Mexican Mine Workers Mark Anniversary of Two Killed in Strike

Some 5,000 Los Mineros members and their families rallied in memory of two workers slain while on strike. Credit: Lorraine Clewer

Some 5,000 Los Mineros members and their families rallied in memory of two workers slain while on strike. Credit: Lorraine Clewer

Mario Alberto Castillo and Hector Alvarez Gümez were among 500 members of the National Union of Mine and Metal Workers, known as Los Mineros, who had been on strike for 18 days when 800 police moved in to forcibly remove the strikers. Two men were shot dead and 41 injured, two of them seriously, during the break-up of the strike. No arrests were ever made for the murders.

Dressed in red shirts, some 5,000 Los Mineros members, along with their families, marched to a stone memorial erected in memory of the two men. They were joined by 100 Steelworkers from steel plants throughout District 7 in Indiana and Illinois, a delegation of 10 Unite the Union members from across the United Kingdom and four representatives from Peru representing the mine, metal, steel and energy sectors.

Union members from Peru's mine, metal, steel and energy sectors joined the Los Mineros commemoration. Credit: Lorraine Clewer

Union members from Peru’s mine, metal, steel and energy sectors joined the Los Mineros commemoration. Credit: Lorraine Clewer

Greeting the mineworkers from his exile in Canada, Los Mineros General Secretary Napoleón Gómez Urrutia noted that although the international community recognizes the legitimacy and leadership of Los Mineros, the Mexican government makes it impossible for him to return to Mexico. Mexico’s labor minister has said publicly that he does not recognize Gómez Urrutia‘s leadership of Los Mineros.

Participants in the memorial also condemned the ongoing repression of the Mexican government against Los Mineros and against all independent unions in Mexico, and called for concrete resolutions to violations of workers’ right to freedom of association in Mexico.

The company, Sicartsa, owned by Grupo Vallacero, was sold to ArcelorMittal after the strike. Los Mineros subsequently negotiated a collective bargaining agreement with ArcelorMittal, which included a 42 percent salary increase.

The April 20, 2006, shooting deaths occurred two months after 65 mineworkers, Los Mineros members, were killed in the Pasta de Conchos mine explosion.

Also speaking at the gathering, Lorraine Clewer, Solidarity Center country program director in Mexico, said that the bullets that had killed Mario Alberto Castillo and Hector Alvarez Gomez did not achieve their aim.

“Los Mineros lives on, stronger than ever, and we are certain that soon the international labor movement will be celebrating Napoleon Gómez Urrutia’s triumphant return to Mexico.

Los Mineros Leader Details Mine Tragedy, Exile in New Book

Los Mineros Leader Details Mine Tragedy, Exile in New Book

Solidarity Center
Solidarity Center
Los Mineros Leader Details Mine Tragedy, Exile in New Book
Loading
/

More than seven years after an explosion at Mexico’s Pasta de Conchos mine killed 65 miners, 63 bodies remain buried in the mine, trapped there because the government and the company, Grupo Mexico, ended the search and closed the mine only five days after the mine collapse.

“We felt that the company and the government were more concerned about damage control than rescuing our colleagues,” said Napoleón Gómez Urrutia, general secretary of the National Union of Mine and Metal Workers, known as Los Mineros. Gómez Urrutia spoke at a press conference April 17 to discuss his new book, Collapse of Dignity, The Story of A Mining Tragedy and the Fight Against Greed and Corruption in Mexico, which describes the February 2006 mine disaster and the subsequent attacks on him and Los Mineros. Most of the victims were temporary contractors with no training and insufficient oxygen supplies.

Gómez Urrutia, who had been removed as president of the 250,000-member union by the Mexican government and replaced with a company-backed rival just days before the mine disaster, was repeatedly threatened and ultimately forced into exile in Canada. He has battled ongoing attacks by the Mexican government, which repeatedly accused him of embezzling $55 million in union funds, a charge struck down multiple times by the country’s courts. Last week, Interpol notified Gómez Urrutia that the information used by Mexico to request a “red notice” against him “raised strong doubts concerning its compliance with Interpol’s rules.”  Some 190 countries are members of Interpol, the international police organization, and a “red notice” is akin to an international arrest warrant.

Gómez Urrutia, an outspoken advocate for workers since his election as general secretary in 2002, said the book also offers a “vision of hope for the future.”

“This is a story which brought about stronger international solidarity,” he said. The United Steelworkers, which is helping promote the new book, partnered with Los Mineros in 2005 and in 2011, created a North American Solidarity Alliance to build common organizing and bargaining across North America. Worker rights activists have rallied worldwide in support of Los Mineros, as have organizations such as the International Trade Union Confederation and the International Labor Organization. In 2011, the AFL-CIO gave Gómez Urrutia the George Meany-Lane Kirkland Human Rights Award.

Steelworkers have set a goal of selling 44,000 copies of Collapse of Dignity to bring nationwide attention to the ongoing worker struggles in Mexico. You can purchase individual or bulk copies at the website, www.collapseofdignity.com . Discounts apply to bulk orders of 50 copies or more.

