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Four million Mexican workers strike in support of miners
[June 17, 2006]

Four million Mexican workers strike in support of miners


(EFE Ingles Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Mexico City, Jun 17 (EFE).- Union leaders of four million workers including electricians, telephone workers and university employees have called a strike for June 28 - just four days before the presidential election - in support of the miners union and in defense of union autonomy.



The miners union announced in a statement that on the same day it will walk out in solidarity with the strike called by unions belonging to the National Front for Union Unity and Autonomy (FNUAS) and the Mexican electricians' union.

The secretary general of the telephone workers' union and of the National Workers Union (UNT), Francisco Hernandez Juarez, delivered Friday the strike notices required by Federal Labor Law to make a strike valid.


The leader said in a communique that the four million workers will begin the nationwide stoppage at 2:00 p.m. (1900 GMT) on June 28 and will stay off the job until authorities acknowledge the head of the union to be Napoleon Gomez Urrutia.

Last February Mexico's labor minister refused to accept Gomez Urrutia as head of the national mine and metallurgy workers' union (SNTMM), a decision that opened the union doors for Elias Morales to take over with minority support.

Hernandez Juarez, leader of the telephone workers, said that 60,000 employees will join the walkout, which means that the entire country will be without telephone service.

He added that the other unions supporting the protest will hand in their strike notices in the coming days.

Union strife has also clouded Mexican authorities' investigation into Gomez Urrutia's suspected embezzlement of $55 million from a union trust fund that was requested by a Sonora judge.

As a reply the union leader, who fled to Canada, called for demonstrations and unofficial strikes in several firms that have contracts with the miners union.

Last week mining giant Grupo Mexico announced the closure of its La Caridad copper mine in the northern state of Sonora in the face of a 77-day-long wildcat strike at the facility that the SNTMM union launched as part of its campaign to force the government to recognize Gomez Urrutia as its chief.

"The physical impossibility of operating its mining unit ... has caused the firm to go to the Federal Conciliation and Arbitration Board and close the La Caridad mine and concentrating plant, said the world's seventh-largest copper producer in a communique.

Elsewhere, workers at the Cananea copper mine in the northern state of Sonora have been on strike since the beginning of the month to protest the refusal by mine owner Grupo Mexico to attend a ceremony marking the 100th anniversary of a strike there.

The strike at Cananea spread, and the miners said it would not end until the government recognized Gomez Urrutia, who was the head of the SNTMM until after the Feb. 19 explosion that killed 65 miners at Grupo Mexico's Pasta de Conchos coal mine.

With attention focused on the fate of the trapped miners, who then were thought to still be alive, some elements of the union decided to remove Gomez Urrutia from the leadership in favor of Elias Morales, a change the federal Labor Secretariat rushed to approve. EFE

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