Workers March in Mexico 20 Years After Disaster

USW members joined thousands of other labor activists in Lázaro Cárdenas, Mexico, to mark the 20th anniversary of the deaths of two striking members of Los Mineros, the Mexican mine and metal workers union.

Hector Alvarez Gómez and Mario Alberto Castillo Rodríguez were killed by police on April 20, 2006, two months after an explosion at a Grupo Mexico-owned coal mine took the lives of 65 miners.

Napoleón Gómez Urrutia, president of Los Mineros, denounced the explosion as industrial homicide and called for strikes across the country. It was during those strikes that the two members were killed.

Soon after, the Mexican government launched an effort to discredit Gomez by falsely accusing him of fraud. They issued an arrest warrant, and Gomez faced threats to his life. With help from the USW, he traveled to Canada, where he lived in exile until 2018.