U,S. E~PLOITATION IN MEXICO neral Union of Workers and Peasants), only that the CTM Is a litt-le less aggressive than the Teamsters - with their ties to the ma-fia, you know"· « The week before last the UGOCM planted their strike flags in the four corners of one of my tomato fields and they didn't let anyone enter. Well, right away we called our CTM delegate and we told hiim, "Go and fix up this situation however you can, because they're invading your territory". He went r,ight away to the state CTM office and together they went to see the governor. Then the governor himseff went and told the UGOCM: "That's enough boys, you don't have any right being here because the Cl'M already has a contract. You'd better move along". « And so that's how we got rid of a ,problem ». A HISTORY OF CLASS COLLABORATION The CTM was created by the progressive President Cardenas in the 1930's with the help of communist organizers in order to create a 1 rural popular base for his agrarian reforms. Close to 40 miHion acres of land owned directly by coriporations .fike the United Sugar Company and by wealty North American and Mexicans were e>eprO!priatedand distributed to some 800,000 campesinos. The massive distributions were ,in large part aimed at quelling the militant strikes in the aireas of Mexico where large scale capitalist agriculture had created a strong and class conscious force of wage laborers. The agrarian reforms and concessions to the unions abated the struggle in the countryside for a time. But under Cardenas' successors after 1940, capitalist export-oriented agriculture was given exclusive ,preforence over production of basic commodities l.ike ,corn and beans by small producers. And foreing companies once again came to dominate the rural economy. The CTM leadership also took a ,shanpturn to the right, since then breaking strikes instead of leading them, while retaining a mil,itant rhetoric of ,class struggle. These CTM charros, as they are called by the workers (the name corning from a corrupt labor boss who liked to dress in charro outfit) are without a doubt the most formi•dable roadblock to potential organizing in the countryside, just as in the cities. The list of abuses commited by the char.ros against field and packing-shed workers is seemingly endless, ranging from signing seetharst contracts to protecting growers from federal 127
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