 So welcome everyone to this webinar on Mexico's new union upsurge hosted by Labor Notes. My name is Dan DiMaggio. I'm an editor at Labor Notes and I've also been helping with our coverage of Mexican unions. As Johanna said, this is a bilingual event. So we will have speakers in English and Spanish and we will have interpretation in both languages. And again, for those of you who need interpretation, if you're on a computer, you should see a globe at the bottom of your screen. You can click on interpretation and choose English and Spanish. Para los participantes que necesitan interpretación, verás un globo en el fondo de su pantalla y haz clic en interpretación y elige español. Thank you all for taking time out of your busy schedules to join us and hear from our panelists about the exciting wave of organizing by independent unions in Mexico. For decades, Mexican workers have worked under so-called protection contracts, signed behind their backs by corrupt unions and multinational employers to lock in low wages, long hours and poor working conditions. And even while many Mexican workers officially belong to unions and have union dues regularly deducted from their paychecks, these aren't real unions as we would think of them. They have no presence in the workplace. They're often headed by powerful establishment politicians and the contracts they sign are often no better than what Mexican workers are already guaranteed by the law. But the protection contracts have served an important role, preventing workers from forming genuine independent unions capable of winning real improvements. Workers in the US and Canada have watched in frustration as corporations ship jobs to Mexico to take advantage of the compliant unions. But that situation is changing. Thanks to the labor law reforms that independent union activists have been fighting for for decades and most importantly, thanks to heroic organizing by workers at big multinationals like General Motors, 3M and Panasonic, to name a few. So tonight we'll hear about the labor law reforms and the union organizing. And we'll also hear from workers at the VU manufacturing auto parts plant on the border in Piedras Negras about the ongoing challenges that Mexican workers face when they try to form genuine unions. We hope that tonight's webinar can encourage more international solidarity efforts with Mexico's independent unions. Thanks to those of you who express an interest on the registration form and getting more involved in solidarity work we'll be following up in the coming weeks about that because there's plenty of work to be done whether it's helping raise money for solidarity funds or contacting elected officials or even delivering letters to the customers of some of these companies where independent unions are fighting for a first contract. So just to close my remarks, US and Canadian unions have always had allies in Mexico's independent unions just as Mexican unions have always had allies north of the border. There's a real hope that a new era is dawning for Mexico's labor movement and that we'll have more allies there and that this will strengthen workers across North America and allow us to engage in more joint bargaining and joint organizing campaigns. So tonight to talk about that just to briefly introduce our panelists we have Jeff Hermanson of the International Union League Julia Quinones of the Border Workers Committee Yadira Sao Seda from the Independent Union La Liga the League at VU Manufacturing and Paul Baching of the Canada of Mexico Labor Solidarity Project. So our first speaker tonight will be Jeff. Jeff Hermanson. Jeff is an organizer who's worked since the 1970s with the Garment Workers Union the ILGWU and later Unite as well as the Carpenters, the Writers Guild and the Solidarity Center. He's currently working with the International Union League an organization of Garmin and textile unions all over the world. And he's based in Mexico. So Jeff, turn it over to you. Thanks Dan and good evening brothers and sisters. It's a pleasure to talk about a very exciting new era in Mexico which people liken to the New Deal in the U.S. and the passage of the Wagner Act in 1935. Just as in the U.S. in the 1930s there was a need to overcome the corporation's company union strategy. Very similar thing is happening here. As Dan said, protection unions dominated employment relations in Mexico for many years since the 30s and artificially kept wages low $25 a day instead of $25 an hour in auto assembly plants. But in 2019, because of the negotiation of the USMCA the new NAFTA, NAFTA 2.0 I guess you could say there was a labor chapter. And in the negotiation process the Mexican government agreed to reform their labor laws and to ratify the international conventions on right to collective bargaining and organizing freedom of association. And their labor law reform incorporated those rights and incorporated the secret ballot for union representation elections requires all of the union contracts in existence in Mexico to be legitimated to be voted up or down by the workers covered by those agreements and set up a new system of labor justice that replaces the old corrupt system in which the government, the employers and the corrupt unions ruled on issues of labor relations so it's very similar to the situation in the US after the passage of the Wagner Act. There's an opportunity, a new opportunity to break up the company unions that have kept wages artificially low and independent unions are taking advantage of this opening. There are some existing independent unions they're few but very important and there are new independent unions forming like La Liga that you'll hear from a little bit later. In the auto industry which is perhaps the single most important industry in Mexico, there are 14 assembly plants in Mexico. Of those 14, up until recently three of them had independent unions, Volkswagen, Audi and Nissan. Now there's a fourth and that's at General Motors in Silao Guanajuato where the company union was thrown out by a vote that had to be run twice because the first time the company union broke into the ballot boxes and destroyed ballots. And so the US labor authorities filed a complaint under the USMCA, the new trade agreement. And using the rapid response labor mechanism, complaint system, they basically forced the Mexican government to investigate