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Union Democratization in the Mexican Automobile Industry: A Reappraisal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 October 2022

Kevin J. Middlebrook
Kevin J. Middlebrook*
Affiliation:
Indiana University, Bloomington
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The Mexican automobile manufacturing industry experienced rapid sociopolitical change in the 1960s and 1970s as workers in several firms overthrew entrenched labor leaders and instituted democratic forms of union governance. These reform movements sought increased participation by the rank and file in union affairs and heightened worker control over different aspects of the production process. For many workers, democratic unionism promised increased leadership responsiveness in resolving workplace conflicts and more effective representation of worker interests in a changing industrial environment. Specific measures of democratic unionism included the election of key union officers and their accountability to members, regularly held general assemblies, an enhanced role for the general assembly in internal decision making, procedural safeguards of workers' union rights, and opportunities for the emergence of identifiable and relatively stable internal opposition factions. By 1975 workers in five of the seven major terminal firms (those manufacturing vehicles) had won control over the selection of union leaders and other phases of internal union decision making.

Type
Research Article
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , 1989 , pp. 69 - 93
Copyright
Copyright © 1989 by the University of Texas Press

Footnotes

*

This essay is part of a larger research project on the political economy of Mexican organized labor. The Social Science Research Council, the Joint Council of Learned Societies, the Fulbright-Hays Program, and the Howard Heinz Endowment have all provided generous financial support at different stages of this project. I wish to thank Alejandro Alvarez, María Cook, and the anonymous LAR referees for helpful comments on an earlier version of this essay.

References

Notes

1. Examples from the Latin American context include Juan Carlos Torre, “The Meaning of Current Workers' Struggles,” Latin American Perspectives 1. no. 3 (Fall 1974):73–81; Elizabeth Jelin, “Espontaneidad y organización en el movimiento obrero,” Revista Latinoamericana de Sociología, n. s no. 2 (19734:77–118; John Humphrey. Capitalist Control ami Workers' Struggle in the Brazilian Auto Industry (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1982), especially chaps, 1, 4–7.

2. See J. David Edelstein and Malcolm Warner, Comparative Union Democracy: Organisation and Opposition in British and American Unions (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1976), chap. 3; John Hemingway, Conflict and Democracy: Studies in Tride Union Government (Oxford; Clarendon Press, 1978), chaps. 1–2. Roderick Martin, “Union Democracy An Explanatory Framework,” Sociology 2, no. 2 (May 1968):205–20; John C. Anderson, “A Comparative Analysis of Local Union Democracy,” Industrial Relations 17, no. 3 (Oct. 1978):278–95. and Seymour Martin Lipset, Martin Trow, and James Coleman. Union Democracy (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books, 1962), 15, 77–91, 452–69.

3. Martin notes that rapid technological change may contribute to the emergence of democratic reform movements in unions. See his “Union Democracy.” 211, 216.

