[OPE] Mexico:: A Labor Law Bosses Would Love

> A Labor Law Bosses Would Love
> Backed by industrialists, Mexican politicians are on the verge of
> erasing most workers rights.
> By David Bacon
>
> MEXICO CITY—Changing labor law sounds like some technical modification,
> a subject lawyers argue about in musty hearing rooms. In Mexico, it has
> been front-page news for weeks, as the government considers overhauling
> the rules governing millions of workers. Changing the countrys Federal
> Labor Law--as described by a bill lawmakers proposed in early
> March--would transform their lives, and cement the power of a group of
> industrialists who have been on the political offensive for decades and
> who now control Mexicos presidency and national government.
>
> "Labor law reform will only benefit the countrys oligarchs," claims
> Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who many, if not most, Mexicans think
> actually won the last presidential election in 2006, as candidate of
> the left-wing Party of the Democratic Revolution. Napoleon Gomez
> Urrutia, head of the miners union who was forced into exile in Canada
> in 2006, says Mexicos old governing party, the Party of the
> Institutionalized Revolution (PRI), "is trying to assure its return by
> making this gift to big business, putting an end to labor rights." PRI
> members presented the bill to Mexicos lower house on March 10; a vote
> may be held as soon as this week.
>
> On paper at least, the rights of Mexican workers are extensive,
> deriving from the Revolution that ended in 1920. At a time when workers
> in the United States still had no law that even recognized the legality
> of unions, Article 123 of the Mexican Constitution spelled them out.
> Workers have the right to jobs and permanent status once theyre hired.
> If theyre laid off, they have the right to severance pay. They have
> rights to housing, healthcare and training. In a legal strike, they can
> string flags across the doors of a factory or workplace, and even the
> owner cant enter until the dispute is settled. Strikebreaking is
> prohibited.
>
> Click here for the full article:
> http://www.inthesetimes.com/main/article/7209/

                                                
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Received on Sat Apr 23 13:41:21 2011