ILO calls on Mexico to settle dispute with miners' union

ILO considers Mexican government violated freedom of association convention by interfering in Mexican Miners' Union's autonomy and calls on Mexican government to resolve its dispute with the union.

GENEVA/MEXICO: The International Labour Organization (ILO) urges the Mexican government to resolve its dispute with the National Miners' and Metalworkers' Union of Mexico (SNTMMSRM) and considers the government has acted in a way that is incompatible with ILO Convention No. 87 on freedom of association.

The ILO released on March 26 the interim recommendations of its Committee of Freedom of Association to the Mexican government in response to a complaint on interference in union autonomy lodged by the SNTMMSRM and the International Metalworkers' Federation in March 2006, ILO Case No. 2478.

The complaint documents how Napoleon Gomez Urrutia, the democratically elected general secretary of SNTMMSRM was forcefully removed from his position after speaking out against the Mexican government and mining company in response to a tragic mine accident in Pasta de Conchos that left 65 miners dead, many of them members of the union. The complaint also documents how the government illegally intervened in independent union activities, forced the dismissal of union leadership, seized union assets and made government appointments to union elected positions.

In subsequent submissions on Case No. 2478, the union and IMF has also documented ongoing interference and acts of violence by Grupo México and the Mexican government including using the national army and federal police to break strikes, kill workers and arrest union leaders fighting for safer working conditions in Grupo México-owned mines.

In its recommendations to the ILO Governing Body, the Committee on Freedom of Association states that it "considers that the labour authorities engaged in conduct that is incompatible with Article 3 of Convention No. 87, which established the right of workers to elect their representatives in full freedom."

"The Committee deplores the excessive length of the judicial procedures relating to various aspects of the case and the grave prejudice that this has caused to the complainant union" and "urges for a rapid conclusion of the judicial procedures."

The committee requests addition information from the government on several points and in particular on the question of the death of worker Reynaldo Hernández González, the use of force at the public security forces at the Cananea mine, continuing arrest warrants, freezing of union accounts, threats and acts of violence including the death and injury of trade unionists.

The Committee calls on all the parties concerned to continue to make efforts within the existing round of negotiations to resolve the collective dispute to which this case results.