NuModel15
2004-06-28 17:45:00 UTC
"At the center of the decline in public and private morality is Pemex
itself. Notorious for its corrupt practices, even in a society
distinguished neither for efficiency nor honesty in public
administration, the Pemex bureaucracy has been charged with raking off
public funds through crooked maneuvers and raising the price of imported
machinery to include kickback payments of as much as 45%. Ironically,
the same oil industry which is often posed as offering a cure for
Mexico's economic, social, and political ills is itself riddled with
corruption, bureaucratism, and 'labor problems' which consist largely of
Mafia-like control over an oil workers' union run, literally, by a mob
of gangsters.
Since its foundation, the company has been characterized by a
wasteful and inefficient use of resources, with administrators,
technical staff and union leaders all involved in the sale of
contracts to private companies, and of jobs to the vast number
of people seeking them.
Only 40% of workers employed by Pemex hold regular contracts. The rest
buy their jobs each month with payments amounting to hundreds of
thousands of pesos to the bosses of Sindicato de Trabajadores Petroleros
de la República Mexicana, or STPRM, the oil workers' union. The union's
power is based on its enormous and varied financial holdings in landed
estates, supermarkets, credit unions, and other enterprises, its
capacity to enforce a closed shop, and, above all, its role in the
modern sector most closely related to the symbolism of the revolution.
This is what enables it to secure wages for its members which are, on
the average, twice those received by other industrial workers. But this
power also permits union leaders to engage openly in the game of
'vendeplazas,' or job selling. The 'sub rosa' system of payoffs has its
own graded scale: in the late 1970s a general worker's job sold for
40,000 pesos while a mechanical engineer could secure work for 150,000
pesos. The kickback required for temporary jobs was based on the length
of the contract with a 2,000-peso payment needed for 28 days, 4,000 for
a sixty-day job, and so on. And so closely interwoven are the private
affairs of Pemex managers and oil union leaders all of whom serve
freely on the boards of directors of companies which receive Pemex
contracts that the directors of the government enterprise are hardly
in a position to expose corrupt union officials."
-- Judith Adler Hellman, "Mexico in Crisis," Holmes & Meier
Publishers, Inc., 1983, pp. 82-83
itself. Notorious for its corrupt practices, even in a society
distinguished neither for efficiency nor honesty in public
administration, the Pemex bureaucracy has been charged with raking off
public funds through crooked maneuvers and raising the price of imported
machinery to include kickback payments of as much as 45%. Ironically,
the same oil industry which is often posed as offering a cure for
Mexico's economic, social, and political ills is itself riddled with
corruption, bureaucratism, and 'labor problems' which consist largely of
Mafia-like control over an oil workers' union run, literally, by a mob
of gangsters.
Since its foundation, the company has been characterized by a
wasteful and inefficient use of resources, with administrators,
technical staff and union leaders all involved in the sale of
contracts to private companies, and of jobs to the vast number
of people seeking them.
Only 40% of workers employed by Pemex hold regular contracts. The rest
buy their jobs each month with payments amounting to hundreds of
thousands of pesos to the bosses of Sindicato de Trabajadores Petroleros
de la República Mexicana, or STPRM, the oil workers' union. The union's
power is based on its enormous and varied financial holdings in landed
estates, supermarkets, credit unions, and other enterprises, its
capacity to enforce a closed shop, and, above all, its role in the
modern sector most closely related to the symbolism of the revolution.
This is what enables it to secure wages for its members which are, on
the average, twice those received by other industrial workers. But this
power also permits union leaders to engage openly in the game of
'vendeplazas,' or job selling. The 'sub rosa' system of payoffs has its
own graded scale: in the late 1970s a general worker's job sold for
40,000 pesos while a mechanical engineer could secure work for 150,000
pesos. The kickback required for temporary jobs was based on the length
of the contract with a 2,000-peso payment needed for 28 days, 4,000 for
a sixty-day job, and so on. And so closely interwoven are the private
affairs of Pemex managers and oil union leaders all of whom serve
freely on the boards of directors of companies which receive Pemex
contracts that the directors of the government enterprise are hardly
in a position to expose corrupt union officials."
-- Judith Adler Hellman, "Mexico in Crisis," Holmes & Meier
Publishers, Inc., 1983, pp. 82-83