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Dialogue on union rights opened in Mexico

24 September, 2013IndustriALL and ITUC open dialogue by meeting with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, who recognizes the leadership of Napoleón Gómez and promises that his government will not persecute independent unions.

For several years, Mexico has been a target country for IndustriALL Global Union and its founding organizations on trade union rights. One basic problem is that 90 percent of collective agreements are so-called protection contracts, which protect employers from true unions.

As a regular practice, a yellow union signs a very modest agreement with the company, without workers knowing anything of the deal – or that they have a union. Obviously, the “union” leaders bank a nice consultancy fee.

Protection contracts have kept wages low. According to a recent study by Bank of America, Mexican industrial workers earned three times as much as their Chinese comrades ten years ago. Now Chinese salaries are 20 percent above those in Mexico.

Independent unions such the mine and metalworkers’ Los Mineros have been a thorn in the side of major companies. Stubbornly they have negotiated three times higher wage increases as those achieved by yellow unions, sometimes after industrial action.

In 2006, the leader of Los Mineros, Napoleón Gómez, had to leave Mexico for exile in Canada after death threats. The government and major companies generated charges one after another against him. All the charges have been rejected by courts. All is not rotten in Mexico.

After Mexico recently got a new government, IndustriALL together with the ITUC decided to see if a new opening was possible.

On 23 August, Sharan Burrow and I led a joint ITUC-IndustriALL delegation which included the USW. We met with Mexico’s President Enrique Peña Nieto and Labour Secretary Alfonso Navarrete Prida at the Los Pinos Presidential Palace in Mexico City. The session opened a dialogue that was not possible with the previous government.

The President and Labour Secretary affirmed that the new government has no intention to persecute independent unions. They expressed a commitment to pursue resolution to existing conflicts. In particular they recognized the legitimate leadership of Napoleón Gómez as the head of Los Mineros.

I welcomed the recognition, but I said the judicial game against Napoleón Gómez had to stop. We also went through the ongoing negotiations with the electricians’ union SME to find a solution for the remaining 16,000 workers.

The government committed to a dialogue on protection contracts which they recognized to exist, but not as a legitimate instrument within the law. The labor minister promised to take steps to ratify ILO Convention 98, consult with the ILO Director General regarding a technical review of last year’s labour law reform, and look at dialogue with unions in line with the ILO’s recommendations in the complaint 2694.

All in all, we now have an opening which we will follow up with the Mexican unions and the government. IndustriALL’s Mexico action will continue to bring Napoleón Gómez safely home and ensure the right of every Mexican worker to freely join a union and to enjoy the protection of a true collective agreement.