Mexican Workers Call for a Continental Workers' Campaign
For Living Wages and Social Justice
Richard Roman and Edur Velasco
Capital and the state of all three countries of the North American Free Trade Agreement have worked together to push down wages and working conditions, undermine the social safety net, and privatize anything that could be turned into a source of profit. The aim of both NAFTA and the Security and Prosperity Partnership - the project of "Deep Integration") is to constitutionalize the rights of capital and undermine the rights of workers and the public. By incorporating Mexico into the geography of continentally integrated production, capital has been able to lower its wage bill and increase its power over labour. Relocation and the threat of relocation has been a powerful tool in forcing concessions on flexibility, wages, and working conditions.
Workers and unions have not effectively developed strategies of continental-wide solidarity and or fight-back. There have been some efforts in that direction in terms of solidarity with specific struggles, worker to worker exchanges, increased union contacts. A coalition of Mexican unions has now proposed a strategy of struggle that could open up the door to a more class-wide and continental approach to union and workers' struggles. While the initial proposal focused on the minimum wage, it could be broadened to include the needs of the unwaged poor as well as other rights of workers - the right to a job, the right to safe conditions of work, the right to housing. A continental fight-back around class-wide demands could reinvigorate the labour movements in all three countries. The article below focuses on the Mexican proposal and labour movement. In addition to describing the proposal, we put forth a description and analysis of Mexican unions and their role in Mexico's de! ep and ongoing crisis. Mexican workers are faced not only with a neoliberal assault on their rights and standards of living but also with an increasingly brutal and repressive state veiled in a corrupt and thin electoral process.
The Mexican Coalition
A coalition of progressive Mexican unions, democratic currents in other unions and popular movements, such as the Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca (APPO),have made a bold proposal for a continental workers' struggle to raise the minimum wage in all three countries, limit the work day to eight hours, and enforce a ban on child labour. In Mexico, it is a response to the dramatic fall of real wages and the beginning of a fightback against the deepening neoliberal assault promised by the new, fraudulently elected President Calderon. The coalition campaign as the Jornada Nacional y Internacional Por la Restitución del Salario y Empleo (National and International Campaign for the Restoration of Wages and Jobs). It believes that the battle can only be won and consolidated on a continental scale. If the minimum salary and wages are raised in one country, those companies that can simply relocate to those areas where wages remain lower will do so. The floor ha! s to be raised in all three countries
The coalition is aware that a minimum wage increase in the U.S., without an increase in Mexico, will simply increase the incentive for companies to move to Mexico. They want jobs in Mexico but not at the expense of job loss in other countries and starvation wages in Mexico. They feel that these three minimum demands create the basis for a common struggle in all three countries. And while they feel the struggle should start in the three NAFTA countries, they want to spread it later to include all of Latin America and become a global campaign.
Beyond Borders: A Call for Solidarity
This proposal is a call from workers in the South to workers in the North to engage in a joint struggle against the corporations and governments that seek to play them off against each other in order to continue the downward slide of wages and living and working standards everywhere. NAFTA is part of the neoliberal assault on workers in Canada, Mexico and the United States. This assault on workers is the major part of the reason that over ten million Mexicans have been forced to leave their homes and families to work in the U.S. as the only means to survive. The proposal seeks to unite workers - Mexican, US, Canadian, Quebecois; white, Latino, and Black; those with stable and those with precarious employment, those with unions and those without, those with legal rights and those without - in a common struggle that will unite workers in all three countries. Success will bring real and desperately needed gains in the short run while building the bases for an international w! orkers movement in the longer run. The campaign entailed by such a proposal seeks to move beyond solidarity as support for other peoples' struggles and toward solidarity as a common struggle.
The minimum wage in Mexico has fallen in real purchasing power by 75% in the last thirty years. During the presidency of Vicente Fox alone from 2000-2006, it fell by 22%. Ten million workers, 24% of the economically active population, make the minimum wage or less. Fifty million Mexicans live below the poverty line. Of these, 30 million live on 30 pesos per day ($3 US), 10 million live on 22 pesos daily, another 10 million on less than 10 pesos daily. In order to buy what is officially defined as a basic household basket, a worker would have to work 48 hours daily! As well, the minimum wage affects vast layers of workers receiving more than the minimum wage as many collective agreements and labour contracts are formally or informally tied to changes in the official minimum wage.
But not all is bleak. In the same period, Mexico rose to the 4th top position in the world in the number of millionaires. And it boasts the third richest man in the world, Carlos Slim, who did very well indeed through privatizations. The top 20% in Mexico control 52.7% of Mexico's wealth while 30% of Mexicans subsist on less than one minimum salary per family per day. At the same time that the countryside has lost great numbers of people to the urban labour markets, Mexico's 40 million workers have become increasingly exploited receiving a declining portion of national income
The New Presidential Regime
The face of the new Presidency of Felipe Calderón is that of the IMF underwritten by fierce repression. The former Governor of the state of Jalisco, Francisco Ramírez Acuña, has been appointed Secretary of the Interior (Secretario de Gobernación). He took great pride in his tough handling of the anti-corporate globalization protests in Guadalajara on May 28, 2004, a 'handling' it should be noted which was widely condemned by human rights groups for their brutality, arbitrary detentions and the use of torture. His appointment has been praised by business leaders who have said that disorder and protests in Mexico need to be handled with a "firm hand." Certainly, it was Ramírez Acuña and President, Calderón that decided (a few days before the official swearing in) to use extreme force, arbitrary arrests and torture in their attempt to smash the Oaxacan popular movement.
The economic ministries went to extreme neoliberals. Agustín Carstens, (a "Chicago boy") resigned a top position at the IMF to become Secretary of the Treasury. Luis Téllez, former Secretary of Energy (1997-2000) and a directing manager of the Carlyle group since December 2003 (whose job was to "co-lead Carlyle's first ever buyout investment activities in Mexico", Carlyle News, December 15, 2003), has been appointed Secretary of Telecommunications. And Georgina Kessel, the technocrat who has been one of the key people in carrying out privatizations in previous administrations and was one of the key designers of Plan Puebla Panama, a neoliberal plan to integrate southern Mexico and Central America into North American capitalism, has been appointed Secretary of Energy. The members of the cabinet in charge of social issues come from the far Catholic right. This is a regime that has announced by words, cabinet appointments and actions i! ts intention to deepen neoliberal reforms, which would include changing labour law and privatizing oil and power.
The new government, however, faces three major obstacles: (1) its lack of legitimacy to a major part of the population who view its victory as a result of massive fraud; (2) the anger of much of the population at the decades of neoliberal attack on living standards, decent jobs and social rights now intensified with runaway price increases in basic foods in the brief period of the new Presidency; and (3) the lack of solid control of the President over the new Congress, whose party does not control either house.
Mexican Unions in the Crisis
The role of unions in Mexico's political crisis has been as heterogeneous as the character of unions in Mexico is at present. And the character of these unions has become more heterogeneous than in the past. Mexico's transition from a strongly state-dominated form of capitalist development to a neoliberal, "open" economy as well as the change from a one-party to a multi-party regime has undermined some of the mechanisms of control the old statist union oligarchy could rely upon. This union oligarchy, derisively called "charros" in Mexico, has been scrambling to protect its considerable power and wealth in this period of change. These changes in political regime and economic strategy have led the charros to try to adapt in various ways. The vast majority of unions remain thoroughly authoritarian but the already existing plurality of unions and union federations has widened as the charros maneuver to adapt to a more fluid and complex political-economic s! ituation with weakened mechanisms of control.
Both the government and big business have been pushing to revise labour law to weaken unions and legislated workers' rights. And some aspects of Mexican labour law, although not always enforced, are very progressive. Workers' rights and union power are viewed as impediments to "progress".
While unions have been severely weakened by privatization and relocation within Mexico, the attempts at labour law reform have so far been stalemated by popular resistance and legislative stalemate. The new government is determined to break this stalemate.
The existence of any union is viewed as a potential obstacle to the power of capital. Even the authoritarian, corrupt and government-linked unions often made significant gains for their members, sometimes in wages or benefits (health care and housing especially), or jobs in unionized workplaces for family members. While the margins for these gains have been sharply reduced by neoliberal restructuring, they are still important in many cases. It is these real gains for important sectors of unionized workers that have helped sustain the power of the authoritarian and corrupt union officialdom. But when these mechanisms of control fail, union officials have resorted to killings, beatings, or exclusion from union membership and consequent loss not only of jobs but of the various benefits (health, housing, jobs for family members) to maintain their power and privilege.
This weakness of democratic unionism in Mexico has been a key factor in constraining working class resistance to state authoritarianism and neoliberalism. While workers have been the mass base of the Obradorista movement against electoral fraud, working class organizations have not played a leading role in popular struggles, with the important exception of Oaxaca. The absence of a strong independent union movement or a workers' party has led to a situation in which workers have, in the main, been the base of other movements rather than having their own movement.
The weakness of working class resistance is strongly connected to the scarcity of real unions. The old system of labour control had been based on five key, inter-related pillars: (1) labour law that gave the state control over union recognition and the right to strike; (2) integration of the officially recognized unions into the ruling party and state apparatus; (3) authoritarian control over the unions by the union officialdom on the basis of state laws and links as well as the usual control mechanisms of an organizational oligarchy; (4) repression by the state and by thugs commanded by the charro officials; and, for some periods, (5) a social pact that allowed gains for limited sectors of the working class, especially in the realm of the social wage (most notably in the postwar expansion). Official unions have been part of the ruling party and union officials have either held union, party and government positions simultaneously or sequentially. Official unions hav! e been state instruments in the working class and their leaders' power brokers within the existing regime. Mobilization by these unions - or more often than not, the threat of mobilization - has had little to do with union or class struggle. Rather it has been either a card to play in intra-regime struggles or a way of cooling out rank and file pressure for real actions.
