Confederation of Mexican Workers
Encyclopedia
The Confederation of Mexican Workers is the largest confederation of labor union
s in Mexico
. For many years it was one of the essential pillars of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional
(the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI), which ruled Mexico for more than seventy years. However, the CTM began to lose influence within the PRI structure in the late 1980s, as technocrats
increasingly held power within the party. Eventually the union found itself forced to deal with a new party in power after the PRI lost the 2000 general election, an event which drastically reduced the CTM's influence in Mexican politics.
Over the years the CTM has also lost much of its power within the workplace, increasingly being more agreeable to employers' moves aimed to increase productivity. Workers have usually received little benefit from these agreements, as real wages have generally fallen over the past several decades. Moreover, the CTM has become increasingly corrupt and conservative over the years, often serving to impede workers' efforts to organize independent unions.
The CTM was founded in 1936, under President
Lázaro Cárdenas del Río. Cárdenas' predecessors had relied heavily on the Confederación Regional Obrera Mexicana
, or "CROM", in order to garner support from the working class. However, this support was withdrawn after the assassination of President Álvaro Obregón
in 1928. Once this happened the CROM began to fragment as unions and their leaders defected from the organization.
One of the most important leaders who left CROM was Vicente Lombardo Toledano
, a Marxist intellectual who later developed close ties with the Soviet Union
. Lombardo Toledano formed his own federation of disaffected CROM members, which he called the "Purified CROM".
He later formed an alliance with Fidel Velázquez Sánchez
, the leader of the Confederación Sindical de Trabajadores del Distrito Federal (CSTDF), and with the leaders of the Confederación General de Trabajadores
(CGT). Once these alliances were consolidated they founded the Confederación General de Obreros y Campesinos de México (CGOCM) on June 28, 1933.
The CGOCM became the most important union body in México, leading a number of strikes in 1934. The CGOCM and the Mexican Communist Party
(PCM) rallied to support President Cárdenas when he called on unions for support in resisting a threat of coup by former president Plutarco Elías Calles
, and in opposing an employers' strike in Monterrey
. Cárdenas also called on the CGT and the CSTDF unions to form a single unified body. The CGOCM then transformed itself into the Confederación de Trabajadores de México in response.
The CTM almost disintegrated at the moment of its formation, however. While Lombardo Toledano was a convinced Stalinist—and the most important representative of the Soviet Union
in México and Latin America after his visit there in 1935—he was never a member of the PCM. At the founding convention of the CTM, the PCM and its industrial unions had been promised the second most powerful position within the CTM secretariat. However when Lombardo Toledano granted that position to Fidel Velázquez, the leftist unions walked out of the convention. They returned under pressure with the excuse of preserving unity and grudgingly assented to Velázquez's election.
, then head of the Communist Party USA
, to accept "unity at all costs". The CTM (along with the CROM and the electrical workers union) formally aligned with the Partido Revolucionario Mexicano (PRM), the predecessor of the PRI, as its "labor sector" in 1938.
As a part of the party in government—and therefore effectively part of the state—the CTM received a number of benefits. The Federal Labor Board, which determined which unions could represent workers and whether strikes were legal, consistently favored the CTM against its rivals. Over time, the CTM also became dependent on the PRM and the State for financial support: the PRM provided CTM with subsidies, while the CTM in return required workers to join the union recognized at their workplace and, by extension, the PRM. The PRM also provided CTM leaders with positions at all levels of government and guaranteed at least one seat in the Mexican Senate for a CTM leader.
During his tenure President Cárdenas took steps to ensure that CTM did not acquire enough power as to be able to become independent of the party. He prohibited the CTM from representing federal civil servants, creating a separate union for them, and also barred the CTM from admitting farmers into its ranks.
Consistent with the Mexican tradition against reelection of leaders, Lombardo Toledano stepped down as general secretary of the CTM at the end of his term. Fidel Velázquez, who in the meantime had built up an extensive political support base as a member of the secretariat, replaced him on February 28, 1941.
In 1946 the CTM joined in forming the newly formed PRI, the successor party of the PRM, becoming once again one of its constituent parts. As the formal division between the PRI and the state was blurred, the boundaries between the CTM and the party and the state likewise became harder to distinguish.