4. The now-substantial literature on this topic includes Ian Roxborough, Unions and Politics in Mexico: The Case of the Automobile Industry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984); Javier Aguilar García, La política sindical en México: industria del automóvil (Mexico City; Fdiciones Era, 1982); Ian Roxborough. “Labor in the Mexican Motor Vehicle Industry,” m The Political Economy of the Latin American Motor Vehicle Industry edited by Rich Kronish and Kenneth S. Mericle (Cambridge. Mass.: MIT Press, 1984). 161–94; Ian Roxborough, “El sindicalismo en el sector automotriz,” Estudios Sociológicos 1. no. 1 (Jan.–Apr, 1983); Ian Roxborough and Ilán Bizberg, “Union Locals in Mexico: The ‘New Unionism’ in Steel and Automobiles,” Journal of Latin American Studies 15, no. 1 (May 1983):117–35; Mark Thompson and Ian Roxborough, “Union Flections and Democracy in Mexico: A Comparative Perspective,” British Journal of Industrial Relations 20, no. 2 (July 1982):201–17; José Othón Quiroz, “Proceso de trabajo en la industria automotriz,” Cuadernos Políticos 26 (Oct.–Dec. 1980):64–77. Francisco Javier Aguilar García. “El sindicalismo del sector automotriz, 1960–1976,” Cuadernos Políticos 16 (Apr.–June 1978):44–64; Javier Rodríguez “El movimiento sindical en la industria automotriz, 1970–1978,” Iztapalapa 2, no. 5 (July– Dec. 1981); Francisco Javier Aguilar García, “Historia sindical de General Motors y la huelga de 1980,” A Revista de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades 1, no. 1 (Sept.–Dec. 1980):91–105; Lucía Bazán, “El sindicalismo independiente de Nissan Mexicana,” in Memorias del encuentro sobre historia del movimiento obrero (Puebla: Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, 1980), 3:337–44; and Enrique Contreras Suárez and Gilberto Silva Ruiz, “Los recientes movimientos obreros mexicanos pro-democracia sindical y el reformismo obrero,” Revista Mexicana de Sociología 34, nos. 3–4 (July–Sept., Oct.–Dec. 1972):845–79.

5. The 1962 decree required manufacturers to increase the share of nationally produced components in automobile manufacturing to 60 percent, regulated the price of vehicles manufactured in Mexico in accordance with international market prices, and set annual production quotas for each firm (according to each firm's prior market penetration, compliance with the decree, and share of national capital participation). For the full text of the decree, see Diario Oficial de la Federación, 25 Aug. 1962. For a discussion of the automobile industry's early history and the implementation of the 1962 decree, see Douglas C. Bennett and Kenneth E. Sharpe, Transnational Corporations versus the State: The Political Economy of the Mexican Auto Industry (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1985), chaps. 3 and 5; see also Rhys Jenkins, Transnational Corporations and the Latin American Automobile Industry (Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1987).

6. Asociación Mexicana de la Industria Automotriz, La industria automotriz en cifras, 1976 (Mexico City: AMIA, 1977), 13, 58–59, 170; and Héctor Vázquez Tercero, Una década de política sobre industria automotriz (Mexico City: Editorial Tecnos, 1975), 14, 19.

7. Of these seven firms, Ford Motor Company, S.A., General Motors de México, S.A. de C.V., Nissan Mexicana, S.A. de C.V., and Volkswagen de México, S.A. de C.V., are wholly owned subsidiaries of transnational corporations. Chrysler purchased 33 percent of Fábricas Auto-Mex in 1959; in 1971, Chrysler increased its holdings to 90.5 percent and changed the firm's name to Chrysler de México, S.A. Chrysler later expanded its equity share to 99.3 percent. Until 1983, Vehículos Automotores Mexicanos, S.A. de C.V., was 60 percent state-owned, with 40 percent of equity held by the American Motors Corporation; in 1983 Vehículos Automotores Mexicanos was purchased by Regie Nationale des Usines Renault. Prior to 1978, Diesel Nacional, S.A., was wholly state-owned; in 1978 Regie Nationale des Usine Renault purchased 40 percent of equity. In 1982 DINA (which produced trucks, buses, and engines) and Renault de México, S.A. de C.V. (which produced passenger cars), were divided; DINA was subsequently reorganized into five separate enterprises, and in 1983 Renault de México was wholly purchased by Regie Nationale des Usines Renault. Although these seven firms were the largest producers and employers, the Mexican automobile industry included several other companies that manufactured heavy trucks and buses as well as a large auto-parts industry. For details, see Vázquez Tercero, Una década de política sobre industria automotriz, 16–17; and Bennett and Sharpe, Transnational Corporations versus the State, 129–34, 176–78.

