BY ROSALBA AMEZCUA
The News
MEXICO CITY – The Secretary-General of the United Electrical Workers Union of the Mexican Republic (SUTERM),Víctor Fuentes del Villar denied a break between his union and the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE).
Interviewed during the 80th Anniversary of the Mexican Workers’ Confederation (CTM) the union leader clarified that the instruction that he gave last Monday through a release created confusion, when the aim was to establish that no radical physical change would be allowed.
“I sent a release to not allow any radical physical change that was not first commented on in the Executive Committee, so that things could be done in time and in the right way, but I am not paralysing activities nor saying to the workers that we are against the reform, absolutely none of that…There is no break, absolutely no break, as soon as I get detailed information on what I’m interested in knowing for my workers and what’s coming for them, in that moment we’ll see what our attitude will be”, he stated.
Fuentes del Villar also mentioned the warning that the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) has issued on the risk the SUTERM pension system is under, and said angrily that he “couldn’t care less”.
“There is absolutely no risk for the pensions, none at all, what the PRD says I couldn’t care less, with all due respect. The pensions are not at risk. 8 years ago I changed the retirement framework because I did actuarial studies and considered that, given that’s what former President Calderón asked, the change was the right thing to do. I changed it and absolutely nothing has happened, we already have 30,000 workers with the new framework and everything is still the same, nothing has changed”, he said.
The leader of the Electrical Workers Union said that it cannot be denied that CFE is a company that is “bankrupt” according to numbers given by its directorEnrique Ochoa Reza, but that negotiations must be made in order not to lose jobs and affect workers as little as possible.