Lombardo Toledano had remained active in the CTM after Fidel Velázquez replaced him. That changed, however, after Lombardo Toledano broke with the PRI in 1947 to form the Partido Popular. The CTM not only refused to endorse the new party, but expelled Lombardo Toledano, his supporters on the CTM's board, and other left-wing unionists. The leadership of the CTM also adjusted its foreign policy to conform to that of President Miguel Alemán
, and withdrew from both the Confederación de Trabajadores de América Latina (a regional organization founded by Lombardo Toledano) and the pro-Soviet World Federation of Trade Unions
. The CTM subsequently affiliated with the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions
, which later became the International Trade Union Confederation
.
New leaders thus imposed were referred to as "charro
s", or "cowboys", after Jesús Díaz de León, the new leader of the railroad workers union in 1948, who was fond of the finery associated with Mexican cowboys. The government coerced the Sindicato de Trabajadores Petroleros de la República Mexicana, the union that represented the oil workers at PEMEX
, to accept Gustavo Roldán Vargas as its new leader in 1949. Likewise, Jesús Carrasco was impossed on the Miners and Metal Workers Union (the SNTMMSRM) in 1950.
These heavy-handed efforts did not always go unopposed: when the government installed Carrasco as the head of the SNTMMSRM, a number of locals bolted from the union to form the National Miners Union. When a strike broke out at the Nueva Rosita coal
mine in 1950, the employer managed to force local businesses to refuse to sell food to the strikers. In the meantime the government declared martial law in the area, arrested the rebel union leaders, seized the union's treasury and prohibited further meetings. The government used similar tactics in 1959 after the nationalization of the rail industry, firing thousands of strikers and sentencing union leaders to more than ten years in prison. The CTM approved these and other measures to isolate or eliminate independent unions and rebel movements within its membership.
The CTM did not hold a monopoly on labor organizing or even the exclusive relationship with the PRI: the CROM and other organizations also had a formal relationship with the PRI through the Congreso de Trabajo (CT). The CMT had, however, the advantage of State sponsorship, which it used to oppose any independent unions and to hold down the demands of its constituent unions at the behest of PRI leadership. The CTM adopted a practice of entering into "protection contracts" --also known as sweetheart deal
s-- where the workers not only had no role in negotiating, but in some cases did not even know such deals existed. Many of these "unions" degenerated into organizations that "sold" contracts to a CTM affiliate as a guarantee against representation by independent unions, but which did not function unions in any meaningful sense.
Velázquez and the CTM opposed every major movement that ran against the status quo
prevalent in the country: in 1968 he verbally attacked the student demonstrators who supported Cuba
and demanded democratic reforms in Mexico, calling them radicals inspired by foreign doctrines. The government went further, killing three hundred students in the Tlatelolco massacre
that same year. Velázquez openly supported the suppression of this movement.
In 1972 the CTM expelled the Sindicato de Trabajadores Electricistas de la República Mexicana (STERM), a union of electrical workers that had demanded union democracy and taken a more militant stance toward employers. When the union did not collapse after pressure from the CTM, the government merged it with another union to form the new Sindicato Único de Trabajadores Electricistas de la República Mexicana (SUTERM). Velázquez intervened in SUTERM's internal affairs to drive out the former leaders of STERM, after which employers blacklisted them and their supporters.
Even then, those workers persisted by organizing rallies of more than 100,000 electrical workers and their supporters and calling a strike against the Federal Electrical Commission
(CFE) on July 16, 1976. The strike was ended by army units and hired thugs who occupied the CFE plants; the army interned hundreds of strikers in San Luis Potosí, San Luis Potosí
, while thugs beat workers and forced them to sign letters supporting the charro leadership of the SUTERM.
Velázquez was the first to demand that Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas
, who organized the Democratic Current within the PRI in 1987, be expelled from the PRI for his campaign for democratization and challenging the entrenched leadership. Velázquez called Cárdenas a violent radical and suggested that he was a communist. Velázquez was also one of the first to condemn the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional
(EZLN) when it started an armed rebellion in Chiapas
in 1994.
