Collapse of Dignity (48 page)

In response to the onrush of absurd allegations that began with Morales's “mother claim” against me and five others in 2006, we have decided to take the legal road. Neither I nor any of my colleagues committed any crime, and we cannot allow anyone, especially corrupt businessmen and politicians, to quash an organization that represents thousands upon thousands of workers. We may stand in the way of their ambition and greed, but to us, that is no reason to back down.

Yet, six years after the original accusation, the infamous $55 million is still used to slander opponents of the Mexican right wing. During the run up to the presidential election of 2012, opponents of PRD candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador tried to discredit him by claiming that his campaign had been funded in part from the extinguished Mining Trust—a lie, of course.

The slow progress of justice does continue, with the help of our outstanding legal counselors. Marco del Toro has proven himself a legal technician of great ability and incorruptible ethics. He and his team have coordinated ably with the office of our labor attorneys, Nestor de Buen and Carlos de Buen, who have done extraordinary work as well. Their reputation for honesty and skill is richly deserved. Our tax lawyers at the José Contreras y José Juan Janeiro law firm and our civil law specialists, Jesús Hernández and his son Juan Carlos, have been protecting us with their professional skills from rigged audits and other abuses of the Mexican government. The members of our Canadian legal team, too—David, Rick, Tamara, Erick Gottardi, Lorne Waldman, and Ryan Rosenberg—who work mainly on matters related to extradition, have been true defenders of justice and ardent believers in our cause. They are firm in their commitment to not allow the corruption of the Mexican justice system to be transferred to Canada. The political cost that the extreme right-wing governments of Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderón are going to pay as a result of their actions will be enormous in the years to come.

In January 2011 our attorneys secured the cancellation of the arrest warrants against me and five other colleagues that had been issued in
2009 during the second wave of money-laundering accusations. It was an enormous legal victory for the Miners' Union. This nullification constituted the total termination of the issue and paved the way for my return to Mexico. In a press release dated Wednesday, February 2, 2011, we confirmed that of eight arrest warrants that existed in the past, seven had been categorically and definitively canceled in different courts. On April 27, 2011, Judge Miguel Angel Aguilar López confirmed once again my complete innocence of the absurd money-laundering charges. And in May of 2012 came two more important rulings: The last fraud charges against me were struck down, and the Supreme Court finally ruled on the lawsuit we had presented against Labor Secretary Lozano, finding that he had acted unlawfully when he denied me the
toma de nota
back in 2008. It took four years, but my legal status as general secretary of Los Mineros was at last restored.

Regardless of our legal victories, I write this book with the absolute serenity of knowing that I am innocent. It is for my ideas that I have been persecuted. It is because I raised my voice at Pasta de Conchos and said that Germán Larrea has hidden the truth with the help of government officials. History will have the last word. This kind of conduct cannot be kept up forever. In the fight he picked with our union, Germán Larrea has paved the way to his Waterloo. Sooner or later his lies will catch up with him, and I'm waiting for him, ready to deliver the final blow.

We have taken the legal road because we cannot stand by while an entire system of corruption and impunity is perpetuated in our country. We are committed to showing that we stand for more than idle talk about principles and progressive values—that we employ honesty and integrity in our public and our private lives. We want Mexico to be a country where the rule of law prevails over hollow and demagogic statements, a country that ensures respect, justice, and equality for the majority of the population.

What these arrogant individuals have done is a shame that will permanently mark their lives. The workers and the people will always call them what they are: criminals. Their violations of human rights occur not only in Mexico but everywhere they operate; many of the most
abusive companies, Grupo México included, are transnational, and they exploit workers not only in our country but in others around the world.

My stay in Canada is, nevertheless, a peculiar situation. Though Canadian officials exhaustively reviewed the extradition case sent by Calderón and concluded I was guilty of no crime of any kind, I cannot leave this country, partly because of Interpol's outstanding Red Notice against me. Canada has opened its doors to me, and I have always traveled with complete freedom, but I'm not sure what would happen were I to leave this country and return to Mexico. For my family and me this has been a process of gradually adapting, but we know very well that it is not acceptable to allow corruption and evil to triumph.

My separation from my homeland has been difficult, but the support I have received from Oralia has been incredibly valuable, and she has given greatly to the workers' cause. She abandoned her peaceful and professional life to join us on a journey that has been at times bitter and frustrating. But the members of Los Mineros value, understand, and respect her deeply. Not long ago, women were not accepted in the mines and often were disregarded at possible participants in such a dangerous, manly endeavor. But Oralia's example has contributed to the growing acceptance of women in our field. Now, women are welcomed and encouraged to involve themselves in union activities and leadership. Perhaps, someday, Los Mineros will have its first female general secretary. Oralia recently accepted the honorary presidency of the National Women's Front in Struggle for the Dignity of Workers of Mexico and the World, an organization that began with the solidarity of wives and female workers from the sections on strike in Cananea, Taxco, and Sombrerete. Today, the Front's actions have expanded to the other union sections in the country and to other union organizations, including the members of Mexican Electrical Workers' Union (SME) and the members of Atenco, among many others, including unions in other countries.

