Local Unions in a Transnational Movement

The Role of Mexican Unions in the Making of International Union Networks.

Abstract
Since the last two decades, the workers and their organizations have forged networked
practices, performing contemporary forms of labor internationalism. This is the case of
International Workers Networks and of the Global Frame Agreements. At the same time,
international solidarity practices play a relevant role in the configuration of the balance of
power in local contexts. The global-local dynamic emerges as a key topic in the
understanding of the working class making and unmaking. I assess this dynamic through
the analysis of the relationship between local unions and the international workers network
of Techint Group created in 2014. In this article, I explore the SMMSRM (Sindicato de
Mineros, Metalúrgicos y Similares de la República Mexicana) engagement to the network
considering four mediations: productive branch and labor force features, political traditions,
institutional frameworks and local relationships. The Mexican unions’ involvement allows
the discussion of global-local dynamic in a twofold perspective: the outcomes of global
policies mediated by local contexts; and the consequences of local political dynamics over
the labor movement power at the global level.

Keywords

Globalization – labor movement – union networks – labor relations – corporatist – working

class

Introduction:
For the last two decades, the workers and their organizations have forged networked
practices, performing contemporary forms of labor internationalism (Carr: 1999; Magalhaes
Rodrigues: 2014; Zajak, Egels-Zanden and Piper: 2017; Authorl: 2018a). Rooted in
international features unfolded by capitalist productive processes and corporations,
networked practices involve different actors, strategies and agreements. Unions, NGOs,
advocacy groups, coalitions, etc, unfold trans-national and trans-sectoral bonds claiming for
working or contracting conditions of distant groups of workers. Within the labor
movement, some institutional tools such as Global Framework Agreements or Global
Workers Councils have emerged, aiming to set labor relation standards on what are
considered key topics: health and safety, outsourcing and subcontracting and union
freedom, among others (Fitcher et al: 2011, Baylos: 2009). Beyond the institutionalization
or the action tactics, current dominant goals of labor networked practices are mainly related
to what we may call the “economic-corporative” dimension of the balance of forces
(Gramsci: 1998).

The general research question underlying this paper is about the relationship between these
practices and the dynamics of particular and uneven processes through which working
class(es) make themselves. Recent insights in the field of labor social history and
anthropology of work highlight the role played by transnational and global social forces in
these processes (Carbonella and Kasmir: 2015; Fink: 2011). At the same time, global forces
develop through local relationships engaging with traditions and practices performed at that
level, which makes it relevant to research the making and unmaking of the working
class(es) in their specific times and places (Durrenberger and Doukas: 2018). Thus, the
global-local dynamics emerge as a key factor in the understanding of the particular
configurations of the working class(es) as an outcome of struggle and antagonistic
relations. Since unions have been one of the more stable institutions in the building of
networked practices and they act in the local, the national and the global level, the focus on
them allows for a discussion on changing transnational strategies and relations in the light
of shifts in the global balance of forces.

This paper aims to assess these dynamics through a case study; the international workers’
network of Techint Group (TG) – a “Trans-Latine” mining, energy and steel group. The
network has been created in 2014, pursuing the setting of an international sphere of labor
relations. The article focuses on the role played by the Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores
Mineros, Metalurgicos y Similares de la República Mexicana (SNTMMSRM), as Mexico
has become one of main locations for the TG firms. Thus, Mexican unions’ involvement
allows for the discussion of global-local dynamics in a twofold perspective: the outcomes
of global policies mediated by local contexts; and the consequences of local political
dynamics over the labor movement power at the global level. The focus on a particular case
makes it possible to analyze different actors at different scales of action, uncovering a set of
constraints and action logics rooted in the determining conditions of unionism as the main
institution pursuing economic corporative objectives.

Theoretically, unions are considered a set of practices aiming to regulate and mitigate
competitive relations among workers in the labor market (Author: 2018b). Consequently,
institutional-state engagement is understood as a key dimension for the setting of general
conditions within the national spaces (Hai Hac: 2016). As much as the globalization
process spurred competition between national states, the role of unions turns
“international,” as the expression of the national workforce. The regulation of wages and
working conditions goes beyond national borders to the world market: the national
unions’ role is to keep wages and working conditions “competitive” enough to attract new
investments (Hirsch: 2001).

This is an anthropological research study, based on the relational approach to social

processes and on mainly qualitative methods. Participant observation has been conducted
in three of the international network meetings (2013; 2014; 2018), in other international
events called for by Industriall for steel and mining workers (2014; 2015), in two of the
facilities of Ternium (Siderar San Nicolás and Peña Colorada, Colima) and in the
communities. Meaningful data emerged from those activities, and informal chats and
conversatons are accurately processed in order to build valuable research information. In
addition, around 20 semi-structured interviews with union leaders, representatives and
activists from different countries have been made. To complete the information sources,
government, unions and corporative documents as much as journals and newspapers have
been consulted.
 The paper is organized as follows: firstly, it presents a brief reconstruction of the origins of
the network as part of a global unionism strategy rooted in former policies to confront
multinational companies. The analysis identifies a twofold logic: an industrial one, related
to the shaping of a transnational scope for labor relations, and a political one, related to the
enforcement of democracy and respect for labor rights in the countries where the network
acts. The second section discusses the recent history of the Mexican labor movement
focusing of SNTMMSSRM, in order to understand the particular conditions underlying its
involvement in the global movement. The third section is centered in the presentation and
analysis of ethnographic data, pursuing the identification of the tensions between global
and local practices, to conclude with a brief synthesis of the topics discussed here.

