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Organized Labor in Mexico: North America [ H H-3-'791 Oligarchy and Dissent

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Organized Labor in Mexico: North America [ H H-3-'791 Oligarchy and Dissent 19791No. 18 by Howard Handelman Organized Labor in Mexico: North America [ H H-3-'791 Oligarchy and Dissent The painting seemed to puzzle or plastic sheeting supported by ropes One year before, over 100 of these disturb the Texas tourists as they and two-by-fours. Clustered Tendencia workers had been ousted followed their guide up the steps of beneath the flimsy covering were from their union and fired from their the Ministry of Justice in downtown some 350 people- men, women, jobs at a Mexicali power plant. As Mexico City. There, amid a and a few children. They had been one worker explained to me while panorama of murals describing the camped there, day and night, for his wife and two children looked on, sweep of Mexican history, was a three weeks, since the afternoon of "We've been out of work since painting depicting a fat "capitalist" September 28, 1977. A variety of November of last year [19761. None (complete with dollar sign) stuffing banners adorned the encampment. of our petitions to the Federal his workers into a meat grinder and One showed a clenched fist with the Electrical Commission [the squeezing out his profits. In the words "Tendencia Democr5ticar' government agency in charge of the mural's background stood a smiling (Democratic Tendency) emblazened state-owned power industry] or to Karl Marx, beckoning other laborers beneath. Another declared, the Labor Ministry has done any to a bucolic scene of happiness and "Electrical Workers, Fired from good. Now we're trying this." Their Jobs, Demand their tranquility. The tour guide gamely "How much were you making Democratic Rights." And still explained that the mural "merely before you were dismissed?" I asked another, "President [Jose] Lopez represents the outlook of the artist." him. But, he added, its presence in a Portillo: You Know Our Problem. government ministry did reflect the We Request Your Intervention on "About 11,000 pesos [$5101 per fact that Mexico is governed by the Behalf of Our Legitimate Rights." month." Institutional Revolutionary Party "And how do you and your family (PRI) and continues to subscribe to manage to live now?" The people staging the sit-in beside the principles of its 1910-1917 "Los Pinos" were electrical power "We depend on contributions from Revolution. Later, when the same workers (or, more precisely, former other Tendencia members and from tourists would travel to the beautiful power workers) together with their sympathizers. It hasn't been easy." campus of Mexico's National families. The workers were mem- University, they would see more Clearly, these protesters did not bers of the Tendencia Democratica, revolutionary murals, some come from Mexico's impoverished a rank-and-file movement within the commissioned by the government, lower class. On the contrary, their United Union of Electrical Workers other more modest efforts painted salaries before they were fired were of the Republic of Mexico by the university students among the highest of any workers in (SUTERM). Led by Rafael Galvan- themselves. the country. Even after a year of a former union president, national unemployment, they and their Should the group's tour bus have Senator, and long-time spokesman families were still well dressed. Like taken them behind the famed for leftist critics of Mexico's most of the more vocal and active Chapultepec Park on that clear established labor movements-the dissident workers in Mexico today, October day, past "Los Pinos," the Tendencia charges SUTERM they had emerged from the more Mexican president's official officers with being corrupt, skilled, higher-paid sector of the residence, they would have come oligarchical, and unresponsive to nation's labor movement. upon a very different scene. For a the union membership. Galvan and distance of several hundred feet, his supporters claim their movement The contradiction between the propped against the walls transcends the SUTERM, Marxist mural at the Justice Ministry surrounding the presidential palace, representing thousands of and the encampment at the were beds, chairs, tables, and disgruntled workers in unions presidential residence says much portable stoves, all covered by large throughout the country. about the current state of Mexican labor and of the Mexican Revolution The Origins of the Mexican Trade American capital was invited to itself. Radical in its rhetoric, populist Union Movement build electric power stations, in its politics, the Revolution The development of capitalist agri- railroads, and other infrastructure, tolerates one of the most inequitable culture, mining, and industry in and to exploit Mexico's henequen, distributions of wealth in Latin Mexico and, hence, the earliest sugar, cattle, minerals, and oil. America. The mere fact that the stirrings of the nation's labor Foreign firms were guaranteed protesters were allowed to camp movement, date to the late security of their investment, beside "Los Pinos," undisturbed for nineteenth century under the including iron-handed government weeks, and could make their case autocratic rule of General Porfirio repression of union organization and through the nation's press, ~faz.The "Porfiriato" (1876-1910) strikes. distinguishes Mexico's political put an end to decades of internal system from neighboring chaos and brought local political In urban textile mills, however, and Guatemala's or ~icara~ua's.