The United Steelworkers (USW) today condemned Grupo Mexico SAB, Mexico's largest mining company, for a mass firing of workers at its copper smelter in Esqueda, Sonora after the miners rejected a company-imposed union in a vote late last month.

“This blatant act of repression clearly puts Grupo Mexico’s anti-union vendetta ahead of the company’s interest in having stable labor relations,” declared Leo W. Gerard, USW international president.

The mass firing, enforced by a thousand heavily armed federal police who entered the town on Aug. 31, threatens to disrupt production at the smelter.  “Instead of deploying the police to protect its citizens from the drug cartels, the Mexican government is using them to bust democratic unions run by the workers and not the company,” Gerard said ... more