8. State and regional labor federations are organized along federal jurisdictional lines without regard to functional specificity. Their membership is heterogeneous in terms of the size of affiliated unions, economic activities represented, and the kind of local unions included. State and regional federations are normally organized in local sections at the municipal level where this heterogeneity in size, economic activity, and union structure also exists. Different national confederations may have their own state or regional federations operating within the same geographic area, competing for the same heterogeneous union membership. These unions predominate in more traditional economic activities characterized by smaller work-force concentrations and lower wage levels. Their internal resources, organizational strength, and mobilizational capacities are usually modest. Yet these unions represent the majority of organized workers in Mexico, and they have traditionally constituted the majority of the CTM's membership. On the general organizational structure of Mexican unionism, see Francisco Zapata, “Afiliación y organización sindical en México,” in José Luis Reyna et al., Tres estudios sobre el movimiento obrero en México, Jornadas 80 series (Mexico City: El Colegio de México, 1976), 81–148, especially 89–96.

9. Information on affiliations of automobile unions is drawn from Kevin J. Middlebrook, “The Political Economy of Mexican Organized Labor, 1940–1978,” Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1982, 251–52, 278–309; Roxborough, Unions and Politics in Mexico, 76–104; and Aguilar García, La política sindical en México, 105–14. The CTM-affiliated unions evidenced the greatest degree of organizational dispersion. The VAM and Auto-Mex-Chrysler unions were affiliated with Sections 9 and 23, respectively, of the CTM's powerful Federación de Trabajadores del Distrito Federal (FTDF). When General Motors established its Toluca subsidiary in 1965, its work force was unionized as Section 9 of the CTM's Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Industria Metalúrgica. The DINA and Nissan unions were organized within the CTM's state federations in Hidalgo and Morelos, respectively. Workers at Ford's original manufacturing and assembly plant at La Villa (in the Federal District) were represented by the Unión de Obreros y Empleados de la Industria Automovilística del Distrito Federal and affiliated with the FTDF's Section 15, which grouped workers from a large number of electronics, manufacturing, and metalworking firms. Workers at the Ford assembly plant in Tlanepantla and the motor manufacturing plant at Cuautitlán (established in 1962 and 1964, respectively) in the state of Mexico were represented by the CTM's Unión Sindical de Trabajadores de la Industria Metálica del Estado de México. Each of the three Ford plants had a separate collective contract.

10. For example, see Roxborough, Unions and Politics in Mexico, 32–33; Aguilar García, La política sindical en México, 37, 69, 71; Ilán Bizberg, “Política laboral y acción sindical en México (1976–1982),” Foro Internacional 25, no. 2 (Oct.–Dec. 1984):169; and Jorge Basurto, En el régimen de Echeverría: rebelión e independencia, vol. 14 of La clase obrera en la historia de México, edited by Pablo González Casanova (Mexico City: Siglo Veintiuno Editores, 1983), 9.

11. For a more detailed discussion of Echeverría's reform policies in the labor sector, see Basurto, En el régimen de Echeverría, 9, 32, 34, 36–45; Daniel Molina, “Notas sobre el estado y el movimiento obrero,” Cuadernos Políticos 12 (Apr.–June 1977):69–88; Magdalena Galindo, “El movimiento obrero en el sexenio echeverrista,” Investigación Económica 4 (Oct.–Dec. 1977):97–127; and “Seis años de combates obreros: avances y retrocesos, 1970–1976,” Punto Crítico, no. 69, 31 Jan. 1977, pp. 15–24.

12. For accounts of the emergence and evolution of the Tendencia Democrática, see Silvia Gómez Tagle and Marcelo Miquet, “Integración o democracia sindical: eV caso de los electricistas,” in Reyna et al., Tres estudios sobre el movimiento obrero en México, 149–202, especially 152–54, 170–71; Punto Crítico, no. 58, 9 July 1976, pp. 9–10; and Raúl Trejo Delarbre, “Cronología de la Tendencia Democrática, 1960–1978,” special section of Siempre, no. 1319, 4 Oct. 1978. For details on the MSF, see Punto Crítico, no. 13, Jan. 1973, p. 10, and no. 69, 31 Jan. 1977, p. 19. For additional information on the FAT, see Punto Crítico, no. 6, 10 June 1972, pp. 33, 35, 39; no. 10, Oct. 1972, p. 8; and no. 69, 31 Jan. 1977, pp. 15, 21. On the UOI, see Middlebrook, “The Political Economy of Mexican Organized Labor,” 372–74.

