Humberto Montes de Oca, ( left) of the Mexican Electrical Workers, spoke to workers in Sacramento and Stockton California on Jan. 24, 2010, as a part of a tour of California unions sponsored by the San Francisco Central labor Council, LACLAA, and endorsed by the Sacramento Central Labor Council.
Montes de Oca described how the 44,000 Electrical workers in Central Mexico have been locked out of their jobs since October 10, 2009 when the government of Mexican President Felipe Calderon, took control of the company and closed it. The conservative government used the economic crisis of last year to seize a valuable resource that belonged to the people of Mexico.
Calderon, of the PAN party, became President in the disputed
July 2006 presidential election in Mexico. In 2009 he closed the public utility company Luz y Fuerza del Centro to privatize this public corporation and destroy the powerful and militant independent Mexican Electrical Workers Union
The Mexican Electrical Workers (SME) ask U.S. unions and community organizations to support them in their demands to (1) immediately reinstate fired workers to their jobs, (2) remove all police from Luz y Fuerza workplaces , (3) and to recognize the existing collective bargaining agreements.
In this case the Mexican government is using the economic crisis to turn the publically owned company over to private businesses to make enormous profits for cronies of the government and the elite classes.
The SME is taking their case to the trinational offices of NAFTA with the assistance of the AFL-CIO on Jan.28,2010. The ousted workers need political and financial assistance. Unions and local groups can send letters of protest to the President at
Or the Secretary of Labor at
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