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 Business News | December 2007 
International Unions Gather in Mexico to Fight State-Owned Oil Company's 'Corrupt' Union
 Lisa J. Adams - Associated Press
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Mexico City – Labor advocates and union organizers from the Americas vowed Friday to transform Mexican state-owned oil company Petroleos Mexicanos' allegedly corrupt and repressive union and replace it with an organization that better represents workers.
Organizers of a daylong forum at the national Congress said they would draft legislative and union-organization changes aimed at reinstituting a more democratic union movement in Mexico.
Pemex, Mexico's largest employer with nearly 150,000 workers, for years has struggled with depleting reserves, outdated technology, billions of dollars of debt and crumbling infrastructure that leads to oil spills.
The company's most recent tragedy happened in October when a drilling-rig boom crashed into an oil platform in bad weather, killing at least 21 workers, and dumping more than 11,000 barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
Top Pemex officials, the Mexican government and oil experts agree that the company is in desperate need of a massive modernization.
Research conducted by international labor organizations has shown that “the most efficient” way to improve conditions for workers and modernize the industry is to “take into account and respect the word of workers, expressed in a free and democratic manner,” said Rodrigo Olvera, legal adviser to the Mexican non-governmental National Committee on Energy Studies.
The current union, which suffers from allegedly rigged elections, a misuse of worker funds and other corruption, “is designed to control the voice of the workers,” Olvera said.
Alleged corruption in the Pemex union is no secret in Mexico. One of the country's most widely publicized recent scandals, dubbed “Pemexgate,” involved allegations that a former union leader was involved in diverting as much as US$170 million (euro116 million) in state oil funds to the 2000 presidential campaign of the then-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI. No one has been criminally prosecuted in the matter.
The idea of forming more democratic unions is not a new one, but is much like David taking on Goliath. The Union of Mexican Oil Workers is led by immensely powerful leaders known to represent their own best interests while staying on good terms with the company and keeping workers in line.
Federal Rep. Rosario Ortiz, of the left-leaning Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD, said Friday's meeting is one in a series of actions lawmakers and union organizers have taken over the years to resolve the problems plaguing Mexico's unions and its ailing oil company.
“We are not here just to complain to each other,” Olvera added. “This meeting has the aim of establishing short- and long-term strategies for a true modernization of labor relations to benefit oil workers.”
Benjamin Davis, the Mexican representative for the AFL-CIO's Solidarity Center, said organizations from countries including Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Colombia and Venezuela are supporting the effort.
“In most industries in Mexico, workers who want democratic unions have to fight against their own union leaders, they have to fight against the government and they have to fight against the employers,” Davis said. “It's three against one and it's really difficult to win as a result.
“That's where the international support and solidarity become key,” he said. |
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