[ 23 February 2006: Message edited by: Amy ]

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SAN JUAN DE SABINAS, Mexico (Reuters) - The 65 men trapped by a Mexican coal mine explosion six days ago cannot possibly have survived their ordeal underground and are all dead, mine owners said on Saturday.

The Grupo Mexico company said that while no bodies had yet been found, tests showed there was almost no oxygen inside the mine's shafts and tunnels and no hope of finding survivors from the explosion last Sunday.

"We are moving on to the hard task of the physical recovery of our miners so the families can start their mourning," said Xavier Garcia, a senior executive at Grupo Mexico.

The pre-dawn explosion of methane gas and coal dust tore throughout the Pasta de Conchos mine in Mexico's northern state of Coahuila, trapping the 65 night shift workers, some of them almost 1.5 miles underground.

The blast sent temperatures soaring above 1,100 degrees Fahrenheit (600 degrees Celsius) and filled mine shafts and tunnels with methane and carbon monoxide as well as collapsed rock.

"These conditions made survival impossible," said Garcia, who appeared close to tears.

Relatives who held an emotional vigil at the mine gates since last Sunday wept and hugged each other after being told there was no chance their men would be rescued alive. Red Cross officials treated 10 people suffering from emotional distress.

Some families quickly packed up their things and went home, while others accused company officials of negligence and deceiving the families with talk of possible rescues earlier in the week.

"They tricked us because they knew from the beginning how the mine was," said Aida Farias, whose husband, Elias Valero, was one of the men stranded deep in the mine's tunnels. "They played with us like puppets.

"I'll be here until they give me my husband's body and they have to give it to me," she said.

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This kind of thing was commonplace in the mines on Vancouver Island until UNION was a reality.

Even with the best safety equipment and standards mining is dangerous. But when the coal company starts to cut protection to the workers mining becomes murderous.

My grandfather was an organizer in the mines near Nanaimo. Things were so bad on this Island Big Bill Heywood wouldn't come to give a speech, he was afraid he'd never get off the rock alive. He was probably right!

About thirty years ago a woman made a documentary called "Harlan County USA". I think you can rent it from the NFB, although I'm not sure of that.

Read it and weep.

Yes, four disasters in less than two months... and I'd bet all four were in non union mines with poor safety precautions.

But as someone said, there are replacements desperate for work and willing to run the risks.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, the cheap clothes we get from places like Bangladesh are also paid with the blood of workers (mostly women in this industry). Horrific garment factory fire in Bangladesh.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 3, 2006

Contact: Gerald Fernandez (412) 562-2611; or 412-953-7531

USW Condemns Fox Government’s Suppression of Mexican Miners’ Union as “Naked Aggression”

Demands immediate reinstatement of union’s president, calls for boycott of Mexico as a tourist destination

Pittsburgh – The United Steelworkers (USW) International Executive Board today unanimously condemned Vincente Fox’s government for replacing Napoleon Gomez Urrutia as president of Los Mineros, the National Miners and Metallurgical Union, labeling Fox’s actions “naked aggression” and demanding that he immediately reinstate Gomez and restore his personal assets and those of the union, all of which were frozen by the government.

“The USW views your actions as naked aggression against Los Mineros,” Steelworkers President Leo W. Gerard wrote in a letter to Mexican President Vincente Fox. The letter condemned the Mexican government’s actions as “a blatant attempt to stifle the voice of workers and all progressive unions in Mexico,” coming as they have a short time before the Mexican elections.

Gomez has been a leading voice in opposing changes to Mexican law sought by the Fox regime that would outlaw strikes. He has rallied support among independent unions in opposition to the legislation and is one of a growing number of Mexican leaders openly condemning the negative impacts of NAFTA and so-called free trade policies.

The action came on the heels of a strike by Los Mineros in protest to the decision of the Mexican government to seal the mine owned by Grupo Mexico and prematurely end the rescue efforts to reach 65 miners trapped as a result of a Feb. 19 underground gas explosion.

“These actions by Fox’s government make a mockery of Mexican ‘democracy,’” Gerard said in making public his Executive Board’s resolution. “This kind of blatant suppression of free trade unionism rips away what little pretense remains that the Fox regime is anything but thugs in three piece suits.”

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Read the rest.

(EDIT - posting excerpt with link to full-text on the USW website)

[ 03 March 2006: Message edited by: robbie_dee ]

I would also welcome any updates anyone else can post to this thread.

[ 03 March 2006: Message edited by: robbie_dee ]

The situation is not as clearcut as the Steelworkers press release describes it, starting with the assertion that the union "represented many of the workers killed". In fact, the union represented about a third of them. And, while it is certainly true that the mineworkers union has been critical, it hasn't actually done much over the years, so there are a lot of miners who are also critical of the union.

Fox does not actually have the power to impose a president on a union, but the federal labour department does effectively have the power to recognize the "elected" leaders of unions (as do the equivalent Canadian ministries, I believe); the particular issue here is that Elías Morales Hernández has filed documentation which allegedly demonstrates that he is the rightfully elected leader. This may not be true, and the election may be questionable; in any event, it appears to be convenient for the government to recognize Sr. Morales.