I - Roots and meanings of labor movement networked practices and organizations:

the TG international network

The case study presented here focuses on a corporation operating in multiple locations
since the 50s. It controls two steel companies which became transnational since the year
2000: Ternium through the participation in former state mill privatization processes in Latin
America and Tenaris through the specialization in the production of pipes for the energy
industry.1 In Argentina, both companies led an internal concentration process through the
acquisition of smaller steel plants. Management centralization undermined the traditional
power relations within the union and between the union and the company. Although it
unfolded at a national scale, the process in Argentina is useful in order to understand
productive investment and structure as constraints for union practices and organization
(Author: 2017b).
By 2006, Canadian steelworkers were facing their contract bargaining with the new owners
of a steel pipes plant. TG managers insisted on the imposition of flexibility clauses, arguing
that they were part of the Tenaris culture in all the plants owned by the company. As it was
a clear advance on working conditions, steelworkers resisted them, so the bargaining came
to a dead point. In the meantime, they initiated horizontal contact with their Argentinian
mates– through the international federation – in order to inquire about their working
conditions. Through those phone contacts, Canadian steelworkers became aware of the
management plans, as the company had tried to impose those flexibility clauses to the
Argentinian union and had failed, because of its refusal to accept them. A few days after,
the Argentinian section of the union marched to the corporation headquarters in Buenos
Aires to support the contract bargaining that was taking place in Canada, presented a
petition to TG managers, and firmly encouraged their mates not to accept the regressive
clauses.2
This direct action occurred in the context of an accelerated internationalization of TG,
which has triggered contacts and information exchange among union leaders from different
locations. According to one of the Argentinian leaders, their concerns about the company’s
internationalization started because of the product overlap between different locations,
which involved the comparison and competition between them and seriously affected the
strikes’ “damage capacity.” Supported by the International Federation of
Metalworkers (IFM, later Industriall) union leaders visited different TG locations,
exchanging information about products, collective bargaining, wages and labor relations.3
Those previous contacts and visits and the solidarity demonstration were the first steps
toward the configuration of an international network, whose main goals are to exchange
information about the facilities, such as investments, working conditions and productivity
levels, and to support each other in their bargaining processes. Unions from different
countries where TG has facilities were contacted, through the IMF – Industriall. Since
2008, they meet annually in order to discuss their particular situations and to coordinate
actions to confront corporative policies related to subcontracting and outsourcing, health
and safety and environmental issues, among other topics. Since 2014, new unions
organizing workers from another steel company owned by the same group have been
incorporated to the network, which is and has been an important vehicle for international
solidarity among workers who are organized under the same corporation and, in many
cases, by connected phases of the same labor process (Author: 2018b). As the company is
constantly buying new plants and facilities, the task of recruiting new members for the
network is also a constant one. By December 2017 the network had organized most of the
TG steel facilities, with the exception of those located in Mexico and the USA, where a
corporatist policy and an anti-union policy, respectively, seriously limited the expansion of
the network (Table 1).

The shaping of union networks has been a tactic of international unionism

organization since the 80s, and it can be understood as the continuation of the transnational
councils promoted since the 60s by the IFM. In fact, this Federation was an early promoter
of international articulation and coordination, because the expansion of automotive
corporations confronted it with the problem of delocalization threats (Magalhaes
Rodrigues: 2014). Since the 90s, internationalization involved also the shaping of supply
chains, the fragmentation of productive processes in several locations and, notoriously, the
expansion of originally Latin American companies, especially those specialized in steel,
food and beverage, and pharmacological labs, as dynamic regional investors (ECLA: 2005).
The IFM has been actively involved in the steel branch, organizing international networks
and confronting the anti-union policies of multinational corporations in their new locations
(Espósito Galhera: 2013; Gray: 2009).

The TG network is rooted in a twofold process: on one side, the corporative

internationalization which directly links those different groups of workers in relations of
cooperation and competition; on the other side, the political track record of international
unionism since the Soviet Union collapse and the acceleration of capitalist expansion all
around the world (Herod: 1998; Carr: 1999). Both dimensions and their interplay are key
to understanding the role of global unions in the making of the contemporary field of social
forces and struggles.

From the unions’ perspective, the first dimension underlies “industrial” organizing logics,
while the second one is linked with unions’ “political” logic as engaged in institutional
arrangements – as they are shaped by concrete labor relations systems. They are not
independent of each other; nevertheless, they point to different aspects of working class
reproduction: particular ones , related to the “privatization of coercion power” (Meiksins
Wood: 1995), and general ones, related to the setting of general conditions for exploitation
and control by the states and to the competition for investments among them, spurred by
the globalization process, as has been already pointed out.
Concerning the “industrial” dimension considered here, Anner et al. (2006) ask why
International Networks promoted by IFM have multinational corporations as their core – in
contrast with IFT and textile and garment workers’ tactics. They conclude that in the case
of the automotive industry, different internationalization patterns structure specific
company policies and, consequently, require different union responses. A similar situation
occurs in the steel industry, where internationalization patterns differ according to the
supply chains in which the companies are involved. Other scholars explain divergences in
international configurations of labor pointing to corporative strategies (Bensusan and Tilly:
2010) or to labor internal dynamics (Galhera: 2014).

As Anner et al. state, internal competition relationships play a structuring role in

international tactics. But far from being a mechanical product of the new relationships, the
tactics mentioned occur through specific political strategies held by unions, which can be
traced until the end of the 70s – specifically through the main international Confederations.
By that time, the WFTU (World Federation of Trade Unions) and the WCL (World
Confederation of Labor) pointed to the multinational companies as the “best” expression of
capitalist relationships, especially in the Third World. Meanwhile, the ICFTU (International
Confederation of Free Trade Unions) just considered the “distortion” they caused to normal
and, otherwise, harmonious capitalist development (Author: 2018a, Somavia: 1979). The
three International Federations disputed the alignment of international unionism and the
organization of local labor movements. In this way, the kind of international coordination
tactics that failed during the 70s because of the lack of involvement of local unions –
caused by ideological and geopolitical concerns – is the one that became more powerful
since the 90s, because of the displacement of those cleavages by geo-economic and broadly
democratic ones (Carr: 1999; Herod: 1998).

Latin American social historians of labor have identified the begining of local unions’
engagement in these processes. By the beginning of the 1980s, the Southern Cone countries
were under authoritarian and strongly repressive military governments. In Brazil, the
phenomenon of the “New Unionism” was rising - rooted especially in German automotive
corporations – and looked for the support of their German co-workers. Exiled Argentinian
union leaders were in Europe denouncing state repression and building solidarity relations,
supported by European unions and human rights organizations. Those were the first steps
towards contemporary labor networked practices in Latin America. The engagement of
Brazilian unions, exiled Argentinian leaders and activists, NGOs linked to European unions
and the Catholic and Lutheran Church – in the case of the Mercedes Benz network - is at
the basis of the building of organization processes pursuing respect for labor and human
rights at an international scale (Gordillo; 2017; Magalhaes Rodirgues: 2014, Godio; 1984).
According to Herod (1998), by that time IFM also had an active role in the promotion of
free and democratic unionism in post-Soviet countries, in the same stream as the AFL CIO
intervention promoting “civil society” and “market economy.”

