SME members clash with riot police

Protest by members of the electrical workers' union quickly escalates into anarchy

Mexico Weekly / April 11, 2011

Clashes between members of the electrical workers' union and riot police in central Mexico City on Monday left five cars incinerated and several people injured.

Television footage shot early Monday showed members of the SME electrical
 workers union (SME) confronting capital officers and riot police
 outside the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) headquarters. At least eight people were arrested.

The SME was holding demonstrations to mark the 18-month anniversary of the dissolution of the Luz y Fuerza del Centro (LFC) power company by President Calderón.

About 16,000 of the total 43,000 SME members have refused to accept severance payments. The CFE took over LFC operations to become the country's only state-owned power company.

In a nationally televised address on Oct. 11, 2009, President Calderón said the decree to disband the state-owned company was a result of its spiraling financial losses and its inefficiency.

However, the CFE might not be as efficient as the federal government claims.

According to a Chamber of Deputies study released earlier this year, the CFE generated less electricity in 2009 but spent more to purchase power from private companies.

'Vandalism Won’t Be Tolerated’

Following Monday’s clashes, SME members marched toward the Zócalo to demand that several members who were arrested in the incident be released.

Mayor Marcelo Ebrard said vandalism would not be tolerated.

“This was a very serious error and we aren’t going to allow this to happen in the city,” Ebrard said, according to El Universal.

City officials predict SME demonstrations will continue. SME-led protests and blockades in Mexico City have become a common occurrence since the LFC was dissolved, and are likely to continue indefinitely.

Electrical workers are not the only ones at odds with the federal government.

In 2007, the Miners and Metal Workers Union went on strike at the Cananea mine in Sonora allegedly over mine owner Grupo México’s refusal to remedy health and safety hazards. However, in June 2010 hundreds of federal and state police invaded the mine and ended the nearly three-year-long strike.

Both unions have been fractured amid internal power struggles.

SME members are fighting union leader Martín Esparza's grab for greater power, and the miners union is divided by Napoleon Gómez Urrutia’s leadership such that dissident unions have gained ground.

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Mexicans march for an end to violence

Marches against violence have been planned for dozens of cities following the killing of Javier Sicilia's son

By Bronson Pettitt

Mexico Weekly / April 6, 2011

Marches will take place in dozens of cities on Wednesday to demand an end to violence and to call for peace amid escalating drug-related violence.

The mobilization in at least 32 cities and more than a dozen in other countries (http://marchaporlaseguridad6deabril.blogspot.com/ ) is believed to be the largest of its kind since late 2006, when President Calderón decided to launch an armed offensive against drug cartels that have left tens of thousands dead.

The movement, organized by the Network for Peace and Justice, was created in response to the torture and murder of five young people in Morelos last week.

Among the victims was Juan Francisco Sicilia, 24-year-old son of poet and columnist Javier Sicilia.

Sicilia met with Calderón Wednesday morning, but details of their meeting were not immediately known.

‘No More Poetry'

Wednesday's movement comes amid a widespread frustration of violence and homicides.

“The death of my son Juan Francisco has prompted solidarity and outrage of citizens and the media, which my family and I appreciate from the bottom of our hearts,” Sicilia wrote in a letter directed at politicians and criminals published in Proceso magazine Sunday.

The tragedy also prompted Sicilia to announce that he will no longer write poems.

He wrote his last poem, dedicated to his son, on the flight back to Mexico from the Philippines after he was informed of his son’s death.

The last half of the eight-line poem reads:

“And the pain does not leave me / There is only one world left / For the silence of the just / Only for your silence and my silence, Juanelo."

Failed Strategies

In his letter published in Proceso, Sicilia criticized politicians for their “poorly planned, poorly executed, poorly directed war” against drug traffickers that have left more than 35,000 people dead - 9,000 of whom have not been identified, according to the National Human Rights Commission.

“We are sick and tired, because the corruption of our justice system generates complicity with crime and impunity,” Sicilia wrote. “We are sick and tired because [as a result of violence] citizens have lost confidence in politicians, police officers and the Army.”

On Wednesday, Public Security Secretary Genaro García Luna defended the federal government’s strategy against drug cartels, and said “protests should be directed against criminals,” not the government.

In a television interview with Carlos Loret de Mola, García Luna said the armed offensive against drug cartels was not “poorly planned” nor “poorly directed,” as Sicilia wrote.