Mexican unions combine features of a state institution, a party machine, and an employment service with those of a union. In general, they historically have been run in a thoroughly corrupt and authoritarian manner. They controlled labour market access, disciplined the work force, extorted money from workers and capital, and used their labour-managing role (both workplace and political) as part of their base for negotiating their interests with management, for their influence within the power bloc/PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional), which governed Mexico for 70 years until its defeat in 2000. Mexican union officials could and did become capitalists either through setting up companies themselves (or in the name of family members) or by extracting surplus from control of union institutions that could then be used for investments. But the role of the "labour" elite as political actors and capitalist entrepreneurs required their ongoing control of unions and! their related institutions. Union leaders moved back and forth between political party, governmental, and managerial positions in the public sector. They were not simply union bureaucrats but members of a hybrid elite sitting on top of hybrid institutions in which "unions" were encased.
The New Terrain of Mexican Trade Unions
Pluralism among Mexican unions and labour federations is not new. The old one-party PRI government, at times, fostered pluralism and competition among unions and federations within the limits of loyalty to the PRI and its project of capitalist development. The government applied its divide and rule strategy to labour officialdom as well as to the rank and file of the working class. Union strategies have ranged from total submission to the neoliberal project to various degrees of resistance. There are also different perspectives, programs and strategies for what a new industrial relations regime should look like. But, with few exceptions, this has not led to significant change in the authoritarian internal character of most unions. Only a small number of unions have sought to confront the neoliberal project as a whole, though many do so rhetorically.
There are presently four significant union blocs: (1) La Unión Nacional de Trabajadores (UNT), (2) El Frente Sindical Mexicano (FSM), (3) Congreso del Trabajo (CT), and (4) the Federación Democrática de Sindicatos de Servidores Públicos, FEDESSP (the nucleus and main contingent of the FEDESSP, is the teachers union SNTE of Elba Esther Gordillo). It is very hard to estimate the real number of union members as there are so many protection contracts and company unions. However, it's clear that the real rate of unionization is the lowest of the three NAFTA countries. The most militant of the union blocs are the least numerous. The FSM has about 5% of the total union membership, the UNT 10% whereas the CT and FEDESSP control about 85% of organized workers.
The national teachers union, the Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de Educación (SNTE), has been a key element in the PRI, the PRI-PAN alliance, and recently in executing an important part of the electoral fraud for Calderón. As a reward, they have been given great control over the federal department of education. Section 22 of the SNTE, the section of the state of Oaxaca, which carved out great autonomy in decades of struggle against the national leadership, has played the leading role in the Oaxaca revolt.
The most gangsterist of the old guard charro unions continue to support the PRI and the PAN (Partido Accion Nacional - conservative Catholic party), whichever of them governs that particular jurisdiction. And they are rewarded, as was the national leadership of the teachers union, with state back-up for maintaining their authoritarian control over their members.
The moderate and authoritarian dissident unions (telephone and social security/public health) continue to play an ambiguous role, fighting to "modernize" labour relations, which in the case of the telefonistas means allying with their boss, Carlos Slim, in exchange for protection of their jobs and the social security union has collaborated with massive cut-backs of employment and public services, though, at times, being forced by their rank and file to mobilize protests. These unions, along with STUNAM, dominate the UNT, the new dissident federation, founded in 1997. They supported López Obrador in the election campaign but have now "critically accepted" the election of Felipe Calderón. They have made a pact with the congressional alliance that supports López Obrador but have distanced themselves from any extra-institutional challenges to the government. They do not participate in the Convención Nacional Democrática (! CND) - the movement against the electoral fraud and in support of the "defeated" presidential candidate, López Obrador. Nor have they issued any statement about the popular movement in Oaxaca, APPO. They seek to be a loyal opposition to the illegitimate President and to try to negotiate a new, modernizing social contract with themselves as the intermediaries.
There were many who hoped that the UNT, in spite of its authoritarian and cautious leadership (its leader, Francisco Hernández Juárez, after all, was a favourite unionist of the neoliberal President Salinas, 1988-1994), would set in motion a democratizing dynamic and start to organize workers.
But they have failed to make any serious efforts in that direction. Their strategy has been moderate mobilization to pressure for negotiations with the government. They are completely averse to any challenges to the regime that would threaten them either by state repression or rank and file revolt.
The more militant and left unions and democratic currents of other unions tend to be part of the FSM (Frente Sindical Mexicano). Two of the key unions there are the Sindicato Mexicano de Electricistas (SME) and the Sindicato Independiente de Trabajadores de la Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (SITUAM).
While the working class continues to be the mass base of the major revolts (Obradorista and Oaxaqueno), only a small number of unions play an important role in these revolts. But those that are involved in popular struggles do so alongside other forms of working class organizations, such as neighbourhood associations and democratic currents in non-democratic unions. The working class as a class has not yet found its own voice and organizational forms of struggle in Mexico's national crisis with the exception of the APPO. This is the key missing ingredient in the possibility of a successful national struggle to defeat the authoritarian, neoliberal government.
México 2007: The Labyrinth of Counter-revolution
The new presidency started with two big bangs. The first was the massive repression of the popular movement of Oaxaca. Though its' most brutal and decisive act took place a week before Calderón took office officially, it can be seen as the first major act of the new presidency. The second was the combination of a miserly increase in the official minimum wage with runaway inflation in the costs of basic food commodities (especially tortillas). And most recently there has been an assault on the pensions of public sector workers (raising the age of retirement, reduction in average pensions, individualization of pensions and privatization of their management)
Calderón is determined to overcome the roadblocks to deepening neoliberal restructuring and continental integration that stymied the previous Fox presidency. The roadblocks were based on the pressure of popular resistance on the divided and vacillating members of the old ruling party, the PRI, leading them at times to oppose key structural reforms. As the Right did not have a majority by itself in the old Congress -- and doesn't in the new - the opposition of the PRD combined with the vacillation of the PRI was able to block the passage of key legislation around labour law reform and privatization. The Calderón government is determined to overcome these obstacles by brutal repression of popular protest on the one hand and the squeezing the PRI where it hurts-their lucrative links with the drug lords. They can pass legislation and harass movements through these measures but they can't gain legitimacy. The more they rule by force, the less legitimacy they will! have. The government of the Right is determined, violent and mean-spirited but their rule is fragile.
While the events of the last year show the fragility of the project of the Right, they also show the limitations of the popular resistance, a resistance that is wide and deep but also fragmented and without strategic unity. Calderón has attempted to appear as the hero on horseback in the midst of a society with close to all-out war among the drug lords for control of the main drug routes. The violence of the drug wars reached unprecedented levels in the first months of the new presidency, with weekly tolls of dozens dead in cities such as Monterrey, Acapulco, Veracruz, Guadalajara and Morelia. Calderón's use of the armed forces to regulate and attenuate the drug wars allows him to appear as the guarantor of law and order to the general public while he uses and normalizes the use of the armed forces to control social disorder, and movements of social protest. But, more immediately, it gives him great leverage for negotiating with the PRI in those states and c! ities in which they remain strong and have significant congressional representation. As many local media sources have asserted, if Calderón can determine who will survive and participate in the huge drug market, the PRIistas will play ball in other areas, so as not to be displaced from the lucrative subterranean activities in which their local and regional leaders appear to be involved.
The use of the armed forces in the various states has given Calderón the leverage he needs in Congress to have a majority for his reforms: the elimination of what's left of the welfare state in Mexico, a fiscal reform aimed at a new cycle of redistribution of wealth away from the poor and working people, and the private appropriation of what's left of the public sector, most importantly the oil and power industries. He can now destroy those PRIistas that resist his neoliberal reforms. The arrival of Calderón to the presidency has made the International Monetary Fund much more optimistic about reforms in Mexico, as they stated on April 13. The hour for a Mexican fast-track has arrived: the definitive dismantling of the ruins of the old Estado Nacional Popular and an open road to the complete neoliberalization of Mexico.
The overwhelming majority of the population, however, opposes this reactionary assault. The mass popular resistance is a diffuse conglomerate of forces linked more by nostalgia than by a common national project. The popular forces continue to have a tremendous capacity of mobilization and a powerful public presence. This has begun to split the country into two realities: the one, the institutional; the other, that of the street. For the moment, the conservative "majority" that controls the major institutions seems unstoppable.
The Mexican Resistance and a Continental Campaign for Living Wages
The popular forces of resistance are in an orderly retreat without being demoralized or discouraged. There is still a combative spirit but there is not (yet) a dominant view of the tactics and strategy of the fight-back. The popular resistance is debating, taking stock, exploring different paths and will likely emerge again more strongly in the coming period. They know that Calderón lacks a popular mandate and that his power is ephemeral, resting only on the extortion of the PRI politicians, but that as a whole, his proposals are thoroughly unpopular.
The simmering popular discontent and the relentless offensive of the Right - as well as state elections in Oaxaca and elsewhere - makes it likely that the next months will be ones of intense struggle. The labour and political left, grouped in its diverse variants, is preparing for a counter-offensive. The SME was able to once again bring together the major national currents of popular resistance in the Cuarto Dialogo Nacional (4th National Dialogue) in early February 2007: the communal farmers of Atenco, APPO (the popular movement of Oaxaca), the Frente Sindical Mexicano, the CNTE as well as about 600 other organizations (unions, social movements, indigenous organizations, left currents) who agreed on a common plan of action for the next months whose first actions occurred in the first weeks of May.
