Calls on government to peacefully resolve 3-year dispute at Grupo Mexico

Leo W. Gerard, International President of the United Steelworkers (USW), today announced a cross-border effort is being undertaken to place a rotating team of international observers in northern Mexico’s city of Cananea to monitor the presence of 3,000 illegal federal police who are intimidating striking copper miners of the Los Mineros independent union.

“We are in full support of the Los Mineros strike that passed a three-year mark last month, where a constitutional appeal for a temporary injunction against government efforts and mining giant Grupo Mexico to break the union was just won,” Gerard declared.  “But we are concerned that the massive federal police presence is not in keeping with the court ruling and allows protection of the strikebreakers paid by Grupo Mexico to disregard the rights of the union miners.”

Gerard said the USW will sponsor the first group of international observers arriving in Cananea over this weekend with American volunteer workers recruited in the midwest and from southwest border states. He said international human rights groups will be joining the effort to train a rotating team of observers to be near the picket lines with the miners ... more