founded the UNT, adopted a program and a plan of action, and elected a collective leadership of three presidents and seven vice-presidents. The UNT claims to represent more than 1.5 million workers in 200 workers and peasants organisations.
The founding assembly was a symbolic event, not a working convention, and in the name of democracy much of the time of the five-hour event was taken up in the reading of the complete list of all 200 member organisations. The most important piece of business was the election of the new officers. The three presidents are:
• Francisco Hernandez Juarez, the head of the Mexican Telephone Workers
Union (STRM) since 1976, the founder and former president of the Federation of Unions of Goods and Services
(FESEBES), and a former president of the Congress of Labour (CT).
Hernandez Juarez is a member of the
Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).
• Antonio Rosado Garcia, head of the
National Union of Workers of Social
Security (SNTSS) since 1994, and a member of its leadership since 1987.
He too is a member of the PRI.
• Agustin Rodriguez Fuentes, head of the Union of Workers of the National
Autonomous University (STUNAM)
since 1994. He sympathises with, but is not a member of, the Party of the
Democratic Revolution (PRD).
20 International Viewpoint #296
Among those elected to UNT vice presidential positions were Benedicto Martinez, one of the three presidents of the Authentic Labour Front (FAT) and Alejandra Barrales Magdaleno, the woman who heads the Federation of Unions of Goods and Services (FESEBES). Martinez of the FAT has played a particularly important role in pushing for democracy within the new UNT, while Barrales Magdaleno has been one of the leading women of the new federation. From the Foro to the UNT
Hernandez Juarez of the telephone workers has from the beginning been the driving force for the creation of this new federation, but he has not always been a progressive reformer.
During the presidency of former president Carlos Salinas de Gortari, Hernandez Juarez supported the privatisation of the Mexican Telephone Company (TELMEX) and advocated a "new unionism" based on co-operation with management. Hernandez Juarez created the Federation of Unions of Goods and Services (FESEBES) as the advocate of this neo-liberal unionism. Then two years ago Hernandez Juarez became a founder of a different sort of union group, the Forum: Unions Face the Nation (or Foro group) calling for a break with the government's neoliberal economic program, and for a new more independent and democratic labour movement. The Foro group played an important role in opening up an arena for discussion of the role of labour union's in
With his push to create the UNT, Hernandez Juarez provoked a split with more moderate reformers in the Foro group, and Elba Esther Gordillo led several Foro unions to a reconciliation with the Congress of Labour (CT). Among those that declined to enter the new UNT was the huge Mexican Teachers Union (SNTE) with over a million members, the union formerly led by Gordillo.
Speaking at the founding convention of the UNT. Hernandez Juarez told the
"Our principal objective is not to confront, not to polarise, not to divide, much less to dispute patronage and privilege, which will have to disappear as part of the process, to which we are deeply committed, of creating a genuine labour unionism.
"On the contrary, our principal objective is to change, to transform and to strengthen the labour movement, creating and building new forms and structures of organisation and of authentic representation of the workers, even if this implies being critical and obeying, above all, the will and interests of the workers themselves."
In interviews with the press, Hernandez Juarez vowed, "Here we will have no corporativism [state-party control]. The workers are going to have absolutely the most complete freedom to join or sympathise with the party that best represents
The most important and largest unions founding the UNT are: 350,000 Social Security workers (SNTSS); 100,000 university workers (including the 23,000 at the National Autonomous University of Mexico - STUNAM); and 53,000 telephone workers union (STRM).
In addition, five important peasant unions have joined the UNT: the National Union of Agricultural Workers (UNTA), the Cardenist Peasant Federation (CCC), the National Union of Autonomous Peasant Regional Organisations (UNORCA), the Coalition of Democratic Rural and Urban Organisations (CODUC) and the Workers', Peasants', and Peoples' General Union (UGOCP).
As an expression of international labour solidarity, representative of the US trade union confederation (AFL-CIO), the Canadian Labour Congress, Québec's Confédération des Syndicats Nationaux (CSN), the Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT) of France, Italy's Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro (CGIL), and several U.S. labour unions attended the UNT founding convention. The UNT Adopts a Program
The UNT's program calls for an end to the Mexican corporative system by which the Mexican state and the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) have for decades controlled the labour movement. The party's principal objectives are:
• A reform of the Mexican state to make it more democratic and more socially responsible.
• A new social pact to protect the interests of working people. Including guarantees for health. social welfare and pension programmes, and an increase in workers' wages.
• A reform in the relationship between the state, political parties and the unions, to guarantee the political independence of the labour movement.
• A new Federal Labour Law to end the corporative control mechanisms of the state-party, and permit new forms of labour relations appropriate to the new global economy.
In terms of its immediate economic objectives, the UNT calls for a 10 percent reduction in the Value Added Tax (IVA) and a wage increase. Can the UNT Fulfil the Workers' Hopes?
The UNT's action plan also adopted at the convention called for a demonstration at the Legislative Palace on December 2, but the planned protest failed to materialise when only about 50 workers showed up. UNT president Agustin Rodriguez Fuentes did enter the legislature to explain the UNT proposals for wage increases, tax cuts, labour law reform and an end to top-down economic pacts to those congressmen/women who were willing to listen.
A handful of workers who had been fired from the ITAPSA- Echlin plant for trying to organise a union also showed up with banners demanding the right to freely organise. The real test for the UNT is whether it will be able to help protect thousands of other workers who face similar problems every year in Mexico.
The UNT has the potential to create a more independent, democratic and militant Mexican labour movement, and to open a political space for the growth of a rank and file workers' movement from below. To do so it will have to begin to mobilise workers for economic struggles against the employers and for political fights against the PRI, and no doubt against the PAN and PRD as well. Only the appearance of a real upsurge from below-missing for the last many years-will be able to fulfil the hopes of the convention. * Reprinted from Mexico Labor News and Analysis. Thanks to Fred Rosen for his report on the UNT protest mentioned in this article. Rosen is an editor of NACLA.