Govt. Tear Gas Evicts Mexican Miners After Three-Year Strike

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/6086/govt._tear_gas_evicts_mexican_miners_after_three-year_strike/


Members of the United Steelworkers union protest Mexican President Felipe Calderon's state visit to Washington outside the Mexican Embassy on May 19, 2010 in Washington, D.C. The group gathered in part to show support for striking mineworkers at Grupo Mexico SA de CV's Cananea copper mine. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images)

Thursday 11:45 am By Kari Lydersen

A subsidiary of Grupo Mexico says it has retaken the Cananea copper mine after several hundred federal police used tear gas on June 6 to evict union miners on strike for almost three years.

The company announced production at the world’s largest deposit of copper would be at “normal” levels by next year. The open pit mine has been intermittently closed and operating at a low level since the National Revolutionary Mine and Metal Workers Union of Mexico went on strike in July 2007, demanding that extremely dangerous and unhealthy working conditions be rectified. Strikers have constantly stood guard at mine entrances, and the strike has bitterly divided the town and sparked violence between neighbors and even families.

Before dawn on Monday June 7, state police and Grupo Mexico employees also rousted families from the Pasta de Conchos Grupo Mexico mine in Sonora state who have been searching – in symbolic protest – for the bodies of 65 miners buried during an explosion in February 2006. Grupo Mexico has said it plans to restart mining there, despite a government-ordered freeze on operations.

These are serious blows in a larger battle over the future of independent unionism in Mexico.

Union leaders have said they expected police action during the World Cup, when most of the country would be fixated on soccer. But the actions came even before the World Cup kick-off. Government officials have said the police at Cananea were unarmed. Union members say the police were accompanied by paramilitaries, and three people were injured during the raid.

FULL story at link.