Despite the hard times befall­en local mills and indus­try in Gary, Ind., the Unit­ed Steel­work­ers’ Dis­trict 7 union office still sits at the end of a dead-end road called Texas Street.

‘Clearly the Mexican government shares our analysis that if they can bust the Mineworkers union, that will go a long way toward its goal to eliminate union representation in the private sector.’

And despite how bit­ter many Amer­i­cans have become about the North Amer­i­can Free Trade Agree­ment (NAF­TA) since it was passed in 1994 — inten­si­fy­ing out­sourc­ing to Mex­i­co and depress­ing wages for many remain­ing U.S. jobs — the Unit­ed Steel­work­ers (USW) union has been ramp­ing up rela­tions with the Nation­al Min­ers’ and Met­al­work­ers’ Union of Mex­i­co, aka Los Mineros.

For the past six years, the Steel­work­ers have been moti­vat­ed by the idea that fight­ing for bet­ter wages and con­di­tions in Mex­i­co is not only an act of sol­i­dar­i­ty, but could also pro­tect U.S. jobs by bridg­ing the chasm between labor costs and reliev­ing the pres­sure for north­ern migration.

“Between us, Cana­da and Mex­i­co the rela­tion­ship is very tan­gi­ble,” says Jim Robin­son, direc­tor of USW Dis­trict 7, which cov­ers Indi­ana and Illi­nois. ​“We have two coun­tries with rough­ly the same stan­dards and one coun­try with much low­er stan­dards. That cre­ates a tremen­dous drag down on wages and work­ing con­di­tions in the U.S. We need to sup­port Mex­i­can work­ers so we’ll be on a lev­el play­ing field.” Accord­ing to the Bureau of Labor Sta­tis­tics, in 2009 man­u­fac­tur­ing work­ers in Mex­i­co made only $3.93 an hour on aver­age com­pared to $23.03 for work­ers in the Unit­ed States.

The ​“cur­rent wave of sol­i­dar­i­ty,” as USW Inter­na­tion­al Affairs Direc­tor Ben Davis calls it, was sparked by the Mineros’ sup­port of U.S. Steel­work­ers who were on strike at Asar­co cop­per min­ing and smelt­ing oper­a­tions in Ari­zona in 2005. Many Mineros mem­bers work at mines and oth­er oper­a­tions owned by the polit­i­cal­ly-con­nect­ed com­pa­ny Grupo Mex­i­co, which owns Asar­co. A sol­i­dar­i­ty agree­ment between the two unions was signed that year. Now, when an employ­er is hos­tile to the union on one side of the bor­der, mem­bers on the oth­er side can apply pres­sure through let­ter-writ­ing, pick­et­ing at con­sulates and pub­lic-aware­ness campaigns.

In June 2010, the two unions went fur­ther, announc­ing the for­ma­tion of a joint com­mis­sion charged with explor­ing how the two unions might cre­ate a ​“uni­fied North Amer­i­can orga­ni­za­tion” span­ning Mex­i­co, the Unit­ed States and Cana­da and the Caribbean. If the merg­er occurs, the new USW-Mineros union would rep­re­sent more than 1 mil­lion work­ers – the USW has 850,000 mem­bers, while the Mineros has 180,000. ​“It’s real­ly impor­tant for us to have strong trade union rela­tion­ships in the indus­tries and com­pa­nies that we work in,” Davis says.

USW mem­bers from John­son Con­trols Inc. and Dana Hold­ing Corp. auto parts fac­to­ries and the Amer­i­can Steel Foundries in Gran­ite City, Ill., have par­tic­i­pat­ed in work­er exchanges to vis­it Mex­i­can work­ers and Mex­i­can work­ers have come to the Unit­ed States.

