The World - News from May 19, 1989

Eighty people were hurt when rival members of Mexico’s oil workers’ union, still feuding after the arrest of their powerful boss in January, clashed over control of a union local in Veracruz state, about 135 miles east of Mexico City. Police said that about 200 club-swinging workers stormed union headquarters in the oil town of Poza Rica in a bid to oust members of a rival faction that had seized the building. Police broke up the clash but made no arrests, a spokesman said. The skirmish apparently pitted union members backing the new national leadership against followers of Joaquin Hernandez Galicia, who was arrested on arms-smuggling and murder charges in January.