by
Dale A. Hathaway
Professor of Political
Science
Butler University
Prepared for delivery
at the 2001 meeting of
the Latin American Studies Association
Washington DC
September 6-8, 2001
Please do not cite without permission.
This paper’s title is somewhat problematic.
Since the 1960s unions have existed in maquiladoras.
Nowadays unions are even formed before maquilas
open their doors. Thus the issue at hand is not
simply unionizing maquiladoras. Rather it has
to do with securing unions that authentically
represent the interests of their workers and that
have the ability to protect those interests.
I feel it is useful
to face the normative thrust of this paper and
most writings in this field directly. While a
great many contributions masquerade as objective
social science (especially those of grad students
and untenured faculty seeking to gain professional
acceptance) most authors in this field are driven
primarily by normative—let us even say political—motivations.
We seek to advance the political fortunes of workers
facing a system heavily weighted against them.
If we accept this
starting point, then papers might usefully begin
with a statement of political goals, rather than
the standard review of the literature, before
moving on to a resolutely objective effort to
determine how to advance those goals.
Early maquiladora
unions that best represented workers seem to have
been those of northern Tamaulipas under the strong
leadership of Agapito Gonzalez. This judgment
is based simply on the dramatically higher wages
and better working conditions of workers in those
unions compared to those in other regions. However,
in the NAFTA era the leadership of the aging Gonzalez
was first weakened and then destroyed, and most
of the benefits to workers in SJOIM unions were
severely eroded. Quintero shows that other relatively
more authentic unions along the border have also
been replaced or transformed themselves into subordinated
unions that are either “elements of exploitation
and control of workers through a relationship
of unrestricted collaboration with capital”
or more traditional official unions whose acceptance
of government led economic policy is so advanced
that their policies of assuring labor peace and
administering regional economic policy amount
to virtually the same thing. Both of these types
of unions have as their primary goal gaining or
maintaining contracts to administer for the personal
benefit of union leaders, their union bureaucracies,
or both. Representation of their workers’
interests would frequently conflict with this
primary motivation.
This distinction
between subordinated unions and authentic unions
is essential for political clarity. Over 90% of
total collective labor contracts in Mexico are
designed primarily to protect the interests of
the employer. As long as we live in a capitalist
world, authentic unions must be seen as both a
means and a necessary end for those seeking a
just and democratic world.
Current trends
are ominous. Businesses keep moving industrial
and, increasingly, service sector work away from
non-subordinated unions in both the north and
the south. Economic power is increasingly concentrated
in the hands of fewer corporations world-wide.
And the efforts of those few corporations to refashion
the world’s political institutions to serve
their own needs continue despite popular outcries.
What is at stake is enormous. In this case the
old radical criterion applies: those unions that
are not part of the solution are part of the problem.
FAT: The Authentic Labor Front
In the NAFTA era
there have been dozens of spontaneous efforts
of workers to make maquiladora employers address
their concerns. Only a few of these have led to
sustained efforts to form or to transform unions
into democratic organizations authentically representing
the interests of rank-and-file workers. The Frente
Auténtico del Trabajo (FAT) has been involved
either directly or indirectly in most of them.
By examining these experiences this paper hopes
to derive lessons of what has worked and what
has been lacking to achieve authentic unions in
the maquilas.
At its founding
in 1960 the FAT dedicated itself to these principles:
“union liberty, union democracy, independence
from all political parties, autonomy from government
and employers, and the material and spiritual
elevation of the working class.” Since its
break from early church ties the FAT talks less
of “spiritual elevation” and more
of human dignity, a quality eroded by most maquiladoras.
With this slight exception, the FAT’s history
shows that it has been faithful to these principles
for the last 40 years. The unions it supports
in maquiladoras are thus consistent with the normative/political
goals of this paper.
In addition to
these core principles, the FAT has been distinguished
from most Mexican unions by its early and continuing
conviction that profound political change is needed
for workers to be able to achieve their goals.
Thus the FAT has worked as a political and social
movement that has reached both beyond the formal
union sector and across national boundaries since
its early years.
