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Wide authority vested in the president, centralism, corruption, and lack of democracy have long been characteristics both of the Mexican political system and of one of its fundamental structures, Mexican labour unions. The political system and the industrial relations system long had a symbiotic relationship. As Maria Amparo Casar says, ‘the history of the constitution of the political regime and the history of the constitution of modern union organization and practice run in parallel’.1 The stability of each was entwined with the stability of the other. Thus, the maturing of Mexico’s political crisis destabilized union organizations and the entire system of unionism. The ongoing political upheaval in Mexico, accompanied by the enormous economic changes of recent decades, is forcing a revision of Mexico’s decadent form of trade unionism, which thus far has proved unable to adapt.
After seven decades of monopolistic power, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) suffered a momentous defeat in the presidential elections of 3 July 2000. When he took office the following December, Vicente Fox became the first non-PRI president since the PRI was founded. While Fox’s election is the most salient event of the political transition to date, the collapse of the PRI’s political hegemony and unravelling of the political system have been in progress for some time.
A major source of the crisis was the inefficiency of the economic strate- gies and industrial relations patterns promoted by successive PRI administrations. Mexican industry was born and developed in a closed and highly protected economy encapsulated in a corporatist, paternalist, and authoritarian order. Business competition was very limited and restricted in scope to national companies sharing similar legal privileges. There was little incentive for productivity growth or economic innovation, and the system’s inefficiency imposed heavy economic costs. In years past, employers were content to bear those costs in exchange for protectionist trade policies. But these policies are no longer viable in today’s world of increasing international economic integration. With the opening of the Mexican economy and the fall of trade barriers, employers became unwilling to tolerate the economic burden of the traditional industrial relations system. This prompted a restructuring of the basic rules of the game, embroiling unions in the transition process.
Political transition implies democratization not only of the government itself but also of Mexican unionism. It implies unions breaking free from the ties of corporatism and becoming internally democratic. It means genuine union autonomy from government. Unions can continue their involvement in politics, but can no longer depend on a single party which is itself in crisis and losing effectiveness.
This chapter explores the challenges Mexican unions face in this period and also the opportunities transition holds out to build a stronger and more representative labour movement. It first recounts the origins and development of the current political crisis, and then steps backward in time to sketch the history of Mexican unions and the development of Mexico’s particular system of industrial relations and unionism. The concluding portion discusses the current crisis of the corporatist model and the prospects for Mexican unionism that lie ahead.
Which of several different moments when one might date the beginning of the period of transition depends on the relative importance the analyst accords to various aspects of the PRI regime. From the perspective of party politics, one might identify the pivotal moment as occurring with the 1994 assassinations of Luis Donaldo Colosio, the Party’s Presidential candidate, and José Francisco Ruiz Massieu, its General Secretary (especially since the available evidence points to the conclusion that these crimes were carried out by PRI members). This period also saw more frequent electoral defeats of PRI state-governor candidates and fierce intra-party battles during the run-up to the 2000 presidential election.
Viewing the crisis in economic terms, one would choose an earlier date. By the early 1980s, Mexico was engulfed in an economic crisis that directly affected the great majority of people, with profound political ramifications. The government was compelled to re-examine the protectionist model constructed by President Miguel Alemán in the 1940s which, as Crespo argues, ‘had reached its limits’.2 Under Miguel de la Madrid and his predecessor, José López Portillo, an emerging ‘technocratic’ elite, many trained in foreign universities, replaced traditional politicians in key appointments to government posts, and soon the new ‘technocrats’ were given the opportunity to test their economic models and theories.3 The economic opening was carried out through a series of abrupt actions taken by the de la Madrid government. The vast majority of the import-permit requirements were unilaterally eliminated in 1985, and the government commenced negotiations to join the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), leading to formal membership in 1986. In this period, enormous problems of foreign debt, inflation, and exchange rates led the country to accept conditions imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Once an unruly child who wanted to skip school, Mexico suddenly became the best-behaved and the most dili- gent pupil in the international finance class.