Through the sadness over Pasta de Conchos and the anger at the abuses that allowed it and the continuing repression of Los Mineros, international support has buoyed all of our spirits as we persist in our fight. In April 2011, I was humbled to learn that I had been selected to
receive the most important distinction in the labor world: the prestigious International George Meany–Lane Kirkland Human Rights Award, given to those who struggle for human rights and social justice. This award is given annually by one of the most important union groups in the world, the American Federation of Labor–Congress of Industrial Organizations, AFL-CIO. Then, in May 2011, my colleagues Jyrki Raina, general secretary of the International Federation of Metalworkers (IMF), and Manfred Warda, general secretary of the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), nominated me to receive the prestigious Arthur Svensson Award of Norway, citing the relentless struggle we have waged for union autonomy and freedom in Mexico and our commitment to emerge victorious in this fight against a government that suppresses its people and its workers. I was also nominated to receive the Edelstam Prize in Sweden, which is awarded for “outstanding contributions and exceptional courage in standing up for one's beliefs in the Defence of Human Rights.”
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Over the past six years, we have been the grateful recipients of the encouragement and friendship of colleagues throughout the world—particularly of Leo Gerard and the USW, with whom we continue to explore a formal unification in defense of workers' rights in Mexico, Canada, the United States, and the Caribbean. The USW, along with the IMF, ICEM, and countless other organizations throughout the world, has flooded the Mexican government with letters on our behalf. More recently, in June 2012 in Copenhagen, Denmark, I was unanimously elected by 1,400 delegates to be the first and only Mexican to be on the executive committee of the world's most powerful labor organization, IndustriALL Global Union, which represents more than 50 million workers from 140 countries. Our global colleagues have stood with us in solidarity. Their support encourages us even more in our efforts to defend the dignity of workers throughout the world.

Despite the hospitality and justice I have received in Canada and the kindness of colleagues in many other countries, I still hope to one
day soon return to Mexico, my home. I still keep the baseball I picked up in the union's ballpark in Piedras Negras, Coahuila, the week after Pasta de Conchos, days before I would leave for Texas. I still remember the promise I made, to return to that park one day. I'd hoped that time would come sooner than it has, but I fully intend to keep that promise.

Los Mineros has grown and progressed tremendously during the fight
we've been engaged in for the past six years, and adversity has driven us to be stronger than ever before. We strive to be open to change and new ideas. And given the geographically dispersed nature of our organization, we have adopted the use of technology and effective internal communication in a way that many of our peers have not. Aided by the Internet, videoconference tools, cellular phones, and advanced methods of dispensing newsletters, magazines, flyers, banners, press releases, and details on upcoming meetings, marches, and protests, we are proud to be at the vanguard of Mexican unionism.

Abroad, we have built alliances never before seen in Mexico. These relationships form a suit of armor that is almost impenetrable against the aggressions of the Mexican government and the irresponsible companies. Without this umbrella, we likely would have been destroyed. But just as important, these partner organizations give us hope that we are moving toward a truly international workers' movement and solidarity on a scale we couldn't achieve on our own. The governments of every country that supports repression of its workers must learn from this conflict.

In the face of the political persecution of the Miners' Union, we have made it a priority to maintain constructive relationships with the more than seventy companies with whom we have signed agreements. It is our mission that labor unions no longer be seen by Mexican society as corrupt and hostile organizations. In the five years since the conflict began, we have renewed our collective bargaining agreements yearly with overall increases of 14 percent in wages and benefits—four or five times the inflation rate and the wage levels of other unions in Mexico.
These increases are much higher proportionately than the 3.5 percent national average increases that the government authorizes companies to pay, ostensibly to counter inflation. In many cases we have doubled the wages in a matter of five years. These successes indicate that the vast majority of businesses recognize our union, and see that its leadership is serious about defending the interests of workers.

The Miners' Union's recent negotiations with ArcelorMittal—the world's largest private producer of steel—are a good example of the progress we have made. ArcelorMittal is the owner of the steel mill complex in Lázaro Cárdenas, and it had inherited a catastrophically complex management system from the previous owner, Grupo Villacero. In two negotiations, first in March 2010, we developed a “rationality and efficiency” agreement, which stated that one company would absorb the four companies that were previously operating in Lázaro Cárdenas. The new arrangement brought the workers together and vastly improved productivity, and a second negotiation in August 2010 yielded an overall increase of 14 percent in the wages and benefits paid to the union members by ArcelorMittal. These negotiations took place in Canada, led by me, my fellow leaders of the union, and ArcelorMittal Mexico's CEO, William Chisholm, with no involvement on the part of Mexico's labor department.

In February 2011, we also negotiated the termination of an eight-month-long strike at the El Cubo mine in Guanajuato, where the workers of Union Section 142 were demanding that Gammon Gold, the Canadian company that owns the mine, respect their collective bargaining agreement and pay the share of its profits legally due to the miners. We reached a settlement that strengthened the collective bargaining agreement in its entirety, including increasing the share of profits due to the miners, and the company agreed to pay 100 percent of lost wages during the 255-day strike—something most companies would never agree to in Mexico. We also negotiated for three jailed local union leaders to be released; they had been detained under pressure from the company and the authorities, based on false accusations.

The cooperation between the union and companies like ArcelorMittal and Gammon Gold stands as an example of how a group of workers and a company can come to positive, productive agreements that focus both on productivity and the rights of workers, even in the face of stubborn persecution from Mexico's repressive, antiunion government and a small group of despotic businessmen. In these negotiations, my colleagues—both in the executive committee and in the bargaining committees of each of the union's local branches—and I have been the ones who have led discussions with the companies. We have made all this progress without the involvement of the labor department or Javier Lozano, whose dearest but frustrated wish was that the Miners' Union disappear from the labor map of Mexico. The vast majority of collective bargaining agreement renewals were negotiated in Canada with the companies directly, with no invitation sent to Lozano. That hasn't stopped him from trying to prevent settlement being reached, though, as was the case in the El Cubo negotiations. Lozano tried unsuccessfully to take the collective bargaining agreements from members of the Miners' Union—the legitimate owners—and give them to proven traitors like Elías Morales and Carlos Pavón. His efforts failed.