Even before the
signing of NAFTA, the FAT formed alliances across
borders to confront what they foresaw as an intensification
of the exploitation Mexican workers had suffered
since the early 1980s. In 1991 the FAT joined
with the US-based United Electrical Workers (UE)
in a strategic organizing alliance. This led them
to undertake their first maquiladora organizing
drive at General Electric’s CASA plant in
Ciudad Juarez. Since that initial struggle they
have been involved in various capacities with
struggles at Honeywell, Han Young, ITAPSA, Duro,
K&S Mexicano, Kuk Dong, and other on-going
covert efforts which can be discussed here only
in generic terms.
GE in Juarez
The UE was not
only a political soul-mate with the FAT; it also
had objective reasons to want to work with it
in Mexico. Since the early ‘80s, the UE
had lost the jobs of several thousand members
due to plants moving to Mexico, many of them linked
to GE. The organizing drive at GE’s CASA
plant in Juarez showed a number of important,
hard-won successes. This first case will be addressed
in some detail since it exemplifies a number of
issues that come up in later cases.
In 1994, just
after NAFTA took effect, the FAT assigned its
most effective organizer, Benedicto Martinez,
a national leader, to lead the drive. When he
began to ask CASA workers if they wanted to form
a union, they replied with enthusiasm that they
had already begun organizing and would have a
group of 80 of the plant’s 950 workers meet
with him. This was not entirely good news, as
the FAT had found that forming groups larger than
10 workers early in an organizing drive increases
the chances of being discovered by management.
GE did discover
the drive and responded by firing 120 workers.
Firing a worker for union activities is, of course,
against the law. As is common practice, GE tried
to cover its offense by offering severance pay
to the workers who would in turn sign an agreement
ending any further claims. They also threatened
those who refused to sign with trumped up charges
of theft or drug use. Facing this carrot-and-stick
combination, most workers signed. Two who refused
became full-time organizers, paid with funds provided
largely by the UE, but other, very effective potential
leaders had been lost.
The UE also responded
to the firings by organizing a visit of rank-and-file
members from three of its GE plants. This was
the beginning of what has continued to be a very
important tactic: cross-border worker visits.
In this case the workers were shocked to see Mexicans
doing the same work they did for one tenth the
pay and doing it under far worse conditions. GE
responded to the trip by firing six of its CASA
workers for meeting with the delegation. This
outraged UE workers—now back home—who
responded by generating local and national publicity
that stung GE. Thus, a cross-border dialogue was
established with GE resulting in a pledge to rehire
the 6 workers and to engage in no more retaliatory
firings.
With the campaign
now in the open, the FAT was free to engage in
actions at the plant gates. It also did the hard
work of door-to-door visits to nearly every worker.
When the breadth of its support was well established,
the FAT filed a demand for a contract with GE,
the legal alternative being a strike. At this
point the drive moved from the difficulties of
organizing to the difficulties of the political
system. The state labor board launched a series
of procedural delays. Martinez tried to surmount
these by meeting directly with the state’s
political leaders. According to Martinez, a meeting
with the secretary of government (the number two
leader of this PAN-controlled state) finally led
to this frank statement:
Look, this is
not a legal question. It’s a political question.
We know who you are. We know your history of independence.
There is no legal solution for you. We won’t
allow you to organize a maquila. We can’t
risk the jobs. If we did, the business might leave.
Others wouldn’t come. We can’t allow
it.
Following this
meeting the state secretary of labor offered Martinez
a deal. GE had agreed to allow an election to
see if the workers wanted a union. Since this
was not what the law called for—a contract
or a strike—but since it appeared as good
as they might get, Martinez negotiated for the
best conditions possible, including an end to
in-plant indoctrination sessions, no more firings,
and a vote by secret ballot at a neutral site
outside the plant.
GE kept its word
on the secret ballot. This was an important historic
breakthrough, since most labor elections require
workers to declare their preference orally often
in presence of their boss who has threatened to
fire any who vote for change, often in the presence
of paid thugs. However, GE broke its word on all
other conditions. They used a sophisticated psychological
campaign of in-plant indoctrinations, agreed to
all economic demands of the union, and detained
most union leaders in the plant while other workers
were marched out to vote. The FAT lost the election
by a huge margin.
