2011-02-21 Mexico Cable Shows US Resentment Toward Unions, #WIUnion Updates

[kster]

Submitted by kgosztola on Tue, 02/22/2011 - 04:

Wisconsin? Yes, Wisconsin... WL Central has been covering all the protests worldwide. WL Central has been looking at countries regardless of whether there are WikiLeaks cables handy. Now, this struggle is getting much attention, but there is little reason for it to be left out. The people in Wisconsin are inspired by Egypt just like many others in the Middle East and North Africa have been moved to act.

And, actually, it's not entirely true that there is nothing out there to color what is happening in Wisconsin, to the anti-worker anti-union politics that has been spreading throughout the states. If one looks at the following cable 06MEXICO2220, one can infer that the US government views workers that try to wield political power and unions which wage battles against governments as players that could threaten a country's economic stability.

In this cable, ten economic challenges that the next president of Mexico will face are outlined. One of them is "Taking On the Unions without Shutting Down the Country":

12. (SBU) Few major reform proposals will move forward without
some confrontation or deal with the unions representing the
affected industries. Unions gained power and influence over many
decades of working closely with the PRI, delivering votes in
exchange for unaffordable benefits for workers and untold riches
for union leaders. Due to union protections, for example, the
state-owned Mexico City electric utility (LyFC) has what is in
effect its own construction and manufacturing subsidiaries with
some 10,000 employees. LyFC retirees not only retire at full
salary, but also receive the same annual union-negotiated raises
that active employees receive. In addition to unions for government and parastatal employees - including the 1.2 million
strong teachers union - powerful unions exist for
telecommunications, transportation, and mining workers, among
others.

¶13. (SBU) When the PRI lost its absolute control over Mexican
institutions, the PRI-controlled unions became juggernauts, and
the threat of strikes in any of the major sectors they dominate is
usually enough to force the government to back down on whatever
reforms it may be contemplating. In 2004, for example, Congress
passed a reform to the IMSS pension system in the face major
marches and protests by IMSS employees that shut down parts of
Mexico City for days - protests against a reform that only
affected future employees. IMSS Chief Santiago Levy was forced to
resign and a new contract was signed largely because the 300,000
plus strong union threatened to shut down the country's public
health system. While few would argue against the need for worker
protections, Mexico's unions have become a force against needed
reforms and in favor of economic stagnation. The economy is
especially harmed because heavily-unionized sectors (e.g. oil and
gas, telecommunications, electricity, health) are controlled by
one or few entities whose workers can literally paralyze the
country. Labor market rigidity may actually be one of the biggest
obstacles to economic growth in Mexico. Without labor market
reforms that would make it easier and less costly to hire and fire
workers, and limit their extremely generous benefits and severance
packages, investment and industrial growth here WILL be
handicapped.

The attitude of the diplomat who wrote this cable toward Mexico's unions is similar to the attitudes of US political leaders and pundits in the US media. This view is believed by a good amount of the American population -- the part of the population that could be called "the silent majority."



http://www.wlcentral.org/node/1351

[LooseWilly]

1. Does it make me a bad American to not fettishize profit margins for the bosses?

"Without labor market
reforms that would make it easier and less costly to hire and fire
workers, and limit their extremely generous benefits and severance
packages, investment and industrial growth here WILL be
handicapped." ... I can't help but think—good.

A sacrifice of "industrial growth" which requires "less costly hiring and firing of workers, and limits their ... benefits and severance packages" doesn't sound like a problem to me. I would be willing to guess that the overall benefits to the economy of having all those workers getting a "piece of the action", rather than putting into place policies that will allow the bosses to short change them so they can start new "industrial projects" (the workers of which will presumably likewise be short changed... in order to earn the money for the bosses to start the net project all the sooner... and so on, and so on, and so on).

Don't the bosses here see that this is the problem. They've short changed so many so much here in the States that, there no more customers. After a certain point, "industrial growth" is irrelevant—if there's no demand left for the new supplies, because everyone's been so short changed for so long.

Or maybe I'm wrong. A jobless recovery of the stock market (as an index of the value of the production of corporations) might not be problematic...

[kster]

3. ..........

:thumbsup:

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Well the attitude is there, but as somebody who gerw up

down there, let me tell you, he is not off. They do have a lot of political power and a few scandals have happened due to the wealth that a few union leaders have gotten, and the riches they've amassed. This is in the past though, and the attempt at the SS reform, was privatization. Granted the SS system does need reform, just not what they wanted.

But there is a grain of truth in there.

Oh and young union leaders have fought their elders to reform the unions as well. This is especially the case with the PEMEX union and the equivalent of the teachers union.