Summarizing, as far the former geopolitical alignments lost weight in the delimitation of
international unionism, economic topics became the center of the new dynamic. The
displacement from one cleavage to another unfolded along with the assumption – more or
less implicit - of a general political program concerning transnational companies and states.
Thus, since 90s, the dominant strategies of international unionism seem to be organized
around economic – or “industrial” - topics and the building of democratic unions for the
best development of workers’ rights – and human rights in general. In the meantime, the
development of globalization disorganized and weakened former spaces of union power,
and the industrial logic underlying union international policies was seriously eroded by the
shaping of supply chains and subcontracting, involving workers from different industrial
branches under productive processes controlled by single transnational corporations.

This dynamic underlies the mergers of international federations to form UNI (mainly a
services federation) in 2000 and Industriall (a manufacturing federation) in 2012. Both of
them aim to organize the chains, regardless of the sectoral differences within them.
Although this seems to be a faraway goal, this statement will allow further flexibility for
the incorporation of new unions to the networks, as will be analyzed for the case presented
here. Besides, UNI and Industriall share principles and goals related to human and labor
rights promotion in the programs they hold. Both of them express commitment to
confronting precarious work as much as gender, ethnic, religious or any other kind of
discrimination. They explicitly promote union democracy and freedom and involve
themselves in defending their members (unions or activist groups) from employers’ and
governments’ attacks and repression. They claim for a wider respect of human rights,
placing themselves as “civil society” actors, engaged with civil, social, labor and human
rights expansion. (http://www.industriall-union.org/es/quienes-
somos; https://uniglobalunion.org/about-us/faqs)

From the viewpoint of the historical process, the merger of three international federations in
Industriall meant the crystallization of those molecular medium-term processes in a double
dimension. From the perspective of labor relations, Industriall’s strategic goal seems to be
the projection at the global level of a set of institutional compromises and arrangements as
they are at the national level. This explains the pursuit of the Global Framework
Agreement, setting basic standards in labor relations and working conditions - as one of the
main concerns of international network activities. At the same time, some scholars consider
the networks as the “agents” and “managers” of GFA enforcement at the shopfloor level –
somehow like the delegates and the Collective Contract (Fitcher et al: 2011). From the
perspective of political relations and union influence over state policies and institutions,
Industriall shall support organizational centralization (building strong unions) and, as its
programs express, it will be involved in national debates about unions’ freedom of action
and organization. Through their involvement in such issues, it actively supports ILO
discussions and claims about Union Freedom, mediating for the claims of unions or
dissident groups not officially represented by national delegations – as it will be described
in the case of independent Mexican unions.

The TG international network is part of this global strategy, since its main promoters are
pursuing the recognition of the network as a bargaining counterpart by the corporation.
Additionally, it has been actively involved in the support of TG workers confronting
corporate anti-union practices, not only making complaints to governments and labor
officials or making public denunciations in the mass media when possible, but also
providing material support, educational resources and training activities to activists who are
victims of reprisals and to the rising organizations. Both goals refer to different scales of
union action: while the first one relates to a set of relations at the global level that, until the
present moment, have not been institutionalized, the second one relates to “desirable
features” of state-centered labor relations systems. Additionally, labor relations at each
location are embedded in particular local histories of working class formation, which may
have an influence on unions’ and workers’ practices and actions. That is why different
local-global tensions arise from the structuring of the network, according to the conditions
of local contexts.

II – The national unions and their tensions: the case of Mexican unionism

Labor movement scholars agree in defining the Mexican Labor Movement political
tradition as the product of a “Corporatist Pact” (de la Garza: 2014; Zapata:2010), forged in
the later moments of the Mexican Revolution and consolidated in the Cardenist six-year
term, which allowed for the discussion of a general improvement in working conditions,
limiting managers’ authority in the shopfloor – in fact, SNTMMSSRM was created in 1934
(Aguila M 2006). Three main characteristics have distinguished the Mexican labor relations
system since then. The first one is its close relation with the Revolutionary Institutional
Party (PRI), which held government continuously until 2000. The Corporatist Pact
incorporates unions as actors in a set of state institutions related directly with the conditions
of reproduction of the working class (Social Security Institute, for example) and with labor
relationsLabor Conciliation Boards, Juntas de Arbitraje). It also presupposes the automatic
adhesion of workers to the party, through the unions and the priority granted by labor
leaders to government agreements rather than to industrial relations as spheres for
channeling capital-work relationships and labor policies. The second aspect is a set of legal
and institutional clauses – such as the “exclusion clauses” – which seriously limit the
expression of disagreement and the formation of alternative or opposition factions within
the unions. Moreover, according to these scholars, most union statutes lack participatory
mechanisms such as direct and secret vote, the referendum of contract contents and others.
Third, as a result of both previous characteristics, most scholars agree on the profound
distance between unions’ leaderships and rank-and-file workers’ claims and unrest.
However, recent studies registered a complex set of local and daily relationships between
leaders or union officials and workers, which provide an explanation for that “distance.”
From a socioanthropological view, the “Corporatist Pact” has been characterized as
supported by caciquismo relations at the local level (Moreno Andrade: 2003; Ramos
Santoyo: 2002; Sanchez Díaz: 2014). According to these interpretations, the strength and
persistence of authoritarian, personalized and asymmetrically reciprocal ties would help to
explain the reproduction of union leaderships without democratic or representative formal
ties to the workers they represent.

