Uncovering Mexico
Jeremy Schwartz is the Mexico correspondent for Cox Newspapers. He is based in Mexico City.What's on this page?
All the entries posted on December 03, 2007.
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Home > Uncovering Mexico > Archives > 2007 > December > 03
Monday, December 3, 2007
A day without Wal-Mart in Mexico
The anti-Wal-Mart movement is fixture in the U.S., but relatively new to Mexico, where the giant retailer has 997 stores. There have been a few sporadic protests at specific stores, including a Wal-Mart near the pyramids of Teotihuacan and in the picturesque lakeside village of Patzcuaro.
But this weekend, a group of Mexican and U.S. organizations, including the AFL-CIO, kicked off what they hope will be a sustained protest of Wal-Mart labor practices in Mexico, as a group of workers fights to form a union. It began at a store in southern Mexico City on Sunday with a so-called “Day Without Wal-Mart,” which featured protesters handing out leaflets urging shoppers not patronize Wal-Mart and a short rally.
The organizers decried Wal-Mart’s refusal to enter into collective bargaining with its workers or pay overtime wages. Wal-Mart in Mexico responded, according to Bloomberg, with a fact sheet boasting that it’s lowest salary is 18 percent higher than minimum wage.
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Ice skating in the Zocalo?
The world’s largest ice skating rink is now located … in Mexico City? The wondrous thing is smack dab in the middle of the Zocalo, Mexico City’s premiere plaza, where it bakes under a merciless autumn sun and captivates this city as it plunges into the Christmas season.
Tens of thousands of Mexicans have made the pilgrimage to the massive rink since it opened over the weekend, many waiting hours in line to strap on a pair of skates for the first time in their lives.
More than 1,500 pairs of skates have been trucked in (you could probably count the number of Mexico City residents who own their own skates on your fingers and toes) and 600 instructors are on hand to help the beginners with their first tentative steps.
Sunday, the first day of public skating, featured spills aplenty. Here’s how the El Universal newspaper described the scene: “The fear almost immobilized some, who were barely able to make it around the rink, going step by step like babies learning how to walk.”
The rink was inaugurated Saturday night and I have never seen the Zocalo more packed, even during the mega-rallies of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of 2006. But despite the fascination with the rink, many Mexicans question the wisdom of building it, given the high cost (about $1.5 million). The city is not exactly swimming in cash (it’s scrambling to find enough money to build a new municipal dump), and according to one newspaper poll, 48 percent of city residents oppose it.
But Mayor Marcelo Ebrard has never been one to shy away from splashy displays of governmental largesse. To great fanfare, last summer he built a series of urban beaches (mostly tons of sand around portable pools) that were ridiculed by the city’s wealthy set, but embraced by the masses of people who can’t afford weekend jaunts to Acapulco.
The new ice rink, the mayor said earlier in the week, will make Mexico City residents “feel like we are in Paris or New York, but prettier.”