VICTIMISED union leaders at the Ford-Cuautitlan plant near Mexico City are still fighting for their jobs after they were illegally sacked in June 1993.
After a sit-in at Ford's Mexico City head office, the company again refused to reinstate the sacked leaders. This in turn provoked protest stoppages at the Cuautitlan plant.
On September 2, a mass meeting of 90 percent of the unionised staff voted for an indefinite stoppage demanding reinstatement of their sacked leaders, recognition of the union, and fresh elections for the national leadership of the unIO1. THE RIGHT-wing coalition government in Sweden, led by Carl Bildt's conervative "Moderate" party, has been beaten in the September 19 general election by the Social The Social Democrats, who ruled Sweden for decades before the right wing came to power in 1991. won 45.6 per cent of the vote, alone gaining more votes than the four right-wing parties of the government coalition, who garnered 41.1 per cent of the vote between them.
An overall majority for the left was secured by the 6.1 per cent vote for the Left party, most of whose members come from the former Communist Party, while the green Environment Party won five per cent of the vote.
The extreme right New Democracy party failed to get the 4 per cent needed to get parliamentary representation.
The question now posed is what coalition of parties will form the government.
Welfare state
While the right-wing coalition made huge attacks on Sweden's welfare state, the Social Democrats have made no clear committment to reverse these cuts.
Social Democrat leader Ingvar Carlsson wanted to form a coalition with the Liberals, one of the participants in the previous government coalition; but this obiective has been undermined in the decline of the Liberals vote.
Carlsson has ruled out as "unrealistic" attempts to form a coalition with the Left Party or the Environment Party, since the Social Democrats are likely to come into sharp conflict with these forces over social security cuts and other austerity measures.
SOCIALIST OUTLOOK No. 69, September 24 1994, Page 8