The big mobilizations of this past March are a good indicator of the possibilities. The Convención Nacional Democrática (CND) brought tens of thousands into the streets on March 25, filling the Zócalo, in a great act of opposition to the program of Calderón. Only two days later, a new mass mobilization took place, of which only a small portion had been involved in that of the CND, now composed of the labour opposition to the reactionary government, that brought tens of thousands of workers onto the streets of Mexico City in opposition to the counter-reforms of the pension system pushed through by Calderón. And the EZLN (still absent from the great coalitions of resistance of the last few years) has initiated a second national tour of the Other Campaign, preparing sections of the population who have lost hope in the institutional political spaces, for playing an important role in the rapid movement of the country towards increasingly shar! p confrontations. Mexico is in a situation of catastrophic equilibrium in which the counter-revolution has not been able to consolidate power with legitimacy but in which the forces of resistance have not been able to do more than slow down the assault. The new government is seeking to break the equilibrium through a blitzkrieg of deeper neoliberal reforms and heavy-handed repression. The popular forces are groping for ways to move beyond resistance to a majoritarian rebellion for a different Mexico.
Progressive unions and other segments of the working class have played important roles in mobilizing resistance to neoliberalism and fighting for democracy and justice. But for a long time, growing working class anger has been contained by the gangsterist unions as well as union structures that have only mobilized to protect the interests of their own oligarchic leaders or, less frequently, their own members. As most of the working class lacks unions, they have been with limited organized expression in defence of their own interests. For that reason working class discontent has expressed itself more in the form of support for other movements (Obradorism) or as local movements without national articulation. The very limited existence of genuine unions has been a major obstacle to the working class playing a significant mobilizing role in this extremely proletarianized and increasingly pauperized nation. The goal of the la Jornada Nacional e Internacioal Por la Restit! ución del Salario y Empleo is to put working class demands at the center of the struggle in Mexico and to do so in a manner that is national and international at the same time. If Canadian and US workers can join with Mexican workers in a common campaign of struggling for decent wages, workers' rights, and an end to poverty, the contours of a new North America would begin to emerge.
Edur Velasco Arregui is a trade union activist and Economics Professor at the Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana in Mexico City.
Richard Roman is a member of Canadian Union of Public Employees local 3903, and a professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto from 1974-2003.
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Jornada Nacional y Internacional Por la Restitucion del Salario y Empleo National and International Campaign for the Restoration of Wages and Jobs
November 8, 2006
The most important social pact is the Constitution. However, for three decades, successive federal governments have flagrantly violated the terms of Article 123 of the Constitution: they have not promoted job creation, they have discouraged and boycotted community or cooperative efforts to create employment, tolerated and even encouraged exhausting and inhumane workdays, ignored the use of child labour, and above all, have made the constitutional definition of general minimum wages a dead letter: a wage "sufficient to satisfy the normal needs of a head of family; in material, social, and cultural areas; and to provide the obligatory education to their children."
Therefore, by systematically betraying their oath to "observe and uphold the Mexican Constitution", those who have governed during the neoliberal cycle have condemned the majority of the country's workers to a harsh choice: hunger or superexploitation.
Today, in order to pay for the basic "family basket" (canasta básica) - composed of food, personal hygiene and household cleaning products, transportation, electricity and domestic gas - workers earning the minimum wage would have to work 48 hours a day, and many more than that in order to also cover rent, education, health care, clothing, recreation and cultural activities.
Over 10 million workers - 24 percent of the workforce - receive less than the minimum wage, or no wage at all [e.g. when heads of families are contracted to fulfill a specific task with the understanding that other members of the family will also work, though without pay] Some manage to obtain an income higher than the minimum wage by holding two or more jobs. Millions of households have found themselves obliged to send their elderly or their children to work in order to raise the household income to the absolute minimum needed for survival.
Between 1977 and 2006 the Mexican minimum wage lost 75 percent of its purchasing power, one of the most brutal drops in average people's incomes that has taken place on the planet.
This phenomenon has not occurred by coincidence or by accident; it is the consequence of a sustained plan by the various federal governments, on several different pretexts: to control inflation, attract foreign investment or generate jobs.
All of these justifications have been proven false. Inflation has shot up several times, due to stock market and currency speculation as happened in 1987, due to catastrophic governmental errors as in 1994-95, or due to the global policy of price liberalization. This data demonstrates that the only commodity whose price is being controlled is the work force, through a minimum wage that keeps them in abject poverty.
Foreign investment plummeted in the current six-year presidential term, during which the country has also lost 5 percent of the formal jobs registered by the Mexican Social Security Institute. The real motives of those in power for pulverizing minimum wages are different than the pretexts mentioned above: to dismantle workers' organizations, eliminate their historic conquests and create conditions favouring the increase of profits on national and foreign capital.
The strategies for wage containment constitute a deliberate policy of plundering from millions of Mexicans for the benefit of a handful of millionaires. They represent, as well, the most brutal offensive by capital and its allies in the governmental sphere - the President, the Secretaries of Finance, Work and Social Security, Economy, and even the legislature and the judiciary - perpetrated by those occupying the highest offices in the governmental structures, in order to systematically and flagrantly violate the Constitution.
Of course, keeping wages down has not translated into lower inflation, nor into economic reactivation or job creation. On the contrary, its consequences have been the infuriating and alarming intensification of misery and poverty, the concentration of wealth in only a few hands, the weakening of the internal market, and the enormous growth of the informal economy.
These disastrous economic results have alarming parallels at a societal level: the deepening of inequalities, an abysmal drop in the standard of living of the general population, a pronounced deterioration in health, education and housing, massive emigration, the rending of the social fabric and unquantifiable suffering for the majority of the population.
The national economy has been brought to a point in which work has ceased being a right and become instead a privilege. However, if the majority of the "privileged" who have a formal job are being obliged to accept starvation wages, the perspectives for the unemployed are much worse.
With or without jobs, fifty million Mexicans are below the poverty line:
some 30 million live on 30 pesos per day, that is to say, two thirds of the current minimum wage; 10 million live on 22 pesos a day, and a similar number subsist on 12 pesos and 21 centavos a day. Whether they have a job or not, these millions of Mexicans are not being offered any future other than to become beggars or criminals or to try their luck venturing toward a northern border that has become ever more hostile and deadly.
The implications of the offensive against salaries on the political, institutional and legal spheres has been no less pernicious. The country is confronted with a federal authority that openly violates constitutional precepts, a government that has opted to ignore its legal obligations, a political authority that promotes the dispossession of the many for the benefit of the few, provokes the deterioration of institutions, promotes the discrediting of public authorities, and subverts the possibilities of Mexicans being able to live peacefully and harmoniously together.
The government policy of depreciation of the minimum wage and, in general, the lack of observance by governments of what is stipulated in Article 123 of the Constitution, are not merely infractions of the law, but rather have resulted in a country that is morally unsustainable, politically ungovernable, socially uninhabitable and economically unviable.
Society as a whole, and in particular workers' organisations, are facing the duty to rescue the primordial agreement on which the ability to live together peacefully rests in Mexico, which is the Constitution. It is necessary, therefore, to call a national mobilization to defend Article 123, for the following purposes:
***To demand the fulfillment of the constitutional definition of the minimum wage, which "must be sufficient to satisfy the normal needs of a head of family; in material, social, and cultural areas; and to provide the obligatory education to their children."
***To ensure that the right to dignified and socially useful work is respected.
This call is to:
***organise ourselves, nationally and internationally, to ensure that the Constitutional mandates are fulfilled.
***undertake political and juridical actions aimed at restoring the spirit and letter of the Constitution.
***hold regional, national and international forums to ensure that Article 123 is respected.
***hold a "March for Wages and Work", on December 7, in Mexico City.
For the above reasons, we call together workers, women, peasants, national and international unions, the unemployed, informal workers, non-governmental organisations in Mexico and overseas, students, migrant workers, human rights organisations, people excluded by neoliberalism and by the political powers that have turned their backs on our Constitution.
"We want a fair minimum wage, work and opportunities within our Mexico, now! Mexico City, November 8, 2006
Signators:
Frente Sindical Mexicano (FSM) Sindicato Mexicano de Electricistas (SME), Alianza de Tranviarios de México (ATM), Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores Mineros, Metalúrgicos y Similares (SNTMM), Confederación de Trabajadores y Campesinos (CTC), Sindicato de Trabajadores de la UNAM (STUNAM), Frente Auténtico del Trabajo (FAT), Sindicato Independiente de Trabajadores de la UAM (SITUAM), Federación Nacional de Agrupaciones Sindicales (FNAS), Consejo Nacional de los Trabajadores (CNT), Coordinadora Nacional Politécnica (CNP-IPN), Centro de Investigación Laboral y Asesoría Sindical (CILAS), Cooperativa Pascual, Coalición Nacional de Trabajadores del INEGI, Sindicato Único de Trabajadores de la Industria Nuclear SUTIN, Sindicato de Trabajadores al Servicio de los Poderes del Estado (STSPE) Querétaro, Assemblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca (APPO), Coordinadora Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educa! ción (CNTE ), Lic. Arturo Alcalde Justiniano, Diputado Federal Ramón Pacheco Llanes y Diputado Federal José Antonio Almazán González, Centro de Análisis Multidisciplinario de la Facultad de Economía (CAM-UNAM), Sindicato de Trabajadores de Transporte del D.F. (STTPDF), Frente Nacional de Resistencia contra la Privatización de la Industria Eléctrica (FNRCPIE), Asociación Nacional de Abogados Democráticos (ANAD).
