Photo from USW.
The Toronto-based United Steelworkers (USW) has expressed their “solidarity with the rubber worker’s union on strike at the Tornel tire company in Mexico, whose members suffered an armed attack on their picket line on March 18, resulting in four injuries from gunshot wounds.”
The USW has supported the union’s call for “a thorough investigation to ensure the company is held accountable under Mexican law and those responsible for the attack are prosecuted.”
The letter of solidarity from Marty Warren, the Canadian National Director of the United Steelworkers, can be read here.
Warren writes: “The USW demands security protections be provided for the more than one thousand striking workers.”
The USW’s international headquarters adds: “We also call upon the governments of the United States and Canada to demand stronger guarantees under the USMCA/CUSMA. Without respect for human rights and the right to genuine collective bargaining for Mexican workers—and as long as demands for better benefits continue to be met with gunfire—there can be no fair free trade agreement, nor will it be possible to guarantee fair competition for workers in North America.”
The attack against workers
The workers of Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Compañía Hulera Tornel / National Union of Workers of the Hulera Tornel Company (SINTCHT) are seeking respect for their labor rights and better salary conditions.
The SINTCHT is recognized as an independent union.
On March 18, La Jornada reported: “Three workers from the Hulera Tornel factory were shot and wounded by a group of armed men when they were on night duty at the Tultitlán plant, where they are on a labor strike…”
That article further notes: “The workers managed to capture two of the aggressors, who were wearing company uniforms and waited for the arrival of the authorities.”
In another article that day, La Jornada also reported: “Following the armed attack they suffered early this morning, striking workers at the Tornel tire factory in Tultitlán, in the State of Mexico, demanded justice and called for a full investigation into the incident and for the perpetrators—both those who carried out the attack and those who ordered it—to be brought to justice, ‘because someone must have ordered it’.”
The article also explains: “The four plants of this rubber company have been on strike since February 23. …Three weeks ago, 1,510 workers stopped work at facilities located in the boroughs of Azcapotzalco (two) and Miguel Hidalgo (one) in Mexico City, and in the municipality of Tultitlán (one) in the State of Mexico, resulting in a daily production shortfall of between 19,000 and 20,000 tires.”
Agencia NVM notes: “Roberto Gutiérrez Cortes, the union’s secretary for internal affairs, claimed that the company is in breach of the rubber sector’s ‘standard collective agreement’. This situation led to a labour complaint being lodged under the USMCA’s Rapid Response Labour Mechanism, following a request from the United States to investigate violations of workers’ rights.”
We continue to follow this.
