Footage of masked men taking Santa Ana father after repeatedly hitting him

Protect Female Farmworkers

Oakland, Calif. — ACROSS the country, some 400,000 women, mostly immigrants, work in agriculture, toiling in fields, nurseries and packing plants. Such work is backbreaking and low-paying. But for many of these women, it is also a nightmare of sexual violence.

In a 2010 study from the University of California, Santa Cruz, more than 60 percent of the 150 female farmworkers interviewed said they had experienced some form of sexual harassment. In a 2012 report, Human Rights Watch surveyed 52 female farmworkers; nearly all of them had experienced sexual violence, or knew others who had. One woman told investigators that her workplace was called the “field de calzón,” or “field of panties.” As an Iowa immigrant farmworker told her lawyer, “We thought it was normal in the United States that in order to keep your job, you had to have sex.”

The reasons behind this epidemic aren’t hard to fathom. Fields are vast and sparsely monitored; workers are often alone. It’s particularly bad for immigrant workers: The Department of Labor estimates that about half of farmworkers don’t have legal immigration papers, which makes them especially vulnerable.

So do low wages and competition for jobs: Male farmworkers make an estimated $16,250 a year and female ones $11,250 a year. With depressed wages and so many workers competing for the same job, women are hesitant to complain.

Calderón Launches new anti labor attack

IndustriALL Global Union and its activist affiliates of the Tri-National Solidarity Alliance (TNSA) are leading opposition to dangerous labour law reform to be fast-tracked through the Mexican parliament. The legislation would intensify the serious obstacles already facing workers and democratic trade unions in Mexico.

    The legislation has been drafted by outgoing president Felipe Calderón, who has been an enemy to workers in Mexico throughout his six-year term. The list of violations of core labour and trade union rights committed by the Calderón regime is long, and his outgoing attack through proposed changes to a number of regulations would cement his legacy. It must be strongly and urgently opposed by the international labour movement, as the 30-day initial consultation period for the legislation began on 1 September.

Join those calling on the parliamentary coordinators of the Mexican Congress to end this proposed initiative to regressively reform the labour law, and to instead focus on establishing a national process of social dialogue that is inclusive of Mexico’s independent trade unions as the legitimate social partners.

IndustriALL urges all affiliates and supporters to use General Secretary Raina’s letter as a model to write to Mexico’s parliamentary coordinators. The contact details of the seven individuals are in the letter. Please send on your organization’s letterhead to those addresses, with unionrights@industriall-union.org in copy. 

Concretely the proposed legislation would weaken the right to strike, widen the abuse of protection contracts used by employers to bypass the legitimate trade unions representing its employees, and interfere with union autonomy. Further, the proposed changes would proliferate precarious work in Mexico by legalizing subcontracting without creating a regulatory mechanism to ensure accountability of companies for the respect of labour rights through their production chains. Under the new law workers could be hired without job security on six-month probation contracts or even hired by the hour. Back pay in cases of illegal termination would be capped at 12 months to allow employers to delay legal cases for years and pressure workers to accept smaller compensation payments.  Clearly the core, internationally recognized rights of Mexico’s workers would be traded away by this proposed legislation in exchange for greater freedom and flexibility of employers.