The NAO
This struggle then became the basis for the first
complaint filed with the NAFTA created labor review
board, the NAO in Washington. There it was combined
with a case that the FAT was also involved in,
that of Honeywell in the city of Chihuahua. The
Chihuahua case was one in which a group of workers
in the initial stages of organizing a union with
the FAT were quickly discovered and all fired.
In discussing the case with the UE, the FAT found
out that the Teamsters had contracts with Honeywell
plants that were also losing jobs to Mexico. The
FAT contacted the Teamsters who joined them in
the complaint to the NAO.
These first cases
with the NAO confirmed the fears of many: that
it was not only toothless, but also that it was
not even interested in looking into the reality
of labor conditions in Mexico. In bringing the
FAT and Teamsters together, however, these cases
accomplished what has been the main benefit of
the NAO: facilitating cross-border union contacts
and understanding. Since that first case, the
NAO has improved its willingness to look into
actually labor conditions in all three countries,
but it has still shown itself to be powerless
as a mechanism for enforcing the labor rights
it was supposedly designed to protect. With its
counterparts in Mexico and Canada, the NAO remains
a place for cross-border labor communications,
for documentation of abuses in each of the three
countries, and—when its recommendations
are routinely violated by offending governments—it
helps to clarify the lawless and anti-democratic
nature of transnational corporations and their
captive governments.
New Approaches
After these defeats via the mechanisms of both
Mexican and transnational labor laws, the FAT
and UE changed tactics somewhat. While they had
effectively organized workers within the plant
in Juarez, they had not been able to rally any
support from the broader community there. Additionally,
one of the tactics that GE had used most effectively
against them in their captive meetings was to
remind workers of what they already knew about
most unions in Mexico; that they are corrupt and
more interested in collecting dues than in serving
their members. They decided that before rushing
into another struggle in Juarez, they would open
CETLAC, a worker education center, to improve
their ties with the local community, and to educate
workers about both their rights and about the
history and possibility of authentic, worker-controlled
unions. With the support of the UE and other international
allies, they have been able to hire local organizers
to prepare the basis for more effective work in
the future.
The FAT—which
had not been a strong presence in Chihuahua since
the late 1970’s—chose its next organizing
targets in the center of the country where it
was more firmly established.
There the FAT-UE
Alliance targeted ITAPSA, an automotive brake
factory owned by the auto-parts giant, Echlin,
which was shortly bought out by the even larger
Dana Corp. As part of this effort the FAT and
UE organized the Echlin Workers Alliance, an exciting
breakthrough. This tri-national alliance brought
together 5 additional unions: the Teamsters, Paperworkers,
Unite, the United Steelworkers and the Canadian
Autoworkers. Unfortunately, this new alliance
has not had the staying power to endure the breaking
of a militant California Echlin local, the return
of Hoffa to the Teamsters, and the absorption
of the Paperworkers into the Paper, Allied-Industrial,
Chemical and Energy Workers International Union
(PACE).
The Lessons Learned
Since the advent
of NAFTA the most significant change in the maquiladora
industry has been its spread throughout Mexico.
This trend will likely accelerate as President
Vicente Fox pushes his Puebla-to-Panama plan,
and as manufactures seek workers even more docile
than those on the border, where the profusion
of maquiladoras gives workers a slight advantage.
When conditions become too bad at one place, one
can leave and go to another. This has led to slightly
more generous benefits packages as businesses
try to stem the high cost of frequent employee
turnover (a rare instance of a competitive market
benefiting workers.) The dispersion of maquiladoras
to more rural settings throughout the country
will take away this small benefit to workers and
make it even harder to organize unions.
The FAT’s
efforts beginning at GE and continuing to the
present offer a number of apparent lessons about
tactics and conditions necessary for effective
organization of unions in maquiladoras. They are
based on my direct studies of these cases and
the Mexican labor environment as well as conversations
held with FAT organizers and allies in the summer
of 2001. I have broken these lessons into two
groups, the necessary-but-not-sufficient group
and the necessary-and-hopefully-sufficient group.
Necessary-but-not-sufficient
Clandestine organizing
As already demonstrated in the cases above, employers
in Mexico frequently respond to union organizing
by firing any workers suspected of being involved.
