The weekly newsletter of the México Solidarity Project

October 20, 2021/ This week's issue/ Meizhu Lui, for the editorial team

Bottom-Up Unionism: Getting to Yes Begins with No

We all get scam calls and emails. The scammers pose as officials from the IRS, our credit card company, or the Grand Poohbah of Police — or even our own grandkids! We learn to deal with fly-by-night scams like these. But some scams don’t just zip in and out of our lives. These scams can become institutionalized — and get really tough to handle.

In México, unión “members” of the Confederation of Mexican Workers typically don’t get any calls from their union. The CTM doesn’t need to talk to them. This union can effect its scams without worker participation in any way, shape, or form.

For generations, CTM officials have been skimming precious pesos from meager worker wages. Instead of protecting workers from their employers, they protect employers from workers. If workers protest, they get Donald Trump’s favorite TV show line: “You’re fired!” And maybe blackballed and beaten up for good measure.

In the US, workers have also endured corrupt union leaders who siphon off dues money for personal extravagances, sometimes in collusion with employers, as in a recent United Auto Workers scandal we highlight in this week’s issue.

No relationship between workers and employers can work in a workplace without structures and rules rigorously observed and enforced. In México, new labor laws — and a government willing to enforce them — are making it easier for scammed workers to file for divorce from the CTM. For US autoworkers, existing rules have brought their corrupt leaders to justice, and, for now, these workers feel satisfied with the process and are hoping new agreements will let them keep their marriage with the UAW intact.

But life never hands us guarantees. In abusive relationships, victims first have to say “No!” Building unions of, by, and for workers — gaining the broad support that can end abuses in the workplace — will continue to take courage, smarts, and organizing. 

You could say that the Mexican Revolution of 1910 began as a labor dispute. A strike at the American-owned Cananea Copper Mine in 1906 and the French-owned textile factory in Rio Blanco Veracruz in 1907 were both brutally suppressed, with hundreds killed, leaders executed, and zero gains for the strikers.

The Constitution’s powerful right to strike forbids employers from hiring replacement workers — and, yes, this right to strike has been enforced, with some important exceptions. Once the red-and-black “strike” flag goes up, plants shut down.

 

So why have wages and working conditions in México been so bad?

 

The law hasn’t undermined workers. Corrupt unions and government controls have.

 

In the 1930s, President Lázaro Cárdenas decided to nationalize foreign companies in basic industries like oil, electric, and rail. Workers carried out these nationalizations, taking over workplaces by force. Wages rose, and for the limited number of workers in these and other basic industrial sectors, life would be good. But Cárdenas also fused the CTM — the Confederation of Mexican Workers — into the PRI’s party-state corporativist structure.

 

Beginning in 1988, with President Salinas de Gortari’s embrace of neoliberalism, national unions found themselves attacked and weakened. Wages fell, the cost of living rose, and the unions submitted to the government’s new line that keeping wages low would stimulate employment.

 

For the next 30-some years, corrupt unions used the right to strike to extort payoffs from employers and as a lever to negotiate “protection contracts,” deals often signed without worker knowledge or even before workers might be hired. These contracts benefited only the union leaders and the company. The union collected dues, often paid directly by the employer without worker knowledge, but did nothing for the workers.

Employers called on AMLO to put down the strikers, the typical past practice, but the government instead told the employers to go to the bargaining table. In the face of worker pressure, employers and the CTM union eventually gave in to the worker demands, a 20-percent wage increase and a bonus worth $1,600.

 

In the aftermath of the strike, a huge defeat for both employers and the PAN government in the state of Tamaulipas, Susana Prieto was arrested on state criminal charges. AMLO and the federal secretary of labor denounced the arrest as a “fabrication of crimes,” but under the Mexican Constitution they had no power to reverse the arrest. Ultimately, pressure from the federal government and the US labor movement led to her release.

 

AMLO’s labor reforms represent a real sea change that dismantles the old corporatist system. Before the reforms, representatives of just three parties heard labor disputes: the government, the employers, and the unions. But none of these three parties represented workers, since the union representative always came from the corporativist unions. 

 

The new labor system does away with the tripartite labor boards and establishes labor tribunals, under the judiciary, to resolve disputes and oversee union elections. Establishing this new system, a monumental task, will take three years and come in stages. Inspectors to ensure fair contract votes need to be recruited and trained, labor tribunals set up. To its credit, the US Department of Labor has contributed $180 million to help speed the process.

 

Workers at the GM Silao plant recently scored a big win when they voted to throw out the CTM contract. Do you see the new independent SINTTIA auto union, formed by workers themselves, as likely to become the Silao plant’s new union representative?

 

I would call the contract vote a defeat for CTM, but not yet a victory for the workers. By making the old contract end on November 3, instead of immediately after the August vote, the Mexican Labor Secretary Luisa María Alcalde has given the CTM almost three months of access to workers, three months to convince them to vote the CTM back in. At the same time, GM has restricted the activity of the new union and subjected its leaders to company-administered drug tests, a ploy historically used by GM to fire dissidents at the plant.

