Fernando Camacho Servin
Newspaper La Jornada
Saturday December 31, 2022, p. eleven
The Independent Union of Workers of the Autonomous Metropolitan University (Situam) reported yesterday that the Federal Labor Court for Collective Affairs finally accepted the summons to strike that it made up to three times to said educational institution and, in this way, recognized their right to call a work stoppage.
In a virtual press conference, the general secretary of Situam, Pamela Gómez Suárez, explained that, after having gone twice to talk with judge Milene Montero Álvarez and presenting the arguments of the members, the judge agreed to modify the decision to frame the union in section B of article 123 of the Constitution, which includes employees who do not have a collective bargaining agreement.
I inform you that the summons to strike was accepted in all its terms, respecting your rights as UAM workers to be in section A of 123
announced the leader, who highlighted the weight that the protests made by the union members had in this decision.
Manuel Fuentes, Situam’s legal advisor, acknowledged Judge Montero’s willingness to listen to dissatisfied workers, but stressed that it is a unusual fact
the fact that a union has had to submit a strike summons on three occasions for the labor authorities to accept it, when said union organization has made these calls for more than 40 years.
This is an important achievement; opens a scenario in defense of section A and also opens the way for the workers of decentralized organizations whom the authorities have tried to send to section B (without the right to strike) in previous processes
highlighted the litigant.
Gómez Suárez said that the Situam requests a 35 percent salary increase – to compensate for the 16 percent weighted increase in inflation since 2021 – as well as a 15 percent tab adjustment, a 55 percent increase in monthly vouchers and annual pantry, and the creation of three salary levels.
He also pointed out that although academic activities resume on January 9 at the UAM, the union called on the university to start dialogue tables from January 2. The summons to strike, he recalled, expires on February 1 at 11:00 p.m.
Meanwhile, Alberto Ramírez, a specialist in labor law at the Universidad Obrera, explained that the decision to reject the Situam strike calls was based on the application of the jurisprudence P./J. 1/96 of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation, which allows decentralized organizations to change the regime.
The second chamber of the Court approved on October 11, 2021, to replace that jurisprudence that had been in force for 25 years, so that since then the labor relations of decentralized organizations can be governed by section B of constitutional 123, although it agreed not give retroactive effect to its decision and does not affect the rights of those who have established collective agreements under section A.
(With information from Jared Laureles)
