Search
Mexico
Blues on the Border: Legendary Rock Guitarist Javier Batiz Plays and Sings for 'My Beloved and Beautiful Tijuana'
| Dan La Botz | July 12, 2011 |
Javier Batiz, the great Mexican rock-and-roll guitarist, played and sang last week in a concert that embodied and gave voice to everything that is most wonderful about Tijuana and the U.S.-Mexico border region.
"We Want To Be Heard!"
| by Robert Joe Stout | Winter 2011 |
Uniformed agents of Mexico’s Federal Investigative Agency (AFI for its initials in Spanish) yanked three inmates out of their cells in the minimum-security state prison at Ixcotel, Oaxaca in November, 2008 and transported them to San Bartola Coyotepec, another Oaxaca state prison, for "interrogation." One of the three inmates, Victor Hugo Martínez, told activist friends that the federal investigators beat him and threatened to "make your family pay" if he didn’t confess in full to crimes of which he’d been accused two years before and for which
Cockroft’s "Mexico’s Revolution Then and Now"
| Dan La Botz | January 19, 2011 |
James D. Cockroft’s "Mexico’s Revolution Then and Now," written for the centennial of the Mexican Revolution of 1910, is a radical scholar’s guide to radical Mexico and well worth the read. Both a scholar and a political activist, Cockcroft writes as a partisan of oppressed and exploited and an opponent of capitalism.
Teachers in Oaxaca: A Review
| Dan La Botz | July 6, 2010 |
Diana Denham and the C.A.S.A. Collective, Teaching Rebellion: Stories from the Grassroots Mobilization in Oaxaca (Oakland: PM Press, 2008) and Peter Kuper, A Sketchbook Journal of Two Years in Oaxaca (Oakland: PM Press, 2009).
Metal Workers & Miners Unions Consider Merger
| Dan La Botz | June 28, 2010 |
Unions Representing Workers in Canada, Mexico qnd U.S. Explore Merger:
Would Create International Union of One Million Metal Workers and Miners
The United Steelworkers (USW), which represents 850,000 workers in Canada, the Caribbean and the United States, and the National Union of Miners and Metal Workers (SNTMMRM), known as the Mineros, which represents 180,000 workers in Mexico, have announced plans to explore uniting into one international union. The agreement to begin exploration of a merger was signed on June 21.
Oaxaca Uprising
| by John Gibler | Winter 2007 |
"Ulises nos decia: 'ni marchas ni plantones'. Aqui le demostramos que somos mas cabrones."
("Ulises told us: no marches and no protests. Here we'll show him that we're more badass than he is.")
The Oaxaca Uprising began as an annual, peaceful teachers' strike and exploded into an unarmed uprising after Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz refused to dialogue with the teachers, instead sending in 1,000 riot police to violently lift their protest camp in Oaxaca City's town square, or Zòcalo.
News update: Mexican government to meet with electrical workers, mediators
| Dan La Botz | December 16, 2009 |
The Mexican Secretary of the Interior will meet with the Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME) and a group of mediators tonight (December 16) some months since President Felipe Calderón liquidated the state-owned Light and Power Company, seized the facilities, and fired of the 44,000 workers. The union, which has sought in the courts the return of all workers to their jobs, has more modest goals for these negotiations, according to general secretary Martín Esparza.
What happened to the Mexican Electrical Workers Union?
| Lois Weiner | November 12, 2009 |
Worth listening to:
In this podcast from a Canadian radio program, Dan LaBotz discusses the Calderon government's attack on the Mexican Electrical Workers Union, the government’s seizure of the Light and Power Company, the liquidation of the company, and the firing of more than 40,000 workers.
Dan explains the political context and reasons for the assault on the union and its importance.
To hear the interview, go to
http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/37203
and click on the arrow in the red circle. The podcast should load.
Mexican Electrical Workers Union Fights For Its Life
| Dan La Botz | October 19, 2009 |
The Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME), made up of approximately 43,000 active and 22,000 retired workers in Mexico City and surrounding states, is fighting for its life. The union's struggle has rallied allies in the labor movement and on the left in Mexico and solidarity from throughout the country and around the world, but, if it is to survive, the union and its supporters have to take stronger actions than they have so far, and time is not on their side.
Mexican Government Seizes Power Plants, Liquidates Company, Fires Workers, Union in Jeopardy
| Dan La Botz | October 12, 2009 |
October 11, 2009 -- Mexican Federal Police last night and early this morning seized the plants of the Central Light and Power Company of Mexico (LyF) which provides electricity to Mexico City and several states in central Mexico. The government of President Felipe Calderón also announced the liquidation of the company, the termination of the workers, and thereby the elimination of the Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME) which has opposed the government's policies.
[See call for Solidarity with Mexican Electrical Workers Union at end of this article.]