In the broadest historical perspective, 2 October 1968 is probably the decisive date when the transition process was set in motion. The massacre in Tlateloco by soldiers and the police of over 300 students who were protesting against the government of Gustavo Díaz Ordaz shocked the nation. The president of the Republic, until then a quasi-divine figure, fell into widespread disrespect. As Soledad Loaeza tells us, these events marked a ‘rupture with the past’ and saw the ‘full entrance into indepen- dent political life of the middle classes’, who had previously played a passive role. The emergence of these groups as authentic political partic- ipants ‘signalled the gradual, but increasingly accelerated’ dismantling of a regime which acted with impunity over political organization.4
However, the state structures were then still solid enough to contain the problem and to isolate the students from the workers and peasantry. Respected leaders openly supported the repressive measures with which the Diaz Ordaz government responded to the demands of the students, who were portrayed as enemies of the working class. On the other hand, the economic crisis, the effects of which were directly felt by the great masses of people, fuelled the crisis of political legitimacy.
Subsequent events provided further evidence of systemic decay. The López Portillo administration undertook political reforms in the late 1970s. In 1982, the new President, de la Madrid, started a campaign for ‘the moral renovation of society’, a slogan that implicitly recognized the corruption and lawlessness that had proliferated under the PRI. Prior to the 1988 elections, a schism occurred in the PRI. Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, son of Lázaro Cárdenas, one of the most renowned symbols of ‘PRI-ism’, left the ranks of the party after a fruitless attempt to democratize it from within and formed the National Democratic Front (FDN), a leftist coalition that challenged the PRI candidate, Carlos Salinas de Gortari. The opposition’s strong showing forced the PRI to resort to ‘post-electoral methods’ to preserve its hegemony, a new tool in the arsenal of instruments it used for that purpose throughout its history. Ironically, since this was the first election employing the marvels of modern technology, the cover for the party to use these techniques was a supposed computer failure.
As Hector Aguilar Camin and Lorenzo Meyer have said, ‘the slowness of the count of election results, the apparent manipulation of the process by the authorities and the lack of credibility in public eye cast a dark shadow of doubt and accusations of fraud over the July 1988 elections’.5 Officially, Salinas was declared the winner with a little more than 50 per cent of the votes, the lowest number of votes the PRI had ever received in a presidential election. 30 per cent of the votes went to Cárdenas, and 20 per cent went to the conservative National Action Party (PAN). However, many observers and international media sources doubted the accuracy of the official figures, and the election left in its aftermath a climate of confrontation and dispute.6
The lack of credibility of the PRI’s 1988 electoral victory permitted Cárdenas not only to maintain his position as the leading opposition figure during Salinas’ term, but also to consolidate the organization. The FDN became the Party of Democratic Revolution (PRD) and emerged as a real electoral alternative to the PRI. People disaffected with the regime were no longer limited to a ‘protest vote’ in favour of the PAN, which was identified with conservative forces and whose most important role as an opposition organization until then was to legitimate the triumphs of the PRI. The 1988 elections represented the PRI’s worst results ever, not only in the presidential tally, but also for its legislative candidates, both for senator and deputy. For the first time in its history, a PRI government was obliged to confront substantial opposition representation in the Chamber of Deputies, although the opposition presence was divided between the PAN and the PRD. The PRI had only a little more than 50 per cent of deputies. It also lost its monopoly of power in the Upper House.
Significantly, among the PRI’s losing candidates were a considerable number promoted by the workers’ sector of the party. Their defeat called into question the political effectiveness of the PRI-dominated unions and their established leadership. In exchange for a share of power, the unions traditionally delivered large numbers of votes to the PRI. The 1988 election indicated a loss of their control over their members’ votes. Instead, working class votes went predominantly to the coalition headed by Cárdenas. This illustrates the close link between the crisis of the Mexican political system and the crisis of its unions. Corporatistic unionism was simply not credible enough with workers to maintain its power and their allegiance along the neoliberal road of painful ‘adjustment measures’ imposed by the IMF.
Salinas took some actions that produced favorable economic results, such as renegotiation of the foreign debt and reduction of the rate of inflation. These were seen as positive steps, despite the overall burdens imposed by the adjustment measures. It seemed Salinas might be able to restore the image of the presidency, and, to a lesser extent, that of the official party. At the beginning of his term, he took spectacular action against certain very unpopular union leaders, such as Carlos Jonguitud Barrios, leader of the teachers, and Joaquin Hernandez Galicia (known as ‘La Quina’), leader of the oil workers. This, too, rekindled hope that the government might set the country on the right track.