In charge of publication: Fernando Amezcua Castillo Secretary for External Relations of the SME.
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Call for a Continental Campaign for a Living Wage and End to Poverty
The processes of continental integration and the relentless offensive of neoliberalism against working people has created the potential of beginning to builda continent-wide struggle for decent wages. There already are a variety of struggles in each of our countries but they are presently isolated one from another. Our hope is to take advantage of the potential to link up and build something broader and deeper while respecting the autonomy of each movement.
The initiative for a continent wide movement for decent wages was first taken by a coalition of progressive Mexican unions, democratic currents in other unions and popular movements who made a bold proposal for a continental workers struggle to raise the minimum wage in all three countries this past November. We are trying to continue the momentum and extend it to include addressing the needs of all those in or near poverty by forming a Toronto committee that could then reach out to make links with the rest of Canada and Quebec as well as Mexico and the US.
This campaign could therefore link working people of all three countries
-- Mexican, US, Canadian, Quebecois; white, Latino, and Black; workers with stable jobs, precarious jobs or no jobs at all, those with unions and those without, those with legal rights and those without -- in common struggle against poverty in all of North America. We hope you will join us to build this movement and develop these links.
We urge you to form a local or regional committee in your areas. Please let us know of your activities and we will begin to develop a network of committees in each country and across the continent.
Please endorse the following call for a continental campaign for higher minimum wages and circulate to interested people or organizations:
We, the undersigned organisations, hereby endorse the call by Mexican organisations for a joint campaign to increase the minimum wage in Mexico, the US and Canada to levels that allow working people to provide a dignified standard of living for themselves and their families in whichever country they live in. We agree to work together with other like-minded organisations in all three countries on concrete activities to promote this goal.
Signed: ________________________________
On behalf of: ___________________________
For more information, contact info@socialistproject.ca
****************************************************************
****************************************************************
Key organizations in the Mexican Minimum Wages Coalition
The following section will provide some background on the main organizations involved in la Jornada Nacional e Internacional Por la Restitución del Salario y Empleo The statement and list of the sponsoring organizations follows, in Spanish. The committee is broader than the Frente Sindical Mexicana (FSM) which includes some of the organizations below but also others not affiliated with the FSM, which is not a federation but an alliance. There is a fluidity and overlap in various coalitions, some being more ad hoc and temporary, some more long-term. Some unions belong to several alliances and also to a federation. Some unions do not belong to any federation.
The SME (Sindicato Mexicano de Electricistas -- power workers). SME has about 60,000 members, employed by Mexican Light and Power. The union celebrated its 92nd anniversary this past December and is well known for its long history of internal democracy with competitive elections and changes of leadership. It is also a very nationalist union and has often been the key organization in forming broad alliances and struggles over workers' rights and the protection of national patrimony. It has been the main driving force in the FSM and is held in high esteem by democratic unionists in Mexico.
SNTMM (Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores Mineros, Metalúrgicos y Similares de la República Mexicana -- miners and steelworkers union).
SNTMM has around 70,000 members. The previous government of President Vicente Fox deposed its leader who is now in informal exile in Vancouver, supported by the USWA (United Steelworkers of America). The government deposed him and installed a stooge after the union sharply criticized the government and the company involved for a big, deadly mining disaster in Pasta de Canchos, Coahuila on February 19, 2006 in which 65 miners were killed. It is not a very democratic union and has a very top-down and centralized leadership but has shown growing militancy in recent years.
The base is very combative and the vast majority of members and locals support the deposed leadership. There have been big strikes and battles with the police over union autonomy and workers' demands. It is a member of three groupings: CT (the official federation of unions), the UNT and the FSM. The battle of the SNTMM with the government over union autonomy continues.
STUNAM (Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México). STUNAM is a union of about 30,000 members at the largest university in Latin America (300,000 students), and developed out of the student struggles of the early 1970s. It is a union that works closely and collaboratively with the administration of the university. It is affiliated both to the FSM and UNT.
SITUAM (Sindicato Independiente de Trabajadores de la Universidad Autónoma Metropolitan). It is the union of UAM, with about 5000 members (blue-collar, white-collar, and academic), and is an extremely democratic and combative union. As with the SME, there are tight restrictions on re-election. A member can only serve in a particular office for one term and can only serve as a union official for a total of two terms in a lifetime for a total of four years, It is a key actor in the FSM. Its political role is much more important than its size would indicate. It recently hosted the founding convention of the APPM (Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Mexico, an attempt to make national and transnational the model of struggle and organization of APPO-see below for APPO). It also was the moving force in starting the Coordinadora Intersindical Primero de Mayo (Inter-union Coordinating Committee May First) in 1995 which grouped militant unions, dissident union currents! and popular movements in a common front. Inter-Sindical May 1 had a brief role in linking left unions and popular forces but later died a quiet death.
APPO (Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca). This coalition of teachers and a variety of popular organizations carried out a generally peaceful but militant urban insurrection against repression, authoritarianism and neoliberalism. They controlled and ran Oaxaca City for over 5 months until the massive state repression on November 25, 2006. The core of the movement, initially, was the Oaxaca state section of the teachers union, Section 22, which is part of a national dissident organization within the teachers union, the Coordinadora Nacional de Trabajadores de Educación (CNTE). The APPO was a popular assembly, a coalition of Section 22 and a great variety of popular forces. It exemplifies a model of popular, democratic insurrection and governance. Though brutally suppressed, it survives and there are ongoing attempts to form a national APPO.
CNTE (National Coordinator of Workers in Education -- teachers). The CNTE is an organized national alliance of dissident teachers currents in the SNTE (the national teachers union). The CNTE has existed for over 30 years within the SNTE despite assassinations, disappearances and firings carried out by the SNTE. The SNTE is a gangster-charro union with over a million members. The CNTE is anti dual unionist but does carry out its own campaigns. It consists of a few state sections, some locals and dissidents in other sections. The CNTE is very militant and often has deep community roots and engagement in broad, popular struggles, as in the case of Oaxaca.
FAT (Frente Autentico de Trabajo). The FAT was founded in 1960 as a Catholic reformist organization with the intent of developing independent unionism and cooperatives. It became secular over the years and has played a central role in promoting democratic and autonomous unionism and promoting labour law reform. It is composed of unions, cooperatives, and both producers and neighbourhood associations and, in total, is estimated to have between 30,000 and 40,000 members.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~(((( T h e B u l l e t))))~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Bullet is produced by the Socialist Project. Readers are encouraged
to distribute widely. Comments, criticisms and suggestions are welcome.
Write to info@socialistproject.ca
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Union organizer killed in Mexico
Union worker's murder alarms U.S. activists
BY DAVID OVALLE
Santiago Cruz moved to this northern Mexico city to help organize Mexican farm workers bound for the United States under a legal guest-worker program. His killers spared him no agony.
They bound his hands and feet with strips of T-shirt, strangled him using a beach towel adorned with a cartoon U.S. dollar bill and smashed his head through a wooden banister.
The slaying last month remains unsolved, alarming human rights activists on both sides of the border. Police won't talk about their investigation, but Cruz's friends say they're certain he was killed because of his efforts to stop corruption in a little-known program that brings seasonal workers legally to U.S. farms.
Cruz worked for the Ohio-based Farm Labor Organizing Committee, an affiliate of the AFL-CIO. The committee represents thousands of Mexicans who travel to the United States each year with H2A visas, which the United States grants to workers recruited abroad.
Two weeks before his death, Cruz had begun an education campaign in nearby villages aimed at stopping rogue recruiters from extorting illegal fees from farm workers headed north.
''We were shaking up big forces,'' said Castulo Benavídes, the union's Monterrey director.
Cruz was found murdered April 9 in his office. His possessions were undisturbed and now are packed into a lime-green suitcase with no immediate destination.
Globs of crimson blood still dot the walls and floors.
Union supporters have blasted authorities in the state of Nuevo León for not solving the crime yet.
Last week, the Washington-based Inter-American Commission on Human Rights urged the state government to find the killers and protect union members.
The union has renamed its office -- in a nondescript strip mall near the U.S. consulate -- the Santiago Rafael Cruz Justice Center and has started a fund for his family.
The AFL-CIO has condemned the murder, as has the city council in Toledo, Ohio, where the farm labor committee is headquartered.
U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, is trying to organize a congressional delegation to visit Monterrey and investigate Cruz's death and alleged corruption among recruiters of temporary agricultural workers.
The committee represents about 6,000 seasonal farm workers, many of whom travel each year under the temporary H2A agricultural visa to the tobacco, cucumber and sweet potato fields of North Carolina.
The workers are recruited by companies that, under contract from farms in the United States, screen them in Mexico, process their U.S. visas and transport them north. About 50,000 workers are projected to travel to the United States this year under the H2A program.
Under U.S. law, the employers must pay the costs of paperwork and transportation, but farm workers complain that some recruiters charge them for those expenses.
Three years ago, the Farm Labor Organizing Committee opened its office in Monterrey, where most H2A visas are processed through the U.S. consulate each year.
''From the time we got there, we weren't popular with the recruiters,'' said committee President Baldemar Velásquez, a Texas-born Mexican-American reared as a farm worker who's now based in Ohio.
Before Cruz's death, intruders had ransacked the office twice, Velásquez said.
Cruz, who'd arrived in Monterrey about six weeks before his death, grew up in Oaxaca state in southern Mexico. He'd begun working with the committee in Ohio after entering the United States illegally.