Velázquez was also a faithful supporter of the technocrat
current within the PRI, which sought to dismantle the nationalist economic policies of the Mexican Revolution
in order to open México to foreign investment. Velázquez supported technocrat Presidents Miguel de la Madrid
, Carlos Salinas de Gortari, and Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon as they privatized state-owned enterprises (formerly a bastion of power for the CTM) as part of the structural adjustment
plans imposed by the International Monetary Fund
. During those years the minimum wage in real terms fell by nearly 70 percent. Velázquez also supported passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement
in 1993 after initially denouncing it as a disaster for workers of all three countries.
Even so, Velázquez's power within the PRI slipped in the 1990s as his own health declined. While in the past every President of Mexico consulted Velázquez before picking his successor, Velázquez was not consulted in the selection of Luis Donaldo Colosio
as the PRI's presidential candidate in 1994. Even after Colosio's assassination Velázquez was only told that Ernesto Zedillo was the new Presidential candidate a few minutes before the formal announcement.
Velázquez called off the traditional May Day
rallies in 1995, threatening those who disobeyed with fines or expulsion, in order to avoid the possibility of embarrassing displays of opposition to the CTM and the PRI. Instead of a May Day march in 1996 a group set up a mock funeral for Velázquez in retaliation.
The real funeral, attended by the entire Mexican political elite, came a year later in 1997. President Zedillo said in his eulogy
that "Don Fidel knew how to reconcile the special interests of workers with the greater interest of the nation."
Velázquez's interim successor, Blas Chumacero
, died three weeks after Velázquez, aged 92. He was succeeded in turn by Leonardo Rodríguez Alcaine
, aged 76.
Although the CTM remained the largest and best established union within Mexico, it was not the only one. In the 1990s it faced growing challenges to its power from the National Union of Workers
(UNT), a federation of independent unions established in November 1997; the Authentic Labor Front
(FAT), a union within the UNT, managed to win representation rights within the restrictive procedures provided under Mexican law
.
The CTM's unions also faced challenges from within: dissenting members of the SUTERM challenged Alcaine's leadership, as also did members of the Petroleum Workers Union.
party, the National Action Party
(PAN), had historically favored company unions over CTM affiliates, Fox continued to work with the conservative leadership of the CTM after taking office in 2000. His administration took the side of the Confederación Revolucionaria de Obreros y Campesinos
(CROC), a union with a corrupt history at odds with its flamboyant name, against an independent union attempting to organize workers at Duro Bag Company in Tamaulipas
. Fox's Secretary of Labor, Carlos Abascal
, has repeatedly praised the CTM, while Alcaine pledged support for Fox's government.
Some CTM leaders have also supported Abascal's proposals for labor law reform: these are intended to tighten government control on union formation and grant employers new powers to make decisions without consulting the union, all while preserving the secretive and complex system that allows the government to marginalize independent unions in favor or those acceptable to the party in power or to business interests. Others within the CTM have opposed any changes in the law, calling for it to be enforced instead.
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
s in Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
. For many years it was one of the essential pillars of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional
Institutional Revolutionary Party
The Institutional Revolutionary Party is a Mexican political party that held power in the country—under a succession of names—for more than 70 years. The PRI is a member of the Socialist International, as is the rival Party of the Democratic Revolution , making Mexico one of the few...
(the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI), which ruled Mexico for more than seventy years. However, the CTM began to lose influence within the PRI structure in the late 1980s, as technocrats
Technocracy (bureaucratic)
Technocracy is a form of government where technical experts are in control of decision making in their respective fields. Economists, engineers, scientists, health professionals, and those who have knowledge, expertise or skills would compose the governing body...
increasingly held power within the party. Eventually the union found itself forced to deal with a new party in power after the PRI lost the 2000 general election, an event which drastically reduced the CTM's influence in Mexican politics.
Over the years the CTM has also lost much of its power within the workplace, increasingly being more agreeable to employers' moves aimed to increase productivity. Workers have usually received little benefit from these agreements, as real wages have generally fallen over the past several decades. Moreover, the CTM has become increasingly corrupt and conservative over the years, often serving to impede workers' efforts to organize independent unions.
