Section 309 Agreement

Tuesday August 23, 2011

* The miners’ union led by Napoleon Gomez Urrutia and Canadian company Excellon de Mexico agree on legal recognition

* At the end of 2010 the workers had decided to form Section 309, with which the company had refused to deal

* There will be 100% payment of lost wages for the 4-day work stoppage and the company will not retaliate shall be no retaliation against the strikers

On Thursday, August 18, an agreement was reached for the benefit of Section 309 of the National Union of Mineworkers led by Comrade Napoleon Gomez Urrutia, at mine located in the municipality of La Platosa Mapimi, Durango, with Canadian-owned company Excellon de Mexico, SA de CV, in which the company committed to recognizing the legal existence of the Section of the Mineworkers’ Union, and the parties signed an agreement to establish a collective bargaining agreement aimed at creating appropriate working conditions, wages and benefits, as well as “everything that results” from a contract of this type, in the presence of government officials of the state of Durango.

As witnesses at the signing of the agreement in Gomez Palacio, Durango, were the State Governor, Jorge Herrera Caldera, and the president of the company Excellon de Mexico, SA de CV, Jeremy Wyeth, as well as comrades Sergio Beltran Reyes, Secretary of Internal and External Affairs and Records, and Javier Zuniga Garcia, Secretary of Labor from the Union’s National Executive Committee. Also playing a very important part in promoting the unionization of both Section 309 the signing of the agreement were Alejandra Ancheita and Valeria Escorza, lawyers from the civil association Project on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, AC, PRODESC.

Given the deficiencies in working conditions prevailing in the Platosa mine, the workers workers in late 2010 decided to form the aforementioned Section 309 affiliated to the National Union of Mineworkers, and when the company initially refused to accept this decision the workers exercised their right to freedom of association, conducting a work stoppage that began on Monday August 15 and ended on Thursday the 18th of the month, with the signing this day of the commitment to mutual recognition between the parties in legal and labor matters. .

The workers ended the work stoppage that same Thursday 18, once the pledge of mutual recognition was signed. Throughout this negotiation, the Section 309 workers were coordinated by Comrade Napoleon Gómez Urrutia, General Secretary of the Miners’ Union.

As for the Secretary of Labor and Social Welfare, Javier Lozano Alarcón, this character once again tried to boycott any possibility of agreement between labor and management, but this new attempt to subvert the interests of workers and freedom of association was a failure.

In the agreement, the company agreed to pay 100% of wages in the four-day work stoppage. Also, not to sue any employee for the work stoppage, to desist immediately from all criminal complaints filed by the company, and not to retaliate in any way against any workers who participated in the strike and in blocking the entrances to the mine.

The collective bargaining agreement, which will be the next step, will be negotiated in the union offices in Mexico City once the competent authority, i.e. the Local Conciliation and Arbitration Board of the State of Durango, definitively confirms the Miners’ Union as the representative of the majority of workers in the next few days. That this will happen is confirmed by the presence at the meeting held on Thursday 18 in Gomez Palacio, Durango, of Mario Alberto Saucedo Reyna, Secretary General of Government in the Laguna Region, Luis Álvaro Vázquez de la Rocha, president of the Local Conciliation Board in the Laguna Region, Arturo Yanez Cuellar, Secretary of Labor and Social Welfare of the Government of Durango, and Silva Eduardo Olivo, Technical Secretary of the General Secretariat of the Laguna region, as witnesses of honor.

In addition to comrade Gomez Urrutia, the Section 309 workers were assisted by members of the National Union Executive Committee, represented by comrade Luis Sánchez Zúñiga, Secretary of Organization, Propaganda, Education and Statistics, Union Delegates Victor Manuel Alvarado Vallejo and Jesus Rodriguez Morales and Jesus Castrejon and Cesar Alonso González Avila Basurto, workers at the Platosa mine.

For the company Excellon de Mexico, SA de CV and Servicios Mineros San Pedro, SA de CV, which are the same company, those who participated and signed the agreement, besides the Director Wyeth, were Mr. Pablo Fabián Gurrola and Jose Enriquez Quezada Rodriguez del Bosque. The authorities of the state of Durango, with the presence of the governor Jorge Herrera Caldera, as witness of honor to the negotiations and the agreement that was reached, also signed.

This mine is rich in deposits of silver, lead and zinc.