The institutional configuration emerging from the Corporatist Pact concentrates workers’
representation in two main Confederations (CTM and CROC), which group several unions
and manage thousands of collective contracts. Those Confederations, plus other smaller
ones and some national unions, created the Congreso del Trabajo (Labor Congress), a top
leaders’ political body. Unlike the “federal” branches (energy, oil, mining, steel) which
hold national level contracts stating general working conditions across the country, most of
these contracts have a local, even plant, jurisdiction. The institutional arrangements for
collective bargaining allow managers and union leaders to discuss collective contracts
without workers’ participation at any moment – neither in the discussion nor in the
approval of their contents (not even getting information about them). This is a key point
explaining the management tactics of promoting white unions and protection contracts –
both unions and contracts are organized by employers. According to Industriall’s complaint
to ILO bodies, the Mexican government has developed a Patronal Protection Collective
Contracts System (Industriall Complaint. July 2018), with the purpose of keeping low labor
costs and attracting foreign investments. In this context, union democratization has been a
topic able to structure conflicts since the 30s, with an important increase in the 70s
(Novelo: 1999). While the dispute can be traced until then, its particular dynamic since
1995 expresses the intertwining between global and local configurations. In a critical
economic situation, some important unions started to confront the Congreso del Trabajo
because of its ultraconservatism. Through political arrangements with the government, the
main labor body was supporting restructuring policies and the offensive against workers,
which had led to a general worsening in workers’ and peasants’ living conditions. Along
with repression, labor leaders have been active in posing the capitalists interest in lower
wages as a general social interest. They did so through two main practices:
1 - Protection Contracts. As a union lawyer put it, “They have historically been
undemocratic, they were not liable to the workers’ participation, but they defended the
contracts, the wages and the working conditions. Since the nineties they did not do even
so!” (OA, SNTMMSSRM legal advisor. Interviewed september 2018).

2 - Repeating the government discourse of “foreign investment” as the key issue for
Mexican development. In 1996, announcing the suspension of the traditional May
1st parade, Felipe Velazques – CTM leader until his death in 1997 – argued that “[the
suspension is] to avoid the spread of workers’ protest, which may make foreign investors
desist from coming” (Reyna Muñoz: 1997: 498, our translation). Some years later, CTM
leaders denounced that an activist of the Pro Justice for Maquiladoras Coalition “spreads
panic among transnational investors in the state of Tamaulipas” (La Jornada: August 15th,
2000, our translation). After a set of Debate Forums, conducted between 1995 and 1997, a
group of unions split off the Congreso del Trabajo and the CTM in order to constitute the
UNT (National Workers Union).4 Furthermore, the CTM lost its place as the Mexican
representative in the regional body of the IFCTU (ORIT) when they first firmly supported
NAFTA, while the AFL CIO was against it.

Thus, in Mexico, the labor movement political arena is structured through oppositions,
crystallizing a set of features that are, at the same time, a political
program: independent democratic unions, “free” contracts, real wage improvement, and
secret vote vs charros or white corporatist unions, protection contracts, wage decrease, and
direct vote. With the globalization process deeply modifying conditions for capital
accumulation in the country, the working class changed, and so did the relations expressed
by unions and the labor movement.

The changes may be considered as the consolidation of a production regime based on a

“despotic hegemony” (Burawoy: 1983), whose main features are corporative
“disinvestment threads” and as a counterpart, “investment promises” for development
countries. As a direct consequence, there is more competition among states for keep and
attract new investments. In Mexico, these processes started in the 80s when PRI
governments made the first steps toward the capitalist restructuring of the country and its
involvement in the globalization process (Sanchez Diaz: 2014; de la Garza: 2014). The
signing of free trade agreements – especially NAFTA – opened vasts areas of agricultural
production to external competition and promoted the expansion
of maquila production, attracting investments in strategic branches such as automotive and
aerospace industries, increasing manufacture exports as the main tie of Mexico to world
market. NAFTA positioned Mexico as a cheap labor force supplier in relation to the USA
economy. Thus, Mexican workers entered in direct competition with Americans. Low labor
costs are a critical input in the accumulation process, especially concerning jobs in
manufacture sectors oriented to external markets (Nash: 2006, Arteaga 2013). With this
end, the governments implemented a set of policies such as minimum wage or topes
salariales – i.e. limiting the increase that unions can claim during the contract bargaining.
As a result, different reports point that Mexico has the lowest minimum wages in Latin
America and among OECD countries.5 Moreover, the increase in informal employment has
been pointed out as one of the main features of the Mexican labor market since the 90s,
reaching 57% of the working population (including rural workers and peasants), especially
concentrated in micro firms employing less than 10 workers (Puyana: 2012).
A set of union responses at the international level were developed by Canadian and US
unions. They were specially focused on autoworkers, steelworkers and service workers’
unions. Most of them involved “networked activism,” engaging unions, international
federations or global unions, NGOs, advocacy groups, social movements, and they pointed
to the organization of unions in critical branches such as textile and garment, retail shops,
call centers, automotive and tire industry, etc. (PJ, CILAS legal advisor, Interviewed
September 2018). One of the goals was the presentation of complaints to the National
Administration Offices (NAO), a body specially set as part of NAFTA negotiations for
denouncing violations of labor rights in some of the signing countries. However, unions
and activists soon became dissappointed by the lack of real incidence that these offices had
on the matters they denounced (Bensusán and Middlebrook: 2013).

Other networked interventions are those related to Union freedom. Research insights and
fieldwork show that those actions support and expand the demands of self-organized groups
of workers for better working conditions and wages, which are blocked by the existence of
a protection contract. What follows, then, is the petition for recovering the capacity to
bargain over their own wages and working conditions or to elect those who will do so. This
process involves a set of institutional steps: the recognition and support by the Conciliation
Board, the organization of the recuento – the election of a union by the vote of all the
employees in the workplace – and the recognition of the final result. These steps are
mediated by a period of time when the company and the union whose titularidad del
contrato (the faculty of collective bargaining granted by the state) is in danger may fire
activists, physically attack workers with porros (thugs) and intimidate the rank and file
workers, to dissuade them from voting for the new union.