But the crisis of the unions was so deep that structural changes were demanded, not merely changes in personnel. Salinas’s actions had not really changed the way industrial relations in Mexico were conducted. As Arturo Anguiano said at the beginning of the Salinas administration:
the longer the government and the privileged classes take to reshape the domination of their class and the political regime in order to adapt to the new social and productive reality, the more they will face internal difficulties, particularly among the subordinated classes, who might work out an alternative to their power, that is, a profound reorganization of society and the state.7
The presidential term came to an end without this reshaping. However, with impressive use of the media and with electoral goals clearly in mind, Salinas created the National Solidarity Programme (PRONASOL) in order to sell his version of neo-liberalism (which he renamed ‘social liberalism’) and to attempt to recapture the working class votes the unions seemed increasingly unable to deliver to the PRI.
Although some important macroeconomic successes were achieved in Salinas era, mainly in controlling inflation, and Mexico’s international image was improved, the recovery forgot about social justice. The gap between rich and poor widened still further, revealing the ineffectiveness of the ‘social’ aspects of Salinas’ social liberalism and of PRONASOL. On January 1, 1994, violence born of misery, which the regime had been able to suppress until then, broke out in Chiapas. Once again in Mexican history, it was the peasants who impelled change, previously in the era of Venustiano Carranza, eighty years later under Carlos Salinas. And once again, union leaders sought to counterpose the interests of urban and rural workers, as they recounted stories of the Carranza era ‘Red Battalions’, pro-regime workers who fought against peasants. Then the platform was the Casa del Obrero Mundial (House of the World Worker); this time their views were voiced by Fidel Velázquez, the main leader of the Confederation of Workers of Mexico (CTM). But apparently contemporary Mexican workers had sufficient reasons to avoid the mistakes of their predecessors.
The 1994 elections followed important reforms to the federal electoral law and were much more carefully monitored both domestically and internationally. Despite the regime’s problems and the outbreak of the insurgency in Chiapas, the PRI did very well. It maintained the same 50 per cent of the vote it had officially obtained in 1988. The PRI largely concentrated on attacking Cárdenas. Fomenting what became known as ‘the vote of fear’, the PRI predicted that, should the PRD win the elections, economic catastrophe would follow in the form of the return of inflation, devaluation of the peso, and capital flight. The PRI was also able to turn to advantage the atmosphere of insecurity produced by the events in Chiapas. Some union leaders who were PRI candidates for deputy or senator regained positions lost in 1988, indicating some return by working class voters to traditional political loyalties and possibly a partial reinforcement of the corporatist framework.
The 1994 elections also prompted a reconfiguration of the opposition forces. The conservative PAN recovered the second place position it had traditionally held. The PAN argued that the economic successes attributed to Salinism had actually been achieved through measures previously advocated by PAN itself. Cárdenas had taken second place in 1988 under the FND banner, but this time, running as the candidate of the PRD, he fell to third place.
The new government of Ernesto Zedillo inherited the legacy and therefore all of the problems of salinist neo-liberalism. Within a year of taking office, the government confronted precisely the economic catastrophes that the PRI had predicted would be triggered by a PRD victory. The regime was forced to devalue the currency and to seek foreign aid (primarily from the United States). But the economic crisis deepened, and new devaluations, heightened inflation, growing external debt, capital flight, rising unemployment, and a decline in the real value of wages followed. The stage was set for the momentous political events of 2000.