About a year and a half ago, Cruz quit the committee and took a job at a tomato-canning plant to earn more money. While he was working there, U.S. immigration agents detained him and sent him back to Mexico. The committee offered him a job in its Monterrey office.
© 2007 Miami Herald Media Company. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.miamiherald.com
BY DAVID OVALLE
Santiago Cruz moved to this northern Mexico city to help organize Mexican farm workers bound for the United States under a legal guest-worker program. His killers spared him no agony.
They bound his hands and feet with strips of T-shirt, strangled him using a beach towel adorned with a cartoon U.S. dollar bill and smashed his head through a wooden banister.
The slaying last month remains unsolved, alarming human rights activists on both sides of the border. Police won't talk about their investigation, but Cruz's friends say they're certain he was killed because of his efforts to stop corruption in a little-known program that brings seasonal workers legally to U.S. farms.
Cruz worked for the Ohio-based Farm Labor Organizing Committee, an affiliate of the AFL-CIO. The committee represents thousands of Mexicans who travel to the United States each year with H2A visas, which the United States grants to workers recruited abroad.
Two weeks before his death, Cruz had begun an education campaign in nearby villages aimed at stopping rogue recruiters from extorting illegal fees from farm workers headed north.
''We were shaking up big forces,'' said Castulo Benavídes, the union's Monterrey director.
Cruz was found murdered April 9 in his office. His possessions were undisturbed and now are packed into a lime-green suitcase with no immediate destination.
Globs of crimson blood still dot the walls and floors.
Union supporters have blasted authorities in the state of Nuevo León for not solving the crime yet.
Last week, the Washington-based Inter-American Commission on Human Rights urged the state government to find the killers and protect union members.
The union has renamed its office -- in a nondescript strip mall near the U.S. consulate -- the Santiago Rafael Cruz Justice Center and has started a fund for his family.
The AFL-CIO has condemned the murder, as has the city council in Toledo, Ohio, where the farm labor committee is headquartered.
U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, is trying to organize a congressional delegation to visit Monterrey and investigate Cruz's death and alleged corruption among recruiters of temporary agricultural workers.
The committee represents about 6,000 seasonal farm workers, many of whom travel each year under the temporary H2A agricultural visa to the tobacco, cucumber and sweet potato fields of North Carolina.
The workers are recruited by companies that, under contract from farms in the United States, screen them in Mexico, process their U.S. visas and transport them north. About 50,000 workers are projected to travel to the United States this year under the H2A program.
Under U.S. law, the employers must pay the costs of paperwork and transportation, but farm workers complain that some recruiters charge them for those expenses.
Three years ago, the Farm Labor Organizing Committee opened its office in Monterrey, where most H2A visas are processed through the U.S. consulate each year.
''From the time we got there, we weren't popular with the recruiters,'' said committee President Baldemar Velásquez, a Texas-born Mexican-American reared as a farm worker who's now based in Ohio.
Before Cruz's death, intruders had ransacked the office twice, Velásquez said.
Cruz, who'd arrived in Monterrey about six weeks before his death, grew up in Oaxaca state in southern Mexico. He'd begun working with the committee in Ohio after entering the United States illegally.
About a year and a half ago, Cruz quit the committee and took a job at a tomato-canning plant to earn more money. While he was working there, U.S. immigration agents detained him and sent him back to Mexico. The committee offered him a job in its Monterrey office.
© 2007 Miami Herald Media Company. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.miamiherald.com
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Write a letter to your Congressperson : Terrorism
Your Representative:
I am outraged that Judge Kathleen Cardone has now dismissed all charges against the terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, because of the refusal of U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and President Bush to take decisive action and declare him a terrorist, as well as their deliberate mishandling of the immigration case against him.
Posada has never renounced his terrorist history, and his presence in Miami is a clear and present danger to the community. Each time he has been freed from prison, he has continued to direct mercenaries to carry out his terrorist attacks.
I urge you as my representative to demand that Alberto Gonzales: 1.) Classify Posada as a terrorist; 2.) To begin the process for extradition for Posada Carriles to Venezuela, as required by the 1922 U.S.- Veneuela extradition accord, to face 73 charges of murder in the 1976 bombing of the Cubana airliner.
Finally, you must demand of the Bush administration to stop harboring Luis Posada Carriles. It is a shame that our nation is harboring a recognized terrorist while campaigning against terrorism around the world.
Sincerely,
I am outraged that Judge Kathleen Cardone has now dismissed all charges against the terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, because of the refusal of U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and President Bush to take decisive action and declare him a terrorist, as well as their deliberate mishandling of the immigration case against him.
Posada has never renounced his terrorist history, and his presence in Miami is a clear and present danger to the community. Each time he has been freed from prison, he has continued to direct mercenaries to carry out his terrorist attacks.
I urge you as my representative to demand that Alberto Gonzales: 1.) Classify Posada as a terrorist; 2.) To begin the process for extradition for Posada Carriles to Venezuela, as required by the 1922 U.S.- Veneuela extradition accord, to face 73 charges of murder in the 1976 bombing of the Cubana airliner.
Finally, you must demand of the Bush administration to stop harboring Luis Posada Carriles. It is a shame that our nation is harboring a recognized terrorist while campaigning against terrorism around the world.
Sincerely,
Monday, May 07, 2007
NO trade deal with orrupt Columbian regime
'No Trade Deal With a Corrupt Regime'
By James Parks,
May 2, 2007, AFL-CI0 Now
http://blog.aflcio.org/2007/05/02/no-trade-deal-with-a-corrupt-regime/
Colombia is the most dangerous country in the world for trade
unionists. Nearly 2,300 union leaders and members have been
murdered there since 1991 and the government routinely ignores
or violates internationally recognized workers' rights.
Last year alone, 72 trade unionists were murdered in Colombia.
Yet the Bush administration continues to push for a trade deal
with that country.
Colombian President Alvaro Uribe found out today that U.S.
working families will not tolerate their country making deals
with a corrupt regime. Uribe was met with strong opposition to
the Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA) from protesters,
activists and union leaders as he traveled across Washington,
D.C., trying to sell the deal.
The Bush administration submitted the deal to Congress in time
to be considered under its Fast Track trade- promotion
authority, which expires June 30. But workers in both
countries say the deal with Colombia should be renegotiated
because it will hurt workers and push back efforts to bring an
end to the violence against union leaders and ordinary
citizens.
Outside the Center for American Progress near the White House,
where Uribe held a press conference today, nearly 100
demonstrators marched, carrying signs saying 'Just Say No to
FTA' and 'Colombia: Frightening Terrorist Agreement.'
Nine demonstrators laid on the sidewalk in body bags to
dramatize the violence against innocent people in Colombia.
Bob Baugh, director of the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council,
told the crowd, 'This is a rotten deal.'
John Garces, a Colombian exile whose father was murdered by
paramilitaries, said, 'It pains my heart that the Uribe
government has done nothing to stop the killing of innocent
men like my father, whose only crime was to work to help
better the lives of his fellow workers.'
Now, after all these years of weakening the rights of
workers, of harassing them and murdering them, the
Colombian government has negotiated a free trade agreement
with the United States that will make it almost impossible
for workers in Colombia to ever recover. The entire labor
movement in Colombia is protesting this agreement. If the
FTA was actually going to bring jobs and development to
Colombia, then that wouldn't be the case.
Earlier in the day, the AFL-CIO issued a strong statement
condemning the free trade agreement with Colombia. Four
hundred trade unionists have been killed in Colombia since
Uribe took office in 2002. And his government has made
'repeated-but ineffectual-promises to end the situation of
impunity in the country,' the statement said.
In those cases where the killers are known, government-
supported paramilitary groups or the armed forces or
police have been found to be responsible. Many of Uribe's
senior advisors have been revealed to be connected to the
paramilitary,
This is a corrupt nation and a corrupt regime.
Therefore, we stand with working people in the United
States and Colombia and say no to the [free trade
agreement] with Colombia.
After meeting with Uribe this afternoon, AFL-CIO President
John Sweeney said he delivered the message that the federation
is strongly opposed to a trade agreement at this time.
Colombia's atrocious human rights record sets it apart
from the rest of the world. There is no labor language
that could be inserted into the U.S.- Colombia FTA that
could adequately address the extraordinary-and unpunished-
violence confronting trade unionists in that country.
No labor chapter, no matter how well crafted, will be
sufficient to reduce, much less end, the incidence of the
most extreme and deadly violations of the right to free
association and collective bargaining. And no trade
agreement with Colombia should be considered until the
country meets an established set of human rights
benchmarks.
According to the AFL-CIO statement, those benchmarks for
Colombia should include:
* Severing all ties with paramilitary organizations and
international criminal networks. * Making significant
advances in investigating and prosecuting crimes against
trade unionists. * Providing protection for unions and
trade unionists. * Bringing Colombia's labor laws into
conformity with International Labor Organization (ILO)
standards. * Supporting the ILO office in Colombia to
monitor labor rights compliance and investigate key cases
of assassinations of trade unionists.
At the press conference, Uribe tried to defend his
government's actions, saying he has committed no crime, but
that he has made mistakes. He said he is trying to move
Colombia toward 'institutional democracy' and fight terrorists
at the same time. But at times it seemed Uribe confused
opponents of his government with terrorists.
For example, when asked if he would prosecute multinational
companies that had been shown to have hired paramilitaries to
maintain order among workers, Uribe replied that one of the
first things terrorists do is try to discredit institutions
such as employers, the army and the police.