Thus, it is extremely important to accomplish
as much initial organization as possible bajo
el agua, clandestinely. Meeting in small groups
only is important so that if one group is discovered
an informer within the group will not be able
to share much information, and only a fraction
of those involved can be fired at once.
This needs to
be understood well by international allies supporting
organizing drives. FAT organizer Jorge Robles
assisted the Teamsters in an attempt to organize
apple pickers and packers in Washington State.
(NAO #9802) He was surprised to find that the
Teamsters asked all newly organized workers to
wear Teamster tee shirts or hats on the job as
a way of spreading the movement. (Mexican workers
afraid of deportation did not take this suggestion
readily.) FAT’s efforts to organize a union
at the ITAPSA brake plant were complicated by
a US union leader in the Echlin Workers’
Alliance who defiantly informed his boss that
his union was helping to organize workers at ITAPSA.
Up until that point, workers had formed small
groups that were spreading the message through
most parts of the plant in all three shifts. After
the whistle was inadvertently blown by the US
supporter, ITAPSA fired several workers who looked
like natural leaders.
Local ties
Nowhere in Mexico is it difficult to find a majority
of maquiladora workers who are ready to complain
about their oppressive work conditions and their
miserably low wages. Thus, organizing opportunities
are everywhere. What is difficult for organizers
is winning the confidence of workers. Workers
are quite aware of the fact that trying to organize
a union may cost them their job. Workers are also
aware that most unions in Mexico are corrupt and
only rarely serve their worker-members.
Since most maquiladoras
have been along the northern border this has raised
an additional problem for the FAT which is currently
strongest in central Mexico. In the 1960s and
‘70s the FAT was an important force in the
capital city of Chihuahua. It has never had a
strong presence in other border states. So when
workers along the frontier do seek to organize
they often turn to the traditional corporatist
unions, the CTM, CROC, and CROM which are most
available to them. This rarely solves their problems.
Workers that know they want to avoid these unions
sometimes try to organize on their own or simply
engage in sporadic wildcat strikes. Due to the
forces arrayed against them, these efforts rarely
endure. Occasionally a group of workers seeking
help is encouraged to call on the FAT due to its
history of integrity and its decades of experience
in helping workers organize authentic unions.
The FAT was called
in to help workers organize at Han Young in Tijuana.
An organizer flew to Tijuana every week or two
with surprisingly good results. Against tremendous
opposition the workers were able to both hold
and to win an election establishing the legitimacy
of their independent union. In fact, they won
a series of such elections. However, ties with
the FAT eventually broke down. Partisans of authentic
unions are left with an empty victory: a tightly
organized union with its own independent registry,
but no contract, no work, and solidaristic ties
in a shambles.
Two main factors
led to the breakdown. When the union won its second
election it was granted its registration as a
union affiliated with the FAT’s metal workers
union, STIMAHCS. But they were also given something
they had neither voted for nor asked for: a state
chartered union independent of the FAT with the
legal power to organize in any industry. Local
leaders gladly accepted this Trojan horse and
broke with the FAT. While the FAT has its own
explanation for the break, local workers say they
did not want to be controlled by Mexico City,
that they did not want to rely on people who flew
in on airplanes rather than living amongst them.
Other observers
in Tijuana as well as observers at the Duro Bag
plant in Rio Bravo say this is a general problem.
People on the border generally do not trust people
from Mexico City. The border has its own culture,
and resentment against the capital is an important
part of it.
The FAT’s
establishment of CETLAC in Cd. Juarez, its decision
to staff it with local people, and its willingness
to settle in for the long run there is a realistic
response to this very real problem. It is already
beginning to bear fruit.
CETLAC has been
spreading the word of its presence throughout
Juarez through actions like the innocuous looking
“First Aid for Workers” brochure it
gives out at plant gates. When workers open it
up they find information about their legal rights
as well as the phone number and address of CETLAC.
CETLAC also offers worker education classes at
its office, and it has established strong ties
with local NGOs concerned with human rights, the
environment, and women’s issues.
