Less than an hour south of the Arizona border, in the northern Mexican state of Sonora, on September 8, 2010 fighting broke out between striking miners, strikebreakers, and federal police at the Cananea copper mine. Three people were seriously injured in this latest round of aggression against the striking miners. Twenty-six people were arrested because an injured person, a strikebreaker, was shot in the head. Strikebreaker did not die. The fighting broke out after hundreds of strikebreakers attacked a picket line of strikers with clubs and stones. Then they attacked the Section 65 union hall along with plain clothed federal and state police. A group of Mexican trade unions are calling for protests on Sept. 14 and 15, also for a full investigation of the events o September 8 and protection for the striking workers. The National Union of Mine and Metal Workers won a temporary court order on August 12, 2010 that allowed the striker to picket at the mine. As is traditional in Mexico, the strikers had been sitting in at the site.
Source: n.a. (2010, Sep 14). “Fighting erupts between workers, Federal police and scabs at the Cananea Mine,” The Arizona Indymedia http://arizona.indymedia.org/archives/archive_by_id.php?id=573&category_id=1
Student Researcher: Tyrisha McFev-Mosley
Faculty Evaluator: Dr. Christina Knopf, Department of English & Communication, SUNY Potsdam
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