Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1999 23:45:02 -0500
Subject: AUT: Part 1, Mex Labor News, 2 Feb 99
MEXICAN LABOR NEWS AND ANALYSIS
February 2, 1999
Vol. IV, No. 2
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About Mexican Labor News and Analysis
Mexican Labor News and Analysis is produced in collaboration
with the Authentic Labor Front (Frente Autentico del Trabajo -
FAT) of Mexico and with the United Electrical Workers (UE) of the
United States and is published the 2nd and 16th of every month.
MLNA can be viewed at the UE's international web site:
HTTP://www.igc.apc.org/unitedelect/. For information about direct
subscriptions, submission of articles, and all queries contact
editor Dan La Botz at the following e-mail address:
103144.2651-AT-compuserve.com or call in the U.S. (513) 961-8722.
The U.S. mailing address is: Dan La Botz, Mexican Labor News and
Analysis, 3436 Morrison Place, Cincinnati, OH 45220.
MLNA articles may be reprinted by other electronic or print
media, but we ask that you credit Mexican Labor News and Analysis
and give the UE home page location and Dan La Botz's compuserve
address.
The UE Home Page which displays Mexican Labor News and
Analysis has an INDEX of back issues and an URGENT ACTION ALERT
section.
Staff: Editor, Dan La Botz; Correspondents in Mexico: Bob
Briggs, Robert Donnelly, Peter Gellert, Jess Kincaid, Jorge
Robles, Don Sherman.
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IN THIS ISSUE:
Part 1: The Fight for the Teachers
*International Campaign to Free Mexican Teachers
- by Dan Leahy
*50,000 Teachers March to Demand Freedom for Local 9 Leaders
- by Don Sherman
*Movement Builds for Jailed Teachers: Background, Analysis
- by Elyce Hues
Part 2: The Miners' Struggle
*Arizona Labor Holds Rally, Food Drive for Cananea Miners
- by George Shriver
*Diary of a Solidarity Caravan to Cananea -
- by George Shriver
*Fact Sheet on the Cananea Cooper Mine -
- from Local 65 Information Committee
Part 3: The MST: The Founding of a Labor Party?
*Unions Found New Political Organization: The Social
Movement of Workers (MST) - by Dan La Botz
*Historical Note: Pitfalls of Labor Politicl Action in
Mexico - by Dan La Botz
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Dear Reader,
Two tremendously important fights for social justice are
taking place in Mexico at this time. First, hundreds of thousands
of Mexicans have demonstrated in several cities and states to
demand freedom for five Mexican teachers and union leaders
imprisoned for political reasons. Second, the miners and mining
community of Cananea, Sonora are locked in a struggle with Jorge
Larrea, one of the most powerful Mexican industrialists. We urge
you to support these two labor movements in any way you can. At
the same time, in what is a remarkable if still somewhat nebulous
development, the year-old National Union of Workers (UNT) has
founded a new political organization, the Social Movement of
Workers (MST). We have devoted this issue to these three
important developments.
We produce Mexican Labor News and Analysis in conjuntion
with the Authentic Labor Front (FAT) and the United Electrical
Workers (UE), inspired by their organizing alliance and their
vision of international solidarity. We want to call your
attention to the tour of FAT leader Bertha Lujan before
preceeding on to the extremely important news from Mexico.
In solidarity,
Dan La Botz
TOP LEADER OF MEXICO'S FRENTE AUTENTICO DEL TRABAJO TO TOUR US
From February 24th through March 2nd, Bertha Lujan, one of
FAT's three top officers, will be touring the US at the
invitation of the Mexico Solidarity Network. Other organizations
are co-sponsoring local events. The schedule is as follows:
Chicago: Feb. 23 at 7:00 p.m. UE Hall 37 S. Ashland Ave.,
Chicago. Co-sponsored by United Electrical, Radio and Machine
Workers of America (UE). For more information contact: Mexico
Solidarity Network, 773-583-7728 or UE, 312-829-8300.
Toledo: Feb. 24 Monroe St. United Methodist Church. (just before
Toledohospital, near south cove). They are having a pot luck at
6:00; the program estimated to start some time between 7 and
7:30. People are welcome to come just for the program. Gena
Krueger of TACCA is the contact for the event: 419-472-6094, if
people need more information.
Cleveland: February 25th at 7:00p.m. at the Escuela Popular in
Cleveland, 2688 W. 14th St. For more information call Jeff
Stewart at 216-621-3515 (Escuela Popular).