and remediate which meant holding a new election. And when the new election was held, an independent dissident group of workers voted out the company union and shortly thereafter, an independent union was announced and petitioned for recognition had to win another vote against three competitors including the CTM, the company union. And they won hands down. They won in a last slide of 76%. And they went on to negotiate a contract with a very big largest raise in the history of that GM plant which had been there for I think 12 years. And they got like a 13% 13 and a half percent wage and benefit increase. So independent unions are winning representation. They've won representation in I think recently in six plants, including the VU plant that you'll hear from including a 3M plant, a St. Cobain's auto glass plant, a Cummins diesel engine block plant, a auto parts remanufacturing plant and Panasonic automotive that produces auto electronics. So winning representation and bargaining contracts as we all know are two different things and getting that first contract is very, very difficult. But they have been getting contracts and it depends on the employer's attitude I think and the strength of the workers and where the workers are strong and the company is complies basically with the rights of workers to bargain collectively. They've been getting decent contracts, good contracts, better than the average contract signed by the company unions. Basically the company unions sign minimum wage contracts or sign contracts with a very low below inflation wage increase. So unfortunately in Mexico there are few experienced organizers. There's no tradition of union organizing by independent unions. They organize basically their own factory in most cases through a spontaneous rebellion of workers. And as a result, and then they emphasize their own membership, their own plant. They don't seek to organize other plants even of their own employer or in their own industry. That is changing. We hope that the GM union for example is an industrial union and is seeking to organize other plants in the auto industry. But because there's been little external organizing as we call it in the US, there are few experienced organizers and few campaigners. Most of the organizers in Mexico are in civil society organizations, not in unions. Organizations like the Border Workers Committee or the Worker Support Center, the CAT Center of the Puyo al Trabajador or Colmenas, which is or CELAS, which is the organization that helped the GM workers organize their independent union. So the Solidarity Center, the Canadian Steel Workers Project that you will hear from a little bit later and Unifor have provided financial support to some of these independent unions and to some of the civil society organizations that are supporting the efforts of independent unions. The Steel Workers Unifor and Workers United have direct engagement with union struggles in Mexico as do masters, mates and pilots. And the UAW, the CWA, the Bakers and Confectioners, UFCW, IAM, Unite here, SEIU all have and the Teamsters all have expressed interest in Mexico. But what we really need, what Mexican workers really need is direct engagement by U.S. and Canadian unions that represent workers in the same employer or in the same industry. 3M, for example, USW and UAW all have representation in 3M plants in the U.S. I think there are 17 organized plants out of 100, but still 17 is not a small number. And they are committed to helping the independent union at 3M in Mexico get a first contract. For us, VU manufacturing is a key struggle in the auto industry because it supplies the U.S. big three. It's a second tier auto parts manufacturer which supplies suppliers to the big three. They're bargaining hard. The CTM has not gone away. They're continuing, the company union is continuing to cause problems. It may result in a strike. We've had support from the UAW and Unifor and the steel workers. Detroit DSA and Labor Notes has helped us arrange delegations to visit the customers of VU manufacturing. The Mexico Solidarity Project has also been involved. We've set up a strike fund and I'm hoping that we can post the strike fund information or get it to you somehow. It's in Labor Notes, but this is a key struggle because we've got to show that independent unions can do better than these company unions and that they can get contracts and that they can improve wages and working conditions. The conditions in VU manufacturing are terrible. There's a good article in Labor Notes. There's a good article in the Detroit Free Press just yesterday, I guess it was. And so we're getting some publicity. We need to get the word out and we need to get support, direct support. Hopefully the UAW support will be strengthened by the victory of the reform slate. The incumbent president has written a letter in support so we're glad to receive that support. Unifor has talked to one of the customers of VU that they represent in Canada and so we feel like this is the kind of direct engagement of US and Canadian unions with Mexican independent unions that can build a strong continental labor movement that can raise wages and protect the interests of workers in all three countries. So thank you. Thank you, Jeff. And we will have time for questions and answers later after our speaker or some, if anyone has any questions. Our next speaker is Julia Quiñones. She's going to speak in Spanish. So I will just give the interpretation information once again, if you need interpretation from Spanish to English, you will see a globe in the bottom of your screen. Click on interpretation and choose English. So our next speaker is Julia Quiñones. She's the long-time director of the CFO, the Border Workers Committee based in the border town of Piedras-Negres. She spent decades organizing with workers in the McElodora's there and is working closely with the new independent union at VU Manufacturing. So Julia, thank you for being with us. Hola, muchas gracias a ustedes por la invitación. Y pues para mí ha sido un verdadero honor poder trabajar por largos años de mi vida apoyando y luchando de la mano con las y los trabajadores de las maquiladoras. Las maquiladoras realmente nos han dejado una deuda a un costo muy grande porque llegan a México para instalarse y pues a costa de la explotación y del sudor de los trabajadores