www.newsandletters.org
|
|
|
NEWS & LETTERS, August-September 2001 FAT and U.S. labor Mexico is no longer a country of small farmers wresting a living from plots of land won for them by the Revolution. Global economic forces have instead transformed Mexico into a nation of factory hands, employed or on the move looking for a job. ALLIES ACROSS THE BORDER is the story of a unique organization that has sought to provide these workers with a means of protecting themselves from exploitation from their employers and the corrupt official unions that seek to subordinate their interests to those of the ruling class and the Mexican state. The FAT-the Spanish acronym for Authentic Labor Front-emerged in 1960 as a Mexican component of an international current of Catholic trade unionism. Mexico, however, has a long history of anti-clericalism, and as Christian democracy lost credibility around the world through its conservatism and corruption, the FAT developed into an association free from the state, the church and from international labor groupings beholden to either Washington or Moscow. In fierce battles for independent union recognition at firms like Spicer and Sealed Power, the FAT proved that Mexican workers were hungry for ways to take control of the conditions they were exposed to at the point of production. In these struggles, the FAT developed its most distinguishing characteristic: the organizing principle of autogestion, or the promotion of self-management of the workers' life and labor. Instead of narrowly focusing on wages and contracts, the FAT seeks to develop the individual capacities of the men and women who make up its unions. Hathaway's account of the FAT's history is strengthened by being unfolded within the context of the maturation of the anti-globalization movement and the efforts at building cross-border worker solidarity that laid the ground for its existence. While the author's analysis of the harsh realities of life confronting Mexican workers is overly focused on the wage as a measure of quality of life, his focus on relationships between groups of North American workers provides a much-needed contribution towards concretizing the slogans of anti-globalization protests. -Kevin Michaels |
|
Home l News & Letters Newspaper l Back issues l News and Letters Committees l Dialogues l Raya Dunayevskaya l Contact us l Search Published by News and Letters Committees |
