Mexico's rulers launch attack on oil workers

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20,000 oil workers protested arrest of union leader "La Quina."

The small industrial town of Ciudad Madero was awakened by the blasts of a bazooka on Jan. 10. Mexican police and army units were launching a raid at the home of Joaquin Hernandez Galicia, long-time leader of the Mexican oil workers union.

Galicia, better known as La Quina, was taken from his home in his underwear after a brief gun battle. He was charged with illegal possession of weapons. Police allegedly found 200 machine guns and 30,000 rounds of ammunition in the house. About 50 other union officials were arrested in similar raids.

Workers at refineries around the country responded to La Quina's arrest with spontaneous strike actions. Notimex, Mexico's official news agency, reported that half of the nation's 18 refineries were closed by strikes. Over 20,000 oil workers protested the arrest at a Jan. 12 demonstration at the National Palace.

Many observers, while surprised at the ferocity of the government raid, were expecting some move against La Quina by the Mexican government. A strong antagonism had developed over the years between La Quina and Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari.

Under former President Miguel de la Madrid, Salinas, then Minister of Finance, had blocked union attempts to extend control over Pemex, Mexico's oil industry. During the last presidential campaign, La Quina tried to block Salinas's nomination as candidate of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).

After Salinas received the nomination, La Quina and the oil workers gave under-thetable support to opposition candidate Cuauhtemoc Cardenas in the form of campaign contributions and rallies.

The dramatic police raid against one of the most powerful individuals in the country was meant to drive a message home. But what exactly was that message?

Salinas and others in the Mexican government have railed against the corruption 10 SOCIALIST ACTI 3944 PEME COM in the leadership of the oil workers union. There is truth to this charge. The union is one of the most powerful in Latin America, and the leadership has amassed tremendous wealth through privately owned businesses and services financed by union funds.

Dumping In the town of Ciudad Madero, the supermarkets, funeral homes, garages, and gas stations are owned by the union. Leaders such as La Quina are also known to commit violence against political opponents within the union.

Attorney General Enrique Alvarez del Castillo insisted that the raid was nothing broader than an attack on corrupt individuals. "This is by no means an aggressive act against a specific union. It is a prosecution of crimes committed by individuals. We have FEBRUARY 1989 JEMEX OMBUSTIBLES complete respect for the oil workers of • Mexico.

If the government is so concerned about corruption, why did they wait until now to make a move? In fact, the ruling PRI is built on corruption. The party only won the presidency last July through massive electoral fraud.

For 40 years the PRI has made a trade-off of privileges for the nation's labor bureaucrats in exchange for labor peace and political support. La Quina and others like him are the backbone of the PRI's mass base.

"The greatest beneficiaries [of this tradeoff]," according to Jorge Castaneda, professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, "were the government—which was able to impose wage and economic policies that it could never have gotten away with if confronted by real unions-and the private sector-which paid off corrupt union leaders instead of paying decent wages to union workers."

Since the oil glut in the late 1970s threw the Mexican economy into a tailspin, the capitalists and their representatives in the ruling party have sought to dismantle most of the reforms which gave the party its populist image in the past.

Price raises and a wage freeze have been implemented. Workers' purchasing power has declined by 50 percent since the start of the decade. Oil workers, who made 10 times the minimum wage in the 1970s, make only twice the minimum wage today.

Real goal: Union-busting

While the austerity program has succeeded in driving down the Mexican workers' standard of living, the economy still remains in a shambles. The Mexican capitalists and the U.S. banks are targeting Pemex and the other nationalized industries for privatization. Of the 1800 state-run industries in 1983, 1400 have been either privatized or closed. To compiete this task, the unions must be broken.

The unions are seen as a major obstacle to Salinas's modernization program. The oil workers remain a powerful force with a strong nationalist past rooted in the 1930s' mobilizations that led to the nationalization of the oil industry under Gen. Lazaro Cardenas. Decapitating the most powerful union in Mexico would be a major blow to the labor movement as a whole.

The arrest of La Quina and the oil workers leadership was meant as a strong signal to the Mexican and international capitalists that the labor movement is getting the ax. Salinas has made it clear that the days of populism are over.

Mexican labor must be on guard against these attacks. The criminal Mexican government is incapable of fighting corruption in the unions. The Mexican workers will put forward a new leadership on their own-and once they've cleaned up their own house, the National Palace won't be far behind.

