The battle between the dissident teachers of the National Coordination of Educational Workers (CNTE) and Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto came to a standstill in late August. The teachers, who have been on strike for over three months, refused to show up for the first day of classes.

Since their strike began in June, the teachers have erected roadblocks and occupied local businesses, paralyzing economic activity in Oaxaca, Chiapas, and other states. To silence them after this international humiliation, Peña Nieto condemned them for compromising the Mexican public’s right to education and refused to negotiate until they went back to work, which they did in early September.

This recent standoff is part of a decades-long battle between CNTE and the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which, except for a twelve-year break from 2000–2012, has ruled Mexico since 1929.

This strike was motivated by the 2013 education reform, which was passed without teachers’ participation or consent. But it contests more than educational policy; it bears directly on Mexico’s unjust labor and union system.

The state’s reaction to the teachers reflects the history of Mexico’s labor unions, which often function as a mode of state control rather than a vehicle for working-class advancement. Exemplified by the split between the state-supported National Educational Workers Union (SNTE) and CNTE, the difference between official and independent unions’ ability to defend workers demonstrates how Mexico’s system of labor organizing actually disciplines the labor forces.

State Control

On paper, Mexico has some of the highest unionization rates and some of the most consistent and organized unions. But the country’s low formal labor rates and system of corporatist unions create a system of empty worker representation.

Official unions — undemocratic and subordinated to the state — make up almost 90 percent of all unions in the country. Because the informal economy employs more than half of all workers, very few Mexican employees can access democratic, representative unions that exercise the right to strike and contest unjust labor practices.

These official unions have a corporatist relationship with the state, which integrates workers into the state apparatus by way of corporations. As arms of the state, they guarantee social control by severely limiting workers’ ability to contest corrupt industry practices or radically change the management structure of their organizations. By keeping wages down and avoiding conflict, the official unions ultimately reinforce the status quo.

The government maintains this system by tightly controlling which unions it recognizes. To become a formal union, an organization must first apply to the secretariat of labor and social welfare. Although the barriers to registration are quite low, the government can — and often does — arbitrarily delay registration or eliminate a union altogether. Workers who bypass authorization become subject to government sanctions and dismissal. This formalization process helps labor organizations subordinate workers.

As a result, business interests dominate formal unions. Bureaucratic hierarchies rule these corporatist groups, which often lack essential democratic procedures such as membership meetings and secret-ballot elections. Businesses instead appoint their own union leaders and blacklist those who do not belong to the PRI or who have indicated they will not work in the party’s interests.

Similarly, many workplaces also have closed-shop rules. Unlike in the United States, where these rules usually strengthen a union’s negotiating power, in Mexico it limits workers to one organizing option and requires them to stay in the union to keep their job.

Formal unions also often center party politics, rooting them to the tradition of Mexico’s one-party rule. The Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM) — the largest and most notable confederation of unions, was founded in 1936 with support of president Lázaro Cárdenas. It has remained a stronghold of the Mexican union sector ever since. A 1991 document, the “Political Agreement Between the PRI and the Organization of the CTM,” made this relationship official: it requires workers to pay dues to both the union and the party.

Even when the state doesn’t control organizing activities, so-called invisible, white, or paper unions use protection contracts to prevent independent organizations from entering the workplace. These placeholder contracts govern thousands of workplaces and workers and were never approved or even recognized by the people they are supposedly protecting.

This combination of state-controlled and invisible unions eliminates confrontation in workplaces at all costs. By redefining the form and function of labor organization, Mexican unions control workers, not defend them.