Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
Tomorrow marks the day when the world working class stands up to the capital and demands its place at the bargaining table for the general welfare of society. Considering that this day is celebrated almost everywhere in the world, why is the working class lagging so far behind the capital? Why is global inequality growing instead of decreasing?
According to the International Labor Organization, the rate of unionization is decreasing year by year worldwide. It is now averaging 13.7% of the world’s workforce. The same is true in Mexico. Our country has a meager unionization rate of 12% because most workers in the formal sector are not unionized. And all workers in the informal sector, who make up most of the employed workforce, have no protection measures, much less union organization.
European countries have the highest unionization rates in the free world, ranging from 67% (Denmark, the country AMLO admires so much) to 23% (Great Britain, the birthplace of Marx and Engels’ study). China, Cuba, and North Korea have very high unionization rates, but membership is forced in those countries, and there is no freedom to strike or organize industrial protests. Because of this control over the labor force, international capital is so keen to produce in China, for example.
Since the signing of the CUSMA/USMCA/T-MEC, a mechanism for monitoring, challenging, and correcting the means established to ensure the right of workers to elect their union leaders freely and without coercion has been installed. Through this mechanism, agreed trilaterally, more than 15 union leadership elections have taken place under the supervision of representatives of the three signatory countries. The ultimate purpose of the intervention of observers in the internal processes of leadership elections and the ratification of collective bargaining agreements is to ensure internal democratic processes in the unions.
And it has been the National Electoral Institute (INE) that has coordinated the different electoral processes. For this purpose, INE was integrated as part of the Board of the Federal Center for Labor Conciliation and Registration. Its first mission was observing and certifying the process of legitimizing the Collective Bargaining Agreement of the General Motors plant in Silao, Guanajuato. Thus, the international prestige of our electoral body is so attacked and vilified by the Obrador government.
Meanwhile, scattered and loosely organized union organizations have proposed to attend various marches to the zocalo. The Labor Congress discussed attending to show the full force of its dwindling union organizations. Others, such as the university unions, will participate with the bit of strength they still represent in the country and the Mexican Electricians Union (SME) in its progressive fragmentation. In sum, Mexican unionism is a disjointed force, a curious phenomenon in a country with a President who claims to be a leftist. The leftist leaders in South America have solid workers’ organizations. Lula comes from the metallurgical union, the Argentinian Peronists historically formed unions, the Chilean CUT supports leftist governments, and Petro has the support of some, but not all, labor centers. And Mexico?
Morena is not a movement that creates unions. It does not even believe in them or their political usefulness. No; Morena’s model of governance is to individualize the population so that they extend their hand to receive the money given to them by the government. It does not want organized workers because they are more difficult to manipulate. Its model promotes social fragmentation, not union or agricultural organization.
This social fragmentation fulfills Morena’s dream of controlling the population to make them obedient subjects and faithful voters. Unionized workers are a problem because they argue, allege, and demand. AMLO and Morena do not like that. There is no place for them in their model of government. For them, the working class is an entelechy of the neoliberal past.
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