President Manuel Avila Camacho took the labor bull by the horns last week, struck at the last vestiges of union control of Mexico's railroads. Management now has power to hire & fire, to disregard all union regulations which "slow up, impede or impair" operationmore power, in fact, than U.S. railway management possesses.
Mexico's railroads, always insufficient, have been bedeviled by politics, have frequently broken down. In 1938 President Lázaro Cárdenas handed their management over to the railroad workers' unions. This well-meant gesture turned out as badly as might have been expected. Strikes continued, wrecks increased, efficiency declined.
When the wartime shipping shortage increased...