Louisville: Feb. 26-27, (She will be speaking both at the Jobs
with Justice Conference and participating in a MSN regional
meeting). For more information call Nancy Jakubiak: 502-636-2278
Nashville: Feb. 28, LaCasa, For more information call Gene
TeSelle 615-297-2629 or 615-322-2773
Knoxville: Mar. 1, Tennessee Industrial Renewal Network, For more
information call Cheryl Brown 423-637-1576.
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INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN TO FREE MEXICAN TEACHERS
FOCUSES ATTENTION ON LEGAL APPEAL
by Dan Leahy, Coordinator
During the first week of January, 1999, Mexico's Attorney
General (PGR) arrested, jailed and charged five members of the
elected leadership of Local 9 of the Mexican Teachers Union (el
SNTE) with kidnapping, inciting to riot and robbery for leading a
peaceful protest inside the chambers of the Mexican Senate in
November, 1998. They face fifty year sentences. They are not
allowed bail. The trial may be two years away.
We now need to focus our attention on our first legal
appeal. Given the extraordinary international and national
campaign that have exposed these charges as purely political, it
is quite possible the teachers will be freed on this appeal. The
Senators who said they were "kidnapped" now say they weren't. The
things that were reported stolen (documents and ashtrays) have
now reappeared.
Within this week, a Tribunal of the Mexican Supreme Court
will hear an appeal of the charges. The Tribunal could rule there
is no evidence to support the alleged crimes and free the
teachers, or it could charge them with lesser crimes and release
them on bail.
We need supporters to fax letters immediately to the
President of the Supreme Court. Ask him to enforce the law. Ask
him to free the teachers since their accusers have not been able
to support the charges against the them, yet the teachers remain
in jail. Also, remind him that these jailed union leaders are
teachers and are not common criminals. His fax numbers is: (525)
522-0152.
Ministro Genaro David Gongora Pimentel
Presidente de la Suprema Corte de Justicia
Av. Pino Suarez No. 2
Centro Historico, Mexico, D.F
Please fax copies of your letters to the newspaper, LA JORNADA
(525) 262-4356, and to the Coalition's Mexican Section at (525)
207-8019 or US office (360) 709-9450.
The jailed teachers are: Blanca Luna, Secretary General;
Maria Refugio Jimenez, Press Secretary; Elio Bejarano and Nestor
Trujano, members of the Policy Commission; Raul Vargas, Legal
advisor. They are all members of Local 9 of the SNTE. This local
represents 58,000 preschool, primary and special education
teachers in the Federal District.
For a more in depth report on this past month of organizing
to free the teachers, e-mail: sanpatricio-AT-igc.apc.org or
mariluz-AT-servidor.unam.mx
[Dan Leahy works with the TRINATIONAL COALITION FOR THE DEFENSE
OF PUBLIC EDUCATION: Canada, the United States and Mexico.]
###
50,000 TEACHERS MARCH TO DEMAND
FREEDOM FOR JAILED UNION LEADERS
by Don Sherman
Some 50,000 teachers marched through the center of Mexico
City on January 29 to demand freedom for five jailed leaders of
Local 9 of the Mexican Teachers Union (el SNTE). The teachers,
joined by other union and community activists from throughout
Mexico, marched three miles, from the Zocalo, Mexico's national
plaza, to Los Pinos, the presidential residence, to present
petitions to Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo demanding the
release of the union leaders. This was the third such
demonstration in less than a month organized by the National
Coordinating Committee of the Teachers Union (la CNTE). La CNTE
is a democratic union movement within the larger Mexican Teachers
Union (el SNTE), which Local 9 and the jailed leaders have
supported.
PRI Tried to Control Union
The jailing of the CNTE union leaders goes back to July,
1998 when Local 9, which has 58,000 members, held elections for
its nine-member executive board. At that time the leadership of
the national union (el SNTE) supported a small faction in the
Local 9 election, and attempted to see some of its
representatives installed on the local executive board. Since the
national leadership of the SNTE is closely aligned with the
Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), the ruling party of
Mexico, this effort to politically control Local 9 may come from
officials in the PRI itself.
The primary reason the PRI would want to have effective
control over this union of primary school teachers in Mexico City
centers around the presidential elections to take place in Mexico
in the year 2000. The national teachers union, after all, is the
largest single union in Latin America and the political party
that has control over the direction of the national and the
larger local unions has one of the keys to an electoral victory
in its hands.
