Collapse of Dignity

by Napoleon Gomez

  Sadly, Luis Donaldo Colosio, the man who’d shown the most support for fairness and transparency in the process of nominating the PRI’s gubernatorial candidate, was assassinated on March 23, 1994. He’d been elected as one of the PRI’s candidates for president of Mexico, but he was gunned down at point-blank range after a campaign rally in an impoverished neighborhood of Tijuana in the state of Baja California.

  I returned to my job at the Mint for the remainder of 1991, but in 1992, I resigned, having completed a twelve-year cycle. The job had been more or less administrative in nature, and I felt I had achieved what I wanted to there. I’d served as president of the World Mint Directors Organization for two years, from 1986 to 1988—I was the only Latin American to have ever been elected to that position—and had helped the Mint transform itself into the best it had been in decades. Upon my departure, I took a job as general director of the Autlán Mining Company, which was still owned by the Mexican government, and its entire group of subsidiary companies. My stay there was short: after a year and a half, the company was privatized, and I resigned so that the new private owners could appoint their own leadership.

  I didn’t have a clear idea of what I wanted to do next, but my political passion had been awakened, and I knew I wanted to help Mexican democracy free itself from the grip of corruption. Toward that end, I began spending more time working with the miners’ union my father led. After striking out on my own path into the world of academia and then public administration, I was now moving toward what would become my true vocation.

  For years I’d helped my father where I could. He had grown into a widely revered figure in Mexico’s labor movement and had served twice as senator and once as congressman in the Mexican government, all while holding the position of general secretary of the Miners’ Union. He had also three times served as president of Mexico’s Labor Congress, a federation of more than thirty labor unions. Helping my father in his capacity as general secretary of the Miners’ Union was a rewarding task, though I was never paid for my services. I translated articles and passed along statistical information about markets, trends in metal prices, inflation projections, and changes in tax policy—information that helped the union negotiate wages and revisions to the workers’ collective bargaining agreements. I also wrote, edited, and sometimes delivered speeches and presentations at national and international conferences on behalf of the union. Along with some of my colleagues from UNAM’s economics department, I also helped design and publish the union’s first official publication: Minero magazine, today called Carta Minera (Miners’ Letter). Beginning with my studies and continuing through my time at the Mint, I acted as a consultant, active but in the background. I did this not just out of loyalty to my father but out of a deep and ever-growing respect for the dangerous work the miners of the union—Los Mineros—did every day, and a desire to fight for justice.

  Most of the union members had known me since I was a child, first meeting me as I listened on the outskirts of the union meetings that would frequently take place in our home. Even before my father had been elected to lead Local 64 of the Miners’ Union, he had organized a political group within local sector, and his comrades would often meet in our living room in the evenings, enjoying a beer or two and discussing how to create confidence and solidarity among the union’s members. As I continued doing unofficial consulting for the union in my adulthood, the members got to know me even better than they had when I was a child eavesdropping on the conversation of adults. As my respect for them increased, they came to trust me. My father tracked all of my work for the union with a vigilant and often critical eye. I know he was proud of the work I did, though he tended to keep his feelings to himself in our personal relationship. It was from others that I heard he was proud of me; he once told Oralia and his colleagues that I would do great things, and not just for Los Mineros. I would have preferred to hear it directly from him, of course, but he showed his respect in other ways—he consulted with me on nearly every important decision he made, even when it came time to look for his replacement as head of the union.

  I didn’t officially become a union member until 1995, when Grupo Peñoles, the second-largest mining company in Mexico, offered me a position with the administration, accounting, and operations of a project in a new mine opened in Santiago Papasquiaro, a town set in the valley below the Sierra Madre in the state of Durango. It was a post I could hold while maintaining my residence in Mexico City. The mine was called La Ciénega, and I took the job with the condition that all the workers at the mine be unionized—including me. The company agreed, and I began my official career as an active member of the Miners’ Union. After a few months of work, the union named me Special Delegate to the National Executive Committee in Section 120 of La Cienega de Nuestra Señora.

  The more involved I became in the Miners’ Union, the more I felt as if I’d found my calling. Not only was I supporting and learning from my father, but I was putting my passion for economics to use to benefit the workers I respected so much. I had become more and more actively involved in the union’s operations; I was now helping negotiate the workers’ collective bargaining agreements, always looking for ways to protect the workers’ dignity and maintain equilibrium between their rights and the goals of the company.

  In 2000, my father’s health began to decline. He was now eighty-six, and after a bout with pneumonia, doctors discovered that he was suffering from lung cancer. Though he had never been a smoker, he had spent years at the lead and zinc smelter. As his condition worsened, it became clear that the union would soon require a new general secretary. He began meeting with the individuals who hoped to take his place, among them Elías Morales, a member of the union’s executive committee who would later earn the distinction of being one of the worst traitors to the labor cause in Mexico.