There are some paradigmatic cases mentioned by activists and labor leaders in Mexico:
Atento – a call center company employing almost 18,000 – had in place a protection
contract at the beginning of its operations. A group of activists started to self-organize in
the workplace and, in 2009, formed a section of the STRM (the telephonists national union)
in order to dispute the titularidad del contrato. The STRM and UNI - the global union –
launched a international campaign for union freedom in Atento. Organizations like AFL
CiO; Fenatel (Brazil), Solidarity Center, among others, were involved. Petitions, mobilizing
actions, the public demonstration of international leaders and the presence of a multitude of
international observers on the election day were the main actions of the campaign. Related
to the case discussed in this article, Marinaro analyzes the role played by the
SNTMMSSRM and Industriall in the organizing process and in the dispute for
the titularidad del contrato by Teksid (a company owned by Fiat-Chrysler) workers, who
finally won it by 2018 (Marinaro: 2016, La Jornada: 2018; Industriall complaint: 2018).
Since the mid 90s, the dispute for titularidad del contrato is the main cause of labor
conflicts, besides those that are part of the development of collective bargaining
procedures. According to the Labor Authority records, by 1996 there were 844 labor
conflicts caused by titularidad del contrato. Although the number of these disputes
decreased by the 2000s, in 2016 there were still 286 conflicts for the same cause. Figures
express the shaping of a medium term field of forces around the dispute for representation.
From this point of view, labor conflicts involving union freedom, and against protection
contracts, seem to be one of the main causes of private-sector waged workers’ mobilization.
According to Industriall Complaints, the SNTMMSSRM is disputing ten titularidades de
contrato, some of them since 2012, 2014 or 2015. As mentioned, these processes involve
physical violence and repression of labr activists. Industriall denounces that at least three
workers were assassinated in confrontations with white union squads, when they were
demanding union recognition in Mina Media Luna - Zacatecas (Industriall Complaint:
2018).

The SNTMMSSRM has historically been part of the Congreso del Trabajo. Its main leader,
Napoleón Gomez Sada, strongly confronted independent groups within the union (Bizberg;
1982). Until the 90s, it organized mainly state owned – or state managed - companies. The
privatization program gave room to the formation and consolidation of important economic
groups, such as Grupo Mexico - the main producer in the mining sector - or TG, with
important investments in mining and steel production. New owners were able to
create white unions in many cases – especially since the concessions granted to the
government for the opening of new mines. It was a privileged sector for the location of
foreign investments in new zones, which caused a duality in the sectoral structure and in the
types of conflicts arising from it. On one side is the sector producing inputs for industrial
processes and minerals for exportation (iron pellets, coal, copper among others). Industrial
conflict led by unions is the main social conflict that these companies face. On the other
side is the sector producing precious metals that went into former community lands and
water sources, expanding the mining frontier. Social and community movements resisting
the opening of the mines constitute the main conflict in these territories. Both sectors are
productively, territorially and socially differentiated (Sariego Rodríguez: 2009; Perez
Jimenez: 2016; Tetreault: 2016).

Between 2000 and 2001, the historical leader was replaced by his son, Napoleón Gomez
Urrutia. Newspapers register the disagreement, the claims and, finally, the expulsion of an
group of leaders who argued that Gomez Urrutia did not fulfill the statutory requirements
for being General Secretary (La Jornada: May 3th, 2000; June 16th;; August 10 th and
August 12th) ). Since then, the SNTMMSSRM experienced a turn towards a confrontation
dynamic with government and corporations – especially with Grupo Mexico. This turn
involves a sequence of facts that undermined the classical corporatist relationship between
unions and government – and through this, between the SNTMMSSRM and the CTM and
CROC unions (Zapata: 2010; Tetreault: 2016). Different causes for such a turn and the
resulting increase in confrontations have been pointed out by activists, leaders and
representatives. First, the claims made to Grupo Mexico for a sum of money for a trust
fund, an issue included in the privatization agreement, that the corporation had denied to
pay (Gomez Urrutia: 2014: 31; OA op cit informal chat: september: 2018). Second, the
public opposition of Napoleon Gomez Urrutia to president Fox’s wage policy – aimed at
keeping lower labor costs as a condition for the attraction of foreign investment, as
mentioned earlier. This public opposition was expressed within the union with several
strikes for wage increases between 2004 and 2006 – in a country with a low incidence of
strikes in labor conflict. According to different reports, between 2000 and 2006
SNTMMSSRM led 18 strikes, while in the previous six-year term it had led only one
(Proceso: August 9th 2006; Zapata: 2010). Third, the public opposition of SNTMMSSRM
leader, Napoleon Gomez Urrutia, to the Labor Reform project handled by the government,
finally failed in getting labor union support. Fourth, the denunciation of Grupo Mexico as
“industrial homicide” after the disaster in Pasta de Conchos in February 2006, when an
explosion in the mine killed 65 workers.

The confrontation reached judicial level when Napoleon Gomez Urrutia was accused and
judged for economic malfeasance and forced to exile in Canada. The conflict also
unfolded through the direct dispute over the contracts by white unions; through intents of
occupying SNTMMSSRM sections by armed squads and through legal traps to stop and
disorganize the union strategy and undermine its power (DM section delegate at National
Committee. Informal chat, October 2018). By this time, a broad array of independent
unions supported the exiled leader and some sections went on strike on behalf of union
autonomy, claiming for the defense of the leader. The defense of union movement
autonomy was the political umbrella for a network of international unions and NGOs
supporting Napoleon Gomez Urrutia. Canadian USW, AFL CIO, IFM-Industriall, and
British unions among others, organized public demonstrations at Mexican Consulates in
Canada and the USA, made public statements and claims to the Mexican government, to
ILO and other multinational organisms (Proceso: March 22th 2006; July 27th 2006).
According to union leaders and representatives, this was the moment when SNTMMSSRM
opened up to the international labor movement, playing an active role in networks claiming
for union freedom in Mexico.

III -The global-local practices and their tensions: SNTMMSSRM involvement in

networked practices

The issues discussed above describe the global and the national dimensions of labor
movement dynamics. In the creation of the network, three levels of union organization
converged: the commitment of two local unions to support each other in collective
bargaining, the determination of one of those unions to actively promote the making of the
network, and the historical promotion by the international federation of the development of
international networks around single multinational companies. In this section, some nodal
ethnographic data will be exposed in order to describe the concrete development of mutual
intertwinings and tensions between those levels. Then some interpretative advances will be
exposed.