Workers who have
been in contact with CETLAC have won control of
a union’s executive committee without declaring
any ties to FAT. Due to government policy it has
been difficult for them to raise wages significantly,
but they have greatly improved benefits, and they
have established effective grievance and safety
committees which have been able to make real gains
in working conditions. While this clandestine
model has its limits, it is certainly worth replicating
while building strength and continuing to work
for improved government labor policies.
To have success
establishing authentic unions along the border
will require a commitment to establishing a locally
based, long-term presence in several border cities.
Such a proposal has been floated recently by the
AFL-CIO. Its details remain to be seen.
Worker Education
One of the historical strengths of the FAT’s
organizing style is its commitment to worker education.
It has found that workers need to be educated
about their legal rights if they are to overcome
their learned deference to abusive employers.
A sense of the existence—both historically
and in the present—of independent worker-controlled
unions that have made gains from their employers,
from the government, and in terms of their own
sense of human dignity, give workers a new sense
of themselves and helps to overcome their sense
of isolation. Instruction in how to run a democratic
union helps them to break ties to existing corrupt
unions, and it helps them avoid falling into despotic
patterns in any new organization they create.
Finally, a sense of solidarity with other workers
in their region, throughout the country, and world-wide
are essential if a newly established union is
to be a part of a growing union movement rather
than simply a vehicle for the advancement of its
own members.
Secret ballot
While the FAT won an apparent procedural victory
in the GE struggle, the use of secret ballots
to determine if a new union can be established
remains extremely rare.
The ITAPSA case
is a good illustration of the abuses that happen
without the requirement of a secret vote in a
neutral cite. An election to see if the FAT or
the company-favored CTM would represent the workers
was held on September 9, 1997. In the middle of
the night two busloads of young men armed with
pipes, clubs, knives, and some with guns drove
into the plant and unloaded. The night shift,
which usually leaves at 6 a.m., was not allowed
to go home. The day shift arrived to see banners
hanging over the factory saying, "Get out
foreign unions! Get out FAT!" They were also
greeted by the young thugs reminding them that
if they valued their jobs and their lives they
had better vote for the CTM.
Nineteen recently
fired workers who had come to exercise their legal
right to vote in the election were not allowed
to enter. One worker who dared to voice his support
for the FAT within the plant was beaten in front
of other workers and in front of labor board officials
who refused to intervene.
Late in the day,
when the night shift arrived, the election began.
The third shift and the day shift were now being
held against their will by armed guards. Workers
proceeded to the voting table through a gauntlet
of armed thugs, reminding them how to vote. Workers
had to declare their choice openly before management,
union representatives, and labor board officials.
Under these conditions only 15% of the workers
dared to vote for the FAT.
This case was
appealed to the NAFTA labor board (NAO #9703.)
Pressure was brought to bear and the Mexican government
agreed that future elections would use secret
ballots. After his election but before taking
office, Vicente Fox agreed to a number of important
labor reforms including the use of secret ballot
elections. Despite these agreements, when the
workers at Duro bag demanded a secret ballot in
a neutral site—just months into the new
Fox administration—they were turned down.
They also faced armed golpeadores (literally:
beaters) who exercised control over the election
proceedings held within the plant.
More encouraging
news on this front comes from Mexico City where
the president of the local labor board (JLCA)
has announced that all elections held under his
jurisdiction will be by secret ballot and conducted
in a neutral setting. The FAT, the UNT, and international
allies have all commended this action and reminded
Fox that he needs to keep his word and do the
same thing nation-wide. Fox did not respond.
International
solidarity
It is obvious that victories against a system
of globalized exploitation can not be won by any
one nation’s workers in isolation from workers
world wide. Workers within the US that have strong
unions have shown themselves capable of maintaining
good wages and working conditions—until
their jobs are moved abroad. Workers in countries
like Mexico that are attracting those jobs on
the basis of low-cost, controlled labor cannot,
by themselves, convince their governments to change
their policies. If the workers of Mexico were
able to change their country’s policies
unilaterally, jobs would flow to Central America
and Asia.
Yet workers united
across borders have been able to win at least
some tactical victories. These eventually must
be followed by long-term changes in the structure
of the global economy. These early victories are
worth celebrating, but clearly they must be built
upon.