Learn more:

Liberian Union Signs Agreement with Mining Multinational

On Friday, August 31, the United Workers Union of Liberia (UWUL) signed an historic collective bargaining agreement with the largest mining multinational in Liberia.

The agreement—retroactive to April 1, 2012—includes salary increases and improved benefits. It also codifies a system of labor relations at all the multinational’s facilities, setting up avenues for labor-management dialogue in areas such as health and safety, and conflict resolution.

Workers covered by the agreement are located in Nimba County, Monrovia and the port of Buchanan. UWUL Local #4 will represent workers covered under the new agreement. The multinational, which is also the world’s largest steel and mining corporation, was Liberia’s first post-war major mining investor. It began operations in the shuttered facilities of the former Liberian-American-Swedish Minerals Company in 2007.

Although negotiations on the agreement began in November 2011, workers began an organizing drive in 2007. In 2009, they democratically elected leaders at the Nimba, Buchanan and Monrovia worksites.  After the first iron ore shipment was announced in September 2011, workers and company representatives returned to the bargaining table.

Given that a number of other mining companies have set up operations in Liberia in recent years, UWUL hopes this agreement will set a standard for freedom of association and labor-management relations in the Liberian mining sector.

Since 2007 the Solidarity Center and the United Steelworkers (USW) have been working with UWUL’s leaders and shop stewards on the role and duties of shop stewards, and on negotiation strategies.

This agreement comes roughly four years after a groundbreaking collective agreement between Firestone Natural Rubber Liberia and the Firestone Agricultural Workers Union of Liberia (FAWUL). That collective bargaining agreement resulted in several positive changes at the hugely influential rubber farm, including pay increases and an end to child labor.

Mexico: Union Election Results Marred by Irregularities

Attorneys are challenging the results of a July 5 union election at a Canadian-owned silver mine in Durango, Mexico, that a team of international observers says was marred by “serious irregularities.” The Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores Mineros, Metalúrgicos, Siderúrgicos y Similares de la República Mexicana (SNTMMSSRM, known as Los Mineros) lost by a single vote amid a climate of intimidation and ballot discrepancies.

According to a preliminary report, 129 workers at the La Platosa mine, owned by Excellon Resources of Canada, were eligible to vote for one of three unions: “Presidente Adolfo López Mateos” Union of Workers and Employees in Commerce and General, the National Mining and Metallurgic Union “Don Napoleón Gómez Sada” (SNMMDNGS), and Los Mineros.

The official vote count was 45 for Los Mineros, 46 for SNMMDNGS, and 32 for the Adolfo López Mateos union, which currently controls the labor contract at the mine. The latter two unions are widely regarded as company-dominated “protection unions.” There were six challenged ballots.

The team noted that although many election procedures appeared proper, a number of irregularities severely marred the results. Despite a request by Los Mineros to hold the election in a neutral location, it took place on company grounds. On the day of the vote, some 100 men, many armed with sticks, arrived in a convoy of buses, trucks, and cars. Identifying themselves as members of SNMMDNGS, they attempted to block entrance to the mine. “These individuals were quite aggressive in their behavior,” said the report, “surrounding and photographing observer team members when they attempted to talk to workers.” In addition, a large contingent of municipal, state, and federal police with automatic rifles patrolled the mine entrance.

“There must be about two dozen heavily armed state police at the mine site right now,” reported Ben Davis of the United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial & Service Workers International Union (USW), a member of the observer team. USW has long supported Los Mineros.

Other members were Lorraine Clewer, Solidarity Center country program director in Mexico, and representatives of the International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace, and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW), IndustriALL Global Union, Project on Organizing, Development, Education and Research (PODER), Project on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ProDESC), and Labor Justice Center, El Paso.

Workers told the observer team that they had been pressured to vote for one of the two protection unions over the independent Los Mineros. “These practices occurred over a long period of time, as the request to hold an election was filed on October 7, 2011, and the election did not occur until nine months later,” said the report. The workers have been struggling for nearly two years to gain democratic union representation.

“Unfortunately, this flawed electoral process demonstrates once again how Mexican workers are locked into a system that excludes them from having a voice on the job,” said the Solidarity Center’s Clewer. “In a job as dangerous as mining, we see time and again the consequences of this exclusion on the lives and livelihoods of miners and their families.”

Visiting Mine Workers Observe Troubling Conditions in Colombian Coal Mines and Surrounding Communities

In Colombia’s coal mines, troubling health and safety risks combined with serious environmental and social justice issues create conditions reminiscent of mining in the early 20th century in the United States. The dangers mine workers—and local communities—face are real and frightening, say four mining safety and health experts from the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA).

The UMWA experts recently returned from a union exchange to Colombia. They were: Ron Airhart, executive assistant to Secretary-Treasurer Daniel Kane; Tim Baker, assistant to the secretary-treasurer; Ron Bowersox, international safety inspector; and Dale Lydic, president of UMWA Local 2193 in Clymer, PA. In Colombia, they met with their union counterparts, conducted site visits, and held discussions with local community groups and government officials.

