MEXICAN TRADE UNIONISM IN THE FACE OF POLITICAL TRANSITION

Abstract

The results of the elections of July 2, 2000 that defeated the Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI) for the first time in history may open a new stage in the relations between trade unions and a state ridden with uncertainties. This is evidenced by the behavior of some of the main trade union leaders in Mexico after July 2: erratic behavior; attempts at alliances that would have been unthinkable in the past; and flirting with the presidency. It is the leadership, the strength of the confederations, which is at stake. The powerful may weaken and those who have been marginalized may enter the fray. Other actors, the workers, however, have remained in the background for years. Attention must be paid to them. For the workers, since the early 1980s, neoliberalism has meant reductions in wages and contract benefits, large personnel cut-backs, the disarticulation of the “old working class,” and the emergence of a “new working class” in the maquila. In other words, labor has been restructured in part through modernizing production.

Citation

De La Garza Toledo, E. (2003), "MEXICAN TRADE UNIONISM IN THE FACE OF POLITICAL TRANSITION", Cornfield, D.B. and Mccammon, H.J. (Ed.) Labor Revitalization: Global Perspectives and New Initiatives (Research in the Sociology of Work, Vol. 11), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 207-228. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0277-2833(03)11009-6