interest of the nation." Velázquez's interim successor, Blas Chumacero, died three weeks after Velázquez, aged 92. He was succeeded in turn by Leonardo Rodríguez Alcaine, aged 76. Challenges from outside and within Although the CTM remained the largest and best established union within Mexico, it was not the only one. In the 1990s it faced growing challenges to its power from the National Union of Workers (UNT), a federation of independent unions established in November 1997; the Authentic Labor Front (FAT), a union within the UNT, won representation rights within the restrictive procedures provided under Mexican law. The CTM's unions also faced challenges from within: dissenting members of the SUTERM challenged Alcaine's leadership, as also did members of the Petroleum Workers Union. The CTM after the PRI era While President Fox's party (PAN), had historically favored company unions over CTM affiliates, Fox continued to work with the conservative leadership of the CTM after taking office in 2000. His administration took the side of the Confederación Revolucionaria de Obreros y Campesinos (CROC), a union with a corrupt history at odds with its flamboyant name, against an independent union attempting to organize workers at Duro Bag Company in Tamaulipas. Fox's Secretary of Labor, Carlos Abascal, repeatedly praised the CTM, while Alcaine pledged support for Fox's PAN government. Some CTM leaders have also supported Abascal's—and later, Felipe Calderón's (PAN) —proposals for labor law reform: these are intended to tighten government control on union formation and grant employers new powers to make decisions without consulting the union, all while preserving the secretive and complex system that allows the government to marginalize independent unions in favor of those acceptable to the party in power or to business interests. Others within the CTM have opposed any changes in the law, calling for it to be enforced instead. Further reading La Botz, Dan, The Crisis in Mexican Labor, New York: Praeger, 1988. La Botz, Dan, Mask of Democracy, Labor Suppression in Mexico Today, Boston : South End Press, 1992. Michael Snodgrass, Deference and Defiance in Monterrey: Workers, Paternalism, and Revolution in Mexico, 1890-1950 (Cambridge University Press, 2003)() References National trade union centers of Mexico Trade Union Confederation of the Americas