by David L. Wilson, MRZine
November 22, 2009

On the night of October 10, Mexican police and soldiers occupied installations of Luz y Fuerza del Centro (LFC), the publicly owned electric company that provided power to Mexico City and the surrounding states. A few minutes later, center-right Mexican president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa decreed the company's liquidation, merging it with the national power company, the Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE). The liquidation meant layoffs for most of the LFC's 44,000 active employees and possibly the destruction of their union, the 95-year-old Sindicato Mexicano de Electricistas (SME).

President Calderón's move provoked fierce controversies and massive demonstrations in Mexico, but there was little reaction in the U.S. media, except in business publications.

The LFC liquidation will end "[b]loated payrolls, inherited jobs and massive pension benefits," Investor's Business Daily reported. "The union is howling, but the shutdown is one of the best things to happen to Mexico." [...]

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