en México. Yo misma trabajé en una de ellas y yo creo que los mexicanos y los mexicanos necesitamos un cambio. Necesitamos realmente mejorar nuestras condiciones para que se mejoren las condiciones de vida de las mujeres y de sus familias. El CFO es una organización de base que está en el norte de México y por décadas hemos estado pues muy de cerca, verdad, este primero intentamos formar un sindicato independiente. Más bien lo formamos. Esto es desde por el año 2002. Una empresa grande y una multinacional de Alcoa logramos formar un sindicato independiente pero con toda la represión con un que había una alianza tripartita del gobierno de la CTM que es el sindicato corporativo y de la empresa terminaron afixiando a este comité independiente que fue elegido democráticamente. Después trabajamos conjuntamente con el sindicato minero. Esto fue en la misma compañía pero en otra ciudad organizando a trabajadores de Alcoa más de 15,000 trabajadores se estaban organizando en la ciudad de Cunha había aproximadamente 7,000 trabajadores y una vez más logramos que los trabajadores se afiliaran al sindicato minero. Ha habido demasiadas intentos y creemos verdad que han sido exitosos porque los trabajadores han hecho su trabajo. Nosotros creemos que los trabajadores son quienes tienen que hacer los cambios. Por eso el comité fronterizo de obreras y obreros busca hablar con los trabajadores en sus casas en sus comunidades donde ellos se sienten cómodos y en confianza. Es ahí donde empiezan a planear primero cambios individuales después en cambios en líneas hasta llegar a cambios y reformaciones en plantas completas. Pero todo esto pues ha sido el pasado verdad aunque tenemos y hemos tenido por mucho tiempo una ley federal este muy progresista hasta el 2000, antes del 2019 estaba solamente en papel. En el 2019 se reforma la ley federal de trabajo mexicana. Pero pensamos, teníamos mucha expectativa que al reformarse la ley las cosas iban a cambiar para las y los trabajadores. Sin embargo, al poco tiempo nos dimos cuenta que para que se puedan implementar estos cambios estas reformas es importante que los trabajadores conozcan que se apropien de esos derechos porque nadie puede defender lo que no conoce. Y entonces esa es nuestra tarea en la actualidad concientizar, sensibilizar a los trabajadores y las trabajadoras en las reformas laborales que conozcan verdad que en la actualidad ellos tienen la libertad de escoger su propio sindicato de determinar si quieren estar organizados y bueno, también parte de las reformas es que los sindicatos tienen ahora la obligación de dar a conocer por escrito sus condiciones de darles un contrato colectivo de rendir cuentas a sus miembros porque nunca antes lo han hecho. Esto sin duda va a ser un cambio pero como dijimos verdad hasta que los trabajadores realmente puedan apropiar si puedan enfrentar estas compañías transnacionales. Y bueno, también parte de las reformas y no puedo dejarlo de lado que es muy importante es que ahora las empresas están obligadas a establecer protocolos de género. Están obligadas a erradicar o a disminuir la violencia en todas sus expresiones que existen en las diferentes empresas. Ese es el trabajo del CFO. El CFO no tiene una estructura sindical por lo tanto no estamos en una competencia con los sindicatos pero si estamos muy al lado de los trabajadores de que sus derechos se respeten. Por eso ahora apoyamos a los trabajadores de VU para que se afiliaran a la liga sin indicar el obrero mexicano. Y pero esto no fue, aunque esta la reforma no fue fácil fue desde hace un año que las y los trabajadores empezaron a ver esta posibilidad se empezaron a organizar y fue en agosto cuando se pudo llevar a cabo una elección después de que la empresa invitó a la CTM también a la empresa prefería afiliarlos a la CTM en lugar de un sindicato independiente. Afortunadamente la voluntad de los trabajadores triunfó cuando en presencia de autoridades laborales de la Secretaría de Trabajo hubo funcionarios del INE que es quien se encarga de vigilar los censos en México hubo observadores internacionales y la voluntad de los trabajadores triunfó cuando decidieron votar por un sindicato independiente. Y bueno para llegar a este punto el Comité Fronterizo de Uredas tuvo que documentar toda esta serie de violaciones y usar este mecanismo bajo el TMEK el mecanismo laboral de respuesta rápida bajo el artículo, el capítulo 25. Y bueno nosotros vimos verdad que este si no hubiera sido por este mecanismo posiblemente los trabajadores no hubieran podido triunfar. Yo creo que es muy importante el trabajo que se está dando tenemos que trabajar conjuntamente porque todas estas luchas el ingrediente principal ha sido la solidaridad internacional. Estas alianzas con los sindicatos importantes como mencionaba Jeff con UAW, con Steel Worker, con todos los sindicatos yo creo que si estamos trabajando para las mismas compañías transnacionales es importante establecer alianzas y colaboración. También fue muy importante pues otros grupos de derechos humanos grupos que han estado siempre apoyando el trabajo de justicia social de los trabajadores. Y bueno también estuvimos trabajando muy de cerca con el Departamento de Trabajo de Estados Unidos y de Canadá. Y este pues a través de ellos verdad incluso agradecemos públicamente que hayan enviado cartas porque aparte de la violación a los derechos de las y los trabajadores hemos enfrentado violencia física, violencia verbal, los defensores y yo principalmente verdad ha habido unos señalamientos cuando los movimientos que se han dado son colectivos, el expresión de los y las trabajadoras es el artazgo verdad que tienen de buscar un cambio pues todavía hay afirmaciones de que hay organizaciones que hay personas que queremos desestabilizar la industria en México que estamos buscando que las fábricas se cierren para que se regresen a los Estados Unidos. Entonces yo creo que son este temas con los que estamos lidiando en la actualidad pero tenemos esperanza de que el seguir trabajando juntos el que los trabajadores se sigan capacitando, se sigan empoderando, sigan usando todas las instancias y los mecanismos pues al final este van a poder lograr contratos verdaderamente representativos, contratos que van a permitirles mejorar tanto sus condiciones de trabajo como sus condiciones de vida. Muchas gracias. Muchas gracias Julia. Thank you Julia. Thanks