 

Winning the right to negotiate a new contract will require a vote of 50 percent plus one, and without some restraint on collusion between GM and the CTM, SINTTIA is going to have a difficult time succeeding.

 

One key problem: México has little history with bottom-up union organizing. Most independent unions have formed in single plants after spontaneous worker rebellions against corrupt unions and their protection contracts. SINTTIA, a new union formed by workers themselves, has little experience in organizing, no staff, and no organizers.

 

But the SINTTIA activists do have courage and the credibility of being active workers, not corrupt union officials. They also have the support of the independent labor movement and international allies like the Solidarity Center. I believe they have a fighting chance.

 

Has the vote to throw out the union contract at the Silao GM plant encouraged workers in other plants and industries to reject corrupt charro contracts?

 

Yes! Just in the short time since the Silao vote, workers at least five major plants have rejected their CTM contracts. But we don’t know yet what unions, if any, will replace the CTM in these plants. The lack of experience organizing democratic unions, the lack of union infrastructure outside of the corrupt corporativist unions, remains a serious problem.

 

We also should be careful not to consider every union that calls itself “independent” or “autonomous” to be progressive. We’re already seeing sweetheart unions in the old mold spouting a radical-sounding discourse. Other self-styled “independent” leaders more interested in personal advancement than organizing democratic unions are taking advantage of labor unrest to jump in front of the crowd. Charro traditions will be hard to eradicate. Mexican workers have unlocked the door, but they’re going to need courage and commitment to kick it open and walk through — and that won’t be easy.

 

What do you see ahead for Mexican labor?

 

Mexican workers 20 years ago, when I worked as the Solidarity Center’s Mexican rep, faced a truly grim situation, with only a few rare examples of legitimate unionism — like the independent VW and Nissan unions. Today workers have hope. They’re facing a watershed moment, just like US workers did in 1935 after the National Labor Relations Act’s passage.

 

Mexican workers must figure out, hopefully with the solidarity and support of other labor movements, how to be like the early CIO in the United States, how to form national industrial unions that, at long last, make worker empowerment their first principle.

Ex-UAW President Charged with Corruption in Federal Probe

US autoworkers have not been immune from union corruption either. Courts have recently found top UAW officials guilty of embezzling union dues money in collusion with auto company executives. What sort of corruption have workers faced? Reporters Ed White and Tom Krisher last year looked at the charges of conspiring to embezzle money for golf, vacation villas, and fine dining filed against former United Auto Workers President Dennis Williams. UAW members will be voting, under the watch of a federal monitor, on whether to amend their constitution to directly elect union leaders. Despite the scandal, support for the UAW within worker ranks remains high.

The conspiracy began in 2010 when Williams was treasurer and continued when he became president in 2014... With about 400,000 members, the Detroit-based UAW is best known for representing workers at Fiat Chrysler, General Motors, and Ford Motor...

The Williams case "is a sad day for UAW members. But it is also a humbling day of truth and justice demonstrating that no one is above the law, regardless of their position," the union said.

Recent news reports and commentaries, from progressive and mainstream media,
on life and struggles on both sides of the US-México border

 

Nick Miroff, Biden administration says it’s ready to restore ‘Remain in Mexico’ along border next month, Washington Post. The Supreme Court has upheld a lower court decision forcing Biden officials to restore a policy the president has deplored as inhumane.

 

Arianna Flores, Border Patrol Ignored Migrants’ Pleas for Medical Help, Texas Observer. Despite a federal law affirming the right to care, US Customs and Border Protection officials are denying care to migrants. 

 

Nayeli Lemoine, Mayoría de mexicanos apoyan la reforma eléctrica de AMLO, Polemón. De acuerdo a una encuesta realizada por Polls Mx, el 70% de los mexicanos apoyan la Reforma Eléctrica propuesta por el presidente Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

 

John Ackerman, Línea 12: justicia y verdad, La Jornada. Los heridos y los familiares de los caídos merecen justicia plena y los ciudadanos debemos tener acceso a toda la verdad.

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, The Border and the Contingent Status of Mexican Workers, History News Network. Not all that long ago, “Whites Only” signs throughout the Southwest barred Mexicans from theaters, dance halls, parks, swimming pools, beaches, beauty parlors and barber shops, bowling alleys, restaurants, and even cemeteries.

Monica Cruz, Workers rally against tobacco giant Philip Morris in three countries, América Latina en movimiento. Earlier this month, trade unionists and activists in Colombia, Mexico, and New York City challenged the largest tobacco company in the world

The Mexico Solidarity Project brings together activists from various socialist and left organizations and individuals committed to worker and global justice who see the 2018 election of Andrés Manuel López Obrador as president of México as a watershed moment. AMLO and his progressive Morena party aim to end generations of corruption, impoverishment, and subservience to US interests. Our Project supports not just Morena, but all Mexicans struggling for basic rights, and opposes US efforts to undermine organizing and México’s national sovereignty. 

 

Editorial committee: Meizhu Lui, Bruce Hobson, Bill Gallegos, Sam Pizzigati. We welcome your suggestions and feedback. Interested in getting involved? Drop us an email!

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