Rowdy Protest at Senate
Because of the SNTE leadership's attempt at a power-grab in
July, and its connections to the PRI, the leadership of la CNTE,
the opposition group within the union, took its protest to the
halls of the Mexican Senate on November 11, 1998. While there is
no doubt that there was a noisy confrontation between several
thousand CNTE supporters and Senate officials inside the chambers
that night, supporters claim that it did not justify the later
criminal charges leveled at five of the top union leaders of the
CNTE in Mexico City. The January 1 charges against them brought
by the Attorney General's office included kidnapping and robbery.
Just last week the two ashtrays and a telephone that these union
leaders allegedly had stolen were found in a desk in the Senate.
As for the kidnapping charges, six out of seven officials
who claimed to have been "kidnapped" have retracted their
accusations and admitted they were always free that night to
leave the Senate chambers. The criminal complaint filed against
the CNTE union leaders appears an attempt by the ruling PRI to
weaken the grass roots movement within the Mexican Teachers Union
(SNTE).
Delegations from Many States
By the time the demonstration begins its march in a direct
path through the streets of Mexico City to Los Pinos, there are
nearly 50,000 demonstrators. Present with their banners are a
number of CNTE and teacher delegations from various areas of
Mexico. There are delegations from the states of Zacatecas,
Michocan, Tlaxcala, Oaxaca, Hidalgo, Morelos, Guerrero and
Chiapas. The delegation from Local 22 of the CNTE is particularly
impressive. Although most teachers and other educational workers
around the country make $300 a month at most, some 15,000
demonstrators came the 250 miles from Oaxaca to support their
jailed colleagues. For the most part they spent their own money
to get to Mexico City, as well as losing a day's pay.
There were also delegations numbering in the thousands from
Mexico City including teachers from Local 10, the secondary
school teachers, and of course from Local 9. However, it is a
reasonable certainty that more teachers from these two locals
would have participated in the march had it not been for threats
made earlier in the week by Benjamin Gonzalez Roaro, the sub-
secretary for Educational Services in Mexico City, a PRI
official. Gonzalez Roaro indicated publicly that those teachers
involved in the demonstration not only would lose a day's pay,
but also their teaching contracts could be indefinitely
suspended. Still many thousands chose to ignore these clear
threats to their jobs, attesting to the strength of the
democratic teachers' movement as well as to the anger every
demonstrator seems to feel on the jailing of their union
leadership.
Zapatista Front Presents Demands
While this demonstration was called for the purpose of
demanding the immediate release of the jailed union leaders, it
also had become an act of broader social protest. More than a
dozen social organizations took part in the march, including the
Zapatista Front for National Liberation (FZLN), the supporters of
the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) which led the
Chiapas Rebellion in 1994. Their demands, which were incorporated
in a petition by la CNTE presented to President Zedillo by the
march organizers, focused on the need for political, economic and
social change and a halt to the privatization of state
enterprises.
The delivery of the this petition, that also called for
increased spending on the nation's schools and the release of the
jailed teachers, ended the March. However before it ended,
thousands of teachers, social activists and educational workers
confronted a line of helmeted riot police behind large plexiglas
barriers in front of the entrance to Los Pinos. The intense mid-
day heat had taken a toll on the marchers, and many thousands
just rested in the shade of the trees in Chapultepec park. But
thousands of others gathered around a van that was parked in
front of the plexiglas barricade, and for several hours, mostly
women union leaders mounted the van and exhorted the crowd to
continue their demand for the immediate release of their
colleagues and an end to PRI control of their union. The
demonstration ended peacefully with the assurance that President
Zedillo would reply to the demands of the marchers by the
following night, Saturday, January 30.
As of the date of the writing of this article, Monday
February 1, 1999, President Zedillo still had not replied to the
demands on the petition. Four teachers on a hunger strike for
justice for the jailed union leaders are on their twelfth day. A
call has gone out for another demonstration in the capital for
this Sunday unless the CNTE unions leaders are released. At this
moment it appears that instead of intimidating and quashing a
democratic movement within the SNTE, the government has only
straightened it.
###
MOVEMENT BUILDS IN SUPPORT OF JAILED TEACHERS:
BACKGROUND AND ANALYSIS OF THE STRUGGLE
by Elyce Hues
The five teachers who were imprisoned in early January on
charges of kidnaping, robbery and riot against the Mexican Senate
remain in jail without bail, despite new evidence exonerating
them of most of the charges. The arrested teachers are all top
officials in Local 9 of the Mexican Teachers Union (el SNTE),
democratically elected in July of 1998, but still not recognized
by the National Executive Committee of the SNTE. They are: Blanca
Luna Becerril (General Secretary), Maria del Refugio Jimenez
Floreano (Secretary of Press and Publicity), Alfonso Raul Vargas
Vallejo (Judicial Advisor), Nestor Manuel Trujano Molina (Policy
Commission), and Elio Bejarano Martinez (Policy Commission). The
five were arrested by the General Attorney of Mexico (PGR) one
and a half months after having forced their way into the Senate
with approximately 500 other teachers to demand a response from
Senator Elba Esther Gordillo, former head of the SNTE, regarding
the refusal of the SNTE to recognize the elected Local
leadership. The teachers accuse Gordillo of using her legislative
position to continue to influence the direction of the union.