Responding to another question about reports that human rights
abuses by security forces are on the rise in Colombia, Uribe
said he wants to move toward better protection of human rights
but must be careful not to destroy the army and police in the
process. Never once did he say he would commit to stamping out
human rights abuses or ensure workers' rights.
________________________________________
By James Parks,
May 2, 2007, AFL-CI0 Now
http://blog.aflcio.org/2007/05/02/no-trade-deal-with-a-corrupt-regime/
Colombia is the most dangerous country in the world for trade
unionists. Nearly 2,300 union leaders and members have been
murdered there since 1991 and the government routinely ignores
or violates internationally recognized workers' rights.
Last year alone, 72 trade unionists were murdered in Colombia.
Yet the Bush administration continues to push for a trade deal
with that country.
Colombian President Alvaro Uribe found out today that U.S.
working families will not tolerate their country making deals
with a corrupt regime. Uribe was met with strong opposition to
the Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA) from protesters,
activists and union leaders as he traveled across Washington,
D.C., trying to sell the deal.
The Bush administration submitted the deal to Congress in time
to be considered under its Fast Track trade- promotion
authority, which expires June 30. But workers in both
countries say the deal with Colombia should be renegotiated
because it will hurt workers and push back efforts to bring an
end to the violence against union leaders and ordinary
citizens.
Outside the Center for American Progress near the White House,
where Uribe held a press conference today, nearly 100
demonstrators marched, carrying signs saying 'Just Say No to
FTA' and 'Colombia: Frightening Terrorist Agreement.'
Nine demonstrators laid on the sidewalk in body bags to
dramatize the violence against innocent people in Colombia.
Bob Baugh, director of the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council,
told the crowd, 'This is a rotten deal.'
John Garces, a Colombian exile whose father was murdered by
paramilitaries, said, 'It pains my heart that the Uribe
government has done nothing to stop the killing of innocent
men like my father, whose only crime was to work to help
better the lives of his fellow workers.'
Now, after all these years of weakening the rights of
workers, of harassing them and murdering them, the
Colombian government has negotiated a free trade agreement
with the United States that will make it almost impossible
for workers in Colombia to ever recover. The entire labor
movement in Colombia is protesting this agreement. If the
FTA was actually going to bring jobs and development to
Colombia, then that wouldn't be the case.
Earlier in the day, the AFL-CIO issued a strong statement
condemning the free trade agreement with Colombia. Four
hundred trade unionists have been killed in Colombia since
Uribe took office in 2002. And his government has made
'repeated-but ineffectual-promises to end the situation of
impunity in the country,' the statement said.
In those cases where the killers are known, government-
supported paramilitary groups or the armed forces or
police have been found to be responsible. Many of Uribe's
senior advisors have been revealed to be connected to the
paramilitary,
This is a corrupt nation and a corrupt regime.
Therefore, we stand with working people in the United
States and Colombia and say no to the [free trade
agreement] with Colombia.
After meeting with Uribe this afternoon, AFL-CIO President
John Sweeney said he delivered the message that the federation
is strongly opposed to a trade agreement at this time.
Colombia's atrocious human rights record sets it apart
from the rest of the world. There is no labor language
that could be inserted into the U.S.- Colombia FTA that
could adequately address the extraordinary-and unpunished-
violence confronting trade unionists in that country.
No labor chapter, no matter how well crafted, will be
sufficient to reduce, much less end, the incidence of the
most extreme and deadly violations of the right to free
association and collective bargaining. And no trade
agreement with Colombia should be considered until the
country meets an established set of human rights
benchmarks.
According to the AFL-CIO statement, those benchmarks for
Colombia should include:
* Severing all ties with paramilitary organizations and
international criminal networks. * Making significant
advances in investigating and prosecuting crimes against
trade unionists. * Providing protection for unions and
trade unionists. * Bringing Colombia's labor laws into
conformity with International Labor Organization (ILO)
standards. * Supporting the ILO office in Colombia to
monitor labor rights compliance and investigate key cases
of assassinations of trade unionists.
At the press conference, Uribe tried to defend his
government's actions, saying he has committed no crime, but
that he has made mistakes. He said he is trying to move
Colombia toward 'institutional democracy' and fight terrorists
at the same time. But at times it seemed Uribe confused
opponents of his government with terrorists.
For example, when asked if he would prosecute multinational
companies that had been shown to have hired paramilitaries to
maintain order among workers, Uribe replied that one of the
first things terrorists do is try to discredit institutions
such as employers, the army and the police.
Responding to another question about reports that human rights
abuses by security forces are on the rise in Colombia, Uribe
said he wants to move toward better protection of human rights
but must be careful not to destroy the army and police in the
process. Never once did he say he would commit to stamping out
human rights abuses or ensure workers' rights.
________________________________________
United Nations Special: Human Rights of Migrants
The National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights provides this backgrounder on Special Rapporteurs and update on the ongoing U.S. visit of the SR on the Human Rights of Migrants, to encourage participation and provide documentation and recommendations to the SR on the human rights of migrants.
United Nations Special Rapporteur (S.R.) on
The Human Rights of Migrants
U.S. Visit 2007
Background & FAQ
What are U.N. Special Rapporteurs?
Special Rapporteurs (SRs) are independent experts appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council (formerly the U.N. Commission on Human Rights) with the mandate to monitor, advise and publicly report on human rights situations in specific countries (country mandates) and on human rights violations worldwide (thematic mandates). The thematic mandates cover a wide range of issues relating to civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights, including the human rights of migrants, violence against women, the rights of internally displaced persons, freedom of religion and arbitrary detention, among many others.
What do Special Rapporteurs do?
The functions of SRs include responding to individual complaints, conducting studies, providing advice on technical cooperation and undertaking country visits to assess specific human rights situations. Most SRs also receive information on specific allegations of human rights violations and send urgent appeals or letters of allegation to governments asking for clarification and concrete measures to end rights violations.
In what sense are Special Rapporteurs 'independent'? What is their relationship to the United Nations?
While the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) at the United Nations provides the SRs with the personnel and logistical assistance necessary for them to carry out their mandates, SRs nonetheless serve in their personal capacity, and do not receive salaries or any other financial retribution for their work. The SRs are expected to fulfill tasks that are outlined in specific UN resolutions, but their independent status is crucial for them to be able to fulfill their functions in all impartiality. SRs are prominent human rights experts from various walks of life. They include academics, lawyers, economists, and former and current members of NGOs and come from all regions of the world.
What can be achieved through country visits by Special Rapporteurs?
Amongst their activities, SRs carry out country visits at their request and at the invitation of the country concerned. Country visits are considered a particularly important means by which to highlight human rights violations in a particular country and in placing pressure on the government to remedy the situation. They enable the SR to familiarize him or herself with all aspects of the situation on the ground, and are an excellent way of analyzing and understanding a situation in the light of every possible circumstance. A country visit usually lasts about 2-3 weeks, during which SRs interact with both governmental and non-governmental actors, including human rights and civil liberties organizations, victims of human rights violations, affected communities, the concerned government officials and agencies at both the national and local level. These visits usually require freedom of inquiry, including access to relevant facilities, such as prisons and detention centers. The SRs then submit a report of their visit to the Human Rights Council, presenting their findings, conclusions and recommendations.
What is the specific mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants?
The mandate of the SR on the Human Rights of Migrants was created in 1999 by the Commission on Human Rights (replaced last year by the Human Rights Council) to "examine ways and means to overcome the obstacles existing to the full and effective protection of the human rights of migrants, including obstacles and difficulties for the return of migrants who are undocumented or in an irregular situation." The SR's broad mandate includes the human rights of both documented and undocumented migrants, including issues of 'irregular migration,' such as smuggling, trafficking, and asylum seekers.
What are the main functions of the SR on the Human Rights of Migrants?
The main functions of the SR on the Human Rights of Migrants include requesting and receiving information from all relevant sources, including migrants, regarding violations of the human rights of migrants and their families; formulating recommendations to prevent and remedy such violations; promoting the application of international human rights norms and standards; and recommending actions and measures at the national, regional and international levels. The SR must also take into account a gender perspective when analyzing human rights violations of migrants, including the occurrence of double discrimination and violence against migrant women.
What sort of impact can such a visit have on the situation of migrants in the United States?
The visit of the SR is a good opportunity for communities and community organizations to raise national awareness and to shine international spotlight on the human rights violations of migrants in the U.S. The SR visit to the U.S. is also an opportunity to offer good solutions, share good human rights practices and policies which would significantly improve the condition of migrants. While the SR report and recommendations on his visit to the U.S. are not legally binding, they still carry moral authority and obligation in terms of the U.S. commitment to universal human rights standards, very often asserted by the U.S. in its foreign relations with other nations. In the conclusions and recommendations provided by the SR, pressure may be applied on the U.S. government to rectify the situation and meet universally recognized standards of fairness, due process and minimum respect to the human rights of migrants.
Who is the current SR on the Human Rights of Migrants?
Since 2005, the SR on the Human Rights of Migrants has been Mr. Jorge Bustamante, a Mexican national. Mr. Bustamante is a Professor of sociology teaching international migration and human rights at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana and was the Chairman/Rapporteur for the group of experts on the UN world study on International Migration and Human Rights from 1996 to 1999. Mr. Bustamante replaced Gabriela Rodríguez Pizarro of Costa Rica, who had held the mandate since 1999. His biography can be found at:
http://www.nd.edu/~latino/academics/facultybios-html/bustamante_print.html
U.S. Visit Schedule (as of April 27th, 2007)
Monday, 30 April
San Diego
9:00am Tour of migrant encampments
10:30am Meetings with community groups, NGOs etc. (AFSC, ACLU offices)
5:30pm Community Forum
Tuesday, May 1
8:00am US Customs and border protection: San Diego Sector headquarters (8.00 am - 12.00 pm)
PM Travel from San Diego to Los Angeles
Wednesday, May 2
Los Angeles
AM Meetings with community groups, NGOs etc.
