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El Semanario
México's union bust reveals flaws in NAFTA Part 1 of 4
Laura Carlsen
Fernando López woke up on a Sunday morning out of a job. For the electrical worker, the feeling was terrifying. "From one day to the next, they left us with no job—nothing," López said, as he marched alongside some 200,000 fellow workers and their supporters in downtown México City on October 15. On the night of Saturday, October 10, thousands of soldiers and federal police moved into position in the darkness. After cutting fences and forcing out the workers, they occupied over 50 installations of the state-owned utility company, Central Light and Power (Luz y Fuerza), awaiting the administrative blow that would follow. At midnight, President Felipe Calderón issued an executive decree to liquidate the company and its union, the Mexican Electrical Workers Union (Sindicato Mexicano de Electricistas—SME), one of the strongest and most vocal independent unions in the nation. The move had been carefully prepared by the government. Troop movements throughout the central part of the country serviced by Central Light went unnoticed under cover of the massive mobilization of security forces fighting the militarized drug war. The decree follows a union conflict that the government fueled and then took advantage of to eliminate the company and its union. Union elections last June were contested amid rumors that the federal government was actively fomenting division. In a warning sign, on October 5 Secretary of Labor Javier Lozano rejected registration of the new union leadership without waiting for a decision from the labor tribunal. The "Sabadazo," or Saturday Offensive, took place when the union and the government were still in talks. I talked to López because of the simple poignancy of the bright green sign he carried: "President Calderón—Your children eat well. Mine don't." Similar signs read, "And now what do I do? What will my family eat?" Marchers revealed that the political issues of privatization and opposition to the Calderón government are prominent in the movement but above all, workers feel that their very survival is under attack. The ravenous right has set out to prove that it's not the rich who will pay for the crisis. One of the arguments for eliminating Central Light and its union was that it employed too many people, making it "inefficient." For the Calderón government, offering decent employment to more than 40,000 families is a crime in a year when unemployment has doubled and nearly 800,000 Mexican workers have lost jobs due to the crisis. The Mexican economy is at a crossroads as it faces a multi-billion dollar deficit this year. Due to its heavy dependency on the U.S. economy under NAFTA, it is the hardest-hit country in Latin América and predicts a 7.5% drop in gross domestic product (GDP) for 2009. The number of poor has increased above pre-NAFTA levels, leaving millions more families in poverty, while the unemployment rate has doubled. The congressional leader of Calderón's National Action Party, Mario Alberto Becerra, estimated that even after doling out severance pay, the government will save money through the reduced costs of operating Central Light. The government plans to use some of that money for hand-out programs for the poor, a model it considers preferable to maintaining unionized workers in jobs. Treasury Secretary Agustin Carstens announced that the 42,000 SME workers will be replaced with 10,000 new hires. He didn't say any would be hired back; the message was clear—union members need not apply. Part 2: NAFTA and the Battle Over Who Will Pay for the Crisis Laura Carlsen is the director of the Américas Program for the Center for International Policy in México City.
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