In April, a large del­e­ga­tion of Steel­work­ers marched with Mineros in Lazaro Car­de­nas, in the state of Michoa­can, to com­mem­o­rate the fifth anniver­sary of a 2006 con­fronta­tion that left two work­ers dead and many injured dur­ing a bit­ter strike at a steel mill at that time co-owned by a polit­i­cal­ly-con­nect­ed Mex­i­can cor­po­ra­tion and Arcelor­Mit­tal (which, also owns a steel mill in East Chica­go, a town next to Gary). No one has been arrest­ed for the killing of the two work­ers, and ​“numer­ous crimes against [the Mineros] con­tin­ue with impuni­ty,” accord­ing to an Inter­na­tion­al Labor Orga­ni­za­tion com­plaint filed by the Inter­na­tion­al Met­al­work­ers Fed­er­a­tion, of which USW is a key affiliate.

Sol­i­dar­i­ty against Grupo Mexico

In the past few years, Steel­work­ers-Mineros sol­i­dar­i­ty has been most promi­nent around the long-sim­mer­ing and bru­tal labor dis­pute at the mas­sive open-pit cop­per mine owned by Grupo Mex­i­co in Cananea, south of the Ari­zona border.

A labor upris­ing there a cen­tu­ry ago helped spark the Mex­i­can Rev­o­lu­tion, and min­ers have been launch­ing var­i­ous mil­i­tant actions since. In 2007 they went on strike over atro­cious work­ing con­di­tions and oth­er issues, includ­ing the company’s clos­ing of the health clin­ic that had served min­ers and their families.

In Mex­i­co it is ille­gal to oper­ate a busi­ness where work­ers are strik­ing, but the Mex­i­can gov­ern­ment ruled the Cananea strike ​“nonex­is­tent,” and Grupo Mex­i­co resumed oper­a­tions. Mean­while, the strike con­tin­ues. Sev­er­al times police have descend­ed on the town, vio­lent­ly attack­ing strik­ers and their fam­i­lies. Strik­ing min­ers are sub­ject to con­stant threats, beat­ings and ille­git­i­mate arrests. Del­e­ga­tions of USW mem­bers from around the Unit­ed States have vis­it­ed Cananea var­i­ous times, most recent­ly last summer.

The Cananea strike is inex­tri­ca­bly linked with Grupo Mex­i­co and the Mex­i­can government’s cam­paign against Napoleon Gomez Urru­tia, the elect­ed leader of the Mineros, who has been liv­ing in exile in Cana­da since flee­ing crim­i­nal fraud charges that his sup­port­ers say are trumped up as part of the government’s cam­paign against the union. He now works out of a Steel­work­ers office in British Colum­bia and often speaks at Steel­work­ers events.

On an April after­noon, USW’s Robin­son chat­ted with Gomez Urru­tia by phone about the cel­e­brat­ed release from prison of Juan Linares – a Mineros leader at a Grupo Mex­i­co-owned mine in San Luis Poto­si who had been jailed on spu­ri­ous charges since Decem­ber 2008.

“The inter­na­tion­al pres­sure exert­ed by the Unit­ed Steel­work­ers has real­ly been a great sup­port,” Gomez Urru­tia tells In These Times, not­ing Linares was released short­ly after inter­na­tion­al days of action in Feb­ru­ary orga­nized by the Steel­work­ers and oth­er unions.

The Mineros are one of the few inde­pen­dent unions in Mex­i­co. As a result, major employ­ers and noto­ri­ous­ly cor­rupt gov­ern­ment offi­cials who back the com­pa­nies see them as a direct chal­lenge. Gomez Urru­tia notes that in the past five years, 12 Mineros mem­bers have been killed and about 100 wound­ed by gun­shots dur­ing labor battles.

“We’re prob­a­bly one of the biggest unions in Mex­i­co. We are very demo­c­ra­t­ic and inde­pen­dent,” says Gomez Urru­tia. ​“So the gov­ern­ment tar­get­ed us because they want to destroy one of the most demo­c­ra­t­ic unions, and then they will con­tin­ue with the rest of the unions they don’t like.”

The gov­ern­ment began call­ing for Gomez Urrutia’s arrest after he demand­ed an inves­ti­ga­tion of Grupo Mex­i­co and gov­ern­ment offi­cials relat­ed to the 2006 explo­sion at the Pas­ta de Con­chos coal mine that killed 65 work­ers. Gomez Urru­tia says the union had been com­plain­ing of unsafe con­di­tions at the mine for years.