for joining us tonight. And we shared in the chat a link to how to donate to the Solidarity Fund with the VU workers campaign as well. Our next speaker is Yadira Saoceda. I first want to make sure that she's here because she's coming directly from work to join this webinar. So is Yadira here or is she still? Hola, buenas noches. Mientras se incorpora Yadira, tal vez Lupita puede compartir lo que es la lucha ahora actualmente en VU. Hola, buenas noches. Mi nombre es Lupita Martinez. Prácticamente no soy de aquí, soy de Veracruz y muy encantada de estar aquí en Piedras Negras Coahuila. Ya llevo dos años, seis meses, trabajando y pues prácticamente no me ha gustado lo que hemos vivido en la fábrica VU Manufacturing. El salario es pésimo, ganamos, pues diría la palabra una miseria, perdón pedece la palabra, es de 312 pesos y la empresa nos está dando tres pesos más. Consideración no nos gusta ganar ese suelo. Aparte los bonos de producción no hay, vales de despensas no hay, bonos de puntualidad tampoco hay y en eso estamos nosotros peleando nuestro contrato colectivo para llegar a un acuerdo de que la empresa si no puede dar todo eso que no pidiendo. Iguales ahorita se está en negociación la fábrica de VU con con la Liga Sindical, pero siempre hay barreras. La CTM siempre está involucrándose. Orita está comprando votos a los trabajadores. Les ofrece mil pesos, aparte se los lleva a hacer como escándalo. ¿Cómo se llama? Al tribunal laboral y eso no está bien porque pues no más los está utilizando para que no apoyen a la huelga y pues nosotros pues por más que luchamos siempre vamos a tener esas barreras con la CTM y la empresa. Thank you for for sharing all that with us. Ah, Lupita. I'm still. Y adiós. Muchas gracias por el apoyo que siempre nos han bridado ese y muy agradecida esperemos que este contrato colectivo pues si se realice y pues triunfemos piedras negras paubiles porque mucha fábrica lo merece, merece mucho apoyo y esperemos que así sea. Thanks again. And is Yadira here? Yadira está aquí para hablar. If not we can go to our next speaker while we while we wait. But just to just to emphasize on the VU workers there. They have set a strike date of February 27th, I believe. Which is next week as they the clock ticks in their fight for a for a first contract. And that is there also in the only factory in Mexico that has been the subject of two complaints under the rapid response mechanism of the U.S. M.C.A. Which is and that complaint is currently being investigated by the Mexican labor authorities. For now, maybe we can go to Paul and come back to Yadira. So Paul Baching is the coordinator of the Canada Mexico Labor Solidarity Project. That's a coalition of Canadian unions, including the steel workers, Canadian Union of Public Employees and others. And Mexican independent unions aimed at building connections between the two countries labor movements. He's going to talk to us a bit about that. Thanks for joining us, Paul. Thank you very much, Dan. So I am Paul Baching. I am the coordinator of the Canada Mexico Labor Solidarity Project, together with my colleague based in Mexico City. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to briefly speak about how this project came about and what it consists of. And then I'm going to speak a little bit about what I see are some challenges we face for building international solidarity right now in this important context, the resurgence of the Mexican labor movement. Actually, I see Yadira has now joined us. Do you want to go to her first or should I continue? We can go back. We can go to her. Thank you to everybody for dealing with us. Okay. So bienvenidos, Yadira. Thanks for joining. And Yadira Salceda is the general secretary of the union at the VU manufacturing auto parts plant, which is affiliated to the Mexican workers league. She and her coworkers, as Julia talked about and Lupita talked about organized an independent union last year, defeating management's efforts to impose an employer friendly union affiliated to the powerful CTM. And now they're there in the midst of a tough battle for a first contract with the employer refusing to budge on their demand for real wage increase. So Yadira, you can speak now. I will just ask you a couple of questions. One second. And bien. Okay, I will ask in English. Why did the workers at VU decide to form an independent union and join the league instead of joining the CTM, the unmute? Okay. Ah, y unirse a la liga en lugar de unirse a la CTM. Si, pues todos los trabajadores, yo soy una trabajadora de manufacturas VU. Nos unimos a la liga porque hay muchas injusticias en la planta. ¿Por qué no unirnos con CTM? Porque CTM es más defensor de la empresa que de nosotros los trabajadores. Nosotros lo que buscamos es hacer, ganar algo justo, tener un salario justo, en la, en dentro de la, de la empresa, ha habido mucha, mucha inconformidad por ambos lados, o sea, la empresa y CTM. Y ¿qué hizo la, la empresa y la CTM para luchar contra el sindicato independiente? Eh, entre la CTM y la empresa nos han puesto muchos obstáculos, nos han batido asambleas, nos han abatido, o sea, nos han ponido la gente. Cada vez que nosotros tenemos una asamblea, nos ponen obstáculos donde no nos, no nos dejan hablar con la gente. La empresa está muy enfocada con la CTM. De hecho, ahora que estamos con el contrato, ha habido injusticias notables de dejar salir a la gente cuando a nosotros nos han negado como un sindicato mayoritario que tenemos el derecho de permiso sindical y a nosotros nos lo niegan. Y la empresa no le niega a, a las personas de CTM. Se salen entre cinco, diez personas. Cuando otros pedimos un permiso de dos, tres personas y no nos lo dan. Y, y nos puede contar un poco sobre el trabajo que, que ustedes hacen ahí, en veu, como. Si, hacemos autopartes. Hacemos autopartes de automóviles. Los, los monta brazos, algo así. Es lo que es lo que manejamos ahí, manufacturas veo. Y para, para vehículos en los Estados Unidos y. Y Canadá. Y es para diferentes marcas. Y cuál es el estado del de las negociaciones ahí. Si ahorita estamos con la, no con la negociación de. De lo del contrato colectivo donde la empresa pues no nos ofrece más que tres pesos más de lo mínimo. Orita estamos, estamos en eso en, en, en lo económico. Hemos avanzado un poquito en lo administrativo, pero en lo económico la empresa en realidad no nos