Idioma

 

The labor reform is teaching us some important lessons.  One of them is that there are two ways to do politics: like an elephant that shows up and tramples everything, or with a strategy that implies careful and intelligent negotiation.

The way in which the labor reform was presented, by means of a “fast-track” initiative a couple of weeks before the current presidential term comes to an end, is more akin to the elephant metaphor.  A reform as important as this one should have been politically handled in a different manner.  It requires a broad, thorough with all those involved: businesspeople, labor unions and political parties.  Everyone should have had a chance to sit down and discuss this important reform.

The outgoing president, however, was in a big hurry.   Before leaving office, he wanted to prove that he was – as he said during his electoral campaign – the president of employment, but that the PRI and Congress would not let him.

This fast-tack reform, in this case, hints at certain wickedness on behalf of the president.  We can take as proof of this the paid advertisement approved by National Action Party (PAN) in which various times they accuse the PRI of opposing the reform and, therefore, the modernization of the country.  The PRI never should have accepted discussing the reform according to the conditions and terms of an outgoing president.

If were bad in the head – and it is said that to be a politician, one must be so – it could be deduced that the government in Los Pinos has set a trap for the incoming government.

The facts seem to lead to this conclusion.  These days the PAN and PRD have turned into democratic and revered parties for the general populace, while the PRI has turned into the party which is opposed to democracy and change.

Felipe Calderon was not the right person to propose a law of this importance.  Why?  Because, being at the end of his presidential run, he no longer has two important political elements at his disposal: time and negotiating power.

Just a little while ago, some legislators tried to erase labor union democracy and transparency from the debate and put forth the flexibility of job contracting.

However, this is will come to pass with a great deal of difficulty.  Why?  For two very important reasons.  First of all, because Enrique Pena Nieto defined transparency and accountability as his most meaningful initiatives.  This topic, therefore, has been placed, by Pena himself, in the center of the national debate.  The second and most relevant reason has to do with the importance that transparency has nowadays in the social consciousness.  Angel Trinidad Zaldival from the Federal Institute for Access of Information declared something quite true a few days ago: “When an administration does not handle access to information, transparency and accountability correctly, a democratically elected government loses all legitimacy”. Labor union groups that are most resistant to change must understand we are no longer in the era of absolute power and that they would do good in helping the future president in building a more democratic country.

But, there is something that we shouldn’t lose sight of when it comes to looking at the newly premiered “fast-track reform”.  Giving this classification to a legal reform does not mean giving  a carte blanche to the current president to do what he likes while ignoring other political forces on the playing field.

Let’s say it a bit more colloquially: it doesn’t mean that the president can a piece of raw meat in the microwave and try to cook it like it was some type of fast food.  Each meal must be prepared according to its correct preparation time.

The labor reform, because of its failure in Congress, has become a turning point.  The worst that could happen to the energy reform law is that it presented in the same way the labor reform was.  And for more than any other reason, for how the president elect arrived in Europe with this situation in full bloom.