Charges Out of Line
The charges brought against the teachers seem far too
serious for the supposed misdeeds that actually occurred. If
found guilty, they could be sentenced to as many as 50 years in
prison. Even Thomas Vasquez Vigil, the national general secretary
of the SNTE and an opponent of the Local 9 leaders, stated that
the charges were "exaggerated". New evidence has made the
accusations appear even less plausible. For example, the charge
of theft is based on a number of items reportedly missing after
the teachers=92 occupation of the Senate. However, all but a
photocopy of a historical document have since turned up. The most
serious of the charges, those of riot and kidnaping, were based
on testimonies by Senators affiliated with the Institutional
Revolutionary Party (PRI). But the Senators=92 revised testimonies
deny that they had been deprived of their liberty to leave the
building, or that the teachers had carried out any sort of
physical violence against them. In spite of this, the teachers
have not been released.
Local 9 Part of la CNTE
The SNTE, as the largest union in the country, has
historically been a politically important union, controlled for
decades by the PRI. Local 9 broke away from the institutional
leadership in 1989, and has since been functioning as a
"dissident" local. Along with three other locals (located in
Chiapas, Oaxaca and Michoacan), Local 9 forms part of the
National Coordinating Committee of the Teachers Union (la CNTE).
Although only four of el SNTE's 55 Locals are officially
affiliated with ;a CNTE, many other locals contain large factions
of CNTE sympathizers, and at least 9 locals have run
announcements in national newspapers, demanding the release of
the unjustly imprisoned teachers. All of the locals that form
part of the CNTE have been victims of repression by the SNTE
leadership, and it is precisely Chiapas, Oaxaca and Michoacan
which are said to have the poorest education systems in the
country.
Local 9 in particular has been subject to abuse. Since the
Local leadership elections in July of 1998, el SNTE has not only
refused to recognize the results, but has used tactics such as
retention of union dues moneys, use of these dues to pay for
strikebreakers, obstruction of the management of the Local by
refusing to process paper work, as well as the retention of
committee members' salaries. According to Thomas Vasquez Vigil,
national general secretary of the SNTE, the national executive
committee is refusing to accept the election results because the
elections of Local 9 were held in a "coercive, rather than a
democratic, atmosphere. In response, Blanca Luna Becerril,
General Secretary, insists that the local is democratic, and says
that for Vasquez, democracy means that his candidates get
elected."
Maria del Refugio Jimenez Floreano, the local's press
secretary, explains, the problem with Local 9 is that it is
located in the Federal District," a more politically sensitive
area. It is also the largest in Mexico. The Local has 58,000
members, and pays $150,000 monthly in union dues to the national
executive committee. Luna Becerril says that such a large amount
of money can buy anything, from newspapers to politicians. It is
a corporativism [state-party control of unions] that knows no
equal, she says. Imagine what the poor teachers are able to
do. According to Jimenez Floreano, leaders in the SNTE have been
known to pay up to one-thousand dollars per vote against
democratic initiatives.
National and International Support
Since the arrests, there has been a great demand nationally
and internationally for the release of the teachers, since the
case is argued to be a political and not a judicial matter. Among
the teachers' many supporters are El Barzon, the debtors=92
movement; the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) of the
D.F.; the Labor Party (PT); the National Assembly of Workers
(ANT); the Zapatista Front for National Liberation (FZLN); the
"Francisco Villa" Popular Front (FPFV); the Canadian Teachers
Federation; as well as many other social groups, unions, and
legislators. These supporters maintain that the teachers are
innocent of the crimes they have been charged with, and that
their arrest seems to be a precedent to use the penal process to
control social conflicts and to repress progressive movements.
Democratic Attorneys on the Case
The National Association of Democratic Lawyers (ANAD), the
organization defending the teachers, points to the unusual
swiftness of the courts in this case--as opposed to the stalls in
the cases of the Acteal massacre in Chiapas one year ago, or last
fall's FOBAPROA bank scandal. This demonstrates the political
manipulation of the judicial system, say the ANAD attorneys.
