Word: berm
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Mexico City, an employer got a union's permission last week to fire 5,000 of its 23,000 members. The employer was ramrod-backed Antonio Bermúdez, boss of Pemex, Mexico's Government oil monopoly. The union was the Mexican Petroleum Workers' Syndicate, until recently one of the fastest-striking labor organizations in Mexico...
...Secretary of Labor Andres Serra Rojas called the strike illegal, said he would have the law on its leaders. At week's end the new chief of Pemex, Antonio Bermúdez, went farther, fired 50 leaders of the lawbreaking union. Said he: "There are 20,000,000 men to take the places of 20.000. I have the Federal Government backing me and I was never more confident or optimistic in my life...
Adios! The man charged with cutting this new pattern for the oil industry bears a stamp new to Mexican politics. When sad-eyed, ramrod-backed Antonio Bermúdez was treasurer of the state of Chihuahua, an acquaintance went to him and said: "Antonio, my friend, I want to import several carloads of alcohol from the U.S., and if I pay taxes on it it will be very expensive. . . ." Bermúdez usually low-pitched voice rose to a roar: "If I invite you to my house for dinner then you can call me Antonio and call me your friend...
Such incidents gave Bermúdez a reputation for a close sense of duty almost from the day he entered politics in the sleazy border town of Ciudad Juárez, where he had made a $6 million fortune distilling Waterfill Frazier bourbon whisky. Within two weeks of his election as mayor in 1942, he had launched such a housecleaning as Mexico had rarely seen. He cracked down on a free-flowing traffic in narcotics, stolen autos and women, kicked grafters out of the city hall. He was the sort of independent President Alemán wanted to bring order...
...with Wildcats. Labor was only the most immediate of the tremendous problems facing Bermúdez. Pemex had fallen far behind on distributing its oil, and in discovering and developing new fields. On distribution, Bermúdez was hamstrung by the sad state of Mexican railways, but he had schemes to overcome that disability. One top-priority project: an $8,000,000 pipeline to bring natural gas from Poza Rica on the Gulf to Mexico City's industries and households. He also hopes to develop new fields that will give Mexico oil for at least 50 years to come...