Founding the CTM
President of Mexico
The President of the United Mexican States is the head of state and government of Mexico. Under the Constitution, the president is also the Supreme Commander of the Mexican armed forces...
Lázaro Cárdenas del Río. Cárdenas' predecessors had relied heavily on the Confederación Regional Obrera Mexicana
Regional Confederation of Mexican Workers
The Confederación Regional Obrera Mexicana is a federation of labor unions in Mexico....
, or "CROM", in order to garner support from the working class. However, this support was withdrawn after the assassination of President Álvaro Obregón
Álvaro Obregón
General Álvaro Obregón Salido was the President of Mexico from 1920 to 1924. He was assassinated in 1928, shortly after winning election to another presidential term....
in 1928. Once this happened the CROM began to fragment as unions and their leaders defected from the organization.
One of the most important leaders who left CROM was Vicente Lombardo Toledano
Vicente Lombardo Toledano
Vicente Lombardo Toledano was one of the foremost Mexican labor leaders of the 20th century. He founded the Confederation of Mexican Workers , the national labor federation most closely associated with the ruling party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party , for most of the last sixty-five years...
, a Marxist intellectual who later developed close ties with the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. Lombardo Toledano formed his own federation of disaffected CROM members, which he called the "Purified CROM".
He later formed an alliance with Fidel Velázquez Sánchez
Fidel Velázquez Sánchez
Fidel Velázquez Sánchez was the preeminent Mexican union leader of the 20th century. In 1936 he was one of the original founders, along with Vicente Lombardo Toledano, of the Confederation of Mexican Workers , the national labor federation most closely associated with the ruling party, the...
, the leader of the Confederación Sindical de Trabajadores del Distrito Federal (CSTDF), and with the leaders of the Confederación General de Trabajadores
General Confederation of Workers (Mexico)
The Confederación General de Trabajadores is a federation of labor unions in Mexico. It was founded in February 1921 by anarchists, syndicalists and others on the far left who opposed the more moderate, pro-government Confederación Regional Obrera Mexicana...
(CGT). Once these alliances were consolidated they founded the Confederación General de Obreros y Campesinos de México (CGOCM) on June 28, 1933.
The CGOCM became the most important union body in México, leading a number of strikes in 1934. The CGOCM and the Mexican Communist Party
Mexican Communist Party
The Mexican Communist Party was a communist party in Mexico. It was founded in 1911 as the Socialist Workers' Party by Manabendra Nath Roy, a left-wing Indian intellectual. The PSO changed its name to the Mexican Communist Party in November 1919 following the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia...
(PCM) rallied to support President Cárdenas when he called on unions for support in resisting a threat of coup by former president Plutarco Elías Calles
Plutarco Elías Calles
Plutarco Elías Calles was a Mexican general and politician. He was president of Mexico from 1924 to 1928, but he continued to be the de facto ruler from 1928–1935, a period known as the maximato...
, and in opposing an employers' strike in Monterrey
Monterrey
Monterrey , is the capital city of the northeastern state of Nuevo León in the country of Mexico. The city is anchor to the third-largest metropolitan area in Mexico and is ranked as the ninth-largest city in the nation. Monterrey serves as a commercial center in the north of the country and is the...
. Cárdenas also called on the CGT and the CSTDF unions to form a single unified body. The CGOCM then transformed itself into the Confederación de Trabajadores de México in response.
The CTM almost disintegrated at the moment of its formation, however. While Lombardo Toledano was a convinced Stalinist—and the most important representative of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
in México and Latin America after his visit there in 1935—he was never a member of the PCM. At the founding convention of the CTM, the PCM and its industrial unions had been promised the second most powerful position within the CTM secretariat. However when Lombardo Toledano granted that position to Fidel Velázquez, the leftist unions walked out of the convention. They returned under pressure with the excuse of preserving unity and grudgingly assented to Velázquez's election.
Integration in the PRM
The PCM and its unions almost walked out of the CTM a second time in 1937. They returned at the urging of Earl BrowderEarl Browder
Earl Russell Browder was an American communist and General Secretary of the Communist Party USA from 1934 to 1945. He was expelled from the party in 1946.- Early years :...