The first ethnographic data refers to the diversity/unity tension. The global union program
structures the annual meetings and the main actions of the network. Notwithstanding this,
the network brings together unions and activists expressing a the local balance of a
diversity of forces, political traditions and junctures. Wages, subcontracting and health and
safety policies were the three topics discussed at the First and Second International
Network meetings. The discussion revealed how global policies are mediated by national
contexts:

Wages: The presentation of a survey, previously delivered to each union by the coordinator,
revealed astonishing differences between wages’ purchase power and, most importantly,
the relationship between wages and working hours. It also revealed intra-national diversity
in the composition and in the tactics of bargaining. According to leaders and representatives
working at the international level, wage equality is one of the most discussed and
complicated demands, because of the national level importance in the setting of general
floors and roofs for workforce price. As mentioned above, countries like Mexico have
made of its cheap labor force a “competitive advantage” in the international competition for
investment. Romanian unions faced the same problem: while their wages are less than half
of Italian wages, they are, at the same time, one of highest wages in Romania, so there are
limits to any discussion of improvement in order to mitigate the competitive dynamic with
Italian plants.

Underlying divergencies expressed by union leaders reveal a broad diversity of “bundles of

means of subsistence” and wage levels considered as “just” and “possible” for working
families’ reproduction. In a conversation with SNTMMSSRM leaders about low wages,
they told me, in a chagrined mood, “to give you an idea of our low wages… the wives have
to go out and work in order to maintain the family.” Then I asked if mining workers’ wives
have to do so. They proudly answered, “No! Mining wages are good ones, because don
Napoleón has instructed us to fight for decent wages for our people.” If maintaining the
male bread winner role seems to be a key criteria for “decent” wages for Mexican leaders,
an Argentinian young leader referred to the quality of the goods a worker deserves. “If I’m
going to be eight, ten hours a day at a job, I want to buy good stuff – a good, comfortable
pair of shoes; nice blue jeans, good food.” He referred mainly to more expensive brands of
consumer goods, which denote at the same time, a certain social status among workers in
Argentina. Previous insights show that some services such as private education for kids or
holiday trips are also part of what Argentinian steel workers consider as a product of
“decent wages” (Author: 2017a). If general social notions about what is a “decent wage”
underlie the shaping of wage demands, unions’ engagement with national state policies
contribute, at the same time, to frame those notions into concrete wage policies.
Subcontracting: These policies have been one of the main challenges for unions, because
they fragment former workers’ collectives into differentiated groups with different – and
worse – working and wage conditions. This fragmentation is mediated by national policies.
So subcontracting does not affect unions in the same way: while in some plants it only
affects specific sectors, in others it reaches the main jobs – or the “core of the productive
process” - under the form of “temporary” jobs. If from a general perspective,
subcontracting weakens union power at the workplace, different union tactics can be
identified within the network: some unions have maintained subcontracted workers
organized and they bargain over their wages and working conditions under the umbrella of
national branch agreements. This is the case of Argentinian UOM, that deals with a broad
array of subcontracting forms, managing wage differences and mantaining jobs. Other
unions, like Colombian ones, do not affiliate subcontracted workers because it is not legally
allowed, but they organize them and act as their spokesmen to the company, while still
others do not take them into account neither in collective bargaining nor in the organizing
tasks. Notwithstanding this, there have been solidarity demonstrations on the part of the
network when some of the members faced a conflict involving subcontracted workers.

Subcontracting policies activated subjective oppositions among workers, expressing

competitive relations between different groups. Through their local tactics, unions can
mitigate, deepen or simply to ignore them. Additionally, a set of daily practices in
workplaces and communities shape cooperative relationships among the groups. In the case
of Mexican SNTMMSSRM in Minatitlán, the personal and familiar relationships between
subcontracted workers and union members underlie a kind of informal organizing advisory.
The same can be said for Argentinian UOM in San Nicolás. These networks are at the base
of Colombian SINTRATUCAR policy for temporary workers. In the three cases, union
members and leaders mentioned they exercise an important control of the daily labor
process, in order to make sure that permanent workers’ tasks are not assigned to
subcontracted workers. Finally, the self-organizing action of subcontracted workers -
broadly documented for mining and steel industries – has been another factor in the shaping
of union policies (Author:2017a). This heterogeneity is a matter for debate, as a general
agreement about subcontracting policies is need in order to confront this policy at the
global level. One of the delegates in the First Meeting concluded that “The enemy is
Techint. We have to fight Techint and its policy. I strongly recommend the mates [from
Brazil] to fight Techint.” Thus, the network is the space for international dialogue to build
actions pointing at the main employer as responsible for these policies.

Health and Safety: Health and safety policies have been one of the main corporative
interventions for the transmission of control and discipline practices. Closely related to
quality as self responsibility and to a notion of goodwill as productive continuity, these
policies tie together technical, affective and moral contents to productivity and safety as
workers’ and management shared goals. This is a basic assumption for most of the union
strategies on this topic that were exposed in the Meetings. Remarkably, most unions set –
via collective contracts, or as a specific area of union activity - their own Health and Safety
Committee. In the case of SNTMMSSRM in Peña Colorada, this committee, formed by
two workers of each sector, is established in the contract. The eight workers walk weekly
through the whole mine, identifying problems and risks as much as controlling their mates’
practices related to the use of personal protection elements or adequate clothing. After that,
they meet at the union and elaborate a report to be presented to the management for the
discussion of “solutions for all the problems we find.” In contrast, the Health and Safety
committee formed in San Nicolás seems to be more professional. The members have been
specifically trained at formal colleges and thy play the role of experts, elaborating technical
proposals on the basis of their own data. They also play as advisors, when delegates of
smaller plants call them. Moreover, health and safety committees are considered the
organizational tool for expanding control over those conditions and for warranting the
company enforcement of the law.

Another common assumption, based on their daily experience, is that improvement of

health and safety conditions depends on union action and on the cost evaluation made for
management. In the network sphere, common corporative practices beyond legal
frameworks, but related to the “costs” issue, can be identified and discussed. That is what
happened with the notion of labor accidents. Delegates from Colombia, Mexico, Brazil and
some plants in Argentina discovered that what they thought was a local problem was in fact
a common issue: the company did not provide accident leaves, forcing injured workers to
attend the plant, or didn’t declare them to the labor insurance system because “lost time”
would not be computed. As accident level is a critical point in the performance of a plant
for the global corporation, the practice of hiding them was also generalized among health
and safety managers, with serious consequences over workers’ daily conditions. Besides
the complaints, the common understanding is about obstacles to overcome the “costs
topic.” That is why Daniel made an appeal for improving communication and articulating
global answers to their mates. “We are here to build workers’ globalization. If the
companies at the global level evaluate and penalize us when an accident occurs, and the
accident is discussed everywhere, then we have to be able to quickly communicate and
build answers and recommendations. We need to communicate, what happened in
Monterrey [an industrial homicide in the Ternium plant killing eleven workers] hasn’t been
communicated enough.” The need for information expressing workers’ and unions’ point of
view arises as one of main demands to the network – and in fact this has been one of main
goals of the network since its beginnings.