ofrece absolutamente nada más que solamente tres pesos de lo mínimo. Ah, y, y que puede hacer los, los activistas sindicales. En, en los Estados Unidos y en Canadá para, para, para ayudarles. Miren otros lo comentamos cuando la empresa no nos, nos puso esta propuesta. Eh, pues será muy sencillo decir de que si estaba en números rojos pues porque no cerraban verdad. Que pasa todo lo contrario. La empresa cada semana te pide más producción, más producción. Nosotros vemos que si, si está saliendo material, si están produciendo. Y, y no entendemos el por qué ellos dicen no hay dinero, no hay dinero. Bien, y, y hay otras cosas que, que quiere contar la audiencia aquí. Si, perdón. Si, es que hay, hay, hay otra cosa que, que quiere decir. Pues que solamente estamos luchando por un contrato justo. Bien, entonces muchísimas gracias a estar aquí con nosotros Yadira y vamos a tener tiempo para preguntas después. Thanks for, thanks for joining us Yadira, especially right after coming from work. But now, now we can go to our next speaker. Paul blocking from the Canada Mexico Labor Solidarity Project, why I already introduced so I won't do that again. But thanks Paul. All right, thank you. So first I'll speak a little bit about how our project came about. It's a project which involves organizations in Mexico, including the Board of Workers Committee of which, which Julia Kenyone is present tonight. It also involves the Franti Authentico del Trabajo, the Authentic Labor Front. It involves the Indicato de Mineros and Miners Union. And it involves the Red de Mujeres Indicalistas, the network of trade union women. And in terms of participating organizations from Canada to Quebec involves the Canadian Labor Congress, the United Steelworkers in Canada, Canadian Union public employees, public service lines at Canada and the International Worker Solidarity Center of Quebec. And this project came about when some Canadian labor activists had heard that that the Canadian government was was interested in following the lead of the US government in providing some support to the implementation of the labor reform in Mexico. And the Canadian labor activists are able to propose that some of this funding be directed directly towards independent unions and labor rights groups in Mexico themselves to do labor rights education. And so those Canadian labor activists who had long standing relationships with with their allies and comrades in Mexico invited them basically to prepare proposals of what would you do with some more funding to do labor rights education. And and so fortunately this project was able to get started on the basis basically of funding for those projects which go over four year period. And they include house to house visits with workers to discuss changes labor rights building from those house to house visits to larger scale continuing workshops on the new rights under Mexico's labor reform and on how to unionize includes workshops and training specifically on gender empowerment for women macular workers includes radio broadcasts on major major stations across Mexico. It includes podcasts online courses on labor rights and research on protection contracts such as those held by the state dam and other protection contract unions in Mexico amongst other activities. One second Paul appear to be having an issue with the translation with the I think the Spanish translation is now happening on the English channel and there's no translation on Spanish channel. So I think maybe you can just resume and okay sorry so so the core part of this project is is basically supporting labor rights education in Mexico with an eye towards supporting work new work organizing and the formation of independent unions. Another other important goal the project as well too is to help build new connections of solidarity between labor movements of Mexico and Canada and perhaps to kind of rebuild some of the networks that once existed 30 years ago and the original kind of tri-national campaigns against the implementation of the North American free trade agreement and so as part of that through this project we've also been organizing visits and delegations of labor activists organizers labor leaders from Canada to Mexico and also from Mexico to Canada to share their experiences and and skills and to try to deepen those connections in an organic way and so that's it's we're basically now in our second year of the project we're going to care on for a few more years and and I think it's really exciting. I'm going to speak a few a few challenges I see is facing and building more international solidarity where you work across North America in this context one of which I think that at least speaking to Unionists in Canada and the United States involved in international solidarity work is that a big challenge we often face is overcoming a lot of the nationalist messaging that comes out from the unions and labor movements in our own countries and often our own unions sometimes and it's often the case that while international unions will demonstrate international solidarity by donating to good causes and human rights advocacy for example Latin America at the same time whenever there is a major employer that's threatening to offshore production or move a factory to Mexico or elsewhere in Latin America too often the messaging to the both to members and to the broader public is about workers in Mexico are stealing jobs of people in Canada and so becomes this worker versus worker narrative and there's often lots of flag waving the Canadian flag and so forth and I think that too often we see there's a lack of respect for the intelligence of our members to to present a different kind of message that doesn't play off that kind of existing kind of mainstream ideas of nationalism and instead what we should be talking about is that these are corporations the yeah they're trying to play off workers between different countries and all you have to do is fight the corporations not other workers I think it's also critical that Canadian and of course US Unionists take their lead from our allies in Mexico on the forms that the solidarity work develops to avoid what could otherwise be an easy tendency towards reproducing unequal power relationships and another point I don't make too as well is that a very I think interesting and complicated dynamic is that all of the