The Cananea copper mind is located in Sonora, Mexico and is less than an hour away from the Arizona border. The owner Grupo Mexico has been condemned for mass firing of workers and trying to implement a company union for their employees. The miner’s complained that the union did nothing and voted to reject the Grupo Mexico sponsored union in order to rejoin the independently chartered National union of Mine, Metal and Steelworkers of Mexican Republic, known as Los Mineros.
The miners started a strike, where they sat in around the mining factory. On September 8, 2010 Strikers resisted after the Grupo Mexico hired scabs to work in their place. The result was three worker seriously wounded by gunshots and 26 people arrested. The fighting broke out after several hundred strikebreakers attacked a picket-line with clubs and stones, and then laid siege to the Section 65 union hall together with plain-clothed federal and state police.
A coalition of Mexican trade unions are calling for a demonstrations and caravans on Sept. 14 and 15, as Mexicans mark the bicentennial of the start of the War of Independence from Spain – as well as a full investigation into the events of September 8 and protection for the striking workers. Cananea is the site of a historic 1906 strike that many argue led to the 1910 Mexican Revolution. There will be a full investigation into the events of September 8 and protection for the striking workers.
Title: Fighting Erupts Between Workers, Federal Police and Scabs at the Cananea Mine
Publication: Indymedia.com, September 18, 2010
Author: Ben Davis
URL: http://www.indymedia.org/or/2010/09/941502.shtml
Faculty Evaluator: Frances Vazquez, Sonoma State University
Student Researcher: Danielle Ritenour, Sonoma State University