Senators Napoleón Gómez Urrutia and José Narro Céspedes urged the ministries of the Interior, Economy, and Labor and Social Welfare to attend to the mining strikes in Cananea, Sonora; Sombrerete, Zacatecas; and Taxco, Guerrero who are 16 years old in which Mexico Group has violated collective contracts and workers’ rights.
In a press conference, the legislators indicated that the objective of the letter is to resolve the conflict between the company Grupo México and the National Union of Mining, Metallurgical and Similar Workers of the Mexican Republic, which has been going on for 16 years.
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Gómez Urrutia explained that, since July 30, 2007, that company unilaterally decided to stop respecting the rights of workers, ignore the national and local union, as well as commit a series of abuses of working and environmental conditions, in addition to not take responsibility for tragedies in the workplace.
“Grupo México, chaired by this disastrous businessman, Germán Larrea Mota Velasco, has not wanted to sit down and resolve these conflicts through conciliation,” the mining leader.
“We urge these three state secretaries to focus on resolving, not continuing with meetings, when it is a company responsibility. There are many ways that the Mexican State has to force it to fulfill its responsibility, to avoid all the acts of criminal negligence that it has committed,” he reiterated.
He recalled that Grupo México is responsible for the contamination of the Sonora and Bacanuchi rivers, which has affected the health of more than 25 thousand inhabitants of the area, who have developed different types of cancer.
“There have been deaths and injuries throughout this period and no one has been able to force this company to go unpunished, in the face of this criminal responsibility, it was for all of them to be in jail, its board of directors, its president and the entire management body that “He has refused to negotiate out of a sick obsession, a whim, a rage, a contempt, a revenge against the workers who are the ones who have generated wealth for this company.”
Senator José Narro expressed that Grupo México has not wanted to resolve the strikes, despite the fact that the courts in the matter have recognized the legitimate reasons for the strike.
He added that he tried to fire the workers at his mine in Taxco, under the argument that the resources of that mine had run out; while, in the case of Sombrerete, he demanded ownership of the collective bargaining contract several times, among other actions.
“We come here, together with our colleagues from section 65, from Cananea, to demand justice for the workers, who have been fighting and striking for more than 16 years.” We ask the secretariats to take this case into their hands.
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For his part, Roberto Hernández, secretary of union section 17, of Taxco, Guerrero, called on President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to sit down and talk with Germán Larrea, so that these strikes that affect more than 900 families can be resolved.