Mexican labor reform is national in scope and so is the application of the labor clauses under under the new kuzma or what Americans call us in CA or what it's called to mech in Mexico also it's interesting that the political environments vary from state to state within Mexico and some states and local governments are more or less hostile to independent unions and and favor more or less the protection contract unions and so the responses of the state authorities also varies considerably as as a result so do the union strategies and so coming from that Mexican independent unions we've learned come from a diversity of different vantage points as do unions in Canada and the United States unfortunately sometimes I also see that efforts at building international solidarity are sometimes also hampered by inter-union conflicts often which have nothing to do with things that are happening in Mexico and so one way I think of sometimes over trying to overcome that as well too is is trying to build grassroots connections for example between union locals in Canada and it states with union locals and unions in Mexico and labor rights groups in Mexico around really important concrete struggles like supporting our comrades at the U for example and a final point I'd like to make before I wrap up is is that we are in a unique political context right now where the US and Canadian government are very involved in supporting the implementation of progressive labor for Mexico but I think it's also extremely important that Canadian and US unions we're always very careful to maintain our political independence from the governments of our respective countries in the case of Canadian government for example it's also the enthusiastic supporter of the interests of Canadian mining companies in Mexico which is extremely controversial given the numerous conflicts with local communities that they involve and of course we're also going to see a lot of struggles I think in the future with Canadian owned companies in Mexico too so it's essential that Canadian and US labor solidarity activists make clear that we do not serve the interests of the corporations or even the governments of our countries but we serve the interests of workers across the continent thank you thank you paul and thanks to all of our panelists for joining us tonight now we're going to have time for for some questions so if you have a question just find the the q&a and type in the question and we will answer those questions that we can I first of all wanted to ask a question which myself which is is in Mexico under the new labor law reform workers have been able to vote have had to vote for the first time in many cases on legitimating their contracts that the unions often negotiated behind their backs with the employers and so there have been about 13 000 votes I read 13 000 contracts legitimated which is actually just a small fraction of the total contracts in Mexico it only amounts to about I think maybe 10 of all contracts so I have two questions on that which is there are 13 000 contracts that have been legitimated by the workers meaning they they chose to stick with the union that they have and in less than 200 cases workers have voted not to legitimate the contract and which opens up the path towards forming an independent union like the workers at GM Silau did and like the workers at VU are in the process of doing although they did not have a contract to begin with so my question is why has it been so why have there been so relatively few uh delegitimations or votes against legitimating the contract uh and then the other question is what happens to all of the contracts that are not legitimated uh before the expiration date uh which comes in uh this summer I guess so that's my long-winded question Jeff yeah any contract that is not legitimated by July 1st originally it was supposed to be May 1st but the extent of the date will become invalid so right now as you say 13 000 have been voted up 200 have been voted down there are approximately 125 000 active contracts in Mexico what this means is that tens of thousands of contracts will become invalid and millions of workers will lose uh any representation and you know is that a good thing yeah it's a good thing actually because it opens the door to independent representative unions your first question about why so few contracts have been voted down is an indication of the control exerted by these company unions and the collusion between the company and the unions uh and uh you know it's very hard to overcome that uh control uh it's basically fear of being fired losing your job that causes people to uh to vote for the company union contract uh Julia did you want to speak on this what we know what we know is that it's the current union that controls the validation or they hire public notaries so that they do the validation so obviously they are not real results but there is also a lot of threat the current unions are saying that if the workers vote for the no they will automatically lose the performance they already have and this is completely false because the performance what the workers already have won that remains so yes i think this is going to be very interesting now after the first of May because yes it will continue until July but if they already have a appointment for a validation so until July we are going to know because in the end how many times we don't believe that that percentage of contracts that have been that have been validated thank you anybody else talk about this um okay another question uh from the audience um is uh is La Liga at VU coordinating with other independent unions in mexico uh in the auto parts sector uh or elsewhere whichando it's okay uh jadira pregunta en que si hay hay este alianzas coordinación con otros sindicatos independientes no se escucha tu tu micrófono está apagado el micrófono y me escuchan si okay si somos parte de un sindicato nacional que tenemos presencia en en puebla en san luis y ahora quien piedras negras también tenemos contrato con un sindicato con los sindicatos de estados unidos contacto perdón actualmente la liga busca ganar en en dos fábricas en la zona lagunera y y aquí en piedras negras y también complementando un poco a lo que yadira está diciendo si existe una colaboración con sindicatos de autopartes en mexico de hecho ellas fueron invitadas en