In the labor dispute of the Mining Union against the Mexican unit of the largest private steel company in the world, ArcelorMittal, it escalated to court by obtaining an injunction against the judge's resolution that declared illegal the blockade of some of the company's facilities in the western Mexican city, from Lázaro Cárdenas, Michoacán.
“A district judge in labor matters admitted an injunction that protects the right to strike of the workers of Section 271 of the National Mining Union,” published today in the Mexican newspaper La Jornada, a media outlet close to the federal government and to the political party in power.
The leader of the National Union of Mining, Metallurgical, Steel and Similar Workers of the Mexican Republic (Mining Union) is the current Senator of the Republic Napoleón Gómez Urrutia and next member of the Chamber of Deputies (for three years), in both cases by the party formed by the head of the federal government, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
The blockade of an ArcelorMittal mine and blast furnace began on May 24. On May 28, the Mining Union called the company to strike. Although since May 24, it blocked access with red-and-black flags (a strike signal). This motivated the judge to declare the strike procedure illegal (send the file to the archive).
Therefore, the union processed the legal protection and according to the newspaper La Jornada, “This fact legally questions the strike file and it will be reviewed by a higher authority, so until now the strike movement that started remains legal”.
SteelOrbis consulted a legal expert and said that union protection could be resolved in “5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55 days with a maximum of six months”.
With 20 days of blockade, the company reported that it has million-dollar losses. With 22 days, around 145,000 metric tons (mt) of primary steel and a significant amount of rod will have been stopped, the production of the blast furnace being used in another ArcelorMittal plant (Celaya) to produce rebar.
Last year, ArcelorMittal was the largest rebar producer in Mexico with around 491,400 mt, a volume that represented 18.9 percent of the total.
With this lower supply of rebar, prices rose 8.6 percent, commented a marketer. It went from MXN 14,700/mt to MXN 15,600/mt and later to MXN 16,000/mt. Using today's exchange rate ($1 = MXN 18.86), these prices represent $779/mt, $827/mt, $848/mt.
As SteelOrbis reported, the workers who block access obtained protection to avoid “apprehension, presentation and/or arrest” due to the legal complaint that the company filed in court.
The situation of the steel industry in Mexico has already put the financial markets on alert, particularly the analysts who follow the global steel industry from New York.
Today in a writing by Napoléon Gómez Urrutia, he said that his next position as a member of the Chamber of Deputies will promote the reduction of working hours and doubling the “aguinaldo” (annual holiday bonus or Christmas bonus and annual special payments) from 15 to 30 days salary, in addition to a “pension fund that brings justice, dignity and development for the people”, the congressman published in the newspaper La Jornada.