Years of Living Dangerously--The Mexican Union

Nuevo Laredo had a tough time in the 1980’s attracting maquiladoras because of a lingering threatening image of the local union, and especially because of the negative reputation of its’ boss, Pedro Perez Ibarra. These fears stemmed from the demise of the Nuevo Laredo Transitron plant in the 1970’s –attributed to hostile relations with the CTM Union. The Sony Corporation had taken a chance, in 1980, and established a maquiladora headed by soft spoken, Jerry Brochin, who had been successfully running a Springfield Wire maquila in the city. Jerry’s positive attitude toward the union was very instrumental in the decision by General Motors to locate in Nuevo Laredo. To facilitate this decision, a meeting was arranged to have Tony Paris meet with the union leader, and receive assurances that the GM plant would not be “bothered” by a union contract so long as Mexican Labor Laws were followed. This accomplished, I was given the task of dealing with the union, following the Mexican Labor Law provisions, but ignoring the part of the same law that required a written contract!

Pedro Perez Ibarra was known as “El Professor” because he had once been a 6^th grade teacher. He had progressed to the level of a “cacique”, or union boss, with powers reaching far beyond labor issues. The Professor had a resume that included the positions of federal congressman, state legislator, city councilman, head of the State of Tamaulipas Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM), while, at the same time, being the Secretary General (boss) of the Nuevo Laredo union. The CTM, nationally, was the strongest part of the three sections of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (or PRI).

The Professor had control of not only the unions, but also the politicians in the City. He first over extended his power on Tuesday, February 21, 1984. Carmina Danini of the San Antonio Express reported that on “Black Tuesday---mobs of young people destroyed his house and other property, including a newspaper he owned, set cars on fire and wounded three people”. The violence was a reaction to a city-wide general strike, called by the Professor, which had paralyzed Nuevo Laredo for 24 hours. The National CTM labor leader, Don Fidel Velazquez, flew to the city, and successfully managed, or ordered, the return of the Professor’s power.

Pedro Perez Ibarra’s final public protest occurred in November, 1992. He led a sizable crowd to rally support against a recently imposed Federal order limiting the dollar amount of U.S. merchandize that could be brought back to Mexico by citizens of Nuevo Laredo. This time, his followers (or more likely, government embedded agents) sacked and burned Mexican Federal Government offices at both downtown international bridges—with damage estimated at U.S.$20 million. The Professor fled to Laredo, Texas, not to return to Nuevo Laredo until shortly before his death at age 87 on August 30, 2006.

After Pedro Perez Ibarra’s career demise in 1992, I felt it was time to have a legal union/management labor contract in hand. I borrowed, as a template, the existing labor contract in effect next door at the GM Packard Electric plant (later to become “Delphi”). Packard Electric had arrived in Nuevo Laredo in 1985, and had quickly expanded sister plants in Monterrey and farther south. I simplified their contract as much as feasible, and reached agreement with the Delredo shop committee—the three union shift “delegates”. By 1993, the Professor had been replaced as head of the Nuevo Laredo CTM Unions by Senior Jose Maria Morales—known as “Chema”. He was a pleasant, likeable man, and popular in the city as head of the restaurant workers union. Unfortunately, my first encounter with him was over the discharge of three of our union workers.

Delredo had never had a union strike. All of our neighboring automotive parts plants—Packard Electric, Ford (Lamosa), and an aluminum foundry, CMI, had suffered some walk-outs. An official union strike in Mexico is unlike that in the U.S. The union files the official paperwork with the appropriate Mexican government officials, the strike is legally declared, and the doors of the plant are barred shut. Once the strike starts, no one is allowed into the plant, and anyone inside the plant is not permitted, by law, to leave. One fall afternoon, one of our employees had his car stolen from the plant parking lot. He became so upset, he and two others, convinced the employees working on the then second shit to leave their machines and congregate in the cafeteria. My Personnel Supervisor, Manuel Lope, went to the assembled group, and convinced them to go back to work after about 40 minutes. The three union delegates were not present in the plant that day, but were attending a union convention out of town. As a result of this “wild cat”, or unofficial work stoppage, we fired the three instigators. When “Chema” and I first met, a few days later, he asked that the three fired employees be re-instated. When I refused, he left my office somewhat angry, but friendlier relations were established over the next weeks.

