Criminal gangs put hit on labour rights
Mexico’s notorious cartels find new source of revenue to help finance their activities: workers’ union dues
MCALLEN, TEXAS— It was after the 2006 disaster, when lethal methane seeped into the Pasta de Conchos coal mine, triggering a blast that crushed 65 workers, that Napoleon Gomez Urrutia’s son received a message.
The young student, according to his father, had just finished class at the University of Monterrey’s faculty of law. He walked into the parking lot and opened the envelope left on his windshield. Inside was a bullet. “My son was 18 or 19 years old,” said Gomez.
It was that macabre threat, on top of corruption charges (later dropped by Mexico’s supreme court) against the leader of the National Union of Mine and Metal Workers, that forced Gomez into exile in Vancouver. His crime: branding the Pasta de Conchos accident “industrial homicide” — a move he said incited the ire of government and business players alike.
“It gets to the point in which workers or union leaders are kidnapped or disappeared or tortured or even killed,” Gomez told the Star.
Life as an activist in Mexico has never been easy. As highlighted by the Star, those fighting for workers’ rights in the border region’s booming maquiladora, or duty-free, foreign-owned manufacturing industry, come up against deeply entrenched business interests protected by so-called ghost unions that serve not to support workers, but suppress them.
Add to that a new and critical challenge. In states like Tamaulipas, the country’s kidnapping capital, cartels seem to have a new target: unions, where expropriating workers’ dues serves as a new source of financing.
“We know some unions have been infiltrated,” said Julia Quiñonez, who runs an independent workers’ rights group, Comité Fronterizo de Obreras, supporting low-wage maquiladora workers in three Mexican states including Tamaulipas.
In addition to working amid cartel violence, workers’ rights activists in Mexico say they are frequently a target of threats and intimidation. Often the perpetrators are unknown, but are suspected to be associated with ghost unions or companies. Blanca Velázquez
A former factory worker at an auto-parts plant in central Mexico, Velázquez fought successfully for an independent union to be recognized in her city of Puebla, pushing out an undemocratic charro or “cowboy” union. In 2001 she founded el Centro de Apoyo al Trabajador (the Centre for Worker Support). However, after her colleague was kidnapped and tortured and their offices vandalized, Velázquez was forced to flee and go into hiding.
Martha Ojeda
Originally from Tamaulipas, Ojeda worked in the border region’s maquiladoras for two decades. In 1994, she and her colleagues were beaten by police for trying to lobby for better working conditions in a Sony factory. After thousands of workers took to the streets in protest, the Mexican government ordered her arrest and she was forced to flee to the United States, where she has continued to lobby for workers’ rights.
Margarita Avalos
As the head of the Tijuana independent workers’ rights group Ollin Calli, Avalos — a former maquiladora worker — has faced numerous threats for activism. In one incident, she was physically attacked by an unknown man who broke into her office. In another, she says an angry factory owner tried to run her over after she successfully lobbied for a fired employee to get a reinstatement hearing.