Blog

1 - SUPREME COURT RULES AGAINST SME WORKERS
2 - PEMEX EXPLOSION MAY LEAD TO PRIVATIZATION
3 - LAST MINUTE AGREEMENT REACHED ON TOMATO TRADE
4 - MARCOS ANNOUNCES AUGUST GATHERING IN CHIAPAS
5 - OBAMA ADMINISTRATION VETOED PREFERRED DEFENSE SECRETARY
6 - UNPRECEDENTED WEALTH CONCENTRATION

On January 30, Mexico’s Supreme Court handed down a unanimous decision against the Electrical Workers Union (SME), ending all legal avenues for SME workers to recover their jobs. About 16,000 SME workers, from a total workforce of 44,000 plus 15,000 retirees, maintained a struggle to recover their jobs after former President Felipe Calderon orchestrated the closing of Central Light and Power (LFC) three years ago in an effort to destroy one of Mexico’s most active unions. The judges ruled Calderon was not responsible for the closure of the state-owned company, despite the fact he ordered the federal army to occupy LFC installations and expel all SME workers. The Justices' ruling overturns a lower court decision. The judicial debacle follows closely on the heels of another defeat for labor with the passage late last year of a regressive labor reform law.

1 - ANTI-POVERTY PROGRAMS?
2 - ZAPATISTA COMMUNIQUES OFFER NEW LESSONS
3 - PENA NIETO RESPONDS TO EZLN COMMUNIQUES
4 - ZAPATISTA SUPPORTER RELEASED FROM PRISON

President Enrique Pena Nieto announced a program last week to fight extreme poverty, following a recent trend in populist politics utilized early in administrations whose electoral legitimacy is in doubt. Carlos Salinas de Gotari of the PRI, who stole an election in 1988, announced his Solidarity program in the first week of his administration. Solidarity was an effort to convert the PRI’s historic corporatist politics to a more direct relationship between recipients and party by offering supplies for construction of schools, roads and other infrastructure if communities provided the labor. Salinas often delivered the money in person in highly publicized events. PRIista Ernesto Zedillo followed in 1994 winning less than half the popular vote, the first time a PRI candidate publicly recognized such a slim victory. Zedillo replaced Solidarity with Progresa, a poverty-fighting program of direct subsidies to the poorest families provided their children go to school. PANist Vicente Fox took power in 2000 with 42% of the vote. He immediately replaced Progresa with Oportunidades, another direct subsidy program but more extensively linked to social engineering, including mandatory birth control classes, with some experts reporting sterilization operations performed on uninformed indigenous women. In 2006, PANista Felipe Calderon stole an election with the help of political operator extraordinaire Elba Esther Gordillo. He immediately offered infrastructure programs for poor communities, a “70 and Over Program” that provides US$50 a month in assistance for the elderly (the idea came directly from his opponent in the presidential campaign), and continuation of Oportunidades.

1 – ZAPATISTAS PUBLISH COMMUNIQUES
On December 30, the EZLN issued a formal communique outlining their broad strategic focus for the immediate future and two public letters, representing the movement’s first public comments in a year and a half. The declarations follow historic silent marches by 40,000 Zapatista support bases in five major population centers in eastern and northern Chiapas on December 21. The declarations are available in Spanish and English at http://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/.

The communique opens with a brief review of Zapatista successes over the years: “we have significantly strengthened and improved our living conditions. Our standard of living is higher than those of the indigenous communities that support the governments in office, who receive handouts that are squandered on alcohol and useless items.” For a movement that passed quickly in the early 2000s from du jour to passé in the mainstream media, casual followers of Zapatismo may find this claim surprising. But after institutional politics were largely closed off to the movement by the passage of a toothless version of the San Andres Accords in 2001, Zapatismo turned inward, focusing on self-implementation of the Accords. The results are impressive – autonomous self-government, a primary and secondary education system that covers the entirety of Zapatista territory, and a self-financed medical system recognized for its efficacy, even by opposition party members in Chiapas. Slowly but surely, Zapatismo has become a sustainable force focused on the basic needs and political organization of tens of thousands of indigenous families.

1 - PRI CLAIMS PRESIDENCY, AND FIRST VICTIMS
2 - FEDERAL POLICE IN CUSTODY FOR ATTACK ON CIA AGENTS
3 - LABOR REFORM PASSES
4 - CARTEL LEADER ACCUSES CALDERON ADMIN OF CORRUPTION