Tactical Victories
? By putting pressure
on GE within the US, members of the United Electrical
Workers were able to get six fired workers rehired
and helped win the agreement for a secret ballot
election.
? In the Han Young
case, extremely effective work by a diverse coalition
of unionists, congressional representatives, and
other activists all linked into a steady stream
of information via the internet forced the government
of Baja California to hold an election, and then
to hold another election, eventually leading to
the establishment of an independent union.
? International
cooperation between unions in the Han Young and
the ITAPSA cases led to an NAO ruling that forced
the Mexican government to commit itself to holding
secret ballot elections.
? Pressure from
the United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS)
at the Kuk Dong (Nike contractor) clothing plant
in Puebla is allowing the consolidation of an
independent union and tangibly improved working
conditions. USAS represents a new type of international
pressure. It has organized the consumers within
a specialized market to insist on certain labor
conditions from its suppliers. While this would
be more difficult to repeat in many industries,
it suggests a tactic that could be used by US
and European autoworkers that work with a stream
of inputs from increasingly exploitative suppliers.
? International
exchanges that increase ties between workers from
other countries, such as the worker-to-worker
tours developed by the FAT-UE Alliance, help build
the understanding and the heart-felt commitment
that will be so necessary in the long struggle
ahead.
International solidarity with Mexican workers
began with US and Canadian unions seeking to unionize
plants that had taken jobs form their own members.
When this was motivated by revenge or by a sense
of strategic insurance against more job losses,
it was rarely successful. The FAT has failed to
organize a single runaway UE plant. Benedicto
Martinez of the FAT notes that allies north of
the border are now taking a broader view of the
problem. They have come to see the value of organizing
wherever they can in Mexico. They have come to
see that they are not dealing with a single corporation
but with an entire system that links corporations
to governments. It is that system which must be
confronted.
Yet international
support for unions like the FAT does bring a particular
political problem, especially as financial resources
are transferred, and especially as unions take
a more political approach. The FAT is frequently
derided as a tool of foreign unions who want to
prevent jobs from coming to Mexico. In a country
where nationalism has been an important tool for
controlling workers this can be a significant
problem. Such attacks come from both business
federations and the Mexican government. They must
be denounced for the manipulative hypocrisy that
they are. If these businesses and government officials
had not been so collaborating against the interests
of Mexican workers, there would be little need
for the workers to collaborate internationally.
Resources
Workers in the US, Canada, and Europe have clear
strategic reasons for wanting to see effective
unions organized in Mexico and around the world.
They can do nothing towards this goal without
effective local allies. As an ally the FAT brings
its decades of experience as well as its reputation
of honesty, integrity and a commitment to democratic
unions. However, the dues it collects from its
members are insufficient to do more than to service
their local concerns and their national support
staff. Yet the FAT is often called upon to organize
or to advise workers all over the country. It
relies largely on international support to be
able to do what it does. More support would allow
it to do more.
As we have seen
above, the problem of suspicion raised by its
airborne organizing in Tijuana is being confronted
in Cd. Juarez by its long-term commitment through
the CETLAC workers center. This center is sustained
by international support. To develop centers along
the border would require more resources. Early
in the summer of 2001 AFL-CIO proposed just such
a plan. Yet people question how much control the
AFL-CIO wants in return for its resources, and
they question what its policies would be.
The AFL-CIO watched
the Duro Bag struggle closely. Jeff Hermanson,
the Federation’s point man for Mexico, pointed
out that the CROC had devoted 15 full-time professional
organizers for three months to win that election.
He criticized the independent union forces for
trying to compete with only two organizers with
limited experience. A US-based labor activist
who had traveled to Rio Bravo to observe the election
commented that if that is how he felt, he could
have thrown in a lot of resources early on. Instead
Hermanson was seen walking into Duro Bag on good
terms with the CROC leader who had hired thugs
to assure his victory. This outraged the workers
who had struggled for their rights as well as
both the FAT and international observers present
for the election.
Hermanson did
propose sponsoring a serious labor research center
within Mexico. This is clearly needed. Specifically,
Hermanson believes that Mexican unions need to
professionalize their organizing capabilities,
and here he is putting his money where his mouth
is. He feels that appropriately targeted, internationally
connected research can help build pressure on
employers so unions won’t be so reliant
on a non-cooperative legal system.