Although the number of workers involved in the Mexican Revolution was small, this limited participation nevertheless had great and lasting social significance. The organized workers supported Carranza, the revolutionary commander who was destined to become president. As Hector Aguilar Camin has argued, the so-called Casa del Obrero Mundial pact of 1914 in many ways determined the relationship of workers not only with the Revolution but with the post-revolutionary governments of the twentieth century. In their pact with Carranza, the first organized workers abandoned the commitment to direct union action and independence from any government which they held until then and offered their military contribution and political support to the Constitutionalist troops. In exchange they asked for the first monopoly privilege: the right to unionize all the workers in the territories conquered by Constitutionalist troops.8
Carranza was a conservative, but due to pressure from deputies attending the drafting convention, the Constitution of 1917 consecrated the right to professional association and collective bargaining, and the right to strike. In 1918, the Mexican Regional Confederation of Workers (CROM) emerged out of a national congress summoned by Carranza himself. The CROM leader, Luis N. Morones, had a personal alliance with President Álvaro Obregón (who had replaced Carranza), and CROM soon became the most important organization in the country. ‘Prototype of the new union leader, Morones made a secret pact with Álvaro Obregón, who allowed him to form his own political party, the Laborista Mexicano party. This marked the beginning of a strategic change toward so-called “multiple action”, usually deemed an open concession to the government. In this way, Morones became Secretary of Industry, Commerce, and Work in Obregón’s cabinet, assuming the responsibility to manipulate the workers’ movement so it would proceed in convenient directions’.9
Today, we identify official unionism with PRI structures. However, the corporatist pattern came into place earlier, during the 1920s, when the rule of the caciques (chiefs) matured into a system of political institutions. The personal alliance between Obregón and Morones became an institutional alliance between the government and CROM under the administration of Plutarco Elías Calles. Calles had replaced Obregón after the latter’s failed bid for re-election. The ever undisciplined Morones fell from power after he flouted Calles’ wishes by trying to reach the presidency himself and after alleged responsibility in the 1928 assassination of Obregón. Calles remained the most powerful political figure even after retiring from the presidency. In 1929, he created the PNR (National Revolutionary Party), forerunner of the PRI, to channel and direct negotiations within the ruling classes. According to Lorenzo Meyer, the PNR ‘was founded not to contest with other parties for the right to govern, but as an instrument for institutionalizing the internal negotiations of the political elite . . . [This led] almost inevitably to a formal democracy and to real authoritarianism. A benevolent authoritarianism with ample social corporatist foundations dating from the late 1930s, but an authoritarianism nevertheless.’10
In 1933, Vicente Lombardo Toledano, a former member of CROM, founded the General Confederation of Workers and Peasants of Mexico (CGOCM) which promptly became the second strongest workers’ organization in the country. The CTM, the dominant labour federation today, eventually arose from the CGOCM. The corporatist union model was perfected during the presidency of Lázaro Cárdenas. The CTM was incorporated into the regime and into the structures of the dominant party, now renamed by Cárdenas the Party of the Mexican Revolution (PRM). Cárdenas turned the PRM (which became the PRI in 1946) into a modern party of mass mobilization, with sectors representing workers, peasants, and popular organizations. Aziz Nassif defined the system established by Cárdenas as corporatist with a mass base, as in Italy; however it was not fascist, but instead had ‘a formally democratic character and [with aspects borrowed from the US] New Deal such as state participation in the economy and the provision of social welfare’.11
Some other labour confederations arose following the CTM model. While not directly participating in the PRI as one of its sectors, they acted as if, and were commonly considered to be, part of the party. Some important labour unions, such as those representing railway employees, telephone operators, and the electrical workers, preferred to remain autonomous from the CTM, but not from the PRI. However, whether joined in the CTM or not, all these organizations observed the rules of the game imposed by the system. Despite this, they were attacked by the government when they tried to assert and defend their rights. For example, the 1959 strike of railway workers was repressed by a President, Adolfo López Mateos, who styled himself a leftist. CTM leader Fidel Velázquez sided with the government on that occasion. No party other than the PRI established significant alliances with union organizations, and independent unions have never been numerically significant in Mexico (although in the most recent years some signs have appeared of an opening to new, independent of union organization).
The perfection of corporatism should be placed in the context of the countries’ economic development. In the Cárdenas era, the Mexican population consisted primarily of peasants. A semi-urban working class was beginning to form, made up of workers coming from rural areas who worked in enterprises that had existed before the Revolution, primarily in mining, and the textile, electric, and railway industries. Some new private enterprises appeared during World War II, taking advantage of gaps left in the market as the industrialized countries converted to war footing. At the conclusion of the war, these new enterprises could not compete against foreign firms that reconverted to their normal peacetime operations, so they appealed to the government for protection. After World War II, the Mexican government, like most in Latin America, adopted an economic policy of ‘inward development’ or import substitution. The goal of these policies was to protect domestic industry by means of high tariffs and import permits, overvalued currency, and exchange rate controls. As we have seen, these policies in due course led to the economic and political crisis.