  Morales was, like me, from the city of Monterrey, and he had earned a reputation among the workers as an opportunist who was driven by insatiable ambition. Using any means possible, including taking on a servile, sycophantic persona and accusing his fellow workers of crimes they didn’t commit, he was bent on climbing the ladder and gaining more and more power. It was obvious to everyone that he wanted to take my father’s place at the head of the union. Some workers even reported that, during one of my father’s last workplace visits, to a steel facility in Lázaro Cárdenas in the state of Michoacán, Morales gave him a shove at the top of a steep staircase, hoping to disguise the fall as an accident. My father didn’t fall, but Morales continued his efforts. Knowing my father was a diabetic, he continually offered him candy, rich desserts, and fatty foods. He even took on some of my father’s mannerisms in an attempt to gain trust from the workers through mere imitation.

  As he lay sick in bed, weakening by the day, my father met with members of the national executive committee of the union, and in those conversations, he detected the scent of betrayal. In private, my father confided to a few of his closest members of the executive committee that there were men in the union who’d grown inappropriately close to the companies. He was worried, and rightly so, that upon his death these men, Morales being foremost among them, would negotiate with the mining companies to their own benefit, and to the detriment of the workers. These colleagues shared my father’s concerns with the union’s leaders, and concern about who would serve as a trustworthy replacement spread. These concerns turned out to be well founded, as events years down the road would confirm.

  At the time, no one had considered the possibility of me stepping in for my father—especially not me. I was excited about my family’s plans. Oralia and I were already dreaming about our next adventure, hoping to take our sons abroad once again. We missed the rich culture of Europe, and hoped to educate our boys there. But as my father’s time grew short, the executive committee began to view me as the safest option and proposed that I be appointed alternate general secretary under my father. They knew I would never betray the union or the workers. I was already their colleague, their br
other, their friend. This was not the case with some union leaders at that time who aspired to replace him.

  Though most of the workers seemed to like and respect me, my father insisted from the beginning that I not set my sights on taking his place permanently. From the time the subject first came up, he voiced his strong opposition. To me and to his colleagues he repeatedly said that it was inappropriate; that my serving as his successor would give the enemies of the union fuel for their attacks. He also told me what a difficult world it was—a world of treachery, with many powerful people and organizations fighting for their own interests. Being directly involved with union leadership would be a strain on my family, and he encouraged me to follow my own path.

  At the time I completely agreed with him. I expected that before his term was up, a suitable replacement for my father would appear. I saw the position of alternate general secretary as temporary, an opportunity to help my father protect the union as he transitioned out of leadership and to protect it from those who might try to grab power for their own benefit. My plan was to serve in that capacity and then move on.

  In early March of 2000, the executive committee of the union held a pleno, or formal meeting, in my father’s office in the Mexico City headquarters of the Miners’ Union. The majority of the thirteen assembled committee members wanted to name me as alternate general secretary, and I was ready to take on that responsibility. But also in attendance at the pleno were several traitors, including Elías Morales, who was intent on securing his position as general secretary when my father died. The tension in the room was palpable. Over the course of the meeting, the committee members proposed that I be selected as alternate general secretary. As soon as the words were spoken, all eyes turned to Morales; everyone knew of his ambitions, and that he would see this as a huge blow to his chances. Seated directly under a deer’s head that was mounted on the wall, Morales sat silently but turned a deep shade of red.

  My father still wasn’t fully on board with the idea of me becoming second in command, either. “Are you thinking clearly?” he said to the group, repeating his concerns. After we discussed the matter further, he eventually came to a grudging acceptance that this was best for the union. He knew that this was the only sure way to prevent the union from being compromised, but before he agreed, he took me aside to reiterate the heavy burden I would be taking on.

  At last Constantino Romero, the union’s Secretary of Acts, proposed that we raise our hands to vote on the matter, formalizing my selection as alternate general secretary according to the union’s bylaws. Everyone raised a hand, even Morales, who grudgingly voted in my favor, too cowardly to even express his dismay.

  When I got home after the meeting, I was overwhelmed with a feeling of responsibility and was excited to take on the challenge of meeting the high standards my father had set as general secretary of the union. Already I was mentally running through how I would build upon the foundation he had built, and transform the union into a modern, efficient organization that would continue to serve the workers. I told Oralia about what the union officials had proposed, and she was surprisingly enthusiastic about the potential change in plans. “I’m with you whatever you decide to do,” she told me. “But how long would this be for?”

  “Just a few years,” I replied. “It would just be until I can help place someone at the head of the union whom the people can trust. Once we find the man who will really abide by the will of the people, I can move on.”

