Leader of Mexico’s Oil Union to Resign, Take Minor Post

In a further sign of the government’s growing manipulation of organized labor here, the leader of the once-mighty oil workers union is expected to resign today to assume a minor government post.

Sebastian Guzman Cabrera plans to leave the union’s helm for health reasons, said union spokesman Victor Gallardo. However, according to the Veracruz newspaper, El Istmo, Guzman Cabrera told a group of union officials that he is resigning to become the head of a government trust fund that loans workers money to buy furniture and appliances.

The resignation comes amid Guzman Cabrera’s loss of control of union members whose protests--including hunger strikes--have embarrassed the government.

Mexican unions are closely tied to the government, forming the backbone of the political party that has ruled the country for six decades. Labor leaders often serve in elected positions.

Offering Guzman Cabrera the trust fund post is a way for President Carlos Salinas de Gortari to remove a leader who is not seen as effective enough to serve the interests of the ruling party.

Guzman Cabrera is being, in effect, forced to resign because according to Mexican tradition declining a government appointment is unthinkable.

The expected government appointment of Guzman Cabrera is only unusual in that union officials have not previously been involved in the government bureaucracy.

The union leader is being treated like a cabinet minister who has become a political liability and is named ambassador to a foreign country as a well-paid form of exile, said labor analyst Raul Trejo Delarbre.

“This is another nail in the coffin of union autonomy,” said Berkeley-based oil and labor analyst George Baker. “Unions are now government assignments, like any other, and leaders are removed at the pleasure of the president.”

Particularly during the Salinas Administration, government officials have not hesitated to remove uncooperative union leaders by jailing them on charges of corruption or other crimes.

The first leader removed by Salinas was Guzman Cabrera’s predecessor, Joaquin Hernandez Galicia, who had headed the union for three decades. He was jailed after a gunfight with police who had come to arrest him on charges of arms trafficking and other crimes.

No one has ever accused Guzman Cabrera of being uncooperative--just ineffective. He permitted a restructuring of Petroleos Mexicanos, the government oil monopoly, which has cost more than 100,000 jobs and will allow the sale of petrochemical refineries to the private sector, costing even more jobs.