MEXICO: Lone Hunger Striker Protests "Insulting" Minimum Wage

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Diego Cevallos

MEXICO CITY, Dec 21 2004 (IPS) - Politicians, church leaders and trade unionists have vocally criticised Mexico’s new minimum wage, set at four dollars a day for 2005, which would only cover the cost of two tubes of toothpaste, for example. But only one man was moved to take the drastic action of waging a hunger strike on a busy city street.

On December 15, when the Mexican authorities, employers and government-aligned trade unions agreed upon the new minimum wage, which is scarcely three percent higher than the 2004 figure, university professor and trade unionist Edur Velasco set up camp in a tent outside a government building in Mexico City and began his solitary hunger strike.

Studies conducted by the National Minimum Wage Commission, made up of government, business and labour representatives, acknowledge that the official minimum wage has decreased by 72.9 percent in terms of buying power since 1988.

"This is a protest that contrasts dramatically with the consumerist Christmas season, and it will continue until they decide to raise the official minimum wage, because the current one is a disgrace," Velasco told IPS outside his tent.

The government of Vicente Fox and employers claim that the minimum wage is "merely a reference point," and that almost no one is really paid this little.

However, statistics from the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) reveal that almost a million workers in the formal sector actually do earn this amount, which works out to just 80 dollars a month when multiplied by 20 working days.

Moreover, almost half of the 43.3 million people who make up the country’s economically active population work in the informal sector, where their income is often even less than the minimum wage, while around 3.6 percent are unemployed.

During 2004, some 400,000 new jobs were created in Mexico, but this fell far short of the 1.3 million jobs needed to provide full employment. According to economist Enrique Quintana, the deficit was covered by the 400,000 workers who emigrated to the United States and the 500,000 who joined the informal sector of the economy.

Of Mexico’s slightly more than 100 million people, around half live in poverty.

"There are a lot of people behind this hunger strike, but for the moment I’m waging it alone. And I’m not doing it merely out of wilfulness, but because it is an outrage that wages are being kept below the poverty line," said Velasco, the leader of the Civic Association of Independent Workers, a group with some 400 members.

The officially established minimum wage is used in Mexico as a point of reference for negotiations between employers and unions and to calculate pensions and fines. It is jointly agreed upon by the government, business associations and the large "official" trade unions aligned with the government.

According to the Mexican constitution, the minimum wage should satisfy the basic needs of a worker, but this requirement has not been met for 20 years.

The current minimum wage falls far short of the price of the basic consumer basket, defined by the Mexican Central Bank as the cost of 80 essential items needed by the average Mexican, and currently calculated at over 10 dollars a day, according to studies by the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).

"The new minimum wage is an affront to the dignity of Mexican families," said Catholic Archbishop Norberto Rivera.

Like Rivera, many opposition politicians and some independent trade unionists described the increase in the minimum wage as ridiculously small and even insulting, but they have done nothing to press for a further increase.

In the meantime, Velasco is carrying out his hunger strike accompanied by five people watching out for his health and safety. His tent is set up a mere 10 metres from the building housing the National Minimum Wage Commission.

The trade unionist, who is also a professor of economics at the Metropolitan Autonomous University, said that his five companions will spend Christmas eve and New Year’s eve with him. "We’ll be here, and they will prepare a dinner with what you can buy with the minimum wage," he noted.

Velasco, who has not yet begun to show any physical effects from his fast, maintains that he will only give up his protest if the government decides to readjust the minimum wage. "I will be here fighting until there is a response," he said.

But isn’t he alone in this protest, which seems to be going totally unnoticed by the government? "I’m not alone," Velasco insisted, "because behind me there are many poor people for whom the minimum wage is a daily reality. And we will be waiting until the government bureaucrats respond to our demands," he said.