el mes de octubre a una reunión nacional con la fecián que la federación de de sindicatos independientes del de del automóvil y y si este de hecho hay interés de algunos de estos sindicatos deben ir a apoyar como observadores verdad si si se estalla la huelga porque estamos ahorita en un momento muy crucial si mañana no se llega a un arreglo es posible que para el lunes sea el estallamiento de huelga y hay este posibilidad de que sindicatos nacionales puedan venir a solidarizarse con con la liga con las trabajadoras y trabajadores en piedraneras de el thanks and just thanks again to yadira for for being here with us you know after work and in the middle of negotiations with with for you and on the the brink of a possible strike and to to Lupita Tamien uh uh so another question from the audience um is uh given its economic importance what about independent labor organizing in the countryside uh in mexico what's the what's the status of things uh things there go ahead chef so and there's been a lot of struggles in baha california in the berry fields of a area called sun kentine there's an independent union there uh which also represents workers in in melon fields in i'm not sure if i think it's sonora and workers in halisco so um you know these are fields that export to the united states so they are covered by the usmca and it could be subject of a rapid response labor mechanism complaint and there has been contact between the union uh which is called the sindha the union of day labor agricultural day laborers there's been contact between them and uh familias were justicia the families for justice a union of berry and other fruit workers in washington and oregon state they both produce for a company a u.s company called driscolls the largest uh importer of berries to the united states another fruit but it's you know it's a work in progress i i think it's it's a fairly new union they've had difficulties uh there have been a number of strikes you know just uh wildcat strikes uh usually over profit sharing which you know these companies all declare that they have no profits so they don't do the mandatory profit sharing under mexican law but you know that that's the only sector that i'm really aware of that has independent union movement there's some uh you know very old uh peasants organizations affiliate affiliated to the pre the party that ruled mexico for 70 years but there are very few uh rural struggles to report not that the conditions are good they're not good but that's the situation right now we had a question about um hold on one question um question about how how is the level of violence um in the country in mexico affecting union organizing uh or cross border solidarity might fall to you again jiff sure well there's hulia yeah hulia hulia should talk to this but let me just say this that um there have been threats of violence along the border which is the region of uh you know the cartels are there the human traffickers the drug traffickers uh there have been massacres in the region very close to where v u manufacturing is located there's some overt uh activity like following union organizers in cars without license plates you know which is always frightening i mean you know it's like a direct threat to the safety of union organizers and active workers so it does affect us i mean people are in fear but they're courageous folks who overcome their fears and and continue going on and you know i think it's important that we recognize that there are these risks we have written to the department of labor and to the USTR about the threats of violence and hulia has been the subject of these of these threats so i'll let her speak to that is digamos palancas enlas en las ofcina's de gobierno por ejemplo el sindicato ctm in piedra negras el también tienen una rigi rejiduría es el gobierno del pri todavía que gobiernan el estado entonces pues si hay ahí como muchas porque a nivel federal las cosas han cambiado y podrían hay más interés de parte de la stps en que estas cosas de violencia no sucedan pero a nivel estatal y local pues todavía falta mucho por hacer pero como dicen o sea yo creo que cuando se lucha por la justicia pues de pronto uno está expuesto a estas situaciones y pues pensamos eso verdad que este si es muy importante tomar medidas estemos real hemos construido ya hemos realizado protocolos estamos identificando estamos documentando en vitácoras es incidentes de de seguridad y hemos denunciado ya este ante algunas instituciones y lo vamos a seguir haciendo porque yo creo que si queremos seguir avanzando en la lucha por la justicia tenemos que tener mucho cuidado primero autocuidado en nuestra salud pero también en nuestra seguridad física thank you Julia I wanted to direct a question or two to Paul from from about Canada so there were some questions about are there Canadian owned gold mines or other mines in Mexico and what's the situation there and someone had also asked what is the situation um uh with teachers unions uh in in Mexico uh and are they also uh independent unions or are they protection unions uh allied with uh uh you know the the long ruling political parties um so if you could talk about that great sure yeah thank you so um in regards to the question about um about Canadian mining companies uh following the implementation of of the North American free trade agreement NAFTA in 1994 there was a flood of of investment from especially from Canada actually from Canadian companies listed in Canada uh to open up mine mining operations in Mexico and so um as I just at least as of a couple years ago uh close to about two-thirds of all the mines in Mexico uh were being operated by companies which have a nominal listing uh as an address in Canada or a list on the Toronto or the Vancouver stock exchange so there's an incredible presence of Canadian mining capital in in Mexico and they are they're also it's a it's a group which is has a lot of political power that comes with that both in Mexico and in Canada as well where in generally speaking extractive sectors like oil and gas have a lot of power as well particularly in some provinces and so um unfortunately um those mining companies have on a number of instances precipitated conflicts with communities whose lands they seek to to exploit um that we've seen the past many situations where where national or state governments sign