Pemex to re-elect union leader in 4 divisions due to ‘reasonable doubt’

Jan. 14 (Axis Negocios) – The Federal Center for Conciliation and Employment Registration, a public body attached to the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare, will resume the process of electing leaders of the Federation of Oil Workers of the Republic of Mexico in four out of 36 departments, if there is reasonable doubt about the results.

Re-election will be held in Section 10 of Minatitlan, Veracruz; 34 from Mexico City; 38 from Salina Cruz, Oaxaca, and 47 from Ciudad del Carmen, Campeche, after the Federal Center for Conciliation and Work Registration, a new decentralized public body that keeps records of unions and collective contracts, received 772 complaints during the process.

The authority decided “to replace the results in four sections because there is reasonable doubt; this is a new concept introduced in labor reform,” said Luisa Maria Alcaldi, head of the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare, at the morning press conference chaired by Adan Augusto Lopez, Minister of the Interior. There is reasonable doubt, the Jobcentre can decide that this election must be repeated.”

New elections will be held in these four departments in February of this year. The mayor indicated that for the first time, these elections take place through personal, free, direct and secret voting, and it is the largest in its field with this new legislation.

There are two stages in the process, the first was from November 4 to December 14 for elections in the 36 sections of the Oil Union, and the second will be on January 31 to appoint a general secretary of the union through an electronic system and a position. It has been vacant since 2019.

Repeated comments by the mayor about the so-called free operation occur a day after Reforma newspaper reported that oil workers linked to former leader Carlos Romero Deschamps – who left the leadership of the oil union in 2019 after 26 years in office, and later. , in March 2021, ceased to be an active worker at Pemex, “of his own will” and at the request of the current government in the midst of investigations of illicit enrichment and money laundering – they joined ranks in favor of supporting Ricardo Aldana, PRI Federal Deputy, as an applicant for the position of general secretary of the union .

In this regard, opponents of the oil company’s union lamented Aldana’s imposition and pointed out that it contravenes the statute for being a reliable factor, the newspaper reported.

“The union leadership has always been a partner of Carlos Romero Deschamps,” Sergio Morales Quintana, who aspires to lead STPRM, said in an interview with Reforma.

In November last year, the leader of the opposition movement Petroleros Activos en Evolución (PAE), Miguel Arturo Flores Contreras, also indicated that in the first 12 elections to choose 36 general secretaries of the departments in which the trade union group is. There were irregularities.

This is despite the current federal government’s expectations of ensuring free and secret elections.

“The entire process, from the call, was manipulated by the current sectoral leadership, associated with Carlos Romero Deschamps, the former Secretary General of STPRM, who was dismissed in 2019,” the association said in a statement at the time.

The current administration headed by Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said at the end of 2021 that the election of the leader or secretary-general would be free, direct and secret through an electronic system, also with the aim of complying with labor reforms and the provisions of the Treaty of Mexico, the United States, and Canada (T-MEC), which seeks to ensure that Union life in Mexico is democratic and not by the government or business.

Before that, the election of the leader of one of the largest and most powerful unions in Mexico was secret and with the interference of the government and the public administration of the Pemex.

Dasaev Rodriguez contributed to this story.