National strike by miners, steelworkers reveals class tensions in Mexico

The action began with wildcat strikes by miners on February 28 at a series of copper and zinc mines owned by Grupo Mexico, sparked in large measure by company’s callous disregard for safety that resulted in the death of 65 miners in a February 19 explosion at the Pasta de Conchos mine in Coahuila, near the border with the US state of Texas.

The walkouts followed the decision of the government to end its rescue and recovery efforts at the mine. Fueling the anger of the miners was the callous indifference of President Vicente Fox’s administration and the conviction that the government would do nothing to seriously investigate the causes of the mine disaster, let alone end the deadly and oppressive working conditions miners face.

In an effort to contain this explosion, the STNMM called for a national work stoppage on March 1. In addition to protesting the miners’ deaths—which union president Napoleon Gomez Urrutia called “industrial homicide”—the STNMM leadership called the strike to oppose the Labor Ministry’s decision on February 28 to remove Gomez and replace him with union dissident Elias Morales Hernandez.

Gomez is a fixture in the corrupt Mexican labor bureaucracy who inherited his position from his father and is a prominent figure in the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which ruled the country for 70 years until Fox’s 2000 election.

Although Gomez has long collaborated with the corporate bosses and suppressed rank-and-file workers, the Fox administration is concerned that he is losing his grip over his members, who have been involved in a series of recent struggles. Moreover, the SNTMM has opposed some of Fox’s initiatives to reform the long-standing corporatist relations between the employers, the government and the unions that have been used to suppress the class struggle while providing the labor bureaucracy with lucrative careers.

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http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/mar2006/mexi-m07.shtml