In terms of the legal grounding of labour relations, it is important to note that, although Article 123 of the 1917 Constitution entrenched basic workers’ rights (the right to professional association, to bargain collectively, and to strike), labour relations was not regulated at national level until 1931, when the first Federal Labour Law was promulgated. Prior to this, labour regulation was left to state legislatures. Collective rights were inhibited due to confusing local regulations. Notwithstanding the broad terms of Article 123, the Federal Labour Law established important limits to the rights it protects and granted government considerable control over unions. For example, requirements for forming and registering a union, the requirement that the authorities recognize its representatives, and restrictions on the right to strike seriously limit union autonomy and freedom of action. In addition, so-called ‘exclusion clauses’ allow unions to require that all workers in a company join the union and therefore to procure the discharge of dissident workers who challenge the union by the technique of expelling them from membership.12 Quite apart from these legal restrictions, the authorities frequently leave the collective rights of workers unenforced. A very wide gap separates legal doctrine from the realities of enforcement by organs of the state. In Mexican labour law, the realities of state policy have ‘divorced’ the rules of law. And it is too common for union leaders to put their own interests and those of the PRI government ahead of the interests of their own members, let alone the interests of employers.
We can identify several fundamental characteristics of Mexican unionism.
First, Mexican unionism is (or was) a mechanism for the PRI to mobilize and capture large numbers of workers’ votes. Unions served as recruitment agencies for the PRI and promoted party candidates. Indeed, in the case of the CTM, union members automatically belonged to the PRI.
Secondly, it is (was) a mechanism for legitimating governmental policy and decisions. Generally, the first mass support for controversial government decisions comes from the ‘official’ unions.
Thirdly, Mexican unionismis (was) a channel of social mobility and access to the elites. For workers, becoming a union leader has represented an viable path to improve one’s economic and social position.
Fourthly, the system gives (gave) government monopolistic control over workers’ organizations, exerted through the PRI with the assistance of the labour authorities. Even among independent unions, the vast majority have either belonged to or been linked with the PRI and (at least until now) invariably gave propagandistic and economic support to the party’s candidates. The process of union registration plays a fundamental role in this respect. Under the applicable regulations, labour authorities have the power to grant or withhold recognition of the legal existence of a union and therefore its corporate capacity to exercise the collective rights of workers, including the rights to bargain collectively and strike. Labour authorities can also influence representation on unions’ governing boards.
Fifthly, the system of unionism is (was) a mechanism through which government pressured and controlled industralists, through its power either to encourage strikes or threats of strikes or to repress direct action by workers. A very effective way that PRI governments elicited political support from initially reluctant employers was to aid a strike or simply to remain temporarily passive in the face of labour conflict. Government always had the power, at the appropriate time, to step in and mediate a solution, or declare the strike illegal, or even repress it, as suited the PRI’s interests in a particular case.
Sixthly, the system was essentially despotic and exhibited none of the features of democratic unionism. The great majority of unions have never been democratic, particularly those linked to the CTM and to other large federations such as the Revolutionary Confederation of Workers and Peasants (CROC) and the CROM. Apparent changes in union governing boards often left power in the same hands. According to Lorenzo Meyer, ‘the majority of the Mexican union organizations are part of the PRI, their managements constituting one of the strongest elements preventing national policy from adhering to the rules of a legal democracy’.13 Meyer believes that there would be large repercussions if the unions proceeded in democratic fashion, producing changes in the rules of the political game and significantly affecting vested interests.
Seventhly, the corporatist system of labour relations has also been highly inefficient. In the policy environment in which Mexican unionism developed—protectionism for companies and paternalism for worker— no one placed priority on improving productivity, certainly not the unions. Since the opening of the Mexican economy, it has often been said that Mexican labour law is too rigid and is responsible for preventing productivity growth. The system is rigid, but the fault is not in labour law as such, but in the privileges historically granted to unions by the employers, with government encouragement. For example, it is quite common for employers to assume in collective contracts an obligation to retain a fixed number of employees on the payroll, regardless of the enterprise’s actual demand for labour. For union leaders, these clauses guaranteed a certain number of jobs for members, which is a source of considerable political power. The government was content to use this device both to raise job levels and fight unemployment (even at the cost of inefficiency) and also to secure votes.
Eighthly, and somewhat paradoxically, the Mexican industrial relations system is (or was) basically adversarial and assumes conflict and confrontation between the respective interests of employers and workers. In the culture of Mexican unions, anything considered good for employers was automatically thought to be bad for employees. The obligatory union rhetoric encouraged confrontation with and hatred towards employers and permitted union leaders to present themselves as working class heroes. Although it is easy for workers to feel spontaneous aversion to employers, the truth is that, in Mexico, union leaders have often been responsible for creating this feeling. At present, workers have become much more concerned about improving productivity and quality, but this change in consciousness is driven more by a sense of the perceived necessities of modernization than conviction.
