AMLO aims to entice electrical workers

López Obrador says Alejandro Encinas would hire most SME electrical workers if elected governor of the State of Mexico

Mexico Weekly / April 15, 2011

Andrés Manuel López Obrador on Thursday made a lofty promise to thousands of unemployed electrical workers in exchange for their electoral support.

During a political rally, the erstwhile presidential candidate said the 15,000-plus members of the SME electrical workers union who have refused severance payments would be rehired as state workers if López Obrador’s preferred candidate, Alejandro Encinas, is elected governor of the State of Mexico on July 3.
This campaign promise came only three days after 11 members of the SME were arrested during violent protests carried out by the union in Mexico City. Union leader Martín Esparza has been summoned by police for questioning in a related incident.
For those not rehired under an Encinas administration, López Obrador said that if elected president next year, he would restore the Luz y Fuerza del Centro (LFC) power company and restore them to their jobs.
President Calderón dissolved the LFC in October 2009, citing inefficiency and high operational costs. The Federal Electricity Commission (CFE), the country's only remaining state-owned power company, absorbed LFC operations and now provides electricity to the capital and surrounding areas.

López Obrador did not explain if the promise to hire SME members was his own idea or Encinas’, nor did he specify if he had discussed the proposal with Encinas, Milenio reported.

Speaking On Behalf Of Encinas

This is not the first time López Obrador has spoken on behalf of Encinas, who will compete as the PRD, Labor Party and Convergencia candidate in the State of Mexico gubernatorial election.

In late March, López Obrador claimed Calderón personally had asked Encinas to accept the nomination of a PRD-PAN alliance.
Encinas partially denied the claim.

“I have had no direct interaction with [Calderón] or with any of his advisers,” Encinas said, according to the magazine La Revista Peninsular. “Members of my party … proposed that I lead the alliance, which I obviously rejected."
Although nearly a quarter million State of Mexico residents who participated in a referendum on March 27 voted in favor of a PRD-PAN alliance, the PRD National Committee voted against the alliance two weeks later.
The possible alliance was seen by some as a strategy to topple eight decades of PRI government in the State of Mexico.

—By Bronson Pettitt

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