Honest, respected,
pro-labor researchers in Mexico were attracted
not only by his offer of scarce resources, but
also by these ideas. However, when he asked them
to work with the same CROC leader who had used
gangster tactics to assure that the company favored
union—his—won the election at Duro,
some staged a rebellion.
The position
of the AFL-CIO has been fairly consistent. They
are in favor of democratic unions, but they will
work with whoever has the contracts with the workers.
In the case of Duro, Hermanson said he was waiting
to see if the CROC union would actually improve
conditions for the workers or not. The FAT and
its allies maintain that if it had the interests
of the workers as its priority it would not have
had to hire golpeadores to win an election. While
it may be helpful to recall that democratically-controlled
unions are not that common within the AFL-CIO,
it is pragmatic to realize that only a commitment
to drastically improving the lives of workers
in Mexico and around the world will save the jobs
of workers in the US. Dealing with company-favored
unions will not help that process.
Necessary and
Hopefully Sufficient:
Political Change
Let us begin
by recalling the comment of the PANista Secretary
of Government in Chihuahua that a democratic union
in the maquiladoras will not be allowed. His rationale
for this policy was that it would lead some companies
to leave and would cause new plants to be located
elsewhere. He was basing his judgment on what
he sees as the international market as it now
exists.
A similar story
can be told about numerous US manufacturing firms
who have claimed they wished they could maintain
employment in the US, yet once all of their competitors
had moved to cheaper labor sources abroad, they
had to follow as well. It was the pressure of
the unrestrained market, they claimed, that made
them do it. Both points are logical up to a point.
Unrestrained
markets can be restrained by policy change. Faced
with pressure brought to bear by the NAO hearings
on ITAPSA and Han Young, the Mexican government
under President Zedillo agreed to use secret ballots
in all future disputed elections. The historic
election of Vicente Fox in 2000 was driven in
large part by the population’s rejection
of the government’s two-decade commitment
to globalization and marketization of the economy.
Not surprisingly, President-elect Fox also agreed
to implement secret union elections as well as
other demands of the mildly progressive UNT. Yet,
as the Duro Bag case makes painfully clear, these
promises were motivated by temporary expediency
rather than indicative of real policy change.
Evidently, the best Fox feels he can do at this
point is to work to improve conditions for Mexicans
working in the bottom rungs of the US economy.
While happy to
see the PRI losing power, few labor analysts expected
any PAN government to be a true friend of labor.
Yet PRD administrations in Mexico City have been
little better. Pro-labor moves under the Cardenas
and the Robles administrations were minimal. There
has been some significant improvement under the
Lopez Obrador administration, most notable the
appointment of a pro-labor president to the local
labor board, the JCLA. Yet Mexico City itself
has only limited foreign industrial-sector investment.
Most TNCs in the area build their plants in the
state of Mexico, beyond the reach of the more
progressive city government.
Just as the north-south
movement of jobs has hurt many US and Canadian
unionists, there are north-south movements both
within and beyond Mexico. The state of Tamaulipas
has long been the site of the best manufacturing
wages along the border, especially within the
city of Matamoros. Yet recent years have seen
the development of new jobs within the state moving
further to the south. The notorious CustomTrim
autoparts plant was located in Valle Hermoso,
an hour south of the AutoTrim plant in Matamoros.
The same corporation later opened another plant—Trimex—still
further south in Ciudad Victoria. Each new plant
offered lower wages than its affiliate just north.
This is just one example of an accelerating move
of manufacturers to locate new plants in more
rural, more southerly, and less unionized parts
of Mexico.
Throughout Mexico,
unionized workers in the maquiladora sector find
themselves facing the same threats faced by unionists
in the US and Canada. If workers don’t give
in to management, their jobs will be shipped south
to Guatemala, El Salvador, China, or Indonesia.
As a series of broken promises show, in the judgment
of both the Fox and Zedillo administrations, pro-labor
reforms would hurt Mexico economically as it competed
for international investment in a world not yet
dominated by labor-friendly governments. Workers
in Guatemala were right to celebrate their victory
at the Phillips-Van Heusan maquiladora, but the
victory was followed by the plant’s closing.
