Sweeney in Mexico


U.S. Labor Leader Seeks Union Support in Mexico

By SAM DILLON


  MEXICO CITY -- John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, began a two-day trip
to Mexico on Thursday that he said was aimed at encouraging Mexican and
American unions to help each other in cross-border organizing drives and to
find other "practical ways to work together."

  Sweeney's visit marked at least two watersheds. It was the first trip to
Mexico by any president of the American labor movement since the American
Federation of Labor's founder, Samuel Gompers, came here in 1924, Sweeney's
aides said.

  And in contrast with the way successive AFL-CIO leaders treated Mexico
during the Cold War, when they concentrated on cultivating anti-communist
allies in the labor wing of Mexico's governing party, the Institutional
Revolutionary Party, or PRI, Sweeney has scheduled meetings with independent
unions seeking to revolutionize the country's fossilized labor system.

  That system, dominated by several pro-government union federations, has
served to turn out pro-government votes but has kept the minimum wage at $3 a
day. The independent unions are more aggressive in pressing for higher wages
and better conditions.

  "We've come to Mexico to meet with leaders of Mexico's labor unions and
democratic forces and to find practical ways to work together," Sweeney said
on Thursday in a speech to 200 labor leaders and students at the Autonomous
National University here. "We want to work with our brothers and sisters in
all parts of the Mexican labor movement and with freedom lovers throughout
Mexican society. We seek to develop coordinated cross-border organizing and
bargaining strategies."

  The White House helped with Sweeney's visit, perhaps hoping for labor
support, either this spring when hemispheric trade legislation will be
discussed again or in two years when Vice President Al Gore is expected to run
for president.

  President Clinton's special adviser for Latin America, Thomas McLarty III,
helped arrange a meeting on Thursday between Sweeney and President Ernesto
Zedillo, which Sweeney described as "positive."

  Despite Zedillo's cordiality, his labor secretary, Javier Bonilla Garcia,
did not disguise his irritation with Sweeney's initiative.

  On Wednesday, Bonilla called in several leaders of independent unions
scheduled to meet with Sweeney and warned them bluntly not to make any
agreements that might violate Mexican sovereignty. In issuing that warning,
Bonilla appeared to echo the opinion of many factory owners here, who view the
new binational union ties that are developing among Mexican and American
unions as a threat to Mexico's authoritarian labor system.

  For many decades, the AFL-CIO's most important ties in Mexico were with the
main pro-government labor body, the Confederation of Mexican Workers, or CTM,
and even those were limited.

  When the North American Free Trade Agreement, or Nafta, was being negotiated
in the early 1990s, the AFL-CIO reached out to the confederation, seeking to
form an alliance that would give the labor movements of both countries more
bargaining leverage. But the confederation refused to cooperate with the AFL-
CIO because of its unconditional support for the Mexican government's position
on Nafta, said Luis Manuel Guaida, a Mexican labor lawyer who is a consultant
to the American Chamber of Commerce.

  Since the passage of Nafta and Sweeney's election to the AFL-CIO presidency
in October 1995, the American federation has decided to reach out to smaller
and more militant Mexican unions that for years have been persecuted here but
are growing fast.

  "Now Sweeney is seeking ties with independent unions, and that's very
significant," Guaida said. "This should set off alarm bells at the CTM that
they better wake up."

  Berta Lujan Uranga, one of the independent labor leaders with whom Sweeney
is to meet on Friday, said she and several colleagues hoped to discuss ways in
which Mexican organizers could help the AFL-CIO enroll Mexican migrant workers
in the United States into unions. Ms. Lujan said efforts of this type were
under way in Washington state's apple packing plants and among California
janitors.

  In his speech on Thursday, Sweeney endorsed that idea, as well as efforts to
organize new unions in Mexican border assembly plants. "We may live in
different nations, but we face the same adversaries and fight the same
battles," Sweeney said. "We are at the very beginning of a renewed freedom
struggle."

  The Clinton administration's focus on Mexican labor issues attracted
attention earlier this month, when Labor Secretary Alexis Herman requested to
meet with her counterpart, Bonilla, to discuss harassment of pregnant workers
in Mexican border assembly plants.

  Bonilla replied with a letter saying he believed the discussions were
unnecessary because female workers were already amply protected by Mexican
laws.

  In an interview, McLarty said he had asked Zedillo for help during a visit
here last week, and that Zedillo had agreed to arrange an encounter between
the two labor secretaries.

  "Mexico is moving toward a much more modern, contemporary democracy,"
McLarty said, "and we see the ability of workers to organize and to protect
their own rights at the heart of that."

  But American and Mexican analysts said they believed that the Clinton
administration hoped that supporting Sweeney's initiative might help persuade
the AFL-CIO to support approval of fast-track negotiating powers for a new
hemispheric trade agreement this spring.