PM Observe May Day marches and rallies
Thursday, May 3
United Nations Special Rapporteur (S.R.) on
The Human Rights of Migrants
U.S. Visit 2007
Background & FAQ
What are U.N. Special Rapporteurs?
Special Rapporteurs (SRs) are independent experts appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council (formerly the U.N. Commission on Human Rights) with the mandate to monitor, advise and publicly report on human rights situations in specific countries (country mandates) and on human rights violations worldwide (thematic mandates). The thematic mandates cover a wide range of issues relating to civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights, including the human rights of migrants, violence against women, the rights of internally displaced persons, freedom of religion and arbitrary detention, among many others.
What do Special Rapporteurs do?
The functions of SRs include responding to individual complaints, conducting studies, providing advice on technical cooperation and undertaking country visits to assess specific human rights situations. Most SRs also receive information on specific allegations of human rights violations and send urgent appeals or letters of allegation to governments asking for clarification and concrete measures to end rights violations.
In what sense are Special Rapporteurs 'independent'? What is their relationship to the United Nations?
While the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) at the United Nations provides the SRs with the personnel and logistical assistance necessary for them to carry out their mandates, SRs nonetheless serve in their personal capacity, and do not receive salaries or any other financial retribution for their work. The SRs are expected to fulfill tasks that are outlined in specific UN resolutions, but their independent status is crucial for them to be able to fulfill their functions in all impartiality. SRs are prominent human rights experts from various walks of life. They include academics, lawyers, economists, and former and current members of NGOs and come from all regions of the world.
What can be achieved through country visits by Special Rapporteurs?
Amongst their activities, SRs carry out country visits at their request and at the invitation of the country concerned. Country visits are considered a particularly important means by which to highlight human rights violations in a particular country and in placing pressure on the government to remedy the situation. They enable the SR to familiarize him or herself with all aspects of the situation on the ground, and are an excellent way of analyzing and understanding a situation in the light of every possible circumstance. A country visit usually lasts about 2-3 weeks, during which SRs interact with both governmental and non-governmental actors, including human rights and civil liberties organizations, victims of human rights violations, affected communities, the concerned government officials and agencies at both the national and local level. These visits usually require freedom of inquiry, including access to relevant facilities, such as prisons and detention centers. The SRs then submit a report of their visit to the Human Rights Council, presenting their findings, conclusions and recommendations.
What is the specific mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants?
The mandate of the SR on the Human Rights of Migrants was created in 1999 by the Commission on Human Rights (replaced last year by the Human Rights Council) to "examine ways and means to overcome the obstacles existing to the full and effective protection of the human rights of migrants, including obstacles and difficulties for the return of migrants who are undocumented or in an irregular situation." The SR's broad mandate includes the human rights of both documented and undocumented migrants, including issues of 'irregular migration,' such as smuggling, trafficking, and asylum seekers.
What are the main functions of the SR on the Human Rights of Migrants?
The main functions of the SR on the Human Rights of Migrants include requesting and receiving information from all relevant sources, including migrants, regarding violations of the human rights of migrants and their families; formulating recommendations to prevent and remedy such violations; promoting the application of international human rights norms and standards; and recommending actions and measures at the national, regional and international levels. The SR must also take into account a gender perspective when analyzing human rights violations of migrants, including the occurrence of double discrimination and violence against migrant women.
What sort of impact can such a visit have on the situation of migrants in the United States?
The visit of the SR is a good opportunity for communities and community organizations to raise national awareness and to shine international spotlight on the human rights violations of migrants in the U.S. The SR visit to the U.S. is also an opportunity to offer good solutions, share good human rights practices and policies which would significantly improve the condition of migrants. While the SR report and recommendations on his visit to the U.S. are not legally binding, they still carry moral authority and obligation in terms of the U.S. commitment to universal human rights standards, very often asserted by the U.S. in its foreign relations with other nations. In the conclusions and recommendations provided by the SR, pressure may be applied on the U.S. government to rectify the situation and meet universally recognized standards of fairness, due process and minimum respect to the human rights of migrants.
Who is the current SR on the Human Rights of Migrants?
Since 2005, the SR on the Human Rights of Migrants has been Mr. Jorge Bustamante, a Mexican national. Mr. Bustamante is a Professor of sociology teaching international migration and human rights at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana and was the Chairman/Rapporteur for the group of experts on the UN world study on International Migration and Human Rights from 1996 to 1999. Mr. Bustamante replaced Gabriela Rodríguez Pizarro of Costa Rica, who had held the mandate since 1999. His biography can be found at:
http://www.nd.edu/~latino/academics/facultybios-html/bustamante_print.html
U.S. Visit Schedule (as of April 27th, 2007)
Monday, 30 April
San Diego
9:00am Tour of migrant encampments
10:30am Meetings with community groups, NGOs etc. (AFSC, ACLU offices)
5:30pm Community Forum
Tuesday, May 1
8:00am US Customs and border protection: San Diego Sector headquarters (8.00 am - 12.00 pm)
PM Travel from San Diego to Los Angeles
Wednesday, May 2
Los Angeles
AM Meetings with community groups, NGOs etc.
PM Observe May Day marches and rallies
Thursday, May 3
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Dia del trabajador
Sindicatos independientes se declaran en pie de lucha
01/05/2007 14:24
México, DF. Organizaciones de sindicatos independientes y campesinas se declararon en pie de lucha contra las reformas estructurales, y advirtieron que no permitirán que les arrebaten conquistas y derechos sindicales.
Los nueve oradores ante el mitin de las diversas organizaciones obreras, campesinas y sociales que confluyeron en el Zócalo de la ciudad de México, coincidieron en mantener la lucha contra lo que, dijeron, constituye una embestida a sus agremiados y para la derogación de la nueva Ley del Instituto de Seguridad y Servicios Sociales de los Trabajadores del Estado (ISSSTE).
Los integrantes de la Unión Nacional de Trabajadores (UNT) y del Frente Sindical Mexicano apoyaron los planteamientos de los dirigentes y quemaron figuras de Elba Esther Gordillo y Joel Ayala.
Agustín Rodríguez, presidente colegiado de la UNT, advirtió que los trabajadores no dudarán en emplazar a una huelga general de continuar acciones contra la clase obrera como la reforma a la Ley del ISSSTE.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Latino Groups Unite Against White House anti immigrant proposals
Latino Groups Unite Against White House
Anti-Family Immigration Proposals
Uniting American families must remain a top priority of immigration policy
APRIL 30, 2007 - Last Thursday, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) and its coalition partners - National Council of La Raza (NCLR), League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) Educational Fund, and Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (LCLAA) - sent a letter to President George W. Bush expressing opposition to White House proposals to cut family-based immigration programs.
Recent reports have signaled that the Administration is urging the U.S. Senate to accept a proposal that eliminates some visa categories for United States citizens to reunite legally with their family members and ignores the traditional importance of families in resettling newcomers in the United States.
"Family reunification must continue to be a cornerstone of our immigration policy. The White House proposal erodes the strength of families and their capacity to equip newcomers with the skills and support to contribute fully to the nation," said John Trasviña, President and General Counsel of MALDEF.
"The notion that strong families are essential to strong communities isn't just a Hispanic American value, it's an American value. We need to preserve family as a basis for our immigration system," said Janet Murguía, NCLR President and CEO.
The groups also issued their strong opposition to a proposed Administration green card plan that replaces family reunification with a point system to allocate visas. The proposal would also prohibit future temporary workers from petitioning for their family members. If enacted, it would keep families apart, impede integration into the American mainstream, and be a further incentive to enter the United States illegally.
"As the president acknowledged, healthy families are invaluable to the nation's well being. It is therefore imperative that families are not being separated due to the Administration's recent posture toward family-based immigration," said LULAC National President Rosa Rosales. "We urge the president to have a heart and remember that family values are at the core of our nation's immigration policy."
According to Arturo Vargas, Executive Director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) Educational Fund, "We are at a critical juncture in our national discussion of our immigration policy. The choices we make now will determine the future of our nation's prosperity and well-being. We urge the president to demonstrate the leadership necessary to chart a course toward comprehensive immigration reform which recognizes and reinforces the value of family reunification for all Americans."
The Latino community urges President Bush to fulfill his commitment to families in this country by supporting and strengthening family values through our nation's immigration policy.
Founded in 1968, MALDEF, the nation's leading Latino legal organization, promotes and protects the rights of Latinos through litigation, advocacy, community education and outreach, leadership development, and higher education scholarships.
Anti-Family Immigration Proposals
Uniting American families must remain a top priority of immigration policy
APRIL 30, 2007 - Last Thursday, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) and its coalition partners - National Council of La Raza (NCLR), League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) Educational Fund, and Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (LCLAA) - sent a letter to President George W. Bush expressing opposition to White House proposals to cut family-based immigration programs.
Recent reports have signaled that the Administration is urging the U.S. Senate to accept a proposal that eliminates some visa categories for United States citizens to reunite legally with their family members and ignores the traditional importance of families in resettling newcomers in the United States.
"Family reunification must continue to be a cornerstone of our immigration policy. The White House proposal erodes the strength of families and their capacity to equip newcomers with the skills and support to contribute fully to the nation," said John Trasviña, President and General Counsel of MALDEF.