, then head of the Communist Party USA
Communist Party USA
The Communist Party USA is a Marxist political party in the United States, established in 1919. It has a long, complex history that is closely related to the histories of similar communist parties worldwide and the U.S. labor movement....
, to accept "unity at all costs". The CTM (along with the CROM and the electrical workers union) formally aligned with the Partido Revolucionario Mexicano (PRM), the predecessor of the PRI, as its "labor sector" in 1938.
As a part of the party in government—and therefore effectively part of the state—the CTM received a number of benefits. The Federal Labor Board, which determined which unions could represent workers and whether strikes were legal, consistently favored the CTM against its rivals. Over time, the CTM also became dependent on the PRM and the State for financial support: the PRM provided CTM with subsidies, while the CTM in return required workers to join the union recognized at their workplace and, by extension, the PRM. The PRM also provided CTM leaders with positions at all levels of government and guaranteed at least one seat in the Mexican Senate for a CTM leader.
During his tenure President Cárdenas took steps to ensure that CTM did not acquire enough power as to be able to become independent of the party. He prohibited the CTM from representing federal civil servants, creating a separate union for them, and also barred the CTM from admitting farmers into its ranks.
Change in leadership
In 1946 the CTM joined in forming the newly formed PRI, the successor party of the PRM, becoming once again one of its constituent parts. As the formal division between the PRI and the state was blurred, the boundaries between the CTM and the party and the state likewise became harder to distinguish.
Lombardo Toledano had remained active in the CTM after Fidel Velázquez replaced him. That changed, however, after Lombardo Toledano broke with the PRI in 1947 to form the Partido Popular. The CTM not only refused to endorse the new party, but expelled Lombardo Toledano, his supporters on the CTM's board, and other left-wing unionists. The leadership of the CTM also adjusted its foreign policy to conform to that of President Miguel Alemán
Miguel Alemán Valdés
Miguel Alemán Valdés served as the President of Mexico from 1946 to 1952.-Life:Alemán was born in Sayula in the state of Veracruz as the son of General Miguel Alemán González and Tomasa Valdés Ledezma...
, and withdrew from both the Confederación de Trabajadores de América Latina (a regional organization founded by Lombardo Toledano) and the pro-Soviet World Federation of Trade Unions
World Federation of Trade Unions
The World Federation of Trade Unions was established in 1945 to replace the International Federation of Trade Unions. Its mission was to bring together trade unions across the world in a single international organization, much like the United Nations...
. The CTM subsequently affiliated with the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions
International Confederation of Free Trade Unions
The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions was an international trade union. It came into being on 7 December 1949 following a split within the World Federation of Trade Unions , and was dissolved on 31 October 2006 when it merged with the World Confederation of Labour to form the...
, which later became the International Trade Union Confederation
International Trade Union Confederation
The International Trade Union Confederation is the world's largest trade union federation. It was formed on November 1, 2006 out of the merger of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions and the World Confederation of Labour...
.
Remaking Mexican labor
The CTM then proceeded, with the implicit help of the State, to eliminate independent union leaders in industrial unions such as miners, oil and railroad workers. The state exercised its authority to oust uncooperative union leaders, either by removing them directly or manipulating internal union elections. The CTM concurred, leading some observers to joke that the CTM now meant se teme ("to be feared").New leaders thus imposed were referred to as "charro
Charro (Mexican politics)
In Mexican politics and labor, a charro or líder charro is a government-appointed union boss.Mexico has a long tradition of government control and cooptation of unions and their leaders...
s", or "cowboys", after Jesús Díaz de León, the new leader of the railroad workers union in 1948, who was fond of the finery associated with Mexican cowboys. The government coerced the Sindicato de Trabajadores Petroleros de la República Mexicana, the union that represented the oil workers at PEMEX
Pemex
Petróleos Mexicanos or Pemex is a Mexican state-owned petroleum company. As of 2010, with a total asset worth of $415.75 billion, it is the second non-publicly listed largest company in the world by total market value, and Latin America's second largest enterprise by annual revenue as of 2009...
