Mexico's Cananea Strikers: Fighting for the Right to a
Union
BY DAVID BACON
WEDNESDAY MAY 16, 2012 5:10 PM
http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/13220/fighting_for_the_right_to_a_union_and_to_stay_in_mexico/

Trade union activists, including members of the miners'
union, Los Mineros, protest in Mexico City's main
square, the Zocalo, on September 1, 2011. The protest,
called the Day of the Indignant, was organized by unions
to demand jobs, labor rights and an end to the
repression of political dissidents.   (Photo copyright
David Bacon)

Jacinto Martinez is the labor secretary of Section 65 of
the Mineros, Mexico's union for miners and one of the
oldest unions in the country. His union has been on
strike for five years at the huge Cananea mine, one of
the longest strikes in the history of North America.
Critical support for this strike has come from the
United Steelworkers, and both unions have announced
their desire to merge to form a single organization.  
 
Below, Martinez describes the history of the strike and
the horrifying conditions in Cananea today. I
interviewed him two weeks ago.
 
Our town is where the Mexican Revolution began in 1906,
at a time when miners there were virtually enslaved. The
mine was eventually taken over by the government, which
ran it for many years. Nevertheless, over the last
hundred years there were many strikes in this mine over
wages and working conditions.
 
Finally, in 1989, the government stopped all operations
at the mine, and President Carlos Salinas de Gortari
declared that the mine was bankrupt. In August of that
year the government sent in federal troops. The miners
were expelled from the mine, and the mine was closed for
three months. Then Salinas sold it to private owners,
Grupo Mexico, the company run by the Larrea family.
Really, it was basically given away.  The government had
just invested 400 million pesos in the ore concentrator
alone. Grupo Mexico bought the whole mine for 650
million.
After the Larrea family took over, we've had nothing but
battle after battle with them.  They are one of the
largest mining companies in the world, and one of the
richest families in Mexico. The company was forced to
make certain commitments in order to take over the mine,
but they've never fulfilled any of them. One was to
share with the workers five percent of the price they'd
paid for the mine. Because of their failure, in 2004 we
took action to force the company to pay what had become
by that time a debt of 55 million pesos. 
 
After that things became even more difficult. Before,
the government was at least a little concerned for our
welfare. Now all dialogue with the government has been
cut off, and they give total support to Grupo Mexico.
 
We went on strike again on June 30, 2007, because of the
deteriorating conditions in the mine. Once the strike
started, the federal government, through the labor
board, declared it illegal several times. Each time
we've gone to court, and the courts have overruled the
board and restored the strike's legal status. According
to the InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights, we have
a right to return to our jobs.
 
Once again, on April 14, 2010, the strike was declared
legal by the courts.  Nevertheless, at 10 p.m. the same
day the company withdrew recognition from our union and
broke off its employer/union relationship with us. That
was completely illegal. But the government then brought
in police and troops, and allowed the company to reopen
the mine.
 
At the time we went on strike, there were about 1,200
members of our union. Now there are still 850 people on
strike, five years later. The company has tried to buy
people off by offering them severance pay if they'll
give up any claim to their jobs.  In my case, after 23
years working in the mine, they've offered me 1,007,000
pesos [about $85,000]. They've said that in addition,
they'd give me 830,000 pesos to try to buy me out.  But
I won't take their offer, nor will any of the strikers.
 
We don't have Social Security medical insurance, so the
medical care we get comes from the company as part of
our employment. If we take their offer, we will lose all
our medical care. The 850 strikers have been fighting
for this too. To make matters worse, on Mother's Day in
2008, the company gave us an additional gift by closing
the hospital where we received our care. Counting
children and retirees, an additional 1,200 people lost
their medical care because of that.
 
The government stepped in to provide some services, but
even though we can see a doctor again, we have no money
to buy medicine. This has hurt our retirees especially,
because now they have to pay for medicine, where in the
past the company had to provide it. Some of us have
severe problems because of working in the mine, like
silicosis and high blood pressure, so doing without
medical care is not an option.
 
To protest government support for the company, about 50
miners have gone to Hermosillo, the state capitol, where
they are occupying a site near the government building.
When they come back to Cananea, other workers go to take
their place. We are not the only local union of miners
on strike. Section 17 has been on strike in Taxco and
Section 201 in Zacatecas. We are all facing Grupo
Mexico. 
 