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general strike in Spain D AVNIEN he Dec. 14, 198 3, general stri On Dec. 14, 1988, close to 8 million Spanish workers, more than two-thirds of the entire workforce, staged a one-day general strike that paralyzed the country. It was the largest mobilization since the October 1934 Spanish general strike.

The strike had been called one month earlier by the two major Spanish union confederations, the Workers Commissions (CCOO) and the much larger General Workers Union (UGT)-linked respectively to the Communist Party (PCE) and the Socialist Party (PSOE).

In some sectors, the strike was 100 percent effective. The unions also refused to yield to orders to provide "minimum services" during the general strike and decided to organize "emergency services" themselves in appropriate areas such as health, childcare, security services, gas, and electricity. Even the soccer players struck!

Two days after the strike, on Dec. 16, another action brought tens of thousands of people into the streets of Madrid, virtually By SCOTT ADAMS-COOPER El Salvador's Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) has stepped up its of 8 million worker:

paralyzing the city.

The central demands of the strike were around:

• dropping the Youth Employment Plan (YEP), a government-sponsored scheme to provide 800,000 jobs for young people on a part-time basis and a two-tier wage scale;

• catching up on purchasing power lost through inflation in 1988, especially among public employees;

• making pensions come up to the minimum wage; that is, to the guaranteed inter-professional wage scale;

• reviewing the conditions for granting unemployment benefits; and • defending the right of public employees to collective bargaining.

Setback for PSOE government The strike was a major setback for the PSOE government, led by Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez. For the past six years since coming to power, the PSOE government had enjoyed the support of the UGT and CCOO.

The Spanish economy had been in EI Salvador "boom" due to Spain's entry into the European Economic Community and the large investments by capitalists from other European countries who were attracted by Spain's high unemployment rate of 20 percent and its subsequent low wages.

The contradiction between the capitalist "boom," on the one hand, and increasing unemployment and austerity for the majority of the working class, on the other, led the UGI and the CCOO to break from past policies of social pacts with the government and to call a general strike.

The general strike call in turn opened the way for the expression of a long-festering social discontent. Since 1985, strikes had repeatedly occurred in various sectors, but this was the first work stoppage called jointly by the two union confederations against the government's austerity policies.

PSOE's tactical retreat

The PSOE did its best to prevent the strike, taking a hard line against negotiating with the unions, organizing with union officials loyal to the PSOE to try to sabotage the strike, and then threatening and using police force to break the strike. But the unions held firm.

A week later, addressing a special session of Parliament, Felipe Gonzalez was forced to recognize the success of the strike. "The conclusion is clear, he said, "those who called it won and the government failed. The government's policy can and should be negotiated."

Gonzalez proposed a meeting to negotiate with the unions and said he was willing to drop parts, if not all, of the proposed Youth Employment Plan. He remained adamant, however, in insisting that the government would not change the direction of its economic and social policies.

Hence, while the strike may have compelled him to make a minor tactical retreat, Gonzalez has stressed that his "modernization" programs-which are responsible for the anti-working class austerity policies—will go ahead as projected. "We have no alternative," Gonzalez told the Parliament.

Some important lessons The highly successful general strike of the Spanish workers should be instructive to all American workers because the Spanish unionists were reacting with a fury to years of austerity and concessions—imposed on them by one of their own political parties, the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE).

The Spanish working class, less than 10 percent of which is organized in unions, had been depicted in the media as weakened, atomized, and totally unable to resist the capitalist austerity programs. The general strike shattered this illusion and demonstrated the power of the industrial unions to lead the entire working class and its allies in struggle.

But the one-day general strike wasn't enough to alter the course of the Spanish government and capitalist class. What became apparent to many workers throughout these mobilizations was that another government was needed—a government of the striking unions and mass organizations—that would respond to the needs of the majority of the population.

The general strike posed the question of another government—but it didn't resolve it.

Numerous capitalist publications—such as the British weekly The Economist were clear to point out that there is presently no political alternative to the Socialist Party. This is true.

Unfortunately there is no mass workers' party based on the power demonstrated by the Spanish working class that can be seen as an alternative to the PSOE and the PCE. The potential for building such a party clearly exists. It is the next task ahead for revolutionists in Spain.