On January 22, more than 100 organizations met at the offices of the Sindicato Único de Trabajadores de la Industria Nuclear to form the Frente Nacional en Defensa de la Reforma Eléctrica (National Front in Defense of the Electricity Reform). The purpose of this initiative is not simply to show that the working class of Mexico support the Energy Reform proposed by president López Obrador (known as AMLO). It also raises the need to build a campaign that deepens the reform and improves those areas in which the original proposal falls short.
We are well aware of the limitations of ‘Obradorismo’ and we continue to maintain a critical position with respect to AMLO’s government on a number of key issues. However, we also understand that the struggle to reverse the damage to the energy sector caused by former president Peña Nieto’s Energy Reform is a struggle supported by millions of the working and poor masses of Mexico. It is, therefore, one small but necessary step to advance towards achieving the right of the working class to access energy for our needs.
PRI & PAN privatization agenda
It is important to put the need for Electricity Reform into context. In 2013 the parliamentary right wing coalition of El Pacto Por Mexico (Pact for Mexico) allowed the approval of the Energy Reform of President Enrique Peña Nieto of the Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI). The Energy Reform was sold to us as a step forward in the modernization of our country. It was promised that gasoline and electricity prices would go down and the “free market” would guarantee a quality service. To this end, the Energy Reform opened the field for private companies to participate in the production of electricity, although the state, through the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) would continue to be in charge of its distribution.
The 2013 Reform was merely the culmination of a whole series of maneuvers and pressure from the ruling class. Take, for example, the multiple attacks that the National Action Party (PAN) governments carried out against “Luz y Fuerza del Centro” (LyF), the former state owned electricity company. Since 2003, under Vicente Fox government. LyF workers faced attempts to finish their Collective Labour Agreement. This led to it being rolled back and integrated into the CFE in 2009 by orders of President Felipe Calderón — a process that resulted in the dismissal of 44 thousand workers who were hung out to dry, repression against workers who opposed this process, as well as the failure to improve the quality of the electricity service.
Despite promises to guarantee quality electricity services, the policies of the PAN and PRI governments brought about the opposite. Not only did the reform and the opening of the market fail to bring down electricity costs: since then rates have risen to such an extent that millions of people have been left with the dilemma of choosing whether to eat or pay their electricity bill.
Likewise, the participation of foreign companies promising the development of supposedly “clean energy” resulted in a process of territorial dispossession, proletarianization of local rural population and repression of environmental and indigenous activists in different states of the country. This is especially visible in the southern zone of the Pacific coast where states with high energy capacity have seen companies such as Iberdrola extend their tentacles throughout the region.
Movement of workers and oppressed puts reform on the agenda
Faced with the anti-working-class offensive launched by successive right-wing governments, thousands of people responded by organizing and undertaking a struggle against excessive electricity prices. In the years that followed, an array of consumer associations emerged throughout the country. This popular response opened up a struggle that millions of people would come to get behind. Although it is true that the new proposed Electricity Reform is an initiative of the Obrador government, it can only be understood as a response to a legitimate demand and a struggle waged by the Mexican masses over the last decade.
In this process of resistance, workers, peasants and other electricity consumers played a very important role by mobilizing and fighting back against the attacks that sought to diminish and disperse popular organization. We must also highlight the key role of women in these processes. The very patriarchal nature of capitalism, and in particular Mexican society, means women carry a disproportionate burden of care and housework, and therefore suffer most directly from extortionate electricity rates. This means women have been on the front lines and often led the struggle.
Winning the Electrical Reform and More
We need to point out that Obrador’s Electrical Reform is very limited. While socialist, student, and peasant organizations, as well as electricity consumer associations and trade unions, have all decided to support the reform, we do so conscious of its limitations. Unlike some sectors of Morena (AMLO’s party) and certain trade union leaders that attempt to water down the proposal even more, we take up this fight in order to deepen and extend the Reform through a class-struggle approach.
The Electricity Reform, for example, does not fully reverse the role of the private sector in electricity production. In this sense, it only limits itself to ensuring that 54% of the country’s electricity production is controlled by the CFE, mainly in its hydroelectric plants. Alternativa Socialista and others argue that this is not enough. The nationalization of the entire electricity industry ought to be our goal. Energy production is not a minor issue but completely tied up with a country’s industrial and economic development.
Watch here the video of our speech (in Spanish) at recent rally in CDMX as part of a National Day of action for the energy reform campaign.
In the same way, the Reform does not include the possibility of guaranteeing access and quality service to users. While we recognize that the intention to reduce electricity costs for millions of people is genuine, we need to talk about access to electricity as a basic right. In our society, a large part of our life depends on or is linked to the electricity service, so it should be an obligation of the state to ensure that the situation of millions of people who today lack access or quality service can change for the better.
Another issue to highlight is the transition to the production of clean energy. Although the Reform proposal briefly addresses and establishes the transition to green energy as an objective, it leaves up in the air how and when this will be carried out. We defend the struggle for the nationalization of the electricity industry, but we are also very aware of the climate crisis we are facing worldwide and the need to combat it immediately. That is why we propose that the development of an ecological perspective and transition to clean energy should be included in the Electricity Reform.
No to compromise with the right: for a mass movement in the streets
Having stated the main limitations of the reform itself, it is equally important to point out one thing: An Electric Reform that truly improves the lives of the working masses, far from what certain sectors of Morena believe, can only be won by struggle in the streets. We have to reject the attempts to demobilize and the idea that the Reform will only be achieved through parliamentary negotiation with the parties of the right.
Morena does not have an absolute majority, so in order to pass the reform it must negotiate, above all with the PRI. The right wing knows this and will not so easily give in. This is not solely for ideological reasons or their very real antipathy to Morena, but also due to their vested economic interests in the electricity sector. Furthermore, the right knows that they are in a position to force Morena to compromise and in doing so continue to undermine the enormous support that they have.
We must condemn any attempt to maneuver and compromise in this sense. The battle for the Reform, if we want it to be broadened instead of toned down — as proposed by the right wing of Morena — and to include the main demands of those who for years have led the energy struggle, must be fought in the streets, in the schools, neighborhoods and workplaces, through the mobilization and organization of the working class.
The Energy Reform will undoubtedly be one of the main battles to be fought during AMLO’s first six-year term as President. Far from standing aside from the process and remaining mere spectators, we must play an active role in the struggle and press with all our strength for the expansion of the limited proposal of obradorismo. Let us mobilize and fight to reverse the anti-popular reforms promoted by successive neoliberal governments, raising our demands and connecting the struggle to the need for the socialist transformation of society.
We say:
— Enough of extortionate and unpayable prices! We demand fair rates for electricity users!
— Electricity must be recognized as a human right. The State must guarantee access to electricity and adequate service.
— Without nationalization there is no energy sovereignty! For the nationalization of the electricity industry under workers’ control!
— Without the electricity consumers there can be no Electricity Reform. The consumers in resistance must be heard, the legislators must attend to the demands of those they represent.
— For a green energy transition! Launched under a system of nationalized energy production and under workers’ control.