13. This discussion of developments in individual unions is based on information presented in Middlebrook, “The Political Economy of Mexican Organized Labor,” 284–86, 289–90, 292, 294–96, 302, 304, 308; Roxborough, Unions and Politics in Mexico, 78–80, 100, 108; and Aguilar García, La política sindical en México, 79, 109.

14. Roxborough, Unions and Politics in Mexico, 82, 102, 104, 107.

15. Ibid., 82.

16. Author's interview with a former Nissan union official, 26 Feb. 1978, Cuernavaca.

17. Roxborough, Unions and Politics in Mexico, 104, 107. Concerning the Volkswagen case, Roxborough argues that the presence of affiliates of rival labor confederations in Puebla weakened the CTM state federation. But rival organizations are also prominent in states where the CTM is strong, including the state of Mexico.

18. Information on Blas Chumacero's political record comes from Jorge Basurto, La influencia de la economía y el estado en las huelgas: el caso de México (Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Escuela Nacional de Ciencias Políticas y Sociales, 1962), and personal correspondence from Basurto, May 1978. Information on Volkswagen management's strategy is based on interviews with a former governor and federal senator, 21 June 1977, Mexico City; a Volkswagen labor-relations employee, 13 Sept. 1977, Puebla; and an automobile industry labor organizer, 18 Jan. 1978, Mexico City.

19. Aguilar García is the principal advocate of this view, albeit indirectly. He contends that deteriorating economic conditions contributed to the “worker insurgence” of the early 1970s and that democratic unionism in the automobile industry was a specific embodiment of this more general phenomenon. See La política sindical en México, 40–41.

20. Data regarding economic growth rates and inflation rates between 1970 and 1973 come from Carlos Tello, La política económica en México, 1970–1976 (Mexico City: Siglo Veintiuno Editores, 1979), 71, 74, 136. Data regarding inflation rates from 1974 to 1976 are from María de la Luz Arriaga Lemus, Edur Velasco Arregui, and Eduardo Zepeda Miramontes, “Inflación y salarios en el régimen de LEA,” Investigación Económica 3 (July–Sept. 1977):214. This article cites Banco de México data.

21. The 1970 figure was calculated by the author from data presented in Secretaría de Industria y Comercio, Dirección General de Estadística, Censo Industrial IX (1971), tables 3, 5, 14 (classification nos. 3831, 3833). The 1976 figure was calculated by multiplying “average days worked in 1970” (258; 1970 industrial census, “Resúmen general,” t. 12, averaging classifications nos. 3831, 3832, and 3833) by the average daily wage reported in International Metalworkers' Federation, Report to Second IMF Latin American and Caribbean Automobile and Agricultural Implement Conference, Valencia, Venezuela, September 1976, vol. 1, Mexico. For both figures, 12.5 pesos equaled one U.S. dollar. The 1976 figure may be slightly inflated because it refers only to the seven largest automobile manufacturing firms, while the 1970 figure includes all automobile manufacturing industry firms. The Asociación Mexicana de la Industria Automotriz reports somewhat higher figures for both years; see La industria automotriz en cifras, 1976, t. 3.

22. Middlebrook, “The Political Economy of Mexican Organized Labor,” t. 6.4.

23. Arriaga Lemus et al., “Inflación y salarios en el régimen de LEA,” p. 233, t. 8; and Basurto, En el régimen de Echeverría, p. 62, t. 8. Tello presents a less positive view concerning real minimum wages in La política económica en México, 72, 103, 144, 158.

