An interview with Benedicto Orozco

October/November 1995; Volume 1, Issue #8
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Falling wage rates and structural unemployment in the Northern industrial economies coinciding with increased exploitation and repression of workers in the less developed countries have become the defining characteristic of the new global economy. Trade unionists and worker/activists are beginning to counter this sorry state of affairs by developing new strategies based on world-wide co-operation and action by working people. The following is the second part of two interviews with Mexican labor activists involved in Mexico/US cross-border organizing efforts. Benedicto Orozco is a worker at Autopartes, a factory that manufactures rings for car spark plugs. He's been active in the labor struggle for 17 years, and currently holds an elected position on the National Coordinating Committee of the Authentic Workers Front (F.A.T). Jesse Drew conducted this interview with Benedicto in Ciudad Juarez at a meeting on cross-border labor organizing sponsored by the National Lawyers Guild.

The Authentic Worker's Front (Frente Auténtico de Trabajo) is 35 years old, it emerged from the need of the workers to find a space where true organization and participation could occur, an organization truly representative of the workers' interests. For many years we focused exclusively on trade-union work; but the needs of working people and the changing situation in the country has prompted a diversification in the Authentic Worker's Front's work. There are now four sections that compose the Authentic Worker's Front. They are: the trade union component, the Cooperative component ( production, credit union, credit union, consumers union), the campesino component and the colonias component.

The Authentic Worker's Front has spent almost 35 years struggling for the independence and autonomy of the labor organizations, which has led directly to a confrontation with the power circles in the official trade unions. Our organization has its own concepts; we are against the corporate agenda, we have stood up against repression against workers when they seek to organize in a democratic fashion. In those struggles we have had victories and also defeats. We have had to confront what we call the trilogía (trilogy) of the Government, the official (labor) leaders and the employers. So, we have to do our job against these three forces and that's quite complicated.

We saw it then -as we see it now with increased urgency- that workers from this Continent have to look for their identity as workers first so we can make a common cause against transnational corporations. It is not that we are against these transnational companies getting established in other countries. That is important, but what we really think is important is the improvement in the living conditions and salaries for the workers. Like here in Ciudad Juárez, we see a tremendous difference between the Industrial parks and the Communities where these workers live. In the Industrial Parks all the (modern) conveniences are available, and that is very insulting to the workers. You will also find that these transnational corporations make fabulous amounts of money, compare that to the lives of their workers, who live in really depressing conditions.

One of the positive things that NAFTA have left us has been the very close connection we have been developing with workers from the other 2 countries participating in NAFTA: Canada and the US. The relationship we have developed with the US. Electrical Workers Union (the UE) has been a very concrete and encouraging experience for the worker's movement in general. We have been communicating a lot in the last three years, trying to find our common ground, and we have found plenty of that. We seem to agree because we see things from similar perspective: the need to organize, the need to support and have solidarity with each other, the need for cultural exchange so we can understand each other better.

We think there is much work still ahead of us despite this effort, which might be very modest, since neither our organization nor the UE are the biggest (labor) organizations in our respective countries. However, we are convinced we do have principles and quality. We are still few in such a large and complex working world; however, there is a will, a dedication, a commitment and many aspects in which we can agree on; which in sum will keep on strengthening our organizations.

We agree with American workers that there is an urgent need for the workers in both countries to organize. A few years ago we didn't see it that way. I always thought that workers in the First World did not need to organize because all their needs were met and they lived in a world with all the comforts. Solidarity work has taught us to better understand the problems of American workers. We have realized that also in the US there are injustices and violations to worker's rights, discrimination and unfavorable working conditions. We made an effort and went to the US and explained our problems to the workers. They in turn said: "we have the same problems, too". We did not have this exchanges before, we do now thanks to direct communication between workers. I also believe that we might have different languages but we identify rapidly with each other because we have common problems.

Let me emphasize that our organizations have always been extremely respectful toward one another. In our case, working together in an organizational strategic alliance with American workers for the past 3 years, we have always been the ones who make the decisions in Mexico, we have been always the ones who provide the political direction. The American comrades support us and may suggest things to us, but ultimately we make the decisions. They have been extremely respectful with us, and we have been the same with them. We respect their structures, their way of being, as they respect ours.

A first step we defined when we started this organizational work was to identify factories in the US that moved to Mexico's Maquiladora zones (or even other parts of their own country) following when their workers, after years of exploitation, got organized, demanded and got better wages. These Maquiladora zones in Mexico have vastly inferior living and working conditions for the workers: low wages, employment insecurity and other negative factors. This situation took us to ask ourselves,: how can we, the Authentic Worker's Front, support those American workers who were abandoned and left unemployed by these factories, which now come to Mexico to exploit the Mexican workers?

We must now find ways to solidify these relationships and keep on organizing the factories here which are also being organized by our sister labor organizations back up north, so we can count on their support. A case in point is the General Electric case here in Ciudad Juárez, a first and important milestone in both countries' in which the workers of both GE plants in the US and Mexico were able to mount a campaign supporting the Mexican GE workers. Some of the GE plants in the US were unionized by our affiliated unions, so all these workers were able to mount pressure on the GE management to keep them from firing even more Mexican workers. The pressure increased so much that the firings had to stop. This is how we have been able to identify how establishing organizational ties with key plants in the US can help us.

However, this time there is an important element in the mix: we have access to a wealth of information that allows us to tell our workers here: "look, the workers in the US who work in a plant for the same company you work for makes so much and has these work conditions because they struggled and got organized". This is a very clear and concrete way of getting the job of organizing done.

Of course these big businesses have plenty of resources, since they re-invest part of their profits into equipment to communicate with their plants all over the world. As an union organizer, I dream of having equivalent communication systems with workers from all this continent. We are not against using these scientific and technological advances as long as they're used for the benefit of the working class and humankind in general. We have to take advantage of these options. I think everyone wants this, I don't know of any organization that wants to go back to prehistoric times while there is all this technological progress in communications around us. Unfortunately, we have to be realistic and technology is expensive; our organization does not have all the resources to acquire it. However, we are doing all the efforts we can to catch up little by little with these new communications systems.