Mexico City, Oct 17 (EFE) About 150,000 union members, university students and leftists took part in a protest here against the Mexican government’s decision to shut down a state-run electricity company, the police said.
The demonstrators - many of them former employees of Luz y Fuerza del Centro, which was dissolved Sunday by President Felipe Calderon - marched down Reforma avenue Thursday to the Zocalo, Mexico City’s massive main square.

Present in the Zocalo were the chief of the SME electricians’ union, Martin Esparza; leftist lawmakers Rosario Ibarra and Porfirio Munoz Ledo, and leaders of the peasant farmers who in 2002 stopped a federal effort to seize their land outside Mexico City for construction of a new international airport.

Thursday’s march, monitored by more than 2,000 police officers and two helicopters, was the first large street protest carried out by the SME against the closure of Luz y Fuerza and the dismissal of its 44,000 workers.

LyFC’s installations were taken over by federal forces Sunday and have been operated since then by employees of the larger, state-run Federal Electricity Commission.

The SME, blamed by authorities for operational and administrative inefficiencies at Luz y Fuerza, was backed by other labour organisations, students and leftist groups.

The march came a day after the government started laying off Luz y Fuerza’s 44,000 workers and offering severance packages that could total 20 billion pesos (some $1.5 billion).

Esparza demanded the executive order be rescinded and urged workers to reject severance packages ahead of talks with federal authorities, who say the measure is irreversible.

He announced during the rally that union representatives would meet Friday with federal officials and he asked that Mexico City’s left-leaning mayor, Marcelo Ebrard, act as mediator.

In a statement issued late Thursday, the federal interior ministry said the meeting would serve to “explore alternatives” to help the laid-off employees find new jobs and “to ensure strict compliance with the workers’ rights”.

LyFC provided electric service to the Mexican capital and dozens of municipalities in nearby states, an area encompassing 25 million inhabitants.