24. Calculations by the author based on information from the Secretaría de Industria y Comercio, Dirección General de Estadística, Censo Industrial VII (1961), t. 1 (pp. 1–2, 24–25; classification no. 3832); Censo Industrial IX (1971), t. 3 (p. 35), t. 5 (pp. 112–13), and t. 14 (pp. 273, 284) (classification nos. 3831, 3833). The data for 1960 refer to privately owned firms and do not include state-owned firms or those with state participation; the data for 1970 refer to both private enterprises and firms with state participation. Data for secondary subsidiaries (unidades auxiliares) are not included in 1970 figures. The major shift in capital investment had in fact occurred by 1967, as automobile firms moved to meet the 1962 degree's requirements concerning domestic manufacture and local content. Indeed, the amount of capital invested per worker declined somewhat between 1965 and 1970 as employment increased and the rate of capital investment slowed.

25. These calculations are based on data presented in table 2 and in Asociación Mexicana de la Industria Automotriz, La industria automotriz en cifras, 1976, 58–59.

26. Garfield Clack, Industrial Relations in a British Car Factory, University of Cambridge, Department of Applied Economics, Occasional Papers no. 9 (Cambridge: University of Cambridge, 1967), pp. 21, 23–24, 36, 42–43, and especially 96; see also William Heston McPherson, Labor Relations in the Automobile Industry (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1940), chap. 5, especially pp. 48–49.

27. Bennett and Sharpe, Transnational Corporations versus the State, 117, 149, 210. Michael Fullan argues that production efficiency in the automobile industry generally depends on labor costs. See Fullan, “Industrial Technology and Worker Integration in the Organization,” American Sociological Review 36, no. 1 (Dec. 1970):1031.

28. Fullan provides a comparative treatment of these factors in “Industrial Technology and Worker Integration,” 1028. For other discussions of workplace relations in the automobile industry, see Gerald Bloomfield, The World Automotive Industry (Vancouver, B.C.: David and Charles, 1978), 113–14; and William A. Faunce, “Automation in the Automobile Industry: Some Consequences for In-Plant Social Structure,” American Sociological Review 23, no. 4 (Aug. 1958):402–3.

29. Fullan, “Industrial Technology and Worker Integration,” 1031, 1034–35; and Faunce, “Automation in the Automobile Industry,” 402–3. Although this generalized characterization of automobile manufacturing as an industry may be correct, considerable diversity exists in workplace relations within a single automobile plant; see Clack, Industrial Relations in a British Car Factory, 16. Moreover, according to Clack, not all studies conclude that these workplace conditions result in worker dissatisfaction (p. 13). For a discussion of working conditions in the Brazilian automobile industry, see Humphrey, Capitalist Control and Workers' Struggle, 82–84, 100–104.

30. For a more detailed discussion of these issues in the context of specific automobile workers' unions, see Middlebrook, “The Political Economy of Mexican Organized Labor,” 279–89, 293–96, 298–99, 302–4; and Roxborough, Unions and Politics in Mexico, 77–78, 88. For a compelling examination of the relationship between the industrial working environment in Mexican automobile manufacturing plants and worker grievances, see Quiroz, “Proceso de trabajo en la industria automotriz,” 65–72. Anderson suggests that the failure of incumbent union leaders to satisfy membership demands in collective bargaining may increase pressures for union democracy. See Anderson, “A Comparative Analysis of Local Union Democracy,” 284.

31. This discussion is based on an interview with an automobile industry labor organizer, 22 June 1978, Mexico City. See also Justicia Social 1, no. 1 (Aug. 1974), the first issue of the Chrysler union's cultural and social affairs magazine; and Angel Fojo de Diego, “Estudio de un conflicto industrial: el caso Automex,” mimeo, Centro de Estudios Sociológicos, El Colegio de México, 1973, pp. 1–2.

32. This discussion is based on interviews with automobile industry labor organizers, 2 June 1977 and 18 June 1978, Mexico City, and an analysis of Ford labor contracts; see also Roxborough, Unions and Politics in Mexico, 78–79.

