The following statement was issued by the Mexican Mine and metalworkers union (Los Mineros) on October 19th.
Employers in Mexico in league with the government are dismantling independent trade unions and imposing company run “yellow” unions on workers using illegal tactics, threats and intimidation.
* With irregularities, fraud and threats, PKC and CTM impose themselves in the union election at Arneses y Acesorios de Mexico in Ciudad Acuña, Coahuila
* With 2,546 unused ballots, the margin was only 198 votes out of 7,366 eligible voters
*The democratic representative of the workers, Los Mineros, received 2,311 votes, whereas the PKC-CTM alliance has 2,509
* The National Union of Mineworkers challenges this fraudulent election in Mexico and internationally, based on the illegal actions, pressures and threats made by the PKC-CTM
After a long and intense campaign of threats, intimidation and pressure carried out by Arneses y Acesorios de Mexico, a subsidiary of the Finnish company PKC in Ciudad Acuña, Coahuila, Mexico for almost three months, the company-backed CTM union was imposed in an election on Thursday 18 October 2012. The narrow margin of only 198 votes confirms the illegalities and irregularities committed in this election.
The figures are indicative of the threats and pressures that both the company and the PKC-CTM directed against the workers of Arneses, and they are incriminating: 2,311 workers supported the National Union of Mineworkers, 2.509 in favor of the CTM, and 2,546 unused ballots, more than the winning vote.
Given these facts, the National Union of Mineworkers will contest this fraudulent vote both in Mexico and in international organizations, because the process violated the most elementary rules of legal and genuine democratic consultation, established in the Federal Labor Law, the Mexican Constitution and Conventions 87 and 98 of the International Labour Organization, as well as by the Supreme Court of Justice of
