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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | May 2006 
Thousands Denounce Fox on Labor Day in Mexico City
 James C. McKinley Jr. & Antonion Betancourt - NYTimes
| | Members of Mexican workers unions burn an effigy representing politicians during a protest march in Mexico City, May 1, 2006. (Daniel Aguilar/Reuters) |
Mexico City - After weeks of rising tensions between the administration of President Vicente Fox and union leaders, tens of thousands of workers, Communists and revolutionaries thronged the center of Mexico City on Monday to send a message to the government: The unions are still here, and they are angry.
"Fox, listen! The people are up in arms," members of the electricians union chanted as they marched from the Monument of the Revolution to the Zacalo, or central square. "From north to south, from east to west, we will win this fight, no matter what the cost."
More than 90,000 workers turned out for the May 1 labor marches, which in recent years have been quiet affairs. Some called for the labor secretary to resign, others complained that the Fox administration's free-trade policies had failed to lift up the working class.
Small groups of protesters called on Mexicans to boycott American companies like Wal-Mart and Coca-Cola as an act of solidarity with their countrymen living illegally in the United States on a day on which many immigrants in the United States participated in a one-day work boycott.
After the union marches, the leader of the Zapatista rebels, Subcommander Marcos, wearing his signature ski mask and appearing here for the first time since 2001, led students, rural workers, Communists, anarchists and other leftists from the American Embassy to the Zocalo.
Union members said Monday that relations between organized labor and the government had hit a new low. Most complained that their economic condition had not improved much under Mr. Fox's tenure.
"The rich are richer and the poor, we are poorer," said Arturo Sierra, 38, an electrician. "The government has taken it upon itself to deliver the country to foreign governments and to the rich Mexicans, who continue exploiting workers with miserable salaries."
President Fox skipped the festivities, which he has always attended in the past. Instead, he held a small celebration at his residence, where he emphasized the importance of unions acting within the law.
Mr. Fox has been locked in a struggle with Napoleon Gomez Urrutia, the leader of the national union of mine and metal workers, since 65 coal miners died in a mining disaster in Coahuila in February. The discord has divided the union movement and led to violence.
Francisco Hernandez Juarez, the leader of the National Workers Union, an independent umbrella group, has charged the government with meddling in union affairs by trying to oust Mr. Gomez and replace him with a less combative leader, Elias Morales.
Supporters of Mr. Gomez have continued to carry out wildcat job actions. Two weeks ago, federal and state police officers stormed a steel plant in Michoacan, where miners loyal to Mr. Gomez had gone on strike. Two miners died, drawing protests from union leaders across the country.
The strike at the steel plant was illegal, Mr. Fox said Monday in remarks at his home, because the workers had no labor dispute with the owners but only wanted to flex their muscles to help Mr. Gomez.
"Mexico needs unions that defend their legitimate interests within the framework of the law and respect for the law," he said.
The marches drew a variety of people with complaints against the government.
A group of naked men and women lined part of Paseo del la Reforma, the city's main boulevard, to call attention to what they said was the Fox administration's failure to honor agreements with farmers in rural Veracruz.
College students, maintaining that free-trade policies harm workers, spoke out against globalization. Two carried a banner that depicted President Bush as a cannibal and called his government "troglodyte."
Mr. Marcos lambasted the Bush administration in a speech in front of the American Embassy, while his supporters shouted, "Zapata lives, the struggle continues!" He accused the Bush administration of having "sown death and destruction throughout the world" and of spreading a "religion of neoliberalism" that holds dear "the maximum profit at whatever cost."
"The Bush government has managed in just a few years to make the American flag for most inhabitants of this planet a symbol of plunder, authoritarianism, destruction, obligation, contempt and death," he said.
Mr. Marcos has been touring the country trying to drum up support for a new Marxist movement. But the number of supporters who turned out Monday was smaller than in the past. |
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