We are also protesting over what happened at Pasta de
Conchos in 2006. The union made many requests to the
Labor Secretary, asking that the government conduct
inspections of that mine. But there were none, and
finally there was a terrible explosion in which 65
miners were trapped inside and died. The only thing they
did was close the mine. The company even refused to go
in and bring back the bodies, and the government backed
them up. The company and government claimed it was an
accident. But the president of our union, Napoleon Gomez
Urrutia, held a press conference and called it
industrial homicide. After that, the government tried to
arrest him and he had to flee to Canada. 
 
Since we've been fighting Grupo Mexico, we've had the
financial support of the United Steelworkers in the
U.S., who also gave sanctuary to our president.
[Editor's note: See this recent In These Times story
about exiled Mineros leader Napoleon Gomez Urrutia's
successful fight against government corruption charges.]
That's how we've been able to survive. More than 80,000
workers are contributing to our ability to go on
fighting. And we are also receiving contributions from
our own members in Mexico who are still working. So our
situation in Cananea isn't good, but we've been able to
continue for five years. Our members still support the
strike totally. 
 
The company has been able to restart production, using
about 3,000 workers who are employed by contractors.
There are about 2,000 federal soldiers guarding them. 
They've turned Cananea into an armed camp. They have
towers with machine guns watching over people, and you
can't even pass through certain streets in the center of
town. This is why we're supporting Andres Manuel Lopez
Obrador in his campaign for president in our national
elections in July. He's promised that if he's elected,
he'll defend us. 
 
Grupo Mexico is really destroying Cananea. The mine
pumps water from about 70 wells. Cananea, with a
population of 30,000, only has two or three. The mine is
buying up land throughout this area, and now has more
land than the town itself. They use it to dump the mine
tailings, which have already buried part of the old
town. 
 
Meanwhile, of the 300 members of our union who betrayed
us and went back to work, only about 50 are left. The
only way they've been able to make the mine run is by
bringing in 3,000 people from outside, from Oaxaca,
Puebla and other states in the south. The economic
situation in these states is worse than here in the
north. There's no work, no jobs there. 
 
Grupo Mexico has built special housing for many of the
strikebreakers on the mine property, called colectivos.
They're like barracks. For others, the company rents big
houses in town, where a lot of them are housed together.
The company then picks them up in busses in the morning
and brings them back at night. That way it controls
them. And the whole economy of Cananea has collapsed
because these workers aren't living in the area like
normal residents.  Many of them actually come here
because we're close to the U.S. border, and they're
thinking about jumping the fence.  The reality is that
the economy here is pretty dead. 
 
Grupo Mexico mistreats these workers. It's gone back to
the same conditions people rose up against in 1906, when
miners went on strike for the 8-hour day. The
strikebreakers are working 12 hours a day. They all have
to belong to a protection union, part of the CTM [the
Confederation of Mexican Workers, affiliated to Mexico's
former ruling party, the PRI]. Then, after working four
or five months, the company fires them. They only get
1,300 pesos a week [about $100], so when people want to
go home, they don't have enough money to get back. Some
of the fired workers wander through the streets, begging
for help from other workers so they can get home.
 
With people brought in from outside to work the mine,
the only solution for the people of Cananea itself is to
leave, to migrate. There's no other work here. Some go
to other states, or to other cities in northern Mexico.
They leave by themselves to look for work.  Then right
after they get paid on Friday, they send the money home
to their families.  Most go to the United States.
 
That's logical, because the border is only a half hour
away, and Tucson's only three hours from here. And
that's where the work is. Sometimes people just go to
work for two or three weeks, and then come back, trying
to find a way to keep on living here. They try to use
the work in the U.S. to build up their reserves. This
also happened after the three-month strike in 1998.
 
The people who are on strike are all people who live
here, and most of us have been living here for
generations. The head of our strike committee, Jesus
Verdugo, is the third generation in his family to work
in the mine. Now his children are old enough to work. 
But if we don't win the strike, they'll never work here.
We're losing our traditions; we're losing the whole
history of Cananea. And this is because of what Grupo
Mexico and the federal government are doing to us. 
 
You could say we're fighting for our right and ability
to keep on living in Cananea.

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