In the long-run, the only way to establish authentic
unions in maquiladoras is to change the international
policy environment in which they operate.
It was no accident
that the first strike wave to sweep the United
States, the great upheaval of 1876, was initially
directed against the railroads. Railroads were
destroying local markets, replacing them with
a vast national market. Striking workers won many
of their local battles because both police and
merchants were loyal to them, not to new distant
corporate interests. Yet as corporations increased
their holds within local communities, they crushed
strikes with increasing effectiveness.
Labor within the
United States won real gains only when they were
able to unite and exercise leverage at the national
level politically. Their real victories came after
strong local organizing and effective strike tactics
combined with their political power. Needing labor
cooperation during World War II, the Roosevelt
administration forced even the most reactionary
corporations to accept unions and to pay decent
wages. When all corporations faced the same legal
requirements in dealing with labor, all could
afford to pay better wages in a newly reshaped
market environment. These gains have been severely
eroded as first the ability and later the need
to invest abroad allowed corporations to break
out of this modified market.
Until workers
are able to force similar requirements respecting
labor rights and adequate minimum wage and safety
requirements into the international market, (and
thus regain them in the US) victories in maquiladoras
will be limited and probably temporary. This does
not mean that any of the necessary-but-not-sufficient
tactics described above should be abandoned. All
should be continued, because the struggle for
workers rights in maquilas and elsewhere is an
essential part of building the movement that is
required to change the world. Yet organizers and
researchers must also have an eye on the larger
picture: building a movement for labor policy
change both within and beyond nations.
Being clear about
this should mean that workers never allow themselves
to be played off against each other when bosses
threaten to move a plant. Increased ties of solidarity
must be built that can help turn even lost battles
into larger victories that help to win the war.
Being clear about this should require that big
unions and big federations like the AFL-CIO engage
in a serious re-evaluation of policies that prefer
contact with existing but corrupt unions over
contacts with more democratic unions that are
struggling to emerge. Far more resources must
be devoted to the effort. Only strong democratic
unions with a clear sense of international solidarity
will be useful allies in the long effort to build
sufficient strength around the world to alter
the rules of the global economy. Unions without
this vision can only be counted on to sell out
the larger movement for the sake of more limited
gains.
Building a decent
union within a single maquila is now an enormously
difficult project. Building an international movement
for workers’ rights will be even harder.
They both must be done.
Bibliography
Alcaldi Justiani,
Arturo. 1999. “Hacia una concertación
laboral transparente y responsable.” Libertad
Sindical. Mexico D.F.: publicado por UNAM, FAT,
AFL-CIO, y Casa Abierto al Tiempo.
Anonymous. 2001.
Phone interview. August 4.
Brecher, Jeremy.
1997. Strike!. Boston: South End Press.
Brody, David.
1969. "The New Deal and the Emergence of
Mass-Production Unionism." Alonzo Hamby (ed.)
The New Deal: Analysis and Reinterpretation. New
York: Longman.
Campaign for Labor
Rights. 1999. “ Justice Denied at Custom
Trim: Government and Company Deny Workers Jobs,”
Mexican Labor News and Analysis. March 16. Available
via www.igc.apc.org/unitedelect/ .
Freeman, Joshua,
et. al. 1992. Who Built America? Working People
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Vol II. NY: Pantheon Books.
Hathaway, Dale.
2000. Allies Across the Border: Mexico’s
Authentic Labor Front and Global Solidarity. South
End Press
Hermanson, Jeff.
2001. Oral interview. Solidarity Center, Mexico
City. June 13.
Martinez, Benedicto.
1996. Oral interview, Mexico D.F.
Martinez, Benedicto. 2001. Oral interview, Mex.D.F.
May 16.
Quintero Ramirez,
Cirila. 1999. “Conflictos Sindicales en
la Maquila de la Frontera Norte.” Espiral:
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Ruby, Jeannie.
1999. “Phillips-Van Heusen closes the only
union plant in Guatemala.” Off Our Backs,
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Williams, Edward
and John Passé-Smith. 1992. The Unionization
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