Collapse of Dignity

by Napoleon Gomez

  Now, some seventeen years later, the 1,200 workers of Cananea were once again demanding their rights as employees and as humans, only to be met with threats and repression. Grupo México vigorously denounced the strike in the courts—as it did with the strikes in Taxco and Sombrerete. It’s no wonder keeping Cananea open became Grupo México’s number one priority: according to La Jornada, this one mine accounts for 64 percent of Grupo México’s potential earnings, and if copper is excavated at the same rate it has been in previous years, experts predict that the deposits will last from thirty to eighty-two years.

  Rather than negotiate a just solution to the Cananea strike, the company simply tried, with the support of Labor Secretary Lozano, to have the strikes declared illegal. On July 31, 2007, one day after the union initiated the strike, the Mexico’s labor board, the JFCA, declared the work stoppage unlawful. With the strike officially seen as illegal by the government, workers could be compelled to return to work at the risk of losing their jobs. But the union immediately appealed for a writ of amparo that would grant constitutional protection against the JFCA’s resolution; in the meantime, the strike could be legally continued. In October, we were granted protection by the courts. An ensuing appeal from Grupo México was denied, meaning that the miners of Cananea could continue their strike with full legal approval.

  In the years leading up to the July 30 strike, conditions at the Cananea copper mine were notoriously poor. A joint inspection in 2005 between the company, the union, and the labor department had resulted in forty-eight complaints of negligence in working conditions, of which only nine were partially and incompletely remedied. In April of 2007, three months before the strike began, the labor department completed another inspection, finding seventy-two distinct issues in need of correction, many centered around faulty electrical systems and hazardous buildups of silica dust. Yet, by July, when the strike was declared, nothing had been done.

  In October of 2007, with the strike in full swing, Cananea’s Union Section 65 requested that the Maquiladora Health & Safety Support Network (MHSSN, mhssn.igc.org) undertake a study of the mine. The MHSSN is a volunteer network of four hundred occupational health and safety professionals who provide information and assistance on workplace hazards in the maquiladoras—foreign-owned factories where workers are traditionally paid very low wages—along the U.S.–Mexico border. The organization agreed to inspect the mine and subsequently found a mind-boggling level of negligence. The binational team working on the Cananea study was made up of occupational health professionals including three physicians, three industrial hygienists, a pulmonary technician, and a registered nurse. They inspected the facilities, interviewed workers, and administered lung-function tests to sixty-eight of the miners working in the copper mine and its related processing plants.

  The resulting seventy-four-page report is an unconditional and extensively documented condemnation of Grupo México’s handling of the facility, pointing to more than 220 serious health and safety problems at the Cananea facility. These were the first two bullet points in the MHSSN’s list of major findings at the front of the report:

  •“The conditions observed inside the mine and processing plants, and the work practices reported by the interviewed workers, paint a clear picture of a workplace being “deliberately run into the ground.” A serious lack of preventive maintenance, failure to repair equipment and correct visible safety hazards, and a conspicuous lack of basic housekeeping have created a work site where workers have been exposed to high levels of toxic dusts and acid mists, operate malfunctioning and poorly maintained equipment, and work in simply dangerous surroundings.”

  •“The deliberate dismantling of dust collectors in the Concentrator area processing plants by Grupo México approximately two years ago means that workers in these areas have been subjected to high concentrations of dust containing 23 percent quartz silica, with 51 percent of sampled dust in the respirable particle size range, protected only by completely inadequate personal respirators. Occupational exposures to silica can lead to debilitating, fatal respiratory diseases including silicosis and lung cancer.”

  The MHSSN also reported that the Cananea mine operates under conditions that could lead to collapse due to high levels of toxic dust and acid gases, adding that it is not just the workers who are exposed to these risky contaminants but also their families and the residents of the town. The silicone content detected in workers’ blood tests was at levels that lead to fatal respiratory illnesses like silicosis, whose symptoms appear only after years of exposure. In the enclosed processing buildings that are part of the complex, mine workers had exposures to very fine silica dust that registered at least ten times the government’s legal limit.