This ethnographic information reveals that the global and historical configuration of labor
markets and corporative policies underlie topics involving an “industrial” logic - those
related to the main features of workforce consumption that are at the center of labor
relations at every location. In this sense, the network provides a sphere for discussion about
corporative policies and the possibility of agreeing on similar demands to the company,
although they are locally stated. Concerning this potential “industrial” power, its shaping
depends on the involvement of all the unions organizing TG workers, as a first step for
putting pressure on the company towards signing a framework agreement. Since there are
no legal tools requiring the corporations to bargain at this level, a common action line
among all unions is essential for the progress of global demands on the topics discussed
above.

In this sense, the particular balance of power in Mexico represents an important

conditioning factor for the network development. As Mexican delegates explained at the
First Meeting, most Ternium facilities in Mexico are organized by white unions, without
relation to SNTMMSSRM. Delegates are part of Section 281, which organizes workers of
Peña Colorada Consortium, a mining facility, not a steel mill. Ternium owns the 50% of the
property, with the other half being owned by ArcelorMittal. Concerning the Tenaris-Tamsa
situation, the delegate said that SNTMMSSRM was in contact with a group of retired
workers who accused the General Secretary of “Unidad y Progreso” - a CTM union
organizing Tamsa workers - of economic malfeasance. This gave way to a violent internal
conflict in “Unidad y Progreso” that, nevertheless did not significantly change the
dynamic of the union, at least related to the national labor movement or the international
bodies (TG international network internal communication: February 6th 2013; March 24th,
2013; October 9th 2014; March 28th 2017). Additionally, the company structure in Mexico –
among other countries, but especially there – is not a like map, but rather like a film. TG
expansion in Mexico was discussed in the second meeting of the network. Taking
advantage of the conditions set by the government for foreign investors, the corporation has
been expanding their operations in the country, installing research and development centers
and innovative processes there. According to corporative sources, there are twelve Ternium
and one Tenaris steel plant in Mexico (Techint: 2017).

This implies a serious tension concerning the “industrial” logic: the fact that most
steelworkers in Mexico are organized by white unions or charros objectively weakens the
network power to confront TG. In this sense, the incorporation of most TG workers to the
network, which can only happen with involvement of charro unions or with the dispute of
their representation by independent unions, seems to be a critical need for its forthcoming
unfolding. At the same time, as charro or white unions’ action lines rely on supporting
national government policies, they do not need to discuss global policies to confront
transnational corporations. .

Being as it is an important obstacle for the international network to strengthen, it seems

clear that the involvement of Mexican unions is a political issue, directly related to the
development of class struggle in Mexico. The Industriall global union strategy to confront
Multinational companies through the building of strong national and democratic unions
situates itself on the independent side of the Mexican labor movement. From this point of
view, the involvement of SNTMMSSRM delegates in the international activities supported
by the Global union is part of a national union policy to broader the strategic allies
for independent unionism. At the same time, the strengthening of independent unionism at
this level presupposes an increase in possibilities for bargaining wages and working
conditions - which is one of main achievements exhibited by independent
unions (collective interview with Nueva Central deTrabajadores members: September
2018; DM intervention at First International TG meeting: 2013). In this sense, the
configuration of a global strategy, articulating interventions according not only to an
“industrial,” but also a “political” logic, is a key force supporting the
Mexican independent labor movement. As mentioned, Industriall is a key piece in the
articulation of networked action in several directions: toward the Mexican government and
multinational bodies such as ILO and OECD, among others.

Thus, the local “political” dimension of union action intertwines with, and constrains, the
development of the “industrial” dimension at the global level. This tension is an active
force in the configuration of the particular local outcomes of global policies. For the case
discussed here, different local outcomes of the network configuration are identified as well.
Briefly, just two constrasting examples: Argentinian national leaders see the engagement
with the international network as an opportunity for confrontation with multinational
corporations, while local leaders consider it as an opportunity for the consolidation of a
particular bargaining group within the union, which, they say, would allow for the
discussion of special features of steel workers’ conditions. This goal is explained by the
collective bargaining and union structure in Argentina and by a sectoral juncture of labor
process shifts, plus an historic differentiation between “steel” and “metal” workers,
although they are part of the same national union (author: 2017b). Colombian leaders, by
contrast, consider the international network and the Global Union as main partners to
confront the state and the company. In an authoritarian and repressive context, Industriall’s
commitment and public interventions supporting unionization and labor rights strengthen
them facing the government and the company. At the same time, partners in the network
provide information on labor contracts and bargaining tactics, what is very useful as the
management offers worse conditions than those offered in other locations.

Notwithstanding their differences, Colombian and Argentinian unions have in common the
development of what has earlier been referred to as the “industrial logic” of involvement in
the network. Both have set up goals related to working conditions and wages, as well as
bargaining tactics, taking into account a broader perspective on the company, shaped by the
international network. In contrast with these cases, the Mexican SNTMMSSRM
involvement in the network can be considered as more oriented by a “political” logic. Its
main concerns relate to the strengthening of the SNTMMSSRM at the national level as part
of the independent union pole.

IV Conclusions

The paper discusses the shaping of unions’ networked practices at the global level as one of
the tactics delivered by the international labor movement to confront multinational
corporations, focusing on the role of the Mexican labor movement through a case study: the
TG international network and the role played in it by the SNTMMSSRM. A twofold logic
of union action - industrial and political - has been assumed in order to understand
particular tensions and outcomes shaping global-local relations. The history of the
international union networks has been retrieved for better understanding them in the context
of labor movement responses to capitalist restructuring, which are political and industrial at
the same time. The brief review of the recent history of the Mexican labor movement as
well as the economic features of its international market insertion allowed for the
understanding of the close relations between the “Corporatist Pact” and the low wages as a
critical topic in labor movement dynamics.