Manuel Lope and I were able to “smooth” matters over with Chema through numerous future meetings—more social in nature than anything pertaining to business. We became regular patrons of Chema’s favorite downtown Nuevo Laredo café for breakfast, and made a habit of meeting him, when we had to discuss union matters, at his office or at other restaurants he frequented. From 1993, until I left Mexico in 2004, we had a good working relationship, talked frequently about mutual friends on both sides of the river, and attended many union dinners and social events. At the same time, the union benefited from the continued success of the Delredo plant, with increased wages and benefits.

One huge benefit of working with strong union leaders in Mexico was a sense of personal security. Yes, you were still subject to petty crime (I once had my trunk reconfigured with a sledge hammer while parked in front of the plant), but you knew the union boss (“Jefe”) controlled the police as well as the Municipal politicians and bureaucrats. Late one evening in November, 1984, I received a call from Manuel Lope that our Delredo Security Chief had been arrested and taken to the Nuevo Laredo Police Headquarters. I had recently been introduced by the Professor to the Mayor of Nuevo Laredo, and I knew the Mayor was at a “Teacher Day” recognition function at the Lion’s Club in Nuevo Laredo. Meeting Manuel there—at about 11:00 pm, we talked to the Mayor, and he sent his personal assistant with us to get our man released. At the Police Headquarters we found our Security Chief, Raul De la Rosa, sitting in a holding room which featured several prominent holes, about the size of a human head, in the surrounding walls! Raul had earlier completed a successful “stake-out” at Delredo, catching two of our Security Guards stealing office supplies. We had our guards arrested (a mistake in hindsight), but they proceeded to have their cohorts pay the police to have Raul arrested as a “witness”. At the Assistant to the Mayor’s direction, Raul was sprung just after mid-night.

General Motors' First Manufacturing Plant in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico

"On September 16, 1981, I was in Nuevo Laredo for the ground breaking ceremony at the plant site. Our supervising GM construction engineer, Art Collins, and our purchasing agent, Herb Ball were there with me. We had driven to the plant site on unpaved Nuevo Laredo roads—with promises having been secured that a paved road would soon reach our site in Nuevo Laredo’s first industrial park.  This was the time of  Ronald Reagan, the “Urban Cowboy" movie, disruptive years of the 80’s. We wanted to be the “Texans” of the movies—and we enjoyed wearing cowboy boots and jeans to work; going to honky tonks at night, and legally driving down Texas highways drinking beer. Governor Ann Richards had not yet civilized Texas, and driving distances were still measured by how many beer bottles you needed in your cooler to reach your destination without thirst.

. In 1981, GM had already constructed four maquiladora plants in Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, Texas, and three plants in Matamoros, across from Brownsville, Texas. El Paso is 600 miles from Laredo, and Laredo is 200 miles from Brownsville—all three cities situated on the Rio Grande River. The Rio Grande is known as the Rio Bravo in Mexico—and since both names are in Spanish, I have never been able to discover why the difference. In terms of distances between the cities, El Paso is nearer Los Angeles, California, than it is to Brownsville. Laredo was chosen by GM primarily so as not to have too large a presence in any one city. GM had gone through a “southern strategy” during the 1970’s of trying to have union free plants in the U.S.. They had built plants in Mississippi, Georgia, and Louisiana—trying to keep out the UAW and IUE unions that populated GM plants in the North, and to thereby reduce wages and work rule related costs. The southern strategy cracked when a GM plant in Monroe, La., voted for UAW representation, and the domino effect took hold—with all the other GM southern plants becoming unionized. GM’s new strategy in the 80’s was a deep southern strategy—Mexico. To avoid wage pressures by Mexican unions, GM did not want a concentration of its plants in any one Mexican city—thus Nuevo Laredo got its opportunity to be home to GM’s newest plant in 1981.

The plant in Nuevo Laredo was named “Delredo”-- a combination of the GM Division’s name, Delco Products, and Laredo. It sounded great to the English only speakers in Ohio and Michigan. Unfortunately, Delredo, sounds like the name for a bar to Spanish speakers. After some initial recruiting problems—because of the plant’s name, the locals accepted “Delredo” as a maquiladora, and it lasted for 17 years until it was changed in 1998.

Delredo was built on 10 acres of virgin desert like land in less than a year--quick for a plant built of pre-stressed concrete sections with 165,000 square feet of floor space. Production shipments of strontium ferrite magnets, for use in automotive electrical motors, started in August of 1981".-- from "Maquiladora" by E.C. Sherwood