“Here’s a case of the gov­ern­ment sim­ply com­ing in and say­ing, ​‘We are going to remove the elect­ed leader of this union,’ ” Davis says of Gomez Urru­tia. ​“It’s a direct con­fronta­tion, clear­ly the Mex­i­can gov­ern­ment shares our analy­sis that if it can bust the Minework­ers union, that will go a long way toward its goal of elim­i­nat­ing union rep­re­sen­ta­tion in the pri­vate sector.”

Davis says only about 1 per­cent of Mexico’s work­force is orga­nized in ​“some­thing we would rec­og­nize as a demo­c­ra­t­ic trade union.” Most Mex­i­can unions, Davis explains, ​“are labor orga­ni­za­tions but not orga­ni­za­tions rep­re­sent­ed by the work­ers and they don’t fight for high­er wages.” These unions are typ­i­cal­ly called ​“pro­tec­tion unions”; Grupo Mex­i­co installed one at Cananea after bring­ing in new work­ers to replace the strik­ing Mineros.

“The Mex­i­can gov­ern­ment has a clear pol­i­cy of keep­ing wages down, mar­ket­ing Mex­i­co inter­na­tion­al­ly as a low-wage coun­try that serves as a cheap export plat­form to the U.S.,” says Davis. ​“We think it’s a pol­i­cy very destruc­tive to Mex­i­can work­ers and to U.S. and Cana­di­an work­ers. The only way you can fight back is to build rep­re­sen­ta­tive unions in Mex­i­co that have the capac­i­ty to stand up to com­pa­nies and the Mex­i­can government.”

Women of steel

In the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry, min­ers in the south­west would reg­u­lar­ly rotate between work­ing at mines in Mex­i­co and the Unit­ed States. Con­se­quent­ly, there are deep fam­i­ly and cul­tur­al ties between min­ers in Ari­zona, New Mex­i­co and Mex­i­co. And since North­west Indi­ana and the Chica­go area have long been des­ti­na­tions for Mex­i­can immi­grants, many USW mem­bers have close ties to Mineros in Mex­i­co. Dur­ing the April vis­it to Lazaro Car­de­nas in April, one mem­ber of the Indi­ana Steel­work­ers’ del­e­ga­tion ran into his uncle work­ing in the Mex­i­can mill.

Blan­ca Morales was born in Mon­ter­rey, Mex­i­co, and came to north­west Indi­ana at age five when her father, a glass­blow­er, got work in the steel mills. Morales worked at Inland Steel – now Arcelor­Mit­tal – for 25 years before being laid off in 1997, and lat­er start­ed work­ing as an admin­is­tra­tive assis­tant for the Steel­work­ers at the union’s Gary office.

In 2008 she and oth­er mem­bers of the group Women of Steel went on a del­e­ga­tion to Cananea, where they met with the Women’s Front – Mineros’ wives who have been key to main­tain­ing the strike and strug­gle. Grupo Mex­i­co con­trols the town’s water and elec­tric­i­ty sup­ply and inter­mit­tent­ly cut off these resources as part of their offen­sive against the Mineros. So women had no way to wash cloth dia­pers. The Women of Steel raised mon­ey for dis­pos­able dia­pers, the begin­ning of a close rela­tion­ship between the two groups. Morales and her U.S. col­leagues got the idea to sell sol­i­dar­i­ty T‑shirts as a fundrais­er, start­ing at USW’s inter­na­tion­al con­ven­tion in 2008 and at count­less con­fer­ences and events since.

“If it wasn’t for T‑shirts, Steel­work­ers wouldn’t have a wardrobe,” jokes Morales, not­ing the cam­paign is about rais­ing both funds and sol­i­dar­i­ty for Cananea. She exchanges e‑mails dai­ly with Maria Rosa Guayane Gar­cia, the pres­i­dent of the Women’s Front, who was forced to leave her home after an arrest war­rant was issued for her last year.

“It’s a sis­ter­hood,” Morales says. ​“Look at how strong they are. It’s such a beau­ti­ful sto­ry in so many ways.”