Jared Laurels and Jessica Xanthomilla
Newspaper La Jornada
Sunday April 24, 2022, p. 6
The workers of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) have the opportunity to shake off the charrismo trade union that for 28 years permeated the union. As of yesterday and until Tuesday, the nearly 26,000 union members vote to elect their new executive committee. However, the red list – which promoted Agustín Rodríguez Fuentes as a leader – has Carlos Hugo Morales as a candidate, close to the former leader for life and who for two decades was in charge of the finances of the union organization. Even this current postulates Arnoldo Rodríguez, son of the late former secretary general, to this same portfolio.
This weekend the voting day began with the surveillance personnel, while on Monday and Tuesday the rest of the workers and academics who are members of Stunam will do so. In this sense, the Federal Center for Conciliation and Labor Registration (CFCRL) reported that together with the Ministry of Labor they will verify that unionists vote personally, freely, directly and secretly at the 237 points where polling places are installed.
The union’s electoral college endorsed four forms to contend for the general secretary: the red one, with its candidate Carlos Hugo Morales, who is the majority; the so-called unit
, with José Castillo Labra; the yellow, with Alfredo Muñoz Gamboa, and the cherry, with the candidate Ana Nolasco. In addition, 19 portfolios of the executive committee are at stake.
During the week, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador stated that conditions currently exist unbeatable so that it is the workers who freely choose their representatives
. In his daily conference, he maintained that “if the worker does not dare, he does not have the arrogance to feel free, he will continue to support the anti-democratic leaders, the so-called political leaders. charros”.
consulted by the dayworkers and candidates for the general secretary of the union, including Ana Nolasco, pointed out that Rodríguez Fuentes modified article 24 of the statutes more than 20 years ago to be relegated indefinitely
and thus lead the guild for almost three decades.
He added that in the union organization the clientelistic practices, eternal lobbying and coercion
.
In a tour carried out by this means, it was observed that due to this process in practically all university entities and spaces, even in trees, there was propaganda of the forms, especially the red one.
Yesterday, the CFCRL enabled the form on its website to receive complaints and disagreements about this election.