33. This discussion is based on interviews with a former DINA worker, 11 Aug. 1977, Ciudad Sahagún, and an automobile industry labor organizer, 18 Jan. 1978, Mexico City.

34. This discussion of the Volkswagen case is based on interviews with a Volkswagen labor relations official, 13 Sept. 1977, Puebla, and an automobile industry labor organizer, 20 June 1978, Mexico City; information concerning Nissan is based on an interview with a former union official, 26 Feb. 1978, Cuernavaca.

35. The discussion of these cases is based on the same materials cited in notes 31–34.

36. This discussion of the VAM case is based on author's interview with an automobile industry labor organizer, 18 Jan. 1978, Mexico City; Roxborough, Unions and Politics in Mexico, 93–94; and Quiroz, “Proceso de trabajo en la industria automotriz,” 67–68.

37. See Middlebrook, “The Political Economy of Mexican Organized Labor,” chap. 6; and Roxborough, Unions and Politics in Mexico, 47–49, 50–66, 72, 112–19, 121–31, 155–63.

38. Asociación Mexicana de la Industria Automotriz, Boletín, no. 253 (Jan. 1987), p. 3.

39. The “Decreto para la racionalización de la industria automotriz” required companies to generate export income to compensate for essential imports and specifically encouraged the export of automobile parts and components. It can be found in Diario Oficial de la Federación, 15 Sept. 1983, pp. 3–9.

40. Renault de México closed its automobile manufacturing plant in Ciudad Sahagún, Hidalgo, in 1986. Ford closed its La Villa and Tlanepantla facilities in 1983 and 1985, respectively, and in 1987, its Cuautitlán manufacturing plant was temporarily shut down and its work force indemnified. By later reopening the Cuautitlán plant with a new labor force, Ford management was able to reduce labor costs (especially seniority-based fringe benefits) and redraw the collective contract so as to increase management control over the production process. On the protracted struggle over contract revisions in Renault de México, see Luciano Concheiro B. and Guadalupe Montes de Oca, “Los trabajadores de Renault y su sindicato: cronología, 1976–1986,” El Cotidiano, no. 15 (Jan.–Feb. 1986):40–43; for details on the 1987 Volkswagen case and the Ford (Cuautitlán) episode, see María Teresa Garza and Luis Méndez, “La huelga en Volkswagen” and “El conflicto de la Ford Cuautitlán,” El Cotidiano, no. 20 (Nov.–Dec. 1987):381–85.

41. The discussion here draws on the author's interviews with an official of the Secretaría del Trabajo y Previsión Social, 16 Oct. 1987, Mexico City, and an auto company industrial-relations director, 6 Nov. 1987, Mexico City. It also draws on Jordy Micheli and Arnulfo Arteaga, “El nuevo modelo de las relaciones capital-trabajo en la industria automotriz en México,” Brecha 2 (Spring 1987):73–85; Rainer Dombois, “La producción automotriz y el mercado del trabajo en un país en desarrollo,” International Institute for Comparative Social Research/Labor Policy (Berlin), mimeo (IIVG/dp86–216), pp. 79–81; Harley Shaiken, Automation and Global Production: Automobile Engine Production in Mexico, the United States, and Canada (La Jolla, Cal.: Center for U.S.–Mexican Studies, University of California, San Diego, 1987), 42, 47–53.

42. Author's interview with an official of the Secretaría del Trabajo y Previsión Social, 16 Oct. 1987, Mexico City; and Shaiken, Automation and Global Production, 51.

43. For analyses of recent political change in Mexico, see Kevin J. Middlebrook, “Political Liberalization in an Authoritarian Regime: The Case of Mexico,” in Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Prospects for Democracy, edited by Guillermo O'Donnell, Philippe C. Schmitter, and Laurence Whitehead (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), pt. 2, pp. 123–47; and Wayne A. Cornelius, “Political Liberalization in an Authoritarian Regime: Mexico, 1976–1985,” in Mexican Politics in Transition, edited by Judith Gentleman (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1987), 15–39.