In Mexico, a new dawn for independent unions? by David Bacon
martes, 3 septiembre, 2019
In his speech to Mexican Congress during his December 1, 2018 inauguration, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador charged that 36 years of neoliberal economic reforms had lowered the purchasing power of Mexico’s minimum wage (now worth about $4 U.S. per day) by 60 percent. «Neoliberal economic policy has been a disaster, a calamity for the public life of the country,» he charged. «During the neoliberal period we became the country with the second highest rate of migration in the world-24 million Mexicans, living and working in the United States… We will put aside the neoliberal hypocrisy. Those born poor will not be condemned to die poor.»
At the end of April of this year the new government took one step toward undoing this neoliberal inheritance, when the Chamber of Deputies and then the Senate passed a labor law reform bill proposed by López Obrador’s party, the National Regeneration Movement (MORENA).
Workers and independent and progressive unions in Mexico have high hopes that the new government will undo many of the policies that have tilted the economic and political playing field sharply toward corporations. Labor law reform is just one component of such a process, but the debate around it highlights the extent to which conditions for workers and unions have deteriorated in three decades, and their impatience to reverse course.
MEXICO CITY, MEXICO – 01DECEMBER18 – Mexicans come to the Zocalo, Mexico City’s central plaza, to celebrate the inauguration of Mexico’s new President, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.Copyright David Bacon
MEXICO CITY, MEXICO – 29NOVEMBER18 – Mexicans and U.S. union leaders talk about the new government in Mexico after Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador takes office. Benedicto Martinez, general secretary of the Authentic Workers Front (FAT).Copyright David Bacon
dnbmatamoros08.jpg MATAMOROS, MEXICO – 5NOVEMBER06 – Maquiladora workers and their families live in the «Derechos Humanos» and «Fuerza y Unidad» barrios in Matamoros. The neighborhoods are contaminated by toxic chemicals dumped by factories into the canal which runs by the houses, and by the dumping of white powder chemical waste from the Quimica Fluor plant (which makes hydrofluoric acid) onto the dirt roads between the houses. Residents complain of rashes and illnesses as a result.Copyright David Bacon
MEXICO CITY, MEXICO – 31JANUARY14 – Teachers from Oaxaca march with independent trade unions in protest to Mexico City’s main square, the Zocalo, on the 20th anniversary of the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement. The marchers protested the education, economic and political reforms passed over the last year by the Mexican government and the ruling Party of the Institutionalized Revolution, setting the stage for the privatizing the oil and electrical industry, implementing corporate education reform and social benefit policies, and changing the country’s labor law. The march was organized by the National Coordination of Education Workers (CNTE) and the Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME).Copyright David Bacon
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