Collapse of Dignity (29 page)

Napoleón Gómez and Ken Neumann with Jack Layton, former Leader of the New Democratic Party and the Official Opposition in 2011 at his office in Parliament.

From left to right: Ken Georgetti, President of The Canadian Labour of Congress, CLC; Steve Hunt, Director District 3 United Steelworkers, USW; Ken Neumann, National Director for Canada United Steelwokers, USW; Michel Arsenault, Président of the Fédération des Travailleurs du Québec, FTQ; Jim Sinclair, President of the BC Federation of Labour; and Napoleón Gómez, in Vancouver, BC, during the 2010 Second World Congress of the International Trade Union Confederation, ITUC.

Jyrki Raina, General Secretary of IndustriALL Global Union, and Napoleón Gómez in Montreal, Quebec, 2011.

Napoleón Gómez and Jack Layton, leader of the New Democratic Party, NDP.

Napoleón Gómez addressing over 100,000 workers in El Zócalo, the main square of Mexico City, on Labor Day (May 1, 2003 [top]; 2004 [bottom]).

Second World Congress of the International Trade Union Confederation, ITUC, Vancouver, BC, 2010.

Napoleón Gómez during his exile in Canada.

From left to right: Ken Neumann, National President for Canada of United Steelworkers; Hon. Darrell Dexter, Premier of the Province of Nova Scotia; Jack Layton, Leader of the Opposition; Napoleón Gómez Urrutia; and Gary Doer, Canada's Ambassador to the United States and Former Premier of the Province of Manitoba. National Convention of the NDP in Halifax, Nova Scotia, 2009.

Before leaving Mexico, Napoleón Gómez signed this baseball, promising to return.

Napoleón Gómez writing
Collapse of Dignity
on Vancouver Island.

Javier Lozano Alarcón, in addition to acting as a provocateur, did not know the labor laws or respect the rule of law. He was the worst secretary of labor in Mexico's history. He put his department wholly in the service of the darkest and most reactionary business interests. But worst of all, he tried to sell himself to the Mexican people as a man who respected workers. After Jack Layton, leader of Canada's New Democratic Party, traveled to Mexico and met with Lozano to demand that he cease the government's oppression of Los Mineros and the actions against me, Lozano put out a press release with a wildly inaccurate description of the meeting. Layton had harshly criticized the labor secretary and condemned his actions, but Lozano's press release portrayed Layton and himself as friends, and spun the meeting as a moment of agreement. Lozano cynically claimed he agreed with Layton's positions and that the labor department had been very respectful of union autonomy and freedom of association. Of course it was all lies, intended to do nothing but confuse the Mexican public. The aggression continued as before; bank accounts remained frozen, and Lozano continued to withhold official recognition of me as head of Los Mineros.

This man turned out to be no different from his predecessor, as did the new president. Our hope that things would change after Fox, Salazar, and Abascal left office has withered and died. Disappointed but resolute, Los Mineros prepared to soldier on and fight our way through yet another antiunion, pro-business PAN presidency.

The bureaucracy is a giant machine managed by pygmies.

—
HONORE DE BALZAC

On February 19, 2007—on the first anniversary of the tragedy of the
coal mine of Pasta de Conchos—Humberto Moreira, governor of Coahuila, made a stunning public allegation against the recently supplanted Vicente Fox. In a radio interview with veteran Mexican journalist Jacobo Zabludovsky, Moreira claimed that, a year earlier, President Fox had summoned him to Los Pinos to discuss the aftermath of the mining disaster, in a meeting also attended by Interior Secretary Abascal and Labor Secretary Salazar. Moreira stated that the four of them were in the president's office talking about how best to satisfy the demands of the miners' families when Fox suddenly interrupted to ask the governor whether there was any way he could find a charge to level against Napoleón Gómez, leader of the Miners' Union.