For over half a century, Mexico’s labor movement Shas been a model of open subordination to the
government and the ruling Institutional
Revolutionary Party (PRI). Every member of the
country’s dominant labor federation, the Mexican
Workers Confederation (CTM) has been an auto-
matic dues-paying member of the PRI. The CTM,
together with 31 other unions and labor federa-
tions, belongs to a larger umbrella organization
called the Congress of Labor (CT). Within the CT,
the CTM is the undisputed “first among equals,”
and the CTM president, nonagenarian Fidel
Velazquez has, until recently, ruled both groups
with an iron hand. In negotiations with the state
and with employers, as well as within the official
party, it is the CTM which always “represents” the
entire “organized workers’ movement.”
Despite corrupt, nepotistic leaders who run the
unions like fiefdoms, the official labor movement
thrived during the years of economic growth when
it won real social victories. Its support base, how-
ever, has now been eroded by the economic crisis
and by the imposition of labor discipline by its own
party, the PRI. The CTM has bowed to the neolib-
eral project by signing a series of “pacts” with busi-
ness and the government over the past ten years
which have cut wages and made labor contracts
more “flexible.” The federation has been so deeply
incorporated into the structure of the ruling party
that its first instinct has been to defend the PRI
rather than its own members. This has cost it rank-
and-file support.
Though the unionization rate of Mexican work-
ers continues to hold at around 25%, the official
union apparatus is coming apart at the seams.
Small but significant groups of Mexican workers in
manufacturing, services and education are organiz-
ing in trade unions independent of the CT and the
PRI. Perhaps even more significant are the struggles
for democratization of the unions within the CT.
Ten CT-affiliated unions and federations have
formed a dissident group called the Forum of
Unionism Facing the Nation. Among the most
prominent leaders of the group, known as the
foristas, are Francisco Herntndez Juurez, the charis-
matic leader of the telephone workers, Pedro
Castillo of the combative electrical workers, and
Elba Esther Gordillo, expresident of the powerful
teachers union. A number of independent unions
have joined forces with the ten founding Forum
members, bringing forista membership to 25
unions and federations.
Hector De la Cueva is a researcher with the Center for Labor Research and Union Advising (CILAS) in Mexico City
NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 16REPORT ON MEXICO
by Hdctor De la Cueva
The Forum, initiated essentially as a forum for air-
ing heterodox views, has since become a permanent
organization. Some of the group’s members have
suggested abandoning the CT and forming a new
umbrella group, while others have argued for the
less drastic step of calling a national workers assem-
bly open to all, including independents. The CTM
has responded aggressively,
threatening to expel the
heretics from the CT. The gov-
ernment, meanwhile, which
now sees trade unionism as an
impediment to neoliberal
reform, has momentarily
frozen its union-busting plans
and arrived at an understand-
ing with the CTM. This has
somewhat strengthened the
official federation within the
PRI. For now, the CTM has not
expelled the foristas, but a de
facto split already exists.
The events surrounding the
past two May Day celebrations
reflect this split. While the
government and the CT
decided to cancel labor’s offi-
cial May Day parade in 1995
because they feared being
overwhelmed by the discon-
tent from below, hundreds of
thousands of people in Mexico
City and other large cities fillojd tha ctrtcn–ndr th D May Day 1995 in Tijuana political vacuum. In the heat the streets, denouncing n of these mobilizations, opposi-
tion groups formed the May 1 Interunion Coordinating Council.
May Day, 1996 was even more significant. Over
100,000 foristas-disobeying official orders not to march-marched the traditional May Day route from Mexico City’s Monument to the Revolution,
through the city’s Historic Center, ending at the cen-
tral plaza, the Z6calo. Another 100,000 protesters,
organized under the banner of the May 1
Interunion Coordinating Council, followed the first
group to the Z6calo where they held a two-hour
rally after most of the foristas had left. Opposition
leader Cuauhtdmoc Cdrdenas addressed the demon-
strators, and Subcomandante Marcos sent a “mes- sage of solidarity.”
Because of prior May Day clashes between “offi- cial” and “independent” unionists, the leaders of
the two groups prudently signed a “nonaggression
pact” before the march, in which they agreed not to
be in the same place at the same time. In another
sign of caution, foristas agreed among themselves
to have no official speeches in order to avoid any
public disagreements. Members of forista unions,
carrying placards denouncing neoliberalism and the Zedillo government, simply marched past the
a i A IA F o o / A PAS!!
. Demonstrators, including members of dissident unions, jam eoliberalism, the PRI government and corrupt union leaders.
reviewing platform on which the dissident union
leadership was standing.
This May Day split may signal a realignment of the
labor movement beyond a simple changing of the
guard. Following the forista march, HernBndez
Jurez of the telephone workers told reporters that
labor’s old leadership was not the issue. “We want a
change in attitudes, not personalities, and this
mobilization is a clear sign that things are chang-
ing.”
Gordillo, of the teachers’ union-a forista despite
her long years of PRI militancy-held out a hand of
friendship to the “independents” of the second
march. “Let’s hope,” she said, “that next year we
can march together in one big demonstration that
can show the face of the unionism of the future.”
Such a realignment would spell an end to the cur-
rent model of labor-government cooperation.
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