, to accept Gustavo Roldán Vargas as its new leader in 1949. Likewise, Jesús Carrasco was impossed on the Miners and Metal Workers Union (the SNTMMSRM) in 1950.
These heavy-handed efforts did not always go unopposed: when the government installed Carrasco as the head of the SNTMMSRM, a number of locals bolted from the union to form the National Miners Union. When a strike broke out at the Nueva Rosita coal
Coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...
mine in 1950, the employer managed to force local businesses to refuse to sell food to the strikers. In the meantime the government declared martial law in the area, arrested the rebel union leaders, seized the union's treasury and prohibited further meetings. The government used similar tactics in 1959 after the nationalization of the rail industry, firing thousands of strikers and sentencing union leaders to more than ten years in prison. The CTM approved these and other measures to isolate or eliminate independent unions and rebel movements within its membership.
The CTM did not hold a monopoly on labor organizing or even the exclusive relationship with the PRI: the CROM and other organizations also had a formal relationship with the PRI through the Congreso de Trabajo (CT). The CMT had, however, the advantage of State sponsorship, which it used to oppose any independent unions and to hold down the demands of its constituent unions at the behest of PRI leadership. The CTM adopted a practice of entering into "protection contracts" --also known as sweetheart deal
Sweetheart deal
The term sweetheart deal or sweetheart contract is used to describe an abnormally favorable contractual arrangement. A golden parachute is an example of a type of sweetheart deal...
s-- where the workers not only had no role in negotiating, but in some cases did not even know such deals existed. Many of these "unions" degenerated into organizations that "sold" contracts to a CTM affiliate as a guarantee against representation by independent unions, but which did not function unions in any meaningful sense.
The "age of dinosaurs"
Those PRI leaders who stayed within the circle of power acquired the derogative nickname of "dinosaurs". Fidel Velázquez was the longest-lived of them all and one of the most conservative as well.Velázquez and the CTM opposed every major movement that ran against the status quo
Status quo
Statu quo, a commonly used form of the original Latin "statu quo" – literally "the state in which" – is a Latin term meaning the current or existing state of affairs. To maintain the status quo is to keep the things the way they presently are...
prevalent in the country: in 1968 he verbally attacked the student demonstrators who supported Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
and demanded democratic reforms in Mexico, calling them radicals inspired by foreign doctrines. The government went further, killing three hundred students in the Tlatelolco massacre
Tlatelolco massacre
The Tlatelolco massacre, also known as The Night of Tlatelolco , was a government massacre of student and civilian protesters and bystanders that took place during the afternoon and night of October 2, 1968, in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas in the Tlatelolco section of Mexico City...
that same year. Velázquez openly supported the suppression of this movement.
In 1972 the CTM expelled the Sindicato de Trabajadores Electricistas de la República Mexicana (STERM), a union of electrical workers that had demanded union democracy and taken a more militant stance toward employers. When the union did not collapse after pressure from the CTM, the government merged it with another union to form the new Sindicato Único de Trabajadores Electricistas de la República Mexicana (SUTERM). Velázquez intervened in SUTERM's internal affairs to drive out the former leaders of STERM, after which employers blacklisted them and their supporters.
Even then, those workers persisted by organizing rallies of more than 100,000 electrical workers and their supporters and calling a strike against the Federal Electrical Commission
Comisión Federal de Electricidad
The Comisión Federal de Electricidad is the Mexican state-owned electric widely known as CFE. It is the dominant electric company and the second most powerful state-owned company in Mexico after Pemex. The Mexican constitution states that the government is responsible for the control and...
(CFE) on July 16, 1976. The strike was ended by army units and hired thugs who occupied the CFE plants; the army interned hundreds of strikers in San Luis Potosí, San Luis Potosí
San Luis Potosí, San Luis Potosí
San Luis Potosí, commonly called SLP or simply San Luis, is the capital of, and most populous city in the Mexican state of the same name. The city lies at an elevation of 1,850 meters...
, while thugs beat workers and forced them to sign letters supporting the charro leadership of the SUTERM.
