NEWS & LETTERS, December 2009
World in View
Mexico: mass strikes for fired workers
Mexico City--More than 100,000 trade unionists, students and civil society activists streamed into Mexico City to the central Zócalo as part of a national civic work stoppage on Nov. 11 in support of 40,000 electrical workers who President Calderón had summarily fired a month ago while dissolving the state-owned light and power company (Luz y Fuerza del Centro).
The marches were the culmination of a one-day partial strike of union workers, including the telephone workers, as well as workers, professors and students from the major public universities. Workers and students demonstrated in front of buildings of Luz y Fuerza that Calderón's federal police had been occupying.
In the days prior to this mass mobilization, electrical workers had been holding demonstrations in front of the Congress and the Supreme Court and at the union headquarters. They had sought solidarity with other unions and had appealed directly to student activists at the public universities.
I was at the Economics Faculty at the giant national university UNAM when electrical worker union members of Sindicato Mexicano de Electricistas (SME) came to speak to students and appeal for their solidarity. An assembly of students and faculty voted to support the electrical workers, close the university the next day, and leaflet and demonstrate in the city. The entire university was shut down for the demonstration.
Outside Mexico City, the highway between Mexico and Querétaro was blocked, as was the main road to Cuernavaca. Federal police responded with tear gas and arrests. There were more protests in the State of Mexico and Morelos, in Oaxaca and Chiapas, and in the states of Jalisco, Guerrero, Michoacán and Chihuahua.
The struggle had begun on Oct. 12 when federal police occupied the facilities of Luz y Fuerza, barring the workers. President Calderón summarily fired some 44,000 workers and declared Luz y Fuerza dissolved.
Within three days a massive demonstration of 300,000 or more marched to the Zócalo, in perhaps the largest outpouring of protest in recent years, with trade unionists and their families and tens of thousands of students and social activists.
SME has a history of militancy and fighting for workers' rights. The Calderón administration has long sought to break the union. To further divide the union, they have offered huge bonuses to those who accept termination. Though more than half the workers have been forced to accept the settlement, they have not abandoned their union or the protests.
After the successful one-day strike, the government remains intransigent, refusing serious negotiations. There have been legal maneuvers to stop Calderón's unprecedented actions. But the focus has now turned to the possibility of a national general strike.
Not only would a general strike face the deeply militarized government of Calderón, who does not hesitate to use his troops and federal police, but the principal means of communication are in the hands of the Right. Major attempts at national social solidarity, such as the protests in Oaxaca in 2006 and La otra campaña (the Other Campaign) of the Zapatistas, have not been able to create conditions for a fully national movement.
Yet there can be no other authentic route to social transformation than the construction from below (desde abajo) of a national dialogue, a national movement addressing the vast problems of social inequality, racism and sexism that characterize the country and calls for the construction of a new Mexico.
--Eugene Walker
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