~At the chiefs (caciques)under central on the railroads, and even in such same time, the failure of government control. Canadian, exotic locations as the movie government agencies to respond to French, British and, particularly, theaters of Mexico City, workers the fired Mexicali workers, and the eventual forced eviction of the protesters by the police, say something else about the nature of the Mexican Revolution. Mexico's labor movement is among the largest in Latin America. Only Argentina has a greater percentage of its urban work force organized into trade unions2 In 1960, two political scientists surveying labor organizations throughout the hemisphere observed: "The trade- union movement probably has developed faster and gone further in Mexico than in any other Latin American nation.. Mexican labor [is] big, powerful, and vibrant with activity."3 But current observers argue that the position of labor in Mexico is as weak as in most other countries of Latin America. The position of rank-and-file members of the established labor unions is especially weak. The experience of the Mexicali electric power workers sitting in at "Los Pinos" is indicative of the fate of most rank-and-file unionists who challenge the tight control of their leadership. Today, as Mexico faces an uncertain political and economic future, the nation's likelihood of developing a more responsive political system and more equitable economic distribution may hinge, in large part, on the ability of organized workers to form a more democratic labor movement. Tendencia ~ernocr&icasit-in at "LOS Pinos. " clandestinely established mutual aid redistribution and the entry of the workers were organized into the societies and unions. As in much of excluded and repressed peasantry Mexican Revolutionary Labor Latin America, the earliest union into the nation's political and Confederation (CROM) and other organizers were usually anarchists, economic life.5 smaller union federations. Labor often exiles from the Spanish achieved its most spectacular gains anarcho-syndicalist movement. Despite their radical anarchist from 1930-1940, when the number Their influence was shared with ideological origins, the leaders of the of unionized workers tripled from another important foreign influence, nation's small labor movement cast 294,000 (5.6 percent of the active from the west and southwest of the their lot with the urban, middle- work force) to 878,000 (15.4 United States. In the early twentieth class moderates. Indeed, in Mexico, percent)? century, workers returning to as in most of the Third World, the Mexico from the mines of Colorado conflict of interest between city and The nation's first popularly based and Montana brought with them countryside stood in the way of a political party (created in 1929 was organizing experience gained from working class-peasant a~liance.~ expanded in the 1930s and renamed the International Workers of the Promised the right to organize and the Institutional Party of the World (the IWW "wobblies") and to strike (a guarantee later Revolution (PRI). The PRI has other North American working- incorporated into the Constitution governed Mexico with little class groups. Despite repression by of 1917), labor aligned with Generals meaningful opposition ever since. the Porfirista government, Mexico's Carranza and Obreg6n. Rural Essentially, the party embodied underground labor movement grew leaders like Zapata and Pancho Villa efforts by the nation's new political gradually, with leadership centered lacked the political sophistication, leadership to organize (or, perhaps in the anarchist-oriented Casa del ideological formulation, more precisely, to control) the Obrero ~undial? organizational skills, money, or guns forces of popular participation in the to successfully carry through their city and countryside unleashed by In 1910, when reform-minded would-be agrarian revolution. By the 1910 Revolution. Indeed, it was middle-class groups, along with the 1920, with the rural forces defeated the first party anywhere in Latin repressed peasants of the state of and Zapata dead, the moderates America with some base in the Morelos and the cowboys of were firmly in control,' although it nation's lower classes and a Chihuahua, rose up against the would be another 20 years before structured hierarchy for articulating decaying Diaz regime, urban the reformist character of the and aggregating popular workers formed "Red Battalions" to Mexican Revolution-the first in a demands? Both labor (organized join the ranks of the Mexican century of revolutions-was firmly through the newly formed Mexican Revolution. As the struggle set. A brief radical interlude in the Confederation of Labor-CTM) and progressed, two tendencies 1930s temporarily held back the peasantry were afforded emerged, reformist and radical.
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