Velázquez was the first to demand that Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas
Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas
Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas Solórzano is a prominent Mexican politician. He was a former Head of Government of the Federal District and a founder of the Party of the Democratic Revolution .-Biography:...
, who organized the Democratic Current within the PRI in 1987, be expelled from the PRI for his campaign for democratization and challenging the entrenched leadership. Velázquez called Cárdenas a violent radical and suggested that he was a communist. Velázquez was also one of the first to condemn the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional
Zapatista Army of National Liberation
The Zapatista Army of National Liberation is a revolutionary leftist group based in Chiapas, the southernmost state of Mexico....
(EZLN) when it started an armed rebellion in Chiapas
Chiapas
Chiapas officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Chiapas is one of the 31 states that, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 118 municipalities and its capital city is Tuxtla Gutierrez. Other important cites in Chiapas include San Cristóbal de las...
in 1994.
Velázquez was also a faithful supporter of the technocrat
Technocracy (bureaucratic)
Technocracy is a form of government where technical experts are in control of decision making in their respective fields. Economists, engineers, scientists, health professionals, and those who have knowledge, expertise or skills would compose the governing body...
current within the PRI, which sought to dismantle the nationalist economic policies of the Mexican Revolution
Mexican Revolution
The Mexican Revolution was a major armed struggle that started in 1910, with an uprising led by Francisco I. Madero against longtime autocrat Porfirio Díaz. The Revolution was characterized by several socialist, liberal, anarchist, populist, and agrarianist movements. Over time the Revolution...
in order to open México to foreign investment. Velázquez supported technocrat Presidents Miguel de la Madrid
Miguel de la Madrid
Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado is a Mexican politician affiliated to the Institutional Revolutionary Party who served as President of Mexico from 1982 to 1988.-Biography:...
, Carlos Salinas de Gortari, and Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon as they privatized state-owned enterprises (formerly a bastion of power for the CTM) as part of the structural adjustment
Structural adjustment
Structural adjustments are the policies implemented by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in developing countries. These policy changes are conditions for getting new loans from the International Monetary Fund or World Bank, or for obtaining lower interest rates on existing loans...
plans imposed by the International Monetary Fund
International Monetary Fund
The International Monetary Fund is an organization of 187 countries, working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world...
. During those years the minimum wage in real terms fell by nearly 70 percent. Velázquez also supported passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement
North American Free Trade Agreement
The North American Free Trade Agreement or NAFTA is an agreement signed by the governments of Canada, Mexico, and the United States, creating a trilateral trade bloc in North America. The agreement came into force on January 1, 1994. It superseded the Canada – United States Free Trade Agreement...
in 1993 after initially denouncing it as a disaster for workers of all three countries.
Even so, Velázquez's power within the PRI slipped in the 1990s as his own health declined. While in the past every President of Mexico consulted Velázquez before picking his successor, Velázquez was not consulted in the selection of Luis Donaldo Colosio
Luis Donaldo Colosio
Luis Donaldo Colosio Murrieta was a Mexican politician, and PRI presidential candidate, who was assassinated at a campaign rally in Tijuana during the Mexican Presidential campaign of 1994.-Political history:...
as the PRI's presidential candidate in 1994. Even after Colosio's assassination Velázquez was only told that Ernesto Zedillo was the new Presidential candidate a few minutes before the formal announcement.
Velázquez called off the traditional May Day
May Day
May Day on May 1 is an ancient northern hemisphere spring festival and usually a public holiday; it is also a traditional spring holiday in many cultures....
rallies in 1995, threatening those who disobeyed with fines or expulsion, in order to avoid the possibility of embarrassing displays of opposition to the CTM and the PRI. Instead of a May Day march in 1996 a group set up a mock funeral for Velázquez in retaliation.
The real funeral, attended by the entire Mexican political elite, came a year later in 1997. President Zedillo said in his eulogy
Eulogy
A eulogy is a speech or writing in praise of a person or thing, especially one recently deceased or retired. Eulogies may be given as part of funeral services. However, some denominations either discourage or do not permit eulogies at services to maintain respect for traditions...
that "Don Fidel knew how to reconcile the special interests of workers with the greater interest of the nation."
