Australian Day Action Parliment House

Canberra 

In the early hours of February 19, 2006 a fireball exploded in the bowels of Grupo México’s Pasta de Conchos coal mine in the northern state of Coahuila, triggering cave-ins all along the 2.8 km number eight shaft and trapping 65 miners hundreds of meters below the earth. When 33 miners were trapped underground at the San José mine in August 2010, the Chilean government swung into action and 69 days later all 33 workers were rescued. 

In stark contrast, rescue efforts were stopped after only five days in Mexico, when families were only a few metres away from their trapped loved ones. As Grupo México and the Mexican government halted rescue efforts, disconnecting the electricity making any continuation of the search impossible, they also made it impossible to carry out a proper investigation into the cause of the mine collapse, believed by many to be illegal safety conditions in the mine.

Almost five years later, the bodies of 63 of the 65 miners that died at Pasta de Conchos remain buried and the Mexican government has failed to investigate or prosecute those responsible. Their widows and families have never been properly compensated.

Since 2006 the Mexican government has escalated its illegal and violent attacks on the Mexican Miners’ Union (SNTMMSRM/Los Mineros), the union that demanded justice for the “industrial homicide” at Pasta de Conchos and the recovery of the miners’ bodies.

Since February 2006, the Mexican government has systematically and repeatedly violated Mexican law and international standards in an attempt to crush the Mexican Miners’ Union.

The union’s democratically elected General Secretary has been forced to lead Los Mineros from exile in Canada as the Mexican Government and Grupo México continue a sham legal process against him. Los Mineros union official Juan Linares has been imprisoned since December 2008 with the offer of immediate release in exchange for denouncing his union and general secretary.

The Mexican Miners’ Union is not alone. The few other genuinely independent trade unions seeking to improve the lives of Mexican workers have also found themselves increasingly under fire. In October 2009, President Calderón used an executive decree to dissolve the country’s second largest electrical power distributor and in doing so he also sacked the entire 44,000 workforce, and disbanded their union, the 95 year old Mexican Electrical Workers’ Union (SME).

The oppressors of the 30,000 technical and professional employees of PEMEX, Mexico’s state-owned petroleum company, violently removed from their workplace the entire executive committee of the UNTyPP union after it achieved official trade union recognition on December 19, 2009, following several years of struggle. After this successful legal battle members of the new union were informed by company management that in order to retain their jobs, they would be required to sign two documents, one calling for the cancellation of the union’s registration, the other a resignation from the union. Those who refused, including the entire National Executive Committee of the union along with organizers of the UNTyPP, were fired and violently removed from their workstations by paramilitaries.

The National Union of General Tyre Workers of Mexico (SNTGTM) has faced strong anti-union efforts by Continental Tire, which has worked with the labour authorities to impose a company-dominated union.

Workers at call centers run by Atento (owned by Telefónica) faced violent repression by company goons and police in July when they attempted to kick out the company-imposed union and affiliate to the Mexican Telephone Workers’ Union (STRM).