Cananea miner eviction is another blow by Calderon against intransigent labor unions

By Laurence Iliff
Dow Jones

President Felipe Calderón struck a blow against what his administration sees as intransigent labor unions by sending in federal police to evict miners from the Cananea copper complex in northern Mexico after a nearly three-year standoff.

Mexico's Interior Ministry said Monday that federal police evicted striking workers from the mine in Sonora state, nearly three years after miners seized it in a labor dispute.

Federal police also stood guard in Mexico City on Monday during a protest by an electricians' union in support of the Cananea miners.

The National Mining and Metal Workers union called the police action at Cananea illegal and asked organized labor to mount a series of protests. The union also said there were three people injured by gunfire as police evicted miners.

Recent threats by the union to blow up the mine only seem to have strengthened Calderón's resolve to take back Cananea, which had become a powerful symbol of the standoff between traditional unions and powerful companies backed by a pro-business government.

The union "holds the government of Felipe Calderón responsible for the violence and bloodshed that could come in the future and demands that this government turn back this illegal military invasion of the Cananea mine," the union said Monday.

Calderón faced similar demands from the Mexican Electricians Union after he ordered the surprise shuttering of state-owned electricity company Luz y Fuerza del Centro late last year. The union was an open opponent of government energy overhauls.

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