  Perhaps the most affecting part of the report is the collection of pictures the MHSSN used to back up its descriptions of the mine’s deplorable condition. They show clear, full-color photos of silica dust mounded on top of machinery, pieces of disconnected ductwork that should be collecting the dust, and open holes in the floor surrounded by yet more piles of the dangerous silica powder. There are also photos of unguarded engine belts, steel corroded from acid mists, and open control panels where energized wires are coated in dust.

  In addition to its report, on November 13, the MHSSN sent a message to Labor Secretary Lozano stating that “the industrial safety and hygiene conditions are deplorable in the mine at Cananea, Sonora, and that the same is true at the mines of Sombrerete, Zacatecas, and Taxco, Guerrero, all of which belong to Grupo México.” They informed the labor secretary that they were conducting similar studies in Sombrerete and Taxco, free of charge. Based on their preliminary findings and on the union complaints dating back to 2005, they were confident they would find a level of danger in both mines similar to Cananea. In the letter, they invite Lozano “to visit the mines in question to personally corroborate the poor safety conditions,” in order to “avoid continued risk to the lives of workers” of Union Sections 65, 201, and 17. They respectfully ask him to form a commission to check into the study’s findings, with the participation of the Department of Health, the governments of the states of Sonora, Zacatecas, and Guerrero, the Miners’ Union, the United Steelworkers, and the IMF.

  But despite the findings of the MHSSN, Lozano and his labor department displayed their characteristic insensitivity and deceit. He sent a letter to the MHSSN and, through Labor Undersecretary Alvaro Castro, made public statements to the media containing the absurd statement that the study was not legally valid because it was not directed by the labor department itself and because it was completed while the mine was subjected to a strike. Unbelievably, the letter also described conditions in the mine as “optimal” and stated that the majority of problems found by the MHSSN were minor issues that the company had resolved, when in fact nothing had been done to correct them. Eduardo Bours, Sonora’s governor, never made an inspection, but he defended Grupo México and the mine operation, and questioned the legality of the study.

  Garret Brown, a certified industrial hygienist from California and the coordinator of the MHSSN study,* was pointed in his reply:

  Grupo México’s response to our health and safety report at the Cananea mine deliberately misses the point and the facts of the case . . . Grupo México is deliberately misrepresenting our study, done by Mexican and US occupational health professionals who donated 100 percent of their time to complete it. In addition to the severe silica dust hazards, there are literally dozens of other safety hazards on site—both in the mine itself and in the processing plant . . . If Grupo México is so proud of the conditions at the Cananea mine and its processing plants, then it should accept the proposal made on November 13 to Mexico’s Secretary of Labor, Javier Lozano Alarcón, that the Secretary head a tripartite, fact-finding commission to establish exactly what are working conditions in the country’s largest copper mine . . . The serious health and safety hazards to the Cananea miners continue to exist, regardless of the technicalities of the Labor Law, so we urge the
STPS [labor department] to fulfill its duties to protect the health of Mexican workers in Cananea.

  Brown’s statement echoed the union’s own press release, which we had put out the day before, on November 14, 2007, and a series of ads we placed in newspapers in Sonora and Mexico City. In them, we restated the conclusions of the MHSSN and said that these “indicate that there are serious health and safety hazards in the Cananea mine that require immediate long-term correction in order to protect workers from accidents and chronic exposures leading to occupational illnesses.” We detailed the steps that Grupo México and the labor department needed to take to correct the disastrous course Cananea was on. Predictably, we received no response.

  In August 2007, labor-related violence broke out once again, this time at La Caridad copper mine in Nacozari, Sonora—another one of the mines whose privatization had contributed to the 1990 creation of the Mining Trust. At La Caridad, the government had allowed Grupo México to unlawfully fire its whole workforce of nine hundred union members. The company then handpicked about seven hundred of those members to return to their jobs (they had to be intimidated and threatened before they agreed) and then brought in 1,200 additional workers from southern Mexico. To combat this arbitrary firing, we won a legal injunction that compelled Grupo México to allow the dismissed workers to return to their jobs.

