Workers from Puerto Vallarta join the strike
This Thursday, the Sindicato de Telefonistas de la República Mexicana (STRM) placed red and black flags at the gates of Telmex's offices in Mexico City, thus initiating the first strike at the company since Carlos Slim has been its owner.
The STRM broke out the strike, after several months of negotiations, due to alleged violations to the Collective Labor Contract (CCT) and the company's refusal to fill vacancies.
The strike began at Telmex's main offices, located in Parque Vía in the CDMX, and spread simultaneously to all of the company's facilities in the 32 states of Mexico, including Jalisco and municipalities such as Puerto Vallarta, where workers placed red and black flags.
According to STRM spokespersons, more than 60 thousand telephone workers joined the general strike. The workers announced that they will stop answering fault reports nationwide, and will suspend administrative, operator, sales and office services.
"We accepted the intermediation of the Secretary of Labor, but we have not made progress, the company does not want to dialogue," commented STRM's general secretary, Francisco Hernández Juárez, in a video.
"During the last few years, the number of active unionized workers has been reduced, which implies a great deterioration in the quality and promptness of services, as well as a loss of market share; the administration has preferred to carry out activities with personnel from subsidiary and third party companies (mainly from the Carso group) in the outsourcing scheme, which makes the results in the quality of service and working conditions more precarious", the telephone workers' union stated in writing.
For its part, Telmex guaranteed its services despite the work stoppage: "The quality and continuity of all its telecommunications services thanks to its state-of-the-art technology, which allows it to have a network that operates autonomously," it stated.
"Telmex maintains a respectful relationship with its workforce and continues negotiations with union representatives to reach an agreement," the statement concluded.
It should be noted that the last work stoppage recorded in the telephone and Internet company was in 1985, when the company still belonged to the Mexican State.