More than 100 members of the United Steelworkers and UNITE the Union joined thousands of members of Los Mineros on April 20 in a march to commemorate two workers killed by police in the Mexican town of Lázaro Cárdenas in 2006.
Four members of the USW International Executive Board – District 4 Director John Shinn, District 5 Director Daniel Roy, District 12 Director Bob LaVenture and District 13 Director Ruben Garza – led the USW delegation, which included members from nearly every district. More than half of the marchers were from District 7, which has organized USW participation in the annual memorial since 2010.
In April 2006, Mexican steelworkers held a strike after the government attempted to remove Napoleón Gómez Urrutia as General Secretary of Los Mineros. President Vicente Fox then ordered an attack by police and military forces that killed two union members: Hector Ấlvarez Gómez and Mario Alberto Castillo Rodríguez.
After the union won the strike, the plant was sold to ArcelorMittal, the current owner.
Speaking to 3,000 workers at a rally before the march, Napoleón Gómez Urrutia, President and General Secretary of Los Mineros, welcomed the international delegation through a live video connection.
Gómez thanked USW International President Leo W. Gerard and UNITE General Secretary Len McCluskey for their solidarity with Los Mineros, which has been fighting for nearly a decade against attacks from the Mexican government.
Gómez called on the Mexican authorities to defend the steel industry against unfair dumping of Chinese steel and pledged the union’s cooperation with ArcelorMittal “as long as we are treated with respect.”
“Savage capitalism concentrates wealth in the hands of a few and sharpens social inequality,” Gomez said. “This model no longer functions, and there must be a radical change to a model of shared prosperity as demanded by the global trade union movement along with us.”
District 12 Director Bob LaVenture and District 5 Director Daniel Roy spoke on behalf of the Steelworkers delegation.
LaVenture described the work that District 12 has done to build solidarity with the Mineros in Cananea. Mexican workers there are under attack by Grupo Mexico, which also owns USW employer Asarco, and local communities are still affected by a massive toxic spill from the Grupo Mexico mine last August.
Roy pledged the solidarity of the 3,000 workers at ArcelorMittal mines in District 5, saying “we are all Métallos.”
UNITE members Debi Bell and Walter Duhalde brought a message of solidarity from their union’s 1.4 million members in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
Following the march from the union hall to the monument to the fallen Mineros outside the plant gate, the Steelworkers and UNITE delegations stood as an honor guard to the memory of our Mineros brothers.
