Background:
In April the TRW Workers Coalition learned that according to Mexican Labor Law the company can’t transfer the workers without following a process through the Conciliation and Arbitration Board, and TRW didn’t do this. By mid April the Workers Coalition demanded the company appear before the labor defense department to negotiate the transfer with the Workers’ Coalition, since they were no longer affiliated with the CTM union but rather the Workers’ Coalition was representing them. But the company did not show up either of the two times that the labor department requested they appear to solve the problem. Instead TRW fired the leadership of the Workers’ Coalition. By the end of April workers elected new leadership to the Workers’ Coalition and they kept fighting.
The Workers’ Coalition went to negotiate with the human resources manager of their facility in the Industrial Park del Norte, but he told them that he understood their concerns but the workers also have to understand that he is an employee too and he was just following the orders of the company and has no power to negotiate with them.
In May, the Workers Coalition mobilized and went to the media to denounce TRW for arbitrarily transferring them to the other side of the city and for firing their leadership because they formed the Workers’ Coalition even though it is recognized in the labor law. Many politicians and political parties offered to help them, but they just wanted the photo opportunity because it’s the time for political elections.
TRW has a reputation for not being accountable to the workers because they have the support of the labor authorities and government. The Workers’ Coalition was determined to avoid any corruption in their case in the labor department so they mobilized and took over the CAB facility several times, pressuring the president of the CAB to set the hearings according with the legal timeline for the process, which he did. The workers demanded that the company’s assets be frozen in order to guarantee their severance payments in case the company decides to fired all them and runaway.
The CTM union did not have any more power over the workers who were ignoring the corporate union. So the CTM union tried to protect the company one more time and they went to the CAB to demand a strike in order to avoid the CAB freezing the company’s assets. But all the workers showed up and took over the CAB saying they don’t want the strike, instead they want TRW to negotiate the transfer to the TRW plant in Industrial Park Reynosa with them or pay them the severance pay according with the law.
The TRW Workers’ Coalition has been finding new models of organizing and taking away the control and power of the CTM union. They also have been exposing and breaking the corrupt system in the CAB by making the CAB president accountable to the legal timeline of the process.
However, the TRW lawyer finally showed up on the third request to attend the hearing because if he failed to do that TRW would be declared guilty and required to not transfer the workers or to pay them their severance payments. However, the TRW lawyer appeared demanding that all the complaints be set in the same trial, a strategy to delay the process. The next hearing he showed up and demanded that the local CAB not be competent to hear this case. Knowing that this is one of the tricks that companies usually play to delay the process, the Workers Coalition mobilized and took over the CAB again. As a result, the President of the CAB resolved that the company’s request that the local CAB be declared incompetent will be denied.
The workers have more than two months resisting and fighting back against the impunity of TRW. The workers declare: “We will not resign and we will not give up”