By EPMU national secretary Andrew Little

After the Pike River coal mine disaster, trade unions in New Zealand and around the world sent messages of support to the bereaved families and hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations to the fund the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union (EPMU) set up to assist them.

It’s at times like this that we’re all reminded of the true meaning of “solidarity”.

New Zealand unions will today join with unions around the world to rally in solidarity with Mexican workers in their struggle for the recognition of trade union rights.

We will also seek a meeting with the Charge D’Affaires at the embassy to present a letter supporting calls for trade union rights to be recognised in Mexico made by the National Miners’ and Metalworkers Union of Mexico, “Los Mineros”.

The timing is significant because 65 Mexican coal miners were killed in an explosion at the Grupo México coal mine in Pasta de Conchos on 19 February 2006, which occurred despite prior complaints by workers of a gas leak.

Five years on the bereaved families are still waiting for proper compensation and for the recovery of the bodies of 63 of the 65 miners killed.

Since the disaster the Mexican National Human Rights Commission and the investigatory committee of the Mexican Chamber of Deputies have said safety violations by the mining company Grupo México led to the deaths of the 65 miners and noted a pattern of labour inspectorate irregularities.

In 2009, the United Nations’ International Labor Organization (ILO) recommended that “adequate sanctions [be] imposed on those responsible” for the disaster following an ILO inquiry.

Mexico has been a member of the OECD since 1994 but has had one of the worst records upholding trade union rights and recognising freedom of association among the 34 member nations in recent years.

Since 2006 there has been an escalation in the violation of trade union rights in Mexico, including rights to recognition of elected union leaders, to collective bargaining, to strike and to stability of employment, all enshrined in national and international law.

These actions include the presence of hired thugs in workplaces and in conciliation and arbitration boards, the occupation of some workplaces by federal police and troops, and several illegal and unconstitutional resolutions at various levels of government limiting freedom of association.

The Mexican government reserves to itself the discretionary ability to validate the registration of unions. This means democratically organised workers are forced to wait in limbo indefinitely before the state grants legal recognition to their trade union, and the state retains the same ability to grant recognition (“toma de nota”) of a union’s leadership, resulting in frequent cases of government interference.

The Mexican government also supports a system of employer-dominated unions, known as “protection” unions. Workers who try to organise their own independent unions under this system routinely face intimidation and in some cases violence.

Workers’ attempts to hold elections that would establish their right to administer collective bargaining agreements through their authentic organisations are permanently blocked or subjected to spurious requirements, while employers sign agreements with ‘company’ unions, often without the knowledge of the workers.

They are also unable to freely exercise their right to strike. When they seek legal permission to strike, independent unions face multiple barriers. If a strike is called, government authorities reserve the right to declare it “nonexistent”.

As a result many Mexican workplaces are covered by ‘company’ unions that largely serve government and corporate interests that are failing to deliver any real returns to their members.

Independent democratic unions delivering real benefits to their members through increased wages and improved working conditions have been targeted in a campaign of destabilisation and persecution by the Mexican government and its supporters.

Last year on 6 June over 4,000 heavily armed federal and state troops used tear gas and force in an assault on striking members of Los Mineros at the Cananea copper mine. Troops surrounded the mine and used tear gas to dislodge hundreds of union members on strike, occupying the entrances to the mine in a long-running dispute with Grupo Mexico over health and safety and other contract violations.

The killings of several unionists in Los Mineros have gone unpunished during this period.

In April 2006 Hector Alvarez Gomez and Mario Alberto Castillo Rodriguez were killed and 50 other workers hit by bullets when 900 federal and state police stormed a strike in Sicartsa led by Los Mineros.

In August 2007 Reynaldo Hernandez Gonzalez was shot and killed when he was among 90 union members making way to La Caridad copper mine to demand reinstatement from Grupo México. Twenty other miners who won a reinstatement court ruling were abducted, beaten and tortured.

Nobody has been prosecuted in relation to these killings.

The failure of the Mexican Government to guarantee workers’ rights and investigate and punish those responsible for illegal acts of violence and intimidation are unacceptable in a democratic society.

The Mexican Government needs to take immediate action to guarantee trade union rights, cease all use of force against the legitimate activities of independent trade unions and end the destabilisation and persecution of Los Mineros, the Mexican Electrical Workers’ Union (SME) and other independent unions.

The New Zealand Government needs to urge Mexico to honour its commitments as a member of the United Nations’ International Labour Organization (ILO) and to guarantee freedom of association for all Mexican workers.

The ILO says that in the long-running dispute between Los Mineros and Grupo Mexico the Mexican Government has acted in a way that was incompatible with ILO Convention No. 87 on Freedom of Association.

It is unthinkable that a New Zealand Government could deny workers the right to organise independent trade unions and its citizens the right to freedom of association. But if the international community tolerates the continued denial of these rights in Mexico, how many more workers will be killed there in unsafe coal mines or violent acts of intimidation?

Andrew Little is national secretary of the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union (EPMU). You can read more about the issues at www.epmu.org.nz

ENDS

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