Labor & Employment Law

AFL-CIO: Mexican Court Ruling Eliminates Right to Strike

By James Parks

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka today condemned the Feb. 11 decision by a Mexican appeals court to allow the Grupo Mexico mining company to fire 1,200 striking workers, members of the National Union of Mine and Metalworkers (SNTMMSRM), at its Cananea copper mine.

In a statement, Trumka said that by finding the strike illegal, despite the lack of evidence to support its decision, the court effectively eliminated the right to strike in Mexico. 

Trumka reaffirmed the strong support of the U.S. union movement for the SNTMMSRM and condemned the Mexican government’s four-year-long campaign to destroy the independent union.

The strike at the massive pit began in July 2007 over health and safety concerns. Workers also are upset that SNTMMSRM leader Napoleon Gómez Urrutia was forcefully removed from his position in 2006. Gómez, who now is living in Canada, spoke out against the Mexican government and the Grupo Mexico mining company in response to a tragic mine accident in Pasta de Conchos that left 65 miners dead, many of them members of unions.

Trumka also called on the Obama administration and congressional leadership to “take immediate and decisive steps to hold the Mexican government accountable for its systematic violations of fundamental worker rights and its effort to dismantle independent unions.”

Such attacks on the trade union movement thoroughly undercut the promise made years ago to U.S., Mexican and Canadian workers under the NAALC (North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation side agreement to NAFTA) that fundamental workers’ rights would be fully respected in North America.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on February 12, 2010 (boomark / email).