Summarizing, Mexico joined the globalization process through the provision of cheap and
skilled labor for manufacturing and services sectors, mainly producing for global/regional
supply chains and markets. The need to keep wages low became a critical issue for the
reproduction of accumulation in the country. Requested by corporations as a condition for
productive investment, it was taken on for governments and unions through the
“Corporatist Pact,” which played a control role at the national level. In contrast with the
consolidation of institutional union structures, these policies provoked the disorganization
and atomization of workers’ collectives, not only through subcontracting policies and the
increase of staff de confianza (not unionized), but also through a corporative policy of
promoting white unions and signing protection contracts at the facility level. Nevertheless,
this process is not a linear one. A minor but significant fraction of the labor movement did
not assume that institutional government-engaged role, recovering democratic and
independence issues in the adoption of a double program: on one side, a political program
restoring the union movement to its former role, and on the other, an industrial program
related to the general improvement of working class conditions.

This process weakened the SNTMMSSRM, since it shifted the sector structure through
privatization. Although the union manages a national contract, it doesn’t organize all the
mining and steel facilities. The replacement of former leadership allowed for a more
independent orientation, centered in wage disputes in a context of growing commodity
prices – the so-called “boom of commodities.” In this way, the “industrial logic” became
political, because it was an arrow to the heart of state labor policy towards the world
market. This confrontational turn of one of main national unions triggered a complex
conflict that involved legal, juridicial and physical confrontation. The government
indictment to Napoleon Gomez Urrutia and his displacement from the General Secretary
chair elicited the response of a broad international network of organizations and
actions claiming for union freedom in Mexico, which reinforced the SNTMMSSRM’s
dissociation from traditional corporative unions grouped by the Congreso del Trabajo.

These are the general processes backing up the participation of delegates from Section 281
in the TG International Network. From this point of view, it is worth it, because it means
the engagement of the Mexican independent unionism pole with Industriall organizing
policies to confront multinational corporations. The fact that Peña Colorada is a marginal
location of TG from the point of view of corporative structure does not change the balance
of forces concerning the industrial dimension of union action. On the contrary, the
engagement of Section 281 contributes to the strength of SNMMSSRM political action, as
part of the independent pole of Mexican unions.

Finally, the general conclusion is that the twofold logic of working class organization
shaping networks - the industrial and the political – projects waged workers’ double
condition of citizens and workforce sellers. This condition is crystallized in a global
strategy that pursues the shaping of full-right “waged workers,” which requires a
democratic political regime in labor relations not only at the national, but also as a
transnational level. Global unions’ strategy relies on the development of what has been
called “industrial citizenship,” broadening the spheres of collective bargaining in an attempt
at channelling the management of labor-capital contradictions to the global level. As it has
been described, this is not the only labor movement strategy in the globalization context.
The role of the labor movement as the regulator of intra-working-class competition at the
national level has been displaced by the one of being “guardians” of general labor costs for
the external market. Corporative unions in Mexico have fully assumed that role, resigning
any attempts at discussion of Mexican workers’ wages beyond government policies for the
general reproduction of capitalist accumulation in the national space. Thus, at the same
time that global practices produce different outcomes according to local traditions,
junctures and other relevant factors, which has been broadly analyzed by social research, it
is relevant to mention and to analyze how those local outcomes also involve the
“internalization” of global programs and strategies as active forces in the shaping of the
local balance of forces.

Notes

1 Currently, TG owns some of the main steel mills in Canada, Italy, the USA, Mexico,
Colombia, Romania, Japan; Argentina and Brazil, among others; supplying steel for several
manufacturing branches such as automotive, household appliances, construction and
petroleoum and gas.
2 - Tenaris – Ternium international network coordinator. Opening session 1st meeting, 2013;
CG current network coordinator. Interview: march 2014.
3- CG current network coordinator. Interview: march 2014
4- Main UNT members are: Social Security Workers Union; Telephonists’ Workers Union;
Autonomous Mexican University Workers Union; Autentic Labor Front, Pilots’ Labor
Association, Transport Workers Union Alliance; VW Independent Union Association.
5–Current information about Mexican wages available
at: https://expansion.mx/economia/2018/01/09/estos-son-los-mejores-y-peores-salarios-
minimos-en- latinoamerica and https://blog.finerio.mx/blog/el-salario-minimo-en-mexico-
deberia-ser-de-380-pesos-al-dia-y-11400-al-mes- Accessed September 2018

Unions and Locations in the Network

Country TG Locations union

Argentina Tenaris Siderca – Campana UOM (national board and
Tenaris SIAT – Villa sections from Campana -
Constitucion Villa Constitución - San
Nicolás – Rosario - Morón
Ternium Siderar – San - La Plata - Quilmes)
Nicolás
Ternium Siderar Navarro –
Rosario
Ternium Siderar Haedo -
Ternium Siderar Ensenada
Ternium Siderar Florencio
Varela
Brazil Tenaris CONFAB CNM – CUT and Sindicato
dos Metalurgicos do
Pindamonhangaba, Moreira,
César e Roseira
Canada Tenaris Sault Saint Marie USW - Canada (national
 Tenaris Calgary board and locals from
Missassuga, Sault St Marie
and Alberta)

Colombia Tenaris Tubo Caribe SINTRATUCAR

Ternium Manizales Union organization in
progress
Guatemala Ternium Guatemala SINTRATERNIUM
Japan Tenaris NKK NKK Union
Italy Tenaris Dalmine Arcore FIOM – CGIL and FIM –
Tenaris Dalmine Costa CISL (unified representation
Volpino bodies at each facility)

Tenaris Dalmine Piombino

Tenaris Dalmine Sabbio
Bergamasco
Mexico Ternium consorcio Peña SNTMMSSRM (national
Colorada board and section 281 and
289)
Romany Tenaris Zalau Federatia Sindicala a
Tenaris Calarasi Siderurgistilor METAROM –
FSS-METAROM (Donasid
Calarasi – Metalconf Calarasi
and Roomsteelcord Zalau)

Source: own elaboration based on fieldwork data and on corporate and unions’ information

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