Workers and Development

This week, from the 16^th to the 18^th April, in Vancouver, Canada, the National Policy Conference organised by United Steelworkers (USW) is taking place. On 52 occasions this exceptional meeting has brought people together to analyse and discuss important issues such as global strategic alliances, business and the economy, the challenges of corporate power, the comprehensive review of what we have learnt from the past and what the future will bring for a new generation of unionists and politicians.

A considerable number of leaders were invited make official speeches, including Leo W. Gerard, international president of USW; Ken Neumann and Steve Hunt, national directors for Canada and district 3 of USW respectively, and hosts of this meeting; Jyrki Raina, secretary general of the world’s biggest union, IndustriALL Global Union with 50 million members; Thomas Mulcair, leader of the New Democratic Party and leader of the opposition in Canada; myself as president and secretary general of the Mexican mining workers, metalworkers and steelworkers, and other political and union leaders from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, South Africa, Peru, and from across five continents.

The messages and opinions that we have heard have lead us to reflect deeply on the future of society, the working class, inequality and injustice, the risks implicit in social peace such as excessive ambition and greed, the lack of awareness of the impact on coming generations, ignorance, irresponsibility and unchecked exploitation. Of course it would have been impossible to leave specific issues of jobs, security, the environment, health, and working conditions out of the passionate discussions, and they were tackled with great intelligence. No room was left for doubt about how we can be better prepared to face up to the challenges of brutal capitalism, to improve labour harmony and tranquillity, as well as how to project a new and fresher image of the world union movement.

This conference will draw to a close today. It has been a real success for the almost one thousand delegates, and it will have to grow and expand and cast its message wide because these forums must provide the best solutions for reducing marginalisation and deprivation, and strategies that will allow faster progress in the construction of a better world in which there is more respect, justice and equality. These qualities generate greater stability, peace and progress for everyone, not just for a few.

In Mexico we will have to review and assimilate the conclusions that will allow us to change the direction of politics more profoundly and efficiently, and thus move towards a new stage of development, building on the foundation of our membership of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) together with Canada and the United States. All of us, workers, government, businesspeople and society in general, must take note of the conclusions of this meeting, which are framed by demands for equality and fairness, because none of the three countries, although they have very different levels of development, can pretend to have resolved the deep social inequalities that exist within their borders. That is why we have proposed that the Free Trade Agreement to which we have signed up should become a real plan for cooperation and development between the three countries.

Only in this way will it be possible to turn the international cooperation that is implicit in the NAFTA, but which today remains incomplete, into a solid tool for the economic and social development of the three nations. We cannot and must not ignore the fact that the United States and Canada are facing difficult social challenges, despite a lopsided and biased message that in those counties there is no poverty or destitution, because there is. In the particular case of Mexico it is important to develop this new vision of international cooperation through which, while maintaining respect for the sovereignty of each nation, we will be able to channel the resources and efforts that are currently concentrated solely on commercial activity therefore do not press the buttons of real economic progress, namely equal opportunities and respect for the rights and interests of all sectors of each one of the countries involved.

The first step to take in this direction must be in the area of labour cooperation between the three countries, because here agreement on the issue between the signatory governments has been practically dead letter. Workers in Canada, the United States and Mexico, facilitated by miners, have contributed a wealth of ideas about how to turn the labour cooperation agreement into a genuine commitment to social development. This should, by all means, serve the interests of employers, but it must also have a substantial parallel focus on how to resolve issues of well-paid work, fair settlement of labour disputes and respect for the freedom and autonomy of union organisations. Such an initiative will eliminate the increasing employment instability and inhuman forms of exploitation that are proper to the brutal capitalism practiced in all our nations, but which is thrown into clearer relief in Mexico than in the other two.

Mexico’s new government has the opportunity to enter into this new vision of international development efforts. The two previous National Action Party governments were deaf and blind to the demands of genuine economic and social development in Mexico, and they completely turned their backs on the possibilities offered by international cooperation for development.

