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MEXICO: The 65 Mexican miners trapped inside Grupo Mexico’s Pasta de Conchos coal mine 8, near the town of San Juan de Sabinas, in the northern region of Coahuila state, since Sunday 19 February, have been declared dead. Twenty-five of the victims were members of Section 13 of the Mexican National Miners’ and Metalworkers’ Union (SNTMMSRM).
In response to this terrible event, the union, which is affiliated to the IMF, has issued a communiqué calling on the authorities to give practical help to the families of the victims. “We demand that President Vicente Fox Quesada; the Minister of Labour and Social Welfare, Francisco Javier Salazar Sáenz and Grupo Mexico, owned by Germán Larrea Mota Velasco, stop talking about technical matters, which only serve to confuse the issue, and make a clear and concrete commitment to safeguard the future of these families,” says the communiqué.
It also recognises the efforts of the rescue teams: “Each minute of the rescue operation, they risked their lives to save their colleagues. They are real national heroes who, more than anyone, knew the importance of following their hearts rather than their heads, and who knew they had the experience, preparation and courage to succeed if anyone could.”
The union said its National Executive Committee “is committed to ensuring that the families of the dead workers receive the moral and economic support and the respect and dignified treatment they deserve, whether they were members of the union or not.” It explained that inspectors from the Labour Ministry and the Joint Health and Safety Committee inspected the mine on 7 February but they only checked whether 34 irregularities identified on 12 July 2004 had been dealt with, without reporting on any other issues. This inspection was late because such checks should be carried out in the same year that such irregularities are identified, where urgent attention is not needed.
The union affirms that “neither the company, nor the federal labour inspector made a record of the irregularities identified on that date. However, our representative in section 13 made a record of the irregularities identified.” It said that, at the global level: “What happened at mine 8 was industrial homicide and should be investigated and denounced as such. Grupo Mexico shareholders and directors and whoever is responsible for this crime, caused by greed, repression and insensitivity should be charged and punished accordingly.
The company now claims to be acting in a moral way and to be treating the affected people ‘as human beings, without sensationalism’, in order to hide its real objective, which is to exploit economic need and hunger.” The union thanks national and international trade unions for their “support for our demand for clarification of the facts, in a responsible, impartial and speedy way and for their dissemination of the facts throughout the world, including President Vicente Fox’s government’s aggressive attitude and repression of democratic Mexican trade unionism.”
The IMF’s Regional Officer, Jorge Campos, visited the mine, accompanied by workers, their families and union leaders, and said that “the IMF will discuss with the National Union of Miners and Steel Workers what international action to take after the investigation of this terrible event.”
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