The Mexican union photo is a slow-moving dinosaur. This May 1st, the leaders of the large centrals met in an institutional act called by the Presidency of the Government and some of them have been in the same position for more than 15 years or some inherit the position from others, as if it were a Monarchy, without even being able to speak of free elections and secret ballots, even though the labor reform has incorporated that principle in this six-year term. The general secretary of the Confederation of Workers of Mexico, the PRI member Carlos Aceves, for example, is 82 years old and has a long institutional life, now as a senator. This double condition of active politician and union leader is common to more than one. On May 1, workers’ defense organizations do not take to the streets en masse, as might be expected, but rather meet with power. Ricardo Aldana, general secretary of the Pemex oil union, summed it up with this sentence: “There is no problem with the federal Executive, we are perfect.”
Labor and union policy experts tend to say that democracy has not yet reached the Mexican unions, debased for decades by corruption and a bad reputation among citizens, perhaps accustomed to seeing the great caciques collect works of art or move in private plane, without justice being able to punish an enrichment that if it is frowned upon in the political world, in the trade union world it is grotesque. The latest reforms, however, have managed to provide a ray of light in some sectors, such as the automotive sector, once the electoral processes have been democratized on paper. But progress is timid.
The reform of the Labor Law of 2019 imposed on the unions the legitimization of their Collective Contracts, which this week have concluded the transitional period: only about 17,000 have passed the filter and more than 120,000 have not obtained that legitimacy issued by the Secretariat of Work, so they are considered extinct, although the conditions will be maintained for the workers. This means that the employees were not even aware of these agreements, but that the figure of the so-called “protection contract” still prevails, that is, that the union leaders guarantee the employer that there will be no riots in the company and the employer protects them from the incursion of other unions endorsed by the workers in a democratic process.
There is no union culture. “That is the problem, the reform works within its deadlines and its design is correct to create a favorable context for democratization, but it is the workers who must activate all this. Mexico has a culture that is backwards in democracy, citizens do not exercise or demand their rights”, sums up Graciela Bensusán, a professor at the Autonomous Metropolitan University (UAM) in Xochimilco, one of the great experts in labor policy.
“The reform,” says Bensusán, “came from above and from outside,” that is, it had the support of academics, politicians, and some trade unionists, and under the conditions imposed by the Free Trade Agreement (TMEC) between Mexico and the United States. and Canada, but it has not yet penetrated the population. “It will take time, it is not easy to overthrow 100 years of authoritarianism, verticality and ignorance of the workers, who are still not aware of what a union is for or what can be obtained from it. Until now, they have only taken away the fees they pay or have profited from the rights of the workers, ”he criticizes. The academic, with more than 20 books published on unionism and dozens of articles, sees a clear example of this lack in her own students: “It doesn’t even occur to them that they want to belong to a union, due to the very low credibility they have ”. However, she affirms, “even if they are lousy, workers do better with unions than without them, but they don’t perceive it”. In her opinion, the legacy of the old model will survive for a while “because he has resources and power, they have the support of employers.”
In this six-year term, the minimum wage has been raised, which will push up the rest of salaries, some job stability has been achieved, more vacation days have been granted and profits are shared. Now is the time for workers to perceive their rights and enforce them, those consulted agree. The figures for the legitimization of collective contracts make Alfonso Bouzas Ortiz, coordinator of the Citizen Observatory for Labor Reform, hopeless: “In Mexico there are no unions, nor a union or association culture. We were led to believe the existence of a culture of these characteristics and it is not true. We knew there was simulation, but the reality is so poor…”.
Bouzas, a researcher at UNAM Labor Studies, wants to understand the reality of the existing “cruel law of supply and demand”, where workers yearn for a job so much that they end up settling for what they are offered, “as long as they have a salary and prospects for life. That is why he turns his gaze to young people, so that they assert their demands and “build the trade unionism they want and expect.” “But the decades of simulation culture are not going to be overcome for years and it will only happen in a transnational setting, where TMEC comes to write new stories.” He also does not have much confidence in what are now called independent unions, few and weak, in which Bouzas sees “great resemblance” to the large corporate centrals.
The independents took to the streets this May 1 while some union leaders ate with the president. Others had participated in the institutional act. There were names like Pedro Haces, from Catem, Alfonso Cepeda, from SNTE, Carlos Hugo Morales, from Stunam, Víctor Fuentes del Villar or Víctor Flores, controversial leader of the railway union, who was in jail. “And if they are not invited, they feel offended, even the independents,” says Bensusán, who believes that these meetings with power maintain the inertia of decades in which they supposed that they would grow alongside politicians. “A meal like this is not understanding the reform, which was made to consecrate union autonomy. I don’t like that food, ”he says. He frames her in the old regime where the political and the labor aspects walked side by side. “That food only sends a signal of continuity. The only role of the Government”, says the academic, “is to guarantee that the labor law is complied with and endorse the secret, personal and free vote”.
Bouzas also defends that union autonomy, but believes that in the López Obrador Administration “the right thing is being done.” The fact that all of them are invited to the meal or the institutional act means that the State “does not stigmatize anyone. It is not up to the Ministry of Labor or the Presidency to criminally accuse or establish labor responsibilities” to the unions. “Workers are being told that they are the ones who decide who leads them. They are the ones who have to question some of those criminals who make up the company and make up the union. The corporate ones not only belong to history, they are child’s play compared to some new ones ”, he affirms pessimistically.
The President of the Government has had an impact on dumping some responsibility for what is happening on the workers. In a recent speech, he affirmed: “These are new times, the workers are free and they have to exercise their freedom, freedom is not implored, it is conquered. There may be new conditions, which there are, for the vote to be secret, so that they are not bought or threatened, but if the worker does not dare, if he does not have the arrogance to feel free, then he will continue supporting the leaders undemocratic, charros. The oppressor would not be so strong if he did not have accomplices among the oppressed themselves, there is a kind of masochism, we have to reveal ourselves ”.
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