Senator Jose Trinidad Lanz Cardenas (PRD) expressed his concern
that in this case, the principle of the division of powers is
"openly disregarded. The Revolutionary Workers Organization, in
a letter to the editor, called the arrests "an extremely grave
precedent in the direction of reestablishing a systematic policy
of repression."
Attack on Local 9 Part of Political Plan
According to Luna Becerril, the PRI is confronting its
problems growing nationwide electoral failures and loss of
popularity as a result of their 1999 budget proposal released in
December by trying to win back power by buying delegates that
they didn't win. Bertha Lujan of the Authentic Labor Front (FAT)
affirms that the leaders of the SNTE have "tried to gain by
pressure what they were unable to get through democratic means."
The strategic aspect of the arrests cannot be overlooked: of the
500 or so teachers that entered the Senate in November, the five
arrested are all top leaders of their union.
Government-affiliated organizations and PRI senators, on the
other hand, are standing firmly against the release of the
teachers, and insisting that the case is purely judicial. These
include the Attorney General, the leadership of el SNTE, the
Senators of the PRI, and the Minister of the Interior
(Gobernacion), all of whom Rep. Jesus Martin del Campo (PRD)
accuses of plotting to control the Local leadership.
While SNTE head Vasquez Vigil, for his part, announced on
the 14th that he would seek to have the PRG withdraw the charges,
he maintains that the case is purely judicial and should not be
solved politically, and he continues to demand the acceptance of
seven institutionally aligned teachers to leadership positions in
exchange for recognition of the elected leadership. Overall, he
has not offered anything to the teachers that would mean a
serious change in the relationship between the Local and the
SNTE. The Secretary of Public Education (SEP) also refuses to
recognize the elected Local 9 leadership. It has repeatedly
discouraged any type of political mobilization on the part of the
nation's teachers, and has given unrealistically low figures of
protest turnouts and work stoppage results.
Losing Pay to March for Justice
The mobilizations in support of the teachers, however, have
been large and on-going. There have been three marches in the
D.F., most recently on January 29, in which an estimated 10 to 13
thousand people from all over the country, mostly teachers,
walked from the city center to the presidential residence. It is
estimated that 80% of the schools in the D.F. were closed during
these marches. According to figures by the CNTE, around 300,000
teachers nationwide did not attend work on January 13, and that
in Oaxaca and Michoacan, the education system was effectively
paralyzed. The massive support of the nations' teachers in the
mobilizations must be weighed more heavily, in recognition that
the teachers who do not attend work are technically violating
th
eir labor contract, which means that besides not being paid for
that day and being put on a black list, they face losing their
jobs. Also supporting the imprisoned teachers are four teachers
in the D.F. who have been on a hunger strike since the 19th of
this month.
The teachers of Local 9 remain hopeful that their imprisoned
union leaders will be freed, but say that after the new evidence,
which frees the teachers of all but the charges of riot, the
Attorney General is now dragging the case out as long as
possible. This is a matter of concern especially for the teachers
participating in a hunger strike, who have pledged to continue
fasting until their fellow teachers are freed. Another concern
is that when the teachers are freed, it will be under various
restrictions, since the riot charge is, as of yet, unresolved.
For Blanca Luna Becerril, the greatest concern is returning
to her children, since she has not seen them since she was
forcefully taken from her home by police agents who did not
identify themselves, while she was preparing her youngest child
for his baptism the following day.
The teachers' struggle, says Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador,
national director of the PRD, forms part of the "great
disagreement and protest of the Mexican people against the
economic policies which have been applied for the past 16 years."
Indeed, the teachers have used their situation to demand social
justice for the nation, in the form of greater social spending
and an end to government repression in Chiapas.
International Solidarity Still Needed
Especially useful in this struggle, according to the
teachers, is the international support they have received. They
say that in the face of globalization, international worker
solidarity is essential to avoid division and fragmentation. They
continue to ask for support in the form of letters, participation
in marches, and financial contributions.
Bank Account: Cuenta de Inversion Inmediata BANCOMER
No. 0011737273-1
In name of: Paula Martinez, Ana Maria Lara
Letters to: Dr. Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon
President of Mexico
tel-fax: (5) 277-2376
Lic. Francisco Labastida Ochoa
Minister of the Interior (Gobernacion)
tel-fax: (5) 546-5350
###
END PART 1, MEXICAN LABOR NEWS AND ANALYSIS, FEB 2, 1999
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