Ninthly, Mexican unionism is totally corrupt. Huge amounts of money flow into union leaders’ pockets from sweetheart alliances with owners and employers at the expense of the workers’ interests; from underground deals to get contracts and concessions from government agencies; from the sale of jobs in governmental institutions; from participation in corrupt practices involving public officials; and, more generally, from threats, blackmail, and illegal pressure placed on employers. In addition to all this, union fiscal immunity has allowed them to charge many expenses, real or fictional, to the national treasury, generating a huge ‘tax-free’ income for them.
The old corporatist model of unionism remained viable as long as Mexico grew economically. All parties to the arrangement enjoyed benefits from the labour relations model: union leaders obtained a share of power from the PRI and profited at the expense of employers and workers; employers gained control over their workers and support from the government; PRI governments obtained votes, controlled the unions, and appeared to create jobs.
But during the 1970s, the economic system went into deep and lasting crisis. Rising inflation, imbalance in public finance, and growing public debt were the most visible problems. The public did not appreciate the full extent of the crisis until 1976, when, shortly before passing his office to López Portillo, President Luis Echeverría was forced to devalue the peso, thereby reducing the purchasing power of wages, an extraordinary and hitherto inconceivable event for the vast majority of Mexicans. The unions were unable to offer any solution; indeed, they were unable to launch a fight. The traditional model of unionism system was not designed for circumstances of this sort, and union officials were not trained to provide workers with the leadership in times of economic crisis.
During the mid-1980s, the government of Miguel de la Madrid saw changing the traditional pattern of negotiating with unions as a necessary component of restructuring the economy in order to cope with the crisis. Terms such as ‘modernization’, ‘flexibility’, ‘industrial conversion’, and ‘social agreement’ entered labour discourse. As Lorenzo Meyer observed:
[n]aturally, the social cost was huge because during the de la Madrid period social lost half of their buying power—they went from thirty-six per cent of NIP [Net Internal Product] to twenty-nine per cent, NIP stagnated, inflation remained unchecked (it was eighty per cent in 1983 and 159 per cent in 1987), and the unconventional economy grew due to lack of employment in the conventional sector.14
According to José Antonio Crespo, ‘the lack of resources which caused the crisis had repercussions on the relations between the state and the corporate bodies affiliated with the official party, because the smooth functioning of the corporatist pact demanded not only restrictions on but monetary tributes from union leaders, union headquarters, and affiliated organizations’.15
The crisis of the corporatist unionism model was clearly evidenced by the defeat, in 1988 elections, of so many PRI candidates drawn from the working class:
The system based on the hegemonic party was torn apart by pincers in 1988: from the bottom, the processes of social change and long-lasting economic crisis under- mined [the PRI’s] electoral base; and from the top, [it was torn] by the collapse of consensus among the elites. The paralysis of some of [the PRI’s political] arrangements, the split of the cardenistas, and the radicalism of opposition leadership weakened [PRI’s] political support.16
Salinas de Gortari (who was president from 1988 to 1994) made a show of supporting the unions, but his rhetoric conflicted with his neo-liberal beliefs. His labour policies were rent by contradiction as a result of his attempt to combine two essentially incompatible objectives, modernization and preservation of the corporatist model. To quote Meyer:
The strong social foundation of support for the Presidency [and] the corporatist apparatus of the PRI . . . was shocked and weakened because [PRI’s] members were forced to bear a considerable part of the social costs resulting from the economic crisis, and also because in the [emerging] neoliberal economic model, workers are supposed to negotiate their wages and benefits with an eye toward productivity, not their political participation inside the party. . . . In short, corporatism weakened with the economic changes, although it did not disappear but kept [trying to] enact the same role as before vis-à-vis presidential power: subordinated support.17
The government repressed attempts to build more combative and representative unionism in big enterprises such as Ford, Volkswagen, the Modelo Brewery, and the Cananea mining company. Mexican unionism had long served the government’s purposes effectively, but only because the workers had faith that unions could achieve gains through manipulation and tricks, because union membership was a condition for obtaining certain jobs, because the workers feared that militancy would lead to repression and job loss, and because union leadership was recruited from workers whose ambition was to rise to elite positions within the traditional structures. Moreover, the average wage of union workers was consistently higher than that of workers without a collective contract. Unionization brought enhanced, if still very low, wages, and this was a price employers willingly paid in exchange for control over the workforce.
