Leading Union Says Mexico Must Ensure Mining Workers’ Safety

Napoleón Gómez Urrutia, Senator for ruling party MORENA and Head of the National Union of Mining, Metallurgical, Iron, Steel and Similar Worker of the Mexican Republic (SNTMMSSRM) urged the government to improve the workplace conditions of mining workers, since he considers it is the government’s duty to ensure no safety problems arise at mining operations.

After a coal mine collapsed in Sabinas, Coahuila, Gómez stated that it is required to incorporate modern technology in mines to guarantee safer circumstances for workers, as well as carry out proper inspections, since he said that inspections made by officers of the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare (STPS) lack rigor. “What happens is that inspectors go [to the mines] and enjoy some sort of social tourism with managers or supervisors. They take them to lunch and make ‘desk reports,’ they do not carry out technical visits nor do they minimize incidents. We have to avoid this ,” said Gómez.

The union leader estimates that there are over 5,000 workers operating under unsafe conditions. This is especially the case in coal mines because some of them do not meet the minimum safety standards; he considers that such projects are not mines but merely wells. 

Gómez announced that he proposed a comprehensive reform to the Mining Law and the ratification of the International Labor Organization’s Safety and Health in Mines Convention to ensure a safer operational environment. He added that it is important to ratify the convention since it is the government who must guarantee safety, health and hygiene in the country’s mines. “This convention, once it is ratified, acquires a constitutional status at the same level of any Mexican law,” Gómez added. 

Regarding income, labor benefits, retirements and pensions, Gómez said that the reform proposes employment insurance and pension funds. He added that it is important to assure that those who retire still have an income, arguing that companies owe the workers who spent their life producing. “We will keep working in the Senate to carry out all needed reforms and modifications to protect and strengthen the lives of workers, for those that are currently working and for those that already stopped due to their age,” Gómez said. 

Ensuring safer working conditions is a shared concern between the government and the private sector. This is reflected in mining chamber CAMIMEX’s registration of accidents and its efforts to avoid them. According to CAMIMEX’s data, affiliated members registered 1 accident for every 100 workers in 2021.