Mexico’s leading fixed-line telephone company hit by strike

About 30,000 workers at Mexico’s largest fixed-line telephone and internet company have gone on strike, but the company pledges to continue providing service

MEXICO CITY — About 30,000 workers at Mexico’s largest fixed-line telephone and internet company went on strike Thursday, but the company pledged to continue providing service.

Teléfonos de Mexico, better known as Telmex, was once a state-owned company that controlled basically all phone service in Mexico. But since its privatization in the 1990s, anti-monopoly controls have forced it to yield ground to other cellphone and internet providers.

Telmex and its subsidiaries had been known for relatively cordial relations with the national Telephone Workers union, which said its strike was the first at the company since 1985.

The company said its networks are now automated and would continue to operate.

Telmex said the demands of its unionized employees were not consistent with “the financial viability of the company.”

Unionized employees are demanding a 7.5% wage hike, plus a 2.9% increase in benefits. That would put them just over the current inflation rate of about 8%.

The union said the company had offered increases of 4.4% in wages and 1.1% in benefits.