However, it must be noted that Napoleón Gómez Urrutia became secretary-general of the mineworkers union in a very similar manner; he effectively inherited the post in 2000 from his father, Napoleón Gómez Sada (who had been secretary-general for several decades) allegedly also with the connivance of the newly-elected Fox government.

Gómez Urrutia is also mired in a struggle for control of the CT (Congreso de Trabajo), México's equivalent of the CLC.

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Originally posted by robbie_dee:
Just to be clear the statement that Los Mineros represented "many" of the workers killed was my statement, not the steelworkers. And I based that on the earlier posts to this thread to the effect that they represented about 1/3 of those workers - I considered that to be "many."

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Sorry, I thought it came from the Steelworkers.

It is a serious issue, though. Contratistas -- non-union workers -- receive lower wages and no benefits. The mining company pays the Mineworkers Union 50 pesos per week for each contratista, quite a bit in excess of the six pesos per week paid for union members. Companies appear to prefer to pay more to the union rather than to have a fully unionized workforce. Some suggest that the union is also happy with this arrangement.

Most Mexican unions are formally affiliated to the PRI, which was, until its defeat by Vicente Fox, the world record holder in long-lived governing parties in a "democratic" country (ironically, the party's name is Partido Revolucionario Institucional). The PRI has a pretty dodgy history, all in all. (Fox, on the other hand, is just plain awful. Change is not always for the better.)

I think that's probably all beside the point. I had written something else, but I found this press release from FAT, the Frente Auténtico del Trabajo, an independent socialist Mexican union federation which has, since 1991, been associated with the United Electrical Workers and engaged in cross-border organizing in the maquiladora zone. I think they say it better than I did:

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Vicente Fox: ¡ Saca las manos del Sindicato Minero ¡

My translation:

Vicente Fox: Get your hands off the Mining Union!

The tragedy of the 65 mine workers at Pasta de Conchos, Coahuila, starts to give form to yet another offensive of the federal government against the autonomy of the unions and in particular the mining and metallurgical union.

It is beyond doubt that the tragedy is a marriage of the negligence of the authorities, the voracity of the company and the complicity of the local section of the mining union, but far from defining responsibilities and acting accordingly, the goverment of Vicente Fox has found it opportune to stick in its hands, stained with the blood of the victims, in benefit of the company, attempting to get rid of the national representative of the Union, Napoleón Gómez Urrutia.

In the name of transparency, honesty, democracy and the right to unionize, the defence of Napoleón is difficult, but it is the task of the unionized miners to judge their own representatives without the intervention of the federal authorities.

Gómez Urrutia has become the pebble in Vicente Fox's shoe: first he declared himself opposed to the Labour Reform Project of [Labour Minister] Carlos Abascal; then he opposed the imposition of the IVA [Value Added Tax] on worker's loans and the modification of the ISR which would hurt the workers; then he objected to the recognition of the servile Víctor Flores as president of the Labour Congress; months earlier, he sparked and won a strike in defense of the Collective Labour Contract; now he is demanding a complete indemnification of the debts owed to the workers.

The action started by the STPS [Labour Ministry], under the pretext that is was just "taking note" of the change of representation of the union, is a true aggression to unionism since this simple "taking note" represents the legal recognition of the legal representative of the union's interests and of all of its members. Whoever possesses this "note" can show themselves to be the legal representative of the union with all of the powers that the law confers; thus, the action of the government is not candid nor innocent; it is perverse and dangerous since it makes vulnerable the autonomy of any union organization which does not participate in official postures.

The Frente Auténtico del Trabajo rejects the governmental intervention and demands that the government of Vicente Fox gets its dirty hands off the mining union.

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The original can be found on FAT's home page (in Spanish; it's got a big flashing "New" beside it. Watch out: it's an MS-Word document.)

ETA: If anyone is interested in the FAT, there's a book about it (in English) called Allies Across the Border by the late Dale Hathaway, published by South End Press.

[ 03 March 2006: Message edited by: rici ]

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Sorry, I thought it came from the Steelworkers.

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For Immediate Release
March 17, 2006

Philadelphia - The United Steelworkers (USW) union is leading a march of union members and supporters today from the Liberty Bell to the Mexican Consulate in Philadelphia in a show of outrage over the illegal removal of the Mexican Mineworker Union leader Napoleon Gomez by the Mexican government following Gomez’s call for an investigation of the deaths of 65 mineworkers in a tragic accident.

“We are calling on the government of Vicente Fox to restore the democratically elected leader of The National Union of Mine and Metallurgical Workers of the Mexican Republic, the union known as “Los Mineros” by its 250,000 members,” USW Secretary-Treasurer Jim English told the crowd.

“This is a shameful act of naked aggression against the human rights of workers who make their living under the most dire circumstances,” he said. “When the government removed their leader, democracy was trampled. Napoleon Gomez is a formidable advocate for the rights of workers in Mexico. The employers fear Gomez and don’t want any challenges to their endless supply of cheap labor in Mexico. We must challenge the Mexican government’s role in suppressing workers upward mobility.

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[ 17 March 2006: Message edited by: robbie_dee ]