Privatization Behind Calderon's Attack on Electricians Union

Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME) Secretary General Martin Esparza claims that President Felipe Calderon busted his union in order to take control of a 1,100-kilometer fiber optic network. The fiber optic network in question was built with public money and was the property of Luz y Fuerza del Centro, the government-owned electricity company that the military and federal police shut down this past weekend. The union's opposition to Calderon's agenda of cronyism and privatization is at the heart of the dispute, according to Esparza.

In an interview with the Mexican weekly Proceso, Esparza explains how politicians from the president's National Action Party (PAN) facilitated a foreign company's exploitation of Luz y Fuerza's fiber optic cable, while simultaneously stifling Luz y Fuerza's bid for a permit to utilize its own infrastructure to provide television, internet, and telephone services.

Privatization Began Years Ago

The federal government's official explanation for why it sent the military and federal police to shut down all of Luz y Fuerza's buildings in the middle of the night on October 11 is that due to poor management, Luz y Fuerza was a money pit. The pro-government, anti-union media campaign justified the overnight firing of 44,000 electrical workers and 22,000 pensioners by blaming the SME, the union that represents the company's employees, for Luz y Fuerza's alleged financial precarity. A detail the anti-union propaganda machine conveniently omits is that government-appointed administrators--not the union--set company policy. Furthermore, Mexican presidents have been bleeding the country's government-owned electricity companies dry for years.

Read More