Nuevo Casas Grandes– The power that the unions used to show is diluting and according to leaders, office heads and workers, the once-impressive Labor Day parade will not take place tomorrow either, in which thousands of wage earners displayed their workforce and expressed their demands for better conditions in their sources of employment.
“It’s been four years since we marched, since the death of the union leader Abraham Álvarez Samaniego, the CTM has never been the same again and they don’t even invite us anymore, so this Monday will be like a normal holiday without any kind of demonstration ”, indicated the leader of the Union of Workers of the Municipal Presidency, Pilas Córdova Perea.
The president of the Council of the Municipal Board of Water and Sanitation (JMAS), David Manuel Madrid Ontiveros, reported that in order to show their unity as workers, the union members of the state agency wore a gray uniform during the working day over the weekend , but still confirmed that they were not summoned to any parade because there will not be.
Claudia, a worker at one of the maquiladora plants in Nuevo Casas Grandes, confirmed that this year “they were not called” to march tomorrow, Monday, Labor Day, and that it was used for thousands of workers to parade through the main avenues from the city. “And that’s good, because the union forced us to go anyway under the threat that those who were missing would have part of their salary deducted,” added the worker.
This event not only served for each union group to show its power through the number of union members, but it was also used by the workers to display banners and posters demanding improvements in their working conditions, from salary increases, more benefits and even the rejection of an official or senior manager and public denunciations of corruption.
Now, although the sanitary restrictions imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic changed the way of socializing and, above all, mass gatherings, the interviewees pointed out that union power was already seen to be greatly diminished in Nuevo Casas Grandes for politicizing the conditions of this parade, which in its best years came to conglomerate more than 6 thousand people between the three maquiladora plants that existed, the teachers’ sectors, the State Government offices, the CFE, Telmex, the Health Sector and other unions in the city.
