New Steelworkers’ Website Sets Record Straight on Grupo Mexico

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/05/25/new-steelworkers-website-sets-record-straight-on-grupo-mexico/

by James Parks, May 25, 2008

The United Steelworkers (USW) has launched a new website to shine the spotlight on the business practices of Grupo México, a Mexican conglomerate that owns numerous businesses in the Western Hemisphere.

The Record Speaks for Itself hosts links to resources to educate the public about Grupo México’s treatment of its workers at home and abroad, and its sorry record on the environment.

Pt 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8p6qT-mcew&eurl=http://www.usw.org/usw/program/content/4607.php

Pt 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxQR95G-G5g&feature=related


Grupo México, a mining and railroad company, is the world’s third-largest copper producer. It has ties to ASARCO Inc., an Arizona-based metals company that employs USW members in Arizona and Texas. USW members in Arizona struck Grupo México-owned copper mines for four months in 2005 over the company’s refusal to bargain in good faith.

In January, nearly 1,000 federal police and soldiers using tear gas and pellet guns broke up a worker blockade of Grupo México’s Cananea copper mine, one of the world’s largest, following a ruling by Mexico’s labor board that declared the strike illegal and gave miners 24 hours to return to work. After workers appealed, courts ruled the strike was legal—yet the police and the government kept them from picketing or blocking the mine.

More than 1,000 miners represented by Mexico’s National Union of Mine and Metal Workers walked out July 30, 2007, to fight for safer working conditions and other rights. The workers went on strike after a deadly February 2006 explosion at another Grupo México mine in the Mexican state of Coahuila that killed 65 miners. The rescue efforts were shut down after only six days, leaving the 65 coal miners entombed for eternity.

FULL story at link.