3 May, 2019IndustriALL Global Union’s Mexican affiliate, Los Mineros, filed a legal claim to represent workers at LafargeHolcim’s Apasco plant in Hermosillo, Sonora state of Mexico. Workers, supposedly represented by the management-controlled CTM union, claim this organization does not defend their rights.
A total of 12 workers at LafargeHolcim Apasco cement plant have lost their jobs for executing their right to join a union of their choice, in 2017 and more recently in April 2019.
Los Mineros are appealing to the labour authorities to allow a vote on the basis of a free secret ballot, to allow workers to elect a union of their choice.
For many years, the CTM was the only bargaining agent at the LafargeHolcim Apasco plant through a protection contract signed with the company in absence of a proper consultation with workers. It prevented independent unions such as Los Mineros from organizing workers in the factory and expressing their demands.
Tired of the CTM never defending them and always negotiating behind their backs, workers want Los Mineros to represent them instead, and they are demanding that the company respects the ILO Convention 98 on the Right to Organize and Collective Bargaining, and ILO Convention 87 on the right to Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize.
Los Mineros believe that the recent approval of the labour reform in the Senate will help to finally eliminate the existing protection contract at the Apasco plant. It will also be a test for LafargeHolcim to start respecting workers’ rights:
“The amendment to the Federal Labour Law includes important sections on the right of workers to democratically elect their union leaders. The Government is laying the foundations to guarantee union democracy and the freedom of organizing. We sent our message of support and total solidarity to all the workers of Holcim Apasco,”
said Luis Valdez, Los Mineros spokesman.
IndustriALL general secretary, Valter Sanches, said:
“What we demand is respect, and this implies talking to the unions which truly represent the workers and abandoning the protection contract system in order to hold fair and satisfactory labour relations.
“IndustriALL reiterates our support to Los Mineros as a legitimate representative of LafargeHolcim workers in Mexico. We demand that LafargeHolcim’s management respects the ILO fundamental conventions, whether in Switzerland, Mexico, or anywhere else in the world.”