“The strategy is dynamic, not static. I don’t share the opinion that the Mexican government should make deals with criminals,” he said, referring to reports that Sicilia had called on the government to negotiate with drug trafficking groups to put an end to violence.

However, in a press conference Tuesday Sicilia said his remarks were taken out of context.

‘Sick and Tired'

Mexican columnists have elaborated on the phrase Sicilia has popularized in recent days: “Estamos hasta la madre” (We are sick and tired).

In his Wednesday column in Excélsior, political commentator Ricardo Alemán said the phrase went from being a colloquial phrase of annoyance to a powerful call for street protests.

“The majority of Mexicans have adopted the poet’s call: ‘estamos hasta la madre’,” wrote Alemán.

One of Wednesday’s main protests will take place in Sicilia’s home city of Cuernavaca, where protesters will march to the main city square.

Other marches will be held in Mexico City, Cancún, Ciudad Juárez, and at least 21 other cities.

Elsewhere, marches will be held near Mexican embassies and consulates in Barcelona, Buenos Aires, New York, Los Angeles, Paris, The Hague, Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver, Copenhagen and Santiago.

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Pepenadores walk out on strike

Mexico City's largest waste facility was temporarily closed after garbage sifters complained about the amount of garbage

By BRONSON PETTITT

Mexico Weekly / March 16, 2011

Trash pickers on Tuesday temporarily closed Mexico City's largest waste facility after operations at a sorting and separation plant were suspended.

“Pepenadores” – as the trash pickers are called in Spanish – closed the Bordo Poniente waste facility for most of Tuesday morning and afternoon, after the plant became saturated with trash on Monday night and was unable to process it, said Isaías Villa González, general coordinator of the city's Public Projects Program.

Dozens of semis and trucks loaded with garbage waited on Periférico Oriente – a major highway in the city – for as long as nine hours outside Bordo Poniente, one of the largest dumps in Latin America.

The landfill re-opened by late Tuesday and trucks were allowed to unload trash, said Villa, who went to the site to negotiate with the pepenadores and other employees.

“According to [pepenadores], there was too much trash accumulated and they couldn't work,” Villa said.

In some landfills in Mexico, pepenadores still sort through trash by hand. Such was the case at the Bordo Poniente until a separation facility was installed several years ago.

Villa told Mexico Weekly that corruption is one of the main reasons why the processing plant becomes saturated. Bordo Poniente, which now receives about 8,500 tons of trash per day, is meant to receive trash produced exclusively in Mexico City. However, corrupt Bordo Poniente employees sometimes allow trucks from unauthorized companies or from other states to throw their trash inside the landfill, including trucks from the State of Mexico and Puebla, Villa said.

“The problem with the leaders of the pepenadores is that they have made a way of life off [valuable trash] the trash pickers find,” Villa said.

Not all of these workers are corrupt, says Héctor Castillo Berthier, a sociologist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) who has spent more than 30 years studying pepenadores and waste disposal in Mexico.

Job Security

Trash pickers are also worried about the future of their jobs.

The city has less than nine months to find another site to dump its trash before the Bordo Poniente closes permanently. The Mexico City government and federal government signed an agreement last year to end operations on Jan. 1, 2012.

Villa says trash pickers will have jobs even after the Bordo Poniente closes.

“We're preparing a proposal so they can have alternatives. We're not going to leave them up in the air,” he said.

Villa estimates there are 500 pepenadores at Bordo Poniente based on lists provided by leaders of trash pickers who work at the site, but Castillo estimates there are as many as 2,000.

As for trash, its future is less certain. The city produces 14,000 tons of garbage per day, but 6,500 tons are recycled, used for biogas or sent to sites other than Bordo Poniente.

The capital government (GDF) has already taken measures to reduce the production of trash. In recent weeks, the GDF announced stricter measures requiring residents and businesses to separate inorganic and organic trash. Last year, businesses were banned from giving away plastic bags, and were ordered to charge a small fee for them.

But these measures are not enough, Castillo says.

“One of the most common complaints of stay-at-home moms is, 'I separate my trash, I take it to the trash truck and they mix it all together again',” he said.

“We have to see [a reduction in trash production] as a medium- and long-term process. Laws don't bring about change, habits do.”

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