Interpol: An Instrument of Political Persecution

In recent years, the Mexican government has devoted itself pursuing the people who it considers its enemies. Those people are considered to be enemies because they oppose the government’s interests or because they have fought to defend democracy with their ideas, strategies and principles, and to usher in a welfare system that is fairer and more balanced for the most vulnerable groups, among them the working class.

In order to achieve this objective, those in government have used threats, repression, corruption and even the cruellest and most sinister dententions and assassinations that a modern society could imagine. Particularly in the period between 2000 and 2012, the PAN (National Action Party) governments led by Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderón devoted themselves to deforming the state of law and perverting the application of justice. This was coupled with major inefficiencies in public administration and increased corruption which completed our country’s collapse. This was marked by: worsening marginalisation and poverty, a lack of honesty and transparency, insecurity, the loss of jobs and opportunities, the handing over of the country’s resources to foreign hands, the shameful subjugation to the country’s most conservative and hypocritical corporate groups, and the xenophobic and demented repression of democratic and independent union organisations.

With this corrupt mentality they politically pursued their adversaries using all sorts of arbitrary actions, illegal means and abuses of power. One of these methods, favoured due to its inherent perversity and cowardice, has been the manipulation of Interpol in order to threaten their opponents and confine them one place in which they are forced to remain so as not to run the risk of being arrested without justification, thereby eluding the hatred of their pursuers who have employed the media to manipulate and shock them by threatening the use of Interpol’s Red Notices for the purpose of detention and eventual extradition.

In my particular case, for the last seven years they have absurdly and unfoundedly attempted to maintain a Red Notice based solely on manipulation and deception, basing it on lies and slander and through public attacks by corrupt media and journalists. To their disgrace, these attacks are totally ignored outside Mexico. Fox, Calderón, Marta Sahagún, as well as their partners, employees and complicit businesspeople, have deceived themselves into thinking that the rest of the world shares their dirty, perverse mentality.

They corrupted judges and media, and shameless, abject, mercenary lawyers with no ethical criteria, who set themselves up as the dross of the noble legal profession, and of course they corrupted unscrupulous individuals recruited from the scum of the union movement. To their humiliation and frustration, none of this helped achieve their disgraceful aims.

From the start, the Canadian government rejected all this unfounded rubbish based on untruths, and instead they offered me better protection and gave me a home in this great country, which has one of the most noble and correct justice systems, and higher levels of education, of security, of social wellbeing, of solidarity and of respect anywhere in the world. The Mexican government’s slanderous and maligning theatre collapsed and was swept away into ridicule and disgrace, before the indifference of those in power.

At the same time, distinguished, brave and honest judges and magistrates whose decisions salvage the little honesty and confidence that remain in the Mexican legal system, unanimously resolved in the First Collegiate Tribunal in Criminal Matters of the First Circuit that Interpol Mexico and the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic (PRG) violated the Constitution when they imposed that unfounded Red Notice which was motivated only by their morbid political persecution. This dignified decision in my favour makes it clear once more that although there are judges, magistrates and ministers of the Court who are merely taking orders, there are others who are honest and brave who will not let themselves be pressured, corrupted or intimidated, and they save the image of Mexican Judiciary Power.

The excellent decision from the First Collegiate Tribunal in Criminal Matters, which is based on the principles on justice and respect for democracy and human rights, as well as the wise strategy of the Los Mineros legal defence, exposed the most serious aspect of this situation, which must be analysed in depth by jurists and political scientists as well as by the current government itself. Interpol Mexico has no representation or legal validity given that when it was created as a dependent directorate of the PGR and was affiliated to International Interpol, it did so without the legally required approval or ratification from the Senate of the Republic.

What is more, Interpol Mexico maintained that Red Notice entirely illegally, that is to say, for the last three years they were in violation of the Constitution, knowing that the illegitimate arrest warrants had already been removed precisely because they were unconstitutional.

Enrique Peña Nieto’s government now has before it the huge task of applying justice correctly so as to act honourably and improve the image of Mexico abroad, because readers can be sure of one thing: if this had happened in Canada, or in any developed country, the civil servants who acted outside the law, like Fox and Calderón and their crowd of collaborators and complicit businesspeople, would not only have lost their jobs, but they, the real criminals, would have been imprisoned and would still be in prison today.