  I couldn’t have known then about the dramatic events that would extend my tenure as general secretary of the Miners’ Union, but I was pleased that I’d have the chance to help continue my father’s legacy, especially if it meant saving the union from men who were more on the companies’ side than on the workers’—men like Elías Morales and Raúl Hernández. I told the executive committee that I would accept the position. I gave up my responsibilities at the La Ciénega mine to focus on my new responsibilities in Mexico City. It was a difficult decision to make, but once I made it, I spent the next few months working closely with my father to prepare myself to carry out the duties of general secretary.

  Morales, in the days after the pleno where I had been elected alternate general secretary, abruptly abandoned his duties as a member of the executive committee. He told everyone that his daughter was sick, but he was spotted at the offices of Grupo México—the foremost mining company in Mexico and employer of thousands of union members—and at the Mexican Department of Labor. It was clear what was going on: Morales, incensed at having been passed over, was now conspiring with the business interests who hoped to control the union. No doubt he thought he could gain their backing, take over the union, and then sell out the workers for his own personal gain.

  At the national convention of the Miners’ Union held in May 2000, Morales was expelled from the union along with two other traitors—Benito Ortiz Elizalde and Armando Martínez Molina—on proven charges of treason, corruption, and spying on behalf of the companies that employed the union’s members. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the end of Morales’s involvement in the Miners’ Union. The spurned traitor would be back.

  My father passed away in the early morning hours of October 11, 2001. My sister had called my wife and me a few hours before to warn us that he was having trouble breathing. We rushed over, and he finally took his last breath, quietly and without distress.

  That was on a Friday, and on the previous Monday he had told my sister that he’d seen my mother, who had died two years before. He said he saw her near the stairs, that he called to her. “Lochis!” he said. “How are you? I’m coming soon, but I have a few things to take care of.” Over the following days, he made sure everything was in order, and by Friday night he was ready to go.

  I had asked him whether he was afraid of death, and he said no. He told me he was satisfied with his life—he was proud of his family and of dedicating himself to serving others. He had once told me, as I sat with him in Taxco, a picturesque town outside of Mexico City, that he wondered if he had neglected his family by dedicating so much time to the workers of the union. He seemed upset about not leaving a fortune for his family.

  I told him that day for the first time how proud I was of him. “I will always see your image in every mine worker,” I said. “I will feel your presence, and I will always give my best to serve them and their families in the same way that you have done throughout your whole life, Dad. You can rest assured that you have been a great man and an extraordinary human being. You have been a very generous man, a great example, a great father.”

  As we all mourned the loss of Napoleón Gómez Sada in October 2001, the union held an extraordinary national convention, the union’s highest authority, to address the successor. The delegates decided unanimously to elect me interim general secretary of the union until the next ordinary national convention, which would be held in May 2002. At that point, the union would elect its next leader.

  Until that date, it was my responsibility to fight for the rights of the 250,000 members of the Miners’ Union. I vowed to myself that I would keep my word to my father, and honor his memory with each of my actions.

  TWO

  A NEW LEADER

  Work must be given its dignity.

  — JOSÉ MARTI

  In my first days as head of the Miners’ Union, my father’s absence weighed heavily upon me. I felt grief at his death, and I felt the difficulty and importance of the job he’d done so well for forty years. I immediately set out to follow one of the many pieces of advice he’d given me: that the best way to understand the needs of workers is to talk to them face-to-face. I began arranging a tour of all the mines and steel plants in the country, hoping to hear what was important to the union’s members and to build confidence in me as the new general secretary. My goal was to tour the whole country over the next year and visit each of the ninety or so union sections that existed at the time. I decided to begin with the sixteen sections in the state of Coahuila, which contains nearly 95
percent of Mexico’s coal reserves and therefore has a high concentration of mines, as well as the biggest steel facility in the country, Altos Hornos de México.

  Each week I would leave the union’s headquarters in Mexico City for a few days to make these visits. As I toured work sites and held meetings and assemblies to hear the thoughts of the workers, nearly everyone I talked to expressed their appreciation for what my father had done during his life. They would tell me about sons and daughters who had been able to go to college because of a grant he won for them; about wives and parents who were still alive because my father had seen that they got adequate medical services; and about the homes they still had because he had intervened and provided credit when they were in dire financial straits. At every turn, I heard about something my father had done for someone. I was humbled and overwhelmed. Since that tour, my father has been with me every day, serving as my role model and inspiration—as a man and as a union leader.

  Though I felt that the workers—most of whom had known me since childhood—trusted me to continue my father’s legacy as an honest leader, my appointment to general secretary of the union was not without some controversy. There were some—like Elías Morales and Benito Ortiz, who had been expelled from the union for their close relationship with the companies—who said I’d simply inherited my role from my father without earning it. Encouraged by companies like Grupo México and Grupo Villacero to challenge my leadership, these men and a small faction who took their side declared to the press that my election was somehow illegitimate. Not one of these traitors had the courage to tell me this to my face, but they were happy to please their corporate backers by spreading lies to reporters behind my back.