  On August 11, 2007, the dismissed workers drove to the Nacozari facility to demand their reinstatement, in accordance with the judge’s ruling. At 8:30 p.m., several buses belonging to Grupo México pulled up to the site and unloaded men who began attacking the assembled workers. Shots were fired, and the attackers began throwing union members forcefully into the buses. One group of three workers hid and subsequently got word that they should head to the foundry, close to the only exit of the Nacozari facility. They found the exit blocked by guards, and as the driver put the car in reverse, a bullet pierced the rear window, hitting the backseat passenger, miner Reynaldo Hernández González, in the head. The driver sped away, calling to Reynaldo from the front seat but receiving no answer. He stopped the car and, by the flame of his lighter, saw that his colleague was dead from the bullet wound.

  That same night, company men seized, beat, and tortured the twenty union members who had been thrown into buses. Eventually, to stop the beatings, the workers falsely admitted that they had been the aggressors and had intended to forcibly seize the facility from Grupo México, when in reality all they had been doing was peacefully demanding their court-ordered reinstatement. The company also tried to get these workers to accuse the executive committee of the Miners’ Union of having incited acts of violence. The men were then driven to the local jail, where they were detained for over a day. None of the armed attackers were questioned or taken into custody. An investigation by the Workers’ Study and Action Center later found that relatives of the La Caridad miners called the police and begged them to come stop the violence but that the authorities refused to send patrols. One worker’s wife actually went to the police station but was met with the same refusal. She said she overheard an officer say that there were company orders not to send patrols to the Nacozari mine, no matter what happened.

  In the aftermath of Reynaldo Hernández’s death at the La Caridad mine, Grupo México and the Sonoran government tried to cover up the true facts of what had happened. Hernández’s body was never taken to the hospital but was instead driven to a morgue in Hermosillo, five hours away. The family was not permitted access to the body for four full days, and they received no reason for this delay. The most blatant attempt at concealment, though, came in the autopsy, which claimed that Reynaldo’s death had come as the result of a blunt force trauma to the head, not a bullet wound. A blow to the head seemed much less calculated than a gunshot, Grupo México must have reasoned.

  The company and Sonora governor Eduardo Bours Castelo both put forth the invented claim that the workers were going to take over the company’s Nacozari facility by force and that the armed forces had been sent in to protect the workers while the company defended the facility. But in no way did the plotters of this carnage send armed public personnel to protect miners. The security forces were present, but they stood idly by, never once offering help while workers were beaten and shot. They were there only to make sure that the thugs hired by Grupo México carried out their violent repression.

  Governor Bours lied constantly, saying that his government was going to conduct investigations to find the cause of Reynaldo Hernández’s death. There was no investigation, nor have any of the authors of this violent repression been punished. Bours has never apologized to Hernández’s family or any of the tortured workers. All his actions were meant to protect Grupo México. He proved himself to be one of the most “PAN-like” PRI members (we call these rightist PRI members “emPANizado”—“breaded”). A look at Bours’s background reveals why he would act in such a way: He has a great personal stake in protecting business interests in Mexico. He is heir to Bachoco, an agro-industrial company created by his father, which primarily sells poultry and pork products. Although he has participated in numerous national and transnational businesses, Bachoco is his biggest endeavor, holding as it does a virtual monopoly over poultry products. Bours was also once a director of the Business Coordinating Council, a group of the richest businessmen in Mexico, and as governor he dedicated his time to defending these obscenely wealthy entrepreneurs. He entered politics not to serve the public interest but to serve businessmen, to build his own companies, and to satisfy his ambition. He is dedicated to covering for individuals such as Germán Feliciano Larrea. As governor of Sonora from 2003 to 2009, he ignored and disavowed the aggressions against mineworkers by Larrea’s company, proving that all these business groups act as one large criminal organization. They are like a brotherhood or secret society, all protecting one another from the consequences of their criminal acts.