The model gradually decayed under the pressure of political and economic crisis, and we can say with confidence that it is no longer effective today. Formerly, unionized Mexican workers believed in their leaders or at least accepted their control and direction. The PRI could once count on the automatic vote of unionized workers. But these bases of support for the system have eroded through years of decline in the purchasing power of wages and growth of the gap between rich and poor, growing awareness by workers of the injustice of the system, and fatigue resulting from unfulfilled promises. The ineffectiveness of union leaders in these new circumstances further debilitates them and reduces their share of power. That union leaders still retain some power is due to the Federal Labour Law and the collaboration of the authorities in the union registration process, enforcement of exclusion clauses, and other legal tools for controlling worker independence. But these are thin reeds which may snap at any time.
President Zedillo did not fully appreciate that his projects of democratization and modernization were incompatible with preserving corporatist unionism and its corrupt leaders. Nevertheless, the nation experimented with changes during the 1990s. This allowed Mexicans to cherish hopes for a break-through by the democratization process in the union field that would finally allow workers to exercise the rights of professional association and collective bargaining, and the right to strike consecrated by the Constitution more than eighty years ago. Some opening by the authorities to more democratic forms of union organization, such as the UNT (National Union of Workers), occurred even before the 2000 elections. The new government is expected to make major changes in labour law that will open the door wide for democratic organizations to fill the vacuum that the increasingly weak, traditional unions—which have barely managed to survive the death of Fidel Velázquez—are leaving behind.
Moreover, some independent unions, notably the FAT (Workers Authentic Front), have been exploring new strategies. For example, they have converted the North American Agreement on Labour Co-operation (NAALC) into a forum to expose and denounce violations of workers’ rights and the inefficiency and complicity of Mexican labour authorities. They have worked collaboratively with unions in the USA and Canada to provide mutual support in processing complaints to the National Administrative Office (NAO) for each of NAFTA’s three signatories. As Lance Compa has observed, ‘[b]efore NAFTA and the NAALC, cross-border solidarity took place at a thin, high level of bureacratic meetings among top union officials and occasional letters of support to workers in struggle. Now trade union leaders and activists up and down the line are working together in concrete projects dealing with the effects of economic integration in their continent.’18
The recent election results are certainly good news for democracy; however not everything looks rosy. At the moment, differences between the right and left are diminished on the Mexican political landscape, and honesty and progress are more important for most Mexicans at this juncture than political ideology. On the other hand, the ascendancy of PAN advances the interests of the right, not so much in contrast to the ideology of PRI, if any, but against the thwarted the hopes of the left to show itself as the alternative.
The left still believes that Cárdenas was denied victory in 1988 only by government fraud. Having said that, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas and the PRD had a chance to prove themselves when Cárdenas became the first elected governor of Mexico City in 1997 (previously, city governors were appointed by the president). Many supporters who expected big changes were disappointed by Cárdenas. No major changes have occurred thus far concerning unionism in Mexico City. The PRD lost a good deal of ground in the 2000 elections, particularly at the national level, even though they retained control of the Mexico City government. Many PRD supporters cast their votes for PAN candidates in the belief that a PAN victory was the only real possibility to defeat the PRI candidate for President. Even some high-profile personalities who had supported Cárdenas and PRD in the previous election joined the Fox campaign, seeing him as representing the interests, not of the right, but of democracy.
Obviously, the recent presidential elections will profoundly influence the unions’ destiny. Traditional union leaders will have to change their modes of operation. No doubt some will offer their services to the new president despite the fact that he comes from the PAN, not PRI. Within days of the election, Víctor Flores, general secretary of the railway workers’ union and known as one of the most corrupt union leaders, approached Fox to say that he was willing to work together with him. Other leaders have been more deliberate and have made a point of saying that they expect labour rights to be honoured by the new government. Nevertheless, these triumph.
As of this writing (July 2000), it is difficult to know whether union leaders will be sufficiently clever, persuasive, and strong to make the changes necessary for the traditional unions to survive in a democratic country. It is even harder to predict whether the PRI will be able to transform itself into a true political party; whether, if so, it will be able to sustain its alliances with the biggest unions; and, more importantly, whether it will someday genuinely advance the interests of workers. The Mexican labour relations system has come to a crossroads, and it is very hard to see what lies ahead. One thing is clear enough, however, and that is that only a truly representative and independent unionism will be able to meet the challenges of economic opening and political transition.
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