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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | June 2006 
Mexican Miner's Union Postpones June 28 Nationwide Strike
 Bloomberg
| | The action was planned to support the miners, whose disputed leader, Napoleón Gómez Urrutia, is no longer recognized by the Labor Secretariat. |
Mexico's miners union plans to postpone a nationwide strike scheduled for June 28 that was supported by the country's largest unions.
The group will hold off until after the July 2 presidential elections. The miners union will continue strikes at the Cananea and La Caridad copper mines, Grupo Mexico SA's two largest mines, and a steel plant owned by Grupo Villacero, the union said in a statement.
The union will resume its "strategy of struggle" after July 2 to demand the government recognize Napoleon Gomez Urrutia as the union's leader. Mexico's largest unions, which supported a national walkout on June 28, said earlier today that the miner's union was given the decision to move forward with the walkout, Mexico City newspaper El Universal reported.
The miners union has been protesting the government's decision on Feb. 19 to recognize Elias Morales as leader of the union after an oversight committee charged Gomez with corruption. The union went on strike at the copper mines and steel plant to demand Gomez be reinstated as leader.
Thomas Black tblack@bloomberg.net
Dispute Settled, Another Simmers
Wire services - El Universal
One potential threat to a smooth-running July 2 presidential vote appeared to dissipate Monday when labor leaders announced that a national work stoppage scheduled to begin on Wednesday will probably take place in a much watered-down version, if at all.
But another election eve hot spot flared again Monday when striking teachers in the state of Oaxaca renewed their civil disobedience activities, stopping traffic on a major highway 20 minutes out of Oaxaca City and blocking entrance to several government buildings in the town of Santa María Coyotepec.
The action came on the same day negotiations were set to re-start between the National Education Workers Union (SNTE), the Oaxaca state government and the federal Interior Secretariat (Gobernación). A new "mediation commission," made up of prominent local citizens such as artist Francisco Toledo and Antequera-Oaxaca archbishop Luis Chávez Botello, has been created to facilitate the talks.
More than 60,000 teachers have been on strike for 35 days, demanding cost-of-living wage increases and the resignation of Oaxaca governor Ulises Ruiz. They have threatened to boycott the July 2 elections in the state, and have planned the fourth major march of the strike for June 28, the same day the national work stoppage was to take place.
That work stoppage could still happen in some form, telephone workers union president Francisco Hernández Juárez said Monday, because the miners union will have the final word on whether to go ahead with the national strike. The action was planned to support the miners, whose disputed leader, Napoleón Gómez Urrutia, is no longer recognized by the Labor Secretariat.
The miners and their backers claim that the fugitive Gómez Urrutia, who faces federal charges of mishandling union money, was essentially removed by the government, an action they consider a blatant violation of union autonomy.
Hernández Juárez, also a spokesperson for the National Front for Union Unity and Autonomy (FNUAS), the coalition of major unions that has been organizing the June 28 protest, said "conditions are lacking" for a coordinated national action on Wednesday. Whatever protests that take place, he said, will happen on a local level, last only a day, and won´t involve any disruption of electricity, telephone or transportation services.
That would be a far cry from the kind of mass protest that might have spilled over into the weekend, including Election Day on Sunday. In fact, Isaías González, leader of the FNUAS-affiliated CROC (the Revolutionary Confederation of Workers and Peasants), supported Monday a "re-evaluation" of the national work stoppage plan because "the election is our top priority."
CROC and a number of other FNUAS unions, among them the powerful social security (IMSS) and National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) workers, announced Monday their endorsement of Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
The Fox administration expressed confidence Monday that neither the FNUAS work stoppage, the Oaxaca teachers strike or any further fallout from the May violence in the State of Mexico town of San Salvador Atenco will disturb the July 2 vote.
"About three of four conflicts exist now in very specific locations," presidential spokesperson Rubén Aguilar said. "Not to minimize their importance, but in no way will they affect the electoral process." |
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