  As repressions like these escalated, international support for Los Mineros continued. On August 14—days after the murder of Reynaldo Hernández—at the Regional Conference of the IMF of Latin America and the Caribbean, held in Montevideo, Uruguay, the assembly expressed its complete and absolute support for the Mexican miners in their struggle for dignity, autonomy, and liberty. The organization agreed to three global solidarity resolutions: (1) Recover the sixty-three bodies abandoned in Pasta de Conchos, treat the families fairly, and punish those responsible, both in the company and the government; (2) Find an immediate solution to the three strikes in Cananea, Sombrerete, and Taxco; (3) Immediately stop persecuting Napoleón Gómez Urrutia and the National Miners’ Union.

  Despite calls for an end to the persecution—from the IMF, Los Mineros ourselves, and many others—the attack on union democracy continued. Germán Larrea dearly wanted the strike in Cananea to end—along with those in Taxco and Sombrerete—and he knew that the only long-term solution to controlling the unrest of the workers was to have a union that served not to empower them, but to pacify and further subjugate them. To that end—and because their smear campaign hadn’t convinced the union’s members that I was a fraud—he and his band of fellow businessmen began directly intimidating workers, using outright threats and violence. The level of these assaults shot up in 2007, with me, my family, and a full ten members of the union’s executive committee receiving death threats.

  Mario Garcia Ortiz, the executive committee’s delegate in the state of Michoacán (who was later elected as my alternate general secretary in the General Convention of May 2008), suffered extreme aggression at the hands of the government. Mario had always been a loyal advocate for Los Mineros, and it was for that reason that they went after him. In February 2007, a group of men arrived at his house while his wife and son were there alone. His wife, María, heard the car pull up. Leaving the laundry she was doing, she walked to the front door to investigate. On the other side of the door, she found a group of strange men. “Are you the wife of Mario Garcia?” one asked. When she replied yes, she was grabbed by the hair and tol
d she would be paying for her husband’s actions. They dragged her by the hair to a waiting car, threw her on the back floorboard, and ordered her not to look at their faces. Before they left, they shot at the house and demanded that Mario’s young son, Miguel, say where his father was. Miguel wouldn’t say, even when they threatened him with the death of his father. Unable to get an answer, they drove off with María, leaving Miguel traumatized.

  Witnesses to the abduction quickly identified the kidnappers as state policemen dressed as civilians; in a small town like Mario’s, everyone knew everyone, and masquerading police were easy to spot. When Mario called me to tell me what was going on, he was in a rage, worried sick over his wife. He said that he and a few of his colleagues had decided to collect some collateral that would help them negotiate with her captors. They had followed a group of workers—traitors who were in the service of Grupo Villacero—to a water-bottling company, and then trapped the men inside. His plan was to kill the men one by one and then burn the building to the ground if María wasn’t returned unharmed. It was the only way the distraught Mario could think of to pressure his wife’s captors into letting her go.

  I did my best to calm Mario over the phone, and I assured him that violence would not do anything to help the situation. Despite my great anger against the aggressors, I told him that we shouldn’t make irrational decisions, that we should keep a cool head. If we lost our heads and acted rashly, I said, we would be acting like our enemies, and even more blood would be spilled as a result.

  As soon as I was off the phone with Mario, I called Michoacán’s governor, Lázaro Cárdenas Batel, and demanded that they release Mario Garcia’s wife unharmed. I told him what Mario was threatening to do and insisted that María be returned right away. (We already knew Cárdenas Batel to be a weak man who would not stand up to the union’s abusers; he’d proven that excellently in his reaction to the attack against the Sicartsa mill the previous year.) The governor claimed not to know anything about the kidnapping, even though it was very clear that the perpetrators were disguised state police.