By ELAINE BURNS MEXICO CITY — At 5:30 am on Monday morning, Jan. 8, Manuel Romero and 2,600 co-workers sensed danger as they approached the gates of Ford Motor Co. de Mexico just outside Mexico City. Unknown vans filled the dark parking lot. A 2-ton covered truck waited ominously nearby. Strangers wearing outdated company cove- ralls milled around everywhere. Word spread — if anything goes wrong, stop the line. At 6:30, the line clanged into action. Minutes later, Romero received the signal from a co-worker to his right. He stepped _ back, only to be confronted with the steely insistence of a pistol in his side. Finally someone managed to jam the line, and then all hell broke loose. The deaf- ening sounds of shots and moans suddenly poured out of six monstrous, newly installed loudspeakers, and the guys in the wrong uniforms and tennis shoes opened fire into the stunned crowd of workers. Reinforcements poured out of the truck with the orange tarp, bearing iron pipes and pistols. Chaos reigned, and when the pisto- leers finally took off, 30 workers lay wounded — one of them mortally. Until recently, Ford workers enjoyed contracts that were the envy of the industry. A Ford ID was good for credit anywhere, no questions asked. The Ford Workers’ Union, with leadership appointed by the official Mexican Workers’ Federation (CTM), served only as a distant god that insured annual raises in exchange for bi- monthly dues deductions. But in 1987, in response to a strike demanding a 21 per cent» wage»increase (inflation that year was 120 per cent), the company laid off all its workers and closed the plant. When it re-opened, workers were introduced to the marvels of “moderniza- tion”: the equipment that had been bought used from the U.S. in 1964 was the same, but the line moved 90 per cent faster. A long trough along each line replaced the “bathroom break” for workers; workers were called together for weekly “active cir- cle” sessions on company time; and wages had dropped 60 per cent to 75 cents an hour. Discontent grew. The newly introduced “active circle” sessions, quickly dubbed AUTO PLANT IN MEXICO... “brainwash sessions,” turned into rounds of bitter dispute. Company cars and expense accounts had increased the distance between union president Hector Uriarte and his membership. In June,-1989, Ford had fired six members of the local’s elected leadership, and Uriarte had refused to defend them, saying that they were “rabble rousers.”” The “despedidos” (laid-off workers) demanded reinstatement and initiated a hunger strike from inside the plant’s clock tower. When the company closed the plant “for technical adjustments,” the workers moved to the lofty “Angel of Independ- ence” in front of the U.S. Embassy. The hunger strike lasted 35 days, but Ford and the CTM refused to budge an inch. The plant workers, however, con- killing speed-up and attacks on the union at Ford. tinued to recognize the “despedidos” as their legitimate representatives, and sup- ported their families with donations. The latest and most serious round of con- flict was set off when Dec. 13 paycheques were decimated by a previously unheard of “tax adjustment deduction.” Workers responded with a wildcat strike, ridiculing industrial relations manager Mauricio Cal- vert’s call to return to work “in the name of Henry Ford.” Then on Jan. 5, three days before the armed attack, the “despedidos” were beaten and illegally detained while leaflet- ting at the plant gate. As word spread through the plant, the workers walked out and blocked the nearby six-lane northern highway entrance to the Capital until “the despedidos” were returned. Workers maintained possession of the plant from the moment the attackers fled on Jan. 8 until they were “peaceably” evicted by 2,000 judicial and state police, with helicopters and attack dogs, on Jan. 22. They immediately re-established camp at the plant’s entrance gate. Women from the surrounding neigh- bourhoods provided food and support, and obstructed the home delivery of 2,300 job termination notices issued by the company Feb. 8. Workers have developed ties with the smaller» Ford motors-for-export plant in Chihuahua, where workers achieved a 27 per cent raise through a strike the first week tin February. Support from the compacts- for-export plant in Hermosillo, built in a rural area three years ago, has been weaker. Strangely absent is solidarity from the Volkswagen, General Motors, Nissan and Dina workers’ unions, each of which won independence from CTM control in the democratization struggles of the 1970s. A 20 per cent raise was rapidly negotiated for General Motors and Nissan workers during the Ford conflict. Although the Cuautitlan workers were only able to achieve co-operation from the CTM by threatening to leave it, they firmly ocate their struggle within that major mechanism of union control. Their hope is to one day achieve a national, industry- wide, democratic union. On Feb. 9, under the threat of losing the 3,800 Ford Cuautitlan workers to another labour body, the CTM finally signed an agreement with Ford that embodied the negotiating committee’s demands: a safe work environment, no management inter- ference in union affairs, compensation to the families of the wounded and killed and respect for the collective contract and the Federal Labour Law. Though workers returned to the job Feb. 12, the local union continues its struggle with the CTM for the right to elect its own leadership, and with the Mexican govern- ment for the prosecution of those responsi- ble for the violence. In this they include “Uriarte, who thus far has eluded warrants! for his arrest as intellectual author of the Jan. 8 murder of Ford worker Cleto Nigno. Reprinted from the Guardian. Thatcher plummets as poll tax revolt grows By DAPHNE LIDDLE LONDON — The whole country, north and south, town and country, is in revolt over the poll tax, taking both the Tories and Labour leadership by surprise. (Scheduled to take effect April 1, Thatcher’s new poll tax will hit every adult, regardless of income, for about $675, and will replace property taxes in funding such local services as garbage collection, schools, etc. The Thatcher Tories have now dropped to an all-time low in popularity. Ata current 33 per cent approval rate, they trail the Labour Party badly. Labour stands at 52 per cent. — Ed.) Nearly 3,000 protestors marched through _ Manchester against the tax. They were led by ambulance workers in a gesture of grati- tude for public support received in their recent pay dispute. In Bradford, teachers staged a one-day strike in protest at the tax and the effects of their Tory council’s cuts on their schools. Town halls have been besieged, on one night only, in Bristol, Windsor, Maiden- head, Reading, Birmingham, Norwich, Gil- lingham, Worcester, Bradford, Exeter, Weston-super-Mare, Dover and Richmond. The centre of Bristol was brought to a halt for two hours as thousands demon- A6__ THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SATURDAY, MARCH 10, 1990 THE eae iment is sho Thatcher reacted with h Poll tax fur defien-~ * parties were touring ——. poll tax. aver- Rioting broke out in the sav* London neighborhood of Bri: last night as 3,000 demonstrat departed from Lambeth town kL after burning Prime Minister Ma garet Thatcher in effigy. Suddenly protesters began peli ing police with oad and paint »~ overturned a ©