Another lost opportunity: the Mexican labor movement sitcks to the past.

Leonardo Rodriguez Alcaine, Mexico's senior union leader died in August after 62 years at the heart of the country's corrupt and worker-unfriendly labor movement.

The leader of the Mexican Worker's Federation (CTM), Rodriguez Alcaine was one of the most powerful men in the country, capable if he chose of paralyzing the economy with a general strike. He was also an extremely wealthy man who saw nothing wrong with flaunting his wealth by bragging about his membership of an exclusive golf club where he rubbed shoulders with the bosses he negotiated pay deals with.

The 86-year-old politician last held a real job in 1943 when he began his climb up the ranks of the electricians' union, primarily as a driver/messenger for the leader Francisco Perez Rios. He succeeded him as leader of the union in 1975, organizing vigorous repression of electricians opposed to him with help from the army.

You might think his passing would be an opportunity to clear away the wreckage of the past and promote a new, open, transparent and democratic labor movement designed to protect workers' rights while providing employers with the flexibility to improve Mexico's appalling competitiveness.

Instead, the labor movement chose 78-year-old Joaquin Gamboa Pascoe as his replacement, a man famous for telling a journalist who had the nerve to question his obvious wealth "what, just because the workers are poor I should be too? You will never find me wearing sandals."

Just 17 leaders of the country's biggest unions had the right to vote. The fact that they were negotiating the succession at the previous leader's funeral in plain sight of the widow tells you all you need to know about these men.

For seventy years the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) bought off union leaders, letting them make hay at the expense of the workers they represented in return for peace. Rodriguez Alcaine was three times a federal deputy and twice a senator.

The trouble with the system is that it protects a small minority of Mexico's workers with ludicrously high salaries and benefits in key industries like oil and electricity. This cripples the country's competitiveness and reduces opportunities for the rest of the workers, forcing them into the informal economy or up and across the border.

Mexico has allegedly powerful unions and yet women are continually fired for being pregnant and you had better not be HIV positive if you want to keep your job.

I see government drivers working 12 hours a day six days a week for $400 a month for bosses who earn that much in a day. Go figure.

We shouldn't be surprised anymore at the Fox administration's cozying up to these leaders, but we should be saddened. The president's bet was that he could negotiate with them to reform outdated labor laws that promise too much protection and deliver too little while creating lifetime sinecures for a very few. Instead we got years of negotiations, talks, roundtables and no results.

And yet reform is urgently needed if Mexico is to create enough jobs for its young population. The one thing these union leaders have managed to do is create a labor law that is so overprotective businesses think twice about hiring. And smaller companies can't afford the risk of hiring legally, leaving most workers with no protection at all.

And then there are the gangsters, who with a nod from these leaders, set up unions that will guarantee you labor peace in your company for a fee. Again, this leaves the workers without protection.

It is in the workers' best interests to break the stranglehold of these corrupt leftovers of a totalitarian regime, force unions to hold transparent and democratic votes and to allow audits of their finances.

But they can't do it alone.

John Moody has spent 10 years covering Mexico for a variety of international news organizations. He now works as a freelance consultant in the private sector and for NGOs. He can be reached at john. [e-mail].