Velázquez's interim successor, Blas Chumacero
Blas Chumacero
Blas Chumacero Sánchez was a Mexican trade union leader and interim secretary general of the Confederation of Mexican Workers after Fidel Velásquez' death....
, died three weeks after Velázquez, aged 92. He was succeeded in turn by Leonardo Rodríguez Alcaine
Leonardo Rodríguez Alcaine
Leonardo Rodríguez Alcaine was a Mexican trade union leader and a long-serving legislator of the Institutional Revolutionary Party...
, aged 76.
Challenges from outside and within
Unión Nacional de Trabajadores
The National Workers' Union of Venezuela is a federation of labor unions in Venezuela that was founded in 2003. This union was created by supporters of Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez to challenge the Workers' Confederation of Venezuela , an anti-Chávez union federation that has strong ties with...
(UNT), a federation of independent unions established in November 1997; the Authentic Labor Front
Authentic Labor Front
The Authentic Labor Front is an independent confederation of labor unions in Mexico. It was formed as a progressive "Social Catholic" organization in 1960 in response to the nation's labor strife of 1958-1959. Following the strikes of these years, the Mexican government replaced the leaders of the...
(FAT), a union within the UNT, managed to win representation rights within the restrictive procedures provided under Mexican law
Mexican labor law
Mexican labor law governs the process by which workers in Mexico may organize labor unions, engage in collective bargaining, and strike. Current labor law reflects the historic interrelation between the state and the Confederation of Mexican Workers, the labor confederation officially aligned with...
.
The CTM's unions also faced challenges from within: dissenting members of the SUTERM challenged Alcaine's leadership, as also did members of the Petroleum Workers Union.
The CMT after the PRI era
While President Fox'sVicente Fox
Vicente Fox Quesada is a Mexican former politician who served as President of Mexico from 1 December 2000 to 30 November 2006 and currently serves as co-President of the Centrist Democrat International, an international organization of Christian democratic political parties.Fox was elected...
party, the National Action Party
National Action Party (Mexico)
The National Action Party , is one of the three main political parties in Mexico. The party's political platform is generally considered Centre-Right in the Mexican political spectrum. Since 2000, the President of Mexico has been a member of this party; both houses have PAN pluralities, but the...
(PAN), had historically favored company unions over CTM affiliates, Fox continued to work with the conservative leadership of the CTM after taking office in 2000. His administration took the side of the Confederación Revolucionaria de Obreros y Campesinos
Confederación Revolucionaria de Obreros y Campesinos
The Confederación Revolucionaria de Obreros y Campesinos is a Mexican trade union confederation. It is one of the most important and influential trade unions in the History of Mexico....
(CROC), a union with a corrupt history at odds with its flamboyant name, against an independent union attempting to organize workers at Duro Bag Company in Tamaulipas
Tamaulipas
Tamaulipas officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Tamaulipas is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 43 municipalities and its capital city is Ciudad Victoria. The capital city was named after Guadalupe Victoria, the...
. Fox's Secretary of Labor, Carlos Abascal
Carlos María Abascal Carranza
Carlos María Abascal Carranza was a Mexican lawyer and the Secretary of the Interior in the cabinet of Vicente Fox...
, has repeatedly praised the CTM, while Alcaine pledged support for Fox's government.
Some CTM leaders have also supported Abascal's proposals for labor law reform: these are intended to tighten government control on union formation and grant employers new powers to make decisions without consulting the union, all while preserving the secretive and complex system that allows the government to marginalize independent unions in favor or those acceptable to the party in power or to business interests. Others within the CTM have opposed any changes in the law, calling for it to be enforced instead.
Further reading
- La Botz, Dan, The Crisis in Mexican Labor, New York: Praeger, 1988. ISBN 0-275-92600-1
- La Botz, Dan, Mask of Democracy, Labor Suppression in Mexico Today, Boston : South End Press, 1992. ISBN 0-89608-437-X
- Michael Snodgrass, Deference and Defiance in Monterrey: Workers, Paternalism, and Revolution in Mexico, 1890-1950 (Cambridge University Press, 2003)(ISBN 0-521-81189-9)