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Democracy on Hold: Mexico's Struggle for Labor Reform
Democracy on Hold" is a brave accounting of the state of the trade union movement in Mexico by Maria Xelhuantzi-Lopez of the Telephone Workers Union of the Mexican Republic, STRM.
The book provides a detailed description of how the trade union movement in Mexico remains controlled to a great extent by "protection unions," which offer no real rights or representation to workers. Its goal, the author writes, is to bring about a serious debate and real reform of labor issues in Mexico.
CWA Executive Vice President Larry Cohen said the book is invaluable in the global fight to win workers' rights and freedom. "In the U.S., corporations use the election process of the National Labor Relations Act to campaign against collective bargaining. In Mexico, managers at these same firms campaign against any right of workers to create their own unions or to engage in free collective bargaining. The end result is the same."
Cohen also praised STRM and its leader Francisco Hernandez Juarez as "he takes risks every day trying to build a new federation in Mexico for independent unions."
"Democracy on Hold" was published in Spanish by STRM, which has been leading the fight to win for workers a true right to organize and bargain. CWA sponsored translation of the book into English and, with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, sponsored a discussion in Washington, D.C., with Juarez on the Mexican labor scene.
In the book, Juarez noted that in the 1970s STRM began "the difficult and complex process of labor and productive struggle" by continuing to insist that productivity, earnings and wealth issues, taken from Mexican unions in decades earlier, were a definite part of the bargaining process.
Joining with five other unions, STRM formed a new union organization - Union of the Federation of Goods and Services Companies - that was to be truly autonomous from government and business and that would attain "some of the best and more evolved collective bargaining agreements that Mexican unionism has ever known."
Xelhuantzi-Lopez sets out to define the term "protection contract" and to explain the hold that system has over working people in Mexico who are striving for the freedoms of association and organization. She interviews workers, union leaders, academics, company lawyers and others to help the reader sort through the history and development of labor law in Mexico.
A protection contract is "an arrangement carried out between a union and an employer behind the backs of the employees" - an arrangement that is meant to benefit the employers, not the workers, she writes.
While some 90 percent of Mexico's 600,000 collective bargaining agreements are protection contracts, a growing number of real unions in Mexico are fighting to transform the labor system, she said.
Real labor unions "are fighting to win back the rights and power which corporatist labor took away from Mexican unions over eight decades ago," she wrote. Regaining these rights and power would enable unionism to not only be a factor in bringing about social justice, but also "to play a complete productive role" in setting public policies that take into account society as a whole, she said.
Xelhuantzi-Lopez noted that those interviewed for the book deserve recognition, because of "their determination and courage to openly talk about an issue that is politically uncomfortable."
The book provides a detailed description of how the trade union movement in Mexico remains controlled to a great extent by "protection unions," which offer no real rights or representation to workers. Its goal, the author writes, is to bring about a serious debate and real reform of labor issues in Mexico.
CWA Executive Vice President Larry Cohen said the book is invaluable in the global fight to win workers' rights and freedom. "In the U.S., corporations use the election process of the National Labor Relations Act to campaign against collective bargaining. In Mexico, managers at these same firms campaign against any right of workers to create their own unions or to engage in free collective bargaining. The end result is the same."
Cohen also praised STRM and its leader Francisco Hernandez Juarez as "he takes risks every day trying to build a new federation in Mexico for independent unions."
"Democracy on Hold" was published in Spanish by STRM, which has been leading the fight to win for workers a true right to organize and bargain. CWA sponsored translation of the book into English and, with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, sponsored a discussion in Washington, D.C., with Juarez on the Mexican labor scene.
In the book, Juarez noted that in the 1970s STRM began "the difficult and complex process of labor and productive struggle" by continuing to insist that productivity, earnings and wealth issues, taken from Mexican unions in decades earlier, were a definite part of the bargaining process.
Joining with five other unions, STRM formed a new union organization - Union of the Federation of Goods and Services Companies - that was to be truly autonomous from government and business and that would attain "some of the best and more evolved collective bargaining agreements that Mexican unionism has ever known."
Xelhuantzi-Lopez sets out to define the term "protection contract" and to explain the hold that system has over working people in Mexico who are striving for the freedoms of association and organization. She interviews workers, union leaders, academics, company lawyers and others to help the reader sort through the history and development of labor law in Mexico.
A protection contract is "an arrangement carried out between a union and an employer behind the backs of the employees" - an arrangement that is meant to benefit the employers, not the workers, she writes.
While some 90 percent of Mexico's 600,000 collective bargaining agreements are protection contracts, a growing number of real unions in Mexico are fighting to transform the labor system, she said.
Real labor unions "are fighting to win back the rights and power which corporatist labor took away from Mexican unions over eight decades ago," she wrote. Regaining these rights and power would enable unionism to not only be a factor in bringing about social justice, but also "to play a complete productive role" in setting public policies that take into account society as a whole, she said.
Xelhuantzi-Lopez noted that those interviewed for the book deserve recognition, because of "their determination and courage to openly talk about an issue that is politically uncomfortable."