off on on mines being able to expropriate people's lands but the local communities do not or we've seen situations in which mining companies have arrived and engaged in in dividing conquer strategies to to buy the support of some people while um well antagonizing other parts of the population um it's also the case as well that the Mexican miners union has as an important presence in the mining sector and does a lot of organizing uh amongst uh both Mexican-owned mining mines as well as foreign-owned mines as well and they're one of the stronger um there's there's strong independent union in Mexico uh to the question about um about teachers and and other groups of public sector workers in Mexico in the context of the labor reform um some key parts labor reform particularly um requiring uh transparency in the union elections transparency in the conduction the conducting of strike votes transparency through secret ballot voting in the ratification of collective agreements those measures also apply to public sector workers including teachers other measures under the trade agreement for example the rapid response mechanism that was discussed earlier and which has been applied in the case of vu manufacturing don't apply to public sector workers it only they don't that only applies to workers in sectors that are exporting to markets in canada united states so it would not apply to to teachers for example um and fortunately it's it's very narrow frankly that groups of workers that that includes although it is a very powerful important tool and has been proven so far um but um like in in mexico there's there's there's many different movements of and vibrant movements of of of democratic teachers movements there are also of course very established um protection contract unions that do not significantly improve the conditions of their members and mainly act to provide uh political support to ruling political parties um and unfortunately have the upper hand in in most sectors um and i i think it we're yet to see a breakthrough occurring in the education sector i would say in mexico in terms of independent unions being able to grow dramatically and i i really hope that happens as my own background personally i i'm a high school teacher and uh and that's something which it's it's something i'm very interested in and it's very important to me and i have a lot of friends and allies who are teachers in mexico as well and we can take uh one or two more questions okay go ahead jeff yeah i just wanted to add to that that you know they use adjuncts in the universities here just as they do in the us and they're they're unorganized uh and it seems to me likely you know there's been a lot of uh movement by adjunct uh faculty at the big universities the national university which is just huge gigantic um movements but no unions created and um you know i'm hoping that uh some of the unions that organize academic workers in the united states workers in the united states higher education workers will show an interest in mexico and come down and do a forum on how to organize adjuncts and graduate student researchers because the movement in the united states is so vibrant i mean this strike in california is a huge uh demonstration of the power of academic workers and uh you know i think mexican workers if they really understood what happened in the at the university of california system would be very much inspired by that oh maybe one one more question um uh and then if anybody has any parting words um but uh so a question was that uh in in guanahuato the um employers uh and also the the protection union the ctm attempted to persuade the g the general motors workers at the independent union represented foreign interests um and you know is receiving money from some big north american union um is that a common experience uh you know and and what impact has that had um obviously a general motors uh the workers voted overwhelmingly for uh an independent union so uh it seems like it didn't have much impact uh there but um you speak about other instances it's a common thread of just about every struggle by the independent union uh to you know be denounced as agents of the gringos and trying to close the factory and send the jobs back to the us which is of course absurd um it doesn't seem to have much traction with workers i really don't think it does it has traction with the community which you know is a problem uh and it's repeated by the media uh in pietras negros where v u is located you know there's stuff on the media all the time with interviews with public officials and with union leaders all denouncing julia quinones and the cfo for being in the pay of the north american unions um but as in silo it doesn't really uh resonate with the workers themselves they're glad for whatever assistance they they can get from whichever source it might come including from us union so uh it should not stand in a way of us union support for these movements in mexico because the support is much more valuable than uh you know running running away from these things out of fear being denounced excellent well um i want to thank all the the panelists uh for for joining us uh tonight and also thanks uh to everyone um you know for for for listening in to this webinar we hope to to make it available publicly uh at some point in the next uh few weeks um and we definitely want to follow up about uh you know more solidarity um actions that we can take in support of of mexican workers and in the interests of building a stronger labor movement throughout north america um we shared some resources in the chat um and where we intend to you know continue reporting on this uh stuff uh at labor notes uh you know and hopefully many other publications will also um start writing more about this uh but uh thanks again to everybody for joining us and uh thanks especially to uh to julia and lupita and yadira for uh joining us you know um in the midst of uh some tense contract negotiations uh at v u um we shared the the the solidarity fund if you could donate there uh you know that is much appreciated um and you know be on the lookout they may be on uh on forced to go on strike uh soon um but we we will do our best to provide updates on their their campaign um so thanks again to everybody uh for joining um and we'll see you at at the next labor notes event take care