Strikes of thousands of workers in the industrial city of Matamoros, Tamaulipas have primarily hit auto parts factories.
Mexican maquiladora workers in 70 factories have won big wage increases and bonuses in a strike wave that began in January.
The strikes in the industrial city of Matamoros, Tamaulipas, on the border with Brownsville, Texas, have primarily hit auto parts factories, where tens of thousands of workers make goods for General Motors and other car manufacturers.
The first of the strikes began on January 12 at eight factories. Workers were demanding a 20 percent wage increase and an annual bonus of 32,000 pesos ($1,600)—a demand now popularized as “20/32.”
An initiative by Mexico’s new President Andrés Manuel López Obrador sparked the rebellion. During his December inauguration he announced a 100 percent increase in the federal minimum wage in the northern border zone, from 88 pesos ($4.50) to 176 pesos ($9) per day.
But most maquiladora workers in Matamoros were already earning between 155 and 176 pesos ($8.60 and $9), so the raise would have had little impact—were it not for a provision in the collective bargaining agreement negotiated by the biggest union in the sector.
That provision, aimed at preserving the purchasing power of workers, says that any increase in the federal minimum wage must be applied to the entire pay scale via a proportional daily wage increase and an annual bonus.
However, when the Union of Laborers and Industrial Workers of the Maquiladora Industry (SJOIIM) started annual negotiations on its collective agreements at 48 factories in December, the maquiladora employers all refused to implement the increase.
Instead of bargaining individually with each factory, SJOIIM union delegates from the 48 factories agreed to join forces and push for direct negotiations with the local government and the association of maquiladora employers.
Thousands of workers demonstrated in the city’s central square on January 12 to voice their demands. Matamoros Mayor Mario Lopez urged them to keep talking with the companies but asked them to keep working and to be reasonable in their demands, arguing that many corporations would not be able to afford the wage increase.
Led by the 48 delegates, the workers then assembled at the local chapter of the union to demand support from the secretary general of the SJOIIM, Juan Villafuerte.
Villafuerte agreed to write a letter formally supporting the workers’ demands, but suggested that delegates negotiate individually with each factory. Workers felt this approach would weaken their bargaining power by keeping them fragmented.
In response, workers closed the gates at eight plants and hung up red and black banners, the Mexican labor movement’s universal symbol of a strike.
Over the next two weeks, thousands of workers held massive rallies and launched strikes at all 48 factories.
These were wildcat strikes—Villafuerte refused to sanction them, arguing that since the workers had not gone through the proper legal channels, the strikes would expose them to replacement by scabs and repression by police. Mexican labor law requires at least six days’ notice of a strike.
Finally on January 25, due to escalating pressure from the grassroots movement, the SJOIIM officially declared strikes in all 48 factories.