“Coal mines are what ours would have been in the 1920s,” said Airhart. “There are no safety standards. There are no mining laws.” Consequently, he explained, mine inspection systems are all but non-existent.

The most obvious health and safety risks for mine workers, UMWA exchange participants said, were exhaustion, spinal fatigue, and lack of dust control. Spinal injuries are common. Long shifts added to multi-hour commutes on rough rural roads cause many mine workers—especially heavy equipment operators—to suffer spinal breakdown.

“You put 20 hours on that backbone up and down with no rest, and you have a lot of spinal injuries,” said Airhart.

Worker exhaustion is of particular concern as fatigue is a known risk factor in workplace accidents and fatalities.

Participants reported that in Colombia, underground and strip coal mines are mostly in remote areas, cordoned off with razor wire and heavily guarded. Workers are not allowed to live inside mine compounds and are transported by bus to and from far-off villages. At the Cerrajón open-pit coal mine, for example, many workers combine a 12-hour shift with an eight- to 10-hour roundtrip bus commute to their villages. With only four to five hours’ rest at home, workers are exhausted.

Cerrajón—which UMWA representatives visited—is considered one of the best mines in the country in terms of hours, wages, and conditions. However, the distinction between mine worker and management is stark. Company personnel live inside a guarded compound and are provided with schools, homes, swimming pools, and a golf course. Workers have no access to company amenities.

Union members said their employer’s response to worker exhaustion is to use technology rather than cut shift hours. This company plans to install lasers to flash into heavy-equipment operators’ eyes when slowed blinking is detected.

Measures to monitor and prevent dust inhalation at open-pit coal mines were observed to be absent or inadequate. UMWA participants said that the levels of dust they personally observed at one large-scale strip mine would cause most workers to develop breathing issues and likely a high percentage of workers would develop black lung disease.

Working for Change

The Colombian union federations Sintramienergética and Sintracarbón represent nearly 10,000 workers in Colombia`s coal mines. Both labor federations are struggling to push reluctant employers to adopt better safety standards and practices, as well as to educate and empower their own members to demand better working conditions.

Members of Sintracarbón told the visiting UMWA representatives that inspections do not always clear up problems. Mine inspectors make site visits by invitation only and are ordered off mine property regularly. Meanwhile, many Colombian mine inspectors are attorneys with knowledge of labor laws but no background in mining.

“My son is an attorney,” said Baker, who visited Colombia in 2008 as part of the same exchange program, “but I sure don’t want him inspecting any of the mines I go into.”

Sintracarbón members reported a few improvements at the Cerrajón mine, many in response to requests following a 2010 exchange in which six Colombian union members attended a program at the Mine Safety and Health Administration Academy in Beckley, West Virginia. Recently Cerrajón hired one resident doctor. In addition, Sintracarbón convinced management to relocate 367 injured workers to light-duty positions while recovering from injuries.

While improvements are welcome, the absence of regulations and third-party enforcement means the changes are not binding.

Data collection on mine health and safety is inadequate. According to a staff member visited by UMWA exchange participants, the Colombian government does not know how many mines operate in the country and so does not collect data on injury rates or deaths in the mining industry.

The ability of Colombian mining unions to negotiate health and safety measures with management is undercut by the fact that large mine operators are replacing permanent workers with contract workers. Contract workers have no work security, no training, no workplace rights, and no collective representation. At Cerrajón, for example, only 4,600 of 11,000 workers are permanent workers.

An Uphill Battle

Apart from health and safety concerns, UMWA participants reported serious environmental and social justice issues.

Community groups reported to UMWA visitors that a multinational mine operator plans to relocate 18 miles of river to access 500 million tons of recoverable coal under their villages. Villagers are afraid of losing their land, livelihoods, and access to clean drinking water.

“We met with seven different community groups, and they told us stories that would just break your heart,” said Airhart. “The coal operators came in the middle of the night, took their village, and just moved the whole town.

The scale and extent of strip coal mining projects in Colombia surprised the UMWA participants, especially given that there are apparently no enforceable requirements for mining companies to return the land to its original condition, they said.

Strip coal mining is trending upward in Colombia. Cerrajón, which currently produces 34 million tons of coal per year, plans to increase production to 60 million tons a year by 2014, according to mine management.

Baker was struck by the difference between coal mining in the United States and in Colombia.

“You see these folks, and you realize that they have a long hard fight to go through,” Baker said. “And the shame of it is, is they’re going to have to fight the same hard fight we had to fight 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago.”

Several follow-up activities will result from the exchange. The UMWA’s medical expert on black lung disease and head of the Black Lung Association will contact Sintracarbón’s medical consultant to exchange information on the illness. UMWA’s administrator of occupational health and safety will research the new sensor devices to determine whether they will cause eye damage. Bowersox plans to provide Cerrejón’s safety director with information on personal dust monitoring devices. Finally, UMWA will work toward bringing more Sintracarbón union members to the Beckley Academy for mine safety training.

The exchange was implemented by the Solidarity Center with funding provided by the U.S. Department of State.

Pin It on Pinterest