"The notion that strong families are essential to strong communities isn't just a Hispanic American value, it's an American value. We need to preserve family as a basis for our immigration system," said Janet Murguía, NCLR President and CEO.
The groups also issued their strong opposition to a proposed Administration green card plan that replaces family reunification with a point system to allocate visas. The proposal would also prohibit future temporary workers from petitioning for their family members. If enacted, it would keep families apart, impede integration into the American mainstream, and be a further incentive to enter the United States illegally.
"As the president acknowledged, healthy families are invaluable to the nation's well being. It is therefore imperative that families are not being separated due to the Administration's recent posture toward family-based immigration," said LULAC National President Rosa Rosales. "We urge the president to have a heart and remember that family values are at the core of our nation's immigration policy."
According to Arturo Vargas, Executive Director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) Educational Fund, "We are at a critical juncture in our national discussion of our immigration policy. The choices we make now will determine the future of our nation's prosperity and well-being. We urge the president to demonstrate the leadership necessary to chart a course toward comprehensive immigration reform which recognizes and reinforces the value of family reunification for all Americans."
The Latino community urges President Bush to fulfill his commitment to families in this country by supporting and strengthening family values through our nation's immigration policy.
Founded in 1968, MALDEF, the nation's leading Latino legal organization, promotes and protects the rights of Latinos through litigation, advocacy, community education and outreach, leadership development, and higher education scholarships.
Saturday, April 28, 2007
May 1 Marches
ALL OUT FOR MAY DAY MARCHES
NO TO THE GUTIERREZ-FLAKE BILL
We invite you to join us in the May 1st, MAY DAY, marches and actions to raise our collective voices to STOP IMMIGRATION RAIDS and DEPORTATIONS, STOP the FORCED SEPARATION OF OUR FAMILIES, LEGALIZATION FOR ALL, and NO BRACERO-TYPE CONTRACT PROGRAMS.
Lastly, we adamantly oppose the Gutierrez-Flake Immigration Bill, known as the STRIVE ACT, introduced last month by Congressmen Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) and Jeff Flake (R-AZ). Our next eNewsletter will provide much more information about the STRIVE ACT by various sources which critique the legislation as deficient and dangerous to immigrants and working people.
We encourage you to download the letters we have posted for your convenience, addressed to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and circulate amongst your family, friends, and work-mates and forward these to the Democratic Party leadership.
MAPA
NO TO THE GUTIERREZ-FLAKE BILL
We invite you to join us in the May 1st, MAY DAY, marches and actions to raise our collective voices to STOP IMMIGRATION RAIDS and DEPORTATIONS, STOP the FORCED SEPARATION OF OUR FAMILIES, LEGALIZATION FOR ALL, and NO BRACERO-TYPE CONTRACT PROGRAMS.
Lastly, we adamantly oppose the Gutierrez-Flake Immigration Bill, known as the STRIVE ACT, introduced last month by Congressmen Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) and Jeff Flake (R-AZ). Our next eNewsletter will provide much more information about the STRIVE ACT by various sources which critique the legislation as deficient and dangerous to immigrants and working people.
We encourage you to download the letters we have posted for your convenience, addressed to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and circulate amongst your family, friends, and work-mates and forward these to the Democratic Party leadership.
MAPA
Friday, April 13, 2007
Carlos Munoz, Graduation Speech
Dr. Carlos Munoz, Jr. UC Berkeley Chicano/Latino Graduation Speech
Carlos Munoz, Jr. Keynote Speech
Chicano/Latino Graduation
Greek Theatre, UC Berkeley
May 20, 2006
It's a pleasure and an honor for me to be here with you to celebrate your graduation. You have been blessed with the intelligence, the love of familia, friends, and community. Most of all, you have been blessed with the work ethic of your parents and the legacies of struggle waged by our ancestors.
You came here prepared to work hard in your studies and to survive whatever obstacles were placed in your path. It was not easy, but you have persevered. You have every right to feel extremely proud of yourself. I know your parents are. And so are those who love you.
Some of you are immigrants. Others of you, like me, are children of immigrants. In particular, children of poor working class immigrants. Like me, some of you are the first in your families to graduate from college. No doubt some of you never thought it possible to get a college education. I remember that my immigrant father simply wanted me to finish high school!
Thanks to the Chicano/Chicana Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, and in particular to the student activists of that generation who struggled to open the doors to these previously all white institutions, you are here tonight. In particular, if it were not for the 1969 "Third World Strike" that was organized by Chicano/Chicana and other students of color, I and the rest of the Latino faculty and staff on this stage, would also not be here tonight.
In the process of working and studying hard to get the knowledge you now have, you have also become more critically aware of the harsh realities and tragedies that regretfully exist throughout our nation and the world at large.
You witnessed the terrorism of 9/11. And more tragically, the even more tragic response by the President and the Congress to wage a war of destruction against a sovereign nation that had nothing to do with 9/11. The war in Iraq has taken its toll of thousands of Iraqi innocent lives. Hundreds of lives of U.S. soldiers, including young Latino and Latina soldiers, your age, or younger, have also died and continue to die today in the streets of Iraq. They should have been here or at another university instead of the streets of Iraq where they met their death.
You have also witnessed another kind of war here at home. It is the war waged against hard working Latino undocumented immigrants and their familias who everyday contribute to the U.S. culture and the economy. At the time when Latino blood is being spilled in the battle fields of Iraq, the Republican controlled House of Representatives wants to criminalize them by making it a felony crime for entering the U.S. without papers. That is what the Sensenbrenner Bill (HR 4437) is all about.
Latino undocumented workers have courageously come out of the shadows by the millions to make clear they, like everyone else, deserves equality and human rights. Their struggle has generated a passion for social justice throughout the nation that has not happened since the 1960s when the farm worker movement led by Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta. And the Black and Chicano Civil Rights movements, and the anti-Vietnam War made a similar impact.
I am extremely proud of those of you graduating tonight who have joined me in taking a strong stance against the injustice of the Sensenbrenner Bill HR 4437 here on this campus and who have marched in the streets of Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco, and elsewhere in solidarity with our undocumented hermanos y hermanas.
The millions of Latinos marching for immigrant
Rights in the streets of cities across this nation has
Also generated fear among those who are committed to preserving the status quo. They are the same ones who have framed Diversity as "un-American" and a source of division in our society. They are the same ones who oppose immigrant rights.
They have made Latinos the main target. For example, Samuel Huntington, a political scientist at Harvard, has argued in his writings that Latinos are the most serious threat to the White dominant culture. He fears that our nation will lose its single national language and its core WASP culture. As he put it, "In this new era, the single most immediate and most serious challenge to America's traditional identity comes from the immense and continuing immigration from Latin America, especially from Mexico."
A new Latino leadership must emerge from your ranks to take on the responsibility of developing a new politics that can build on the positives of our diversity. We need a leadership that has a vision of the future that is based on the multicultural and multiracial reality of what our nation has become. A leadership that is dedicated to the process of building bridges between all the different races and cultures.
You have proven thus far that you have the intellectual and the critical thinking capacity to become this kind of leader for the 21st century.
The task will require new vision of Democracy that must include people of all colors. We are not islands unto ourselves. Latino liberation is not possible without making possible the liberation of people of all colors, including white folks who are not part of the white supremacy structure of power.
In reality, as Latinos we represent everybody. We know we are an indigenous people. But we must also know that we are African, Asian, Middle Eastern, and European. We are Christian, but we are also Muslim and Jewish. We own the original meaning of an authentic Diversity. We are America!
I have been marching for social justice, peace, and Democracy since the 1960s. And I won't stop until the day I die. I know that your generation, and those of you in this graduating class in particular, will continue marching long after I'm gone.
I want to share my Vision for an authentic Multiracial Democracy that I have kept in mind throughout my life of struggle and activism. It is my graduation gift to you to keep in mind as you develop into our nation's leaders.
My vision is that Americans of all colors, religions, sexual preferences, men and women will give birth to an authentic Multiracial Democracy.
A Democracy that will promote a true racial and ethnic diversity and equality in everyday life.
A Democracy that honors its immigrant legacies and values as equal all immigrant workers whether they are documented or undocumented.
A Democracy that will promote social justice, religious tolerance, non-violence, and peace at home and abroad.
A Democracy with a government that will include a representative of every diverse group at the table of political power on behalf of the people, not the military-prison-corporate complex.
A Democracy with a national political multiparty electoral system where candidates for election include the poor and working class, not just those who are rich or middle class. With an electoral system where every vote will in fact be counted. No more Florida's, no more Ohio's, no more Bushes.
A Democracy where human needs are prioritized and not the needs of the rich and the corporations. Where health care and education are defined as Human Rights.
A Democracy that prioritizes youth as the most important Investment for the future of our nation and builds more schools instead of prisons.
THIS VISION WILL TAKE A LONG TIME TO MAKE COME TRUE.
But What I have learned in my lifetime is that struggle is life and life is struggle. But most importantly, that victory is in the struggle!
Congratulations to each and every one of you. Love, Peace, and Justice to you all!
Carlos Munoz, Jr. Keynote Speech
Chicano/Latino Graduation
Greek Theatre, UC Berkeley
May 20, 2006
It's a pleasure and an honor for me to be here with you to celebrate your graduation. You have been blessed with the intelligence, the love of familia, friends, and community. Most of all, you have been blessed with the work ethic of your parents and the legacies of struggle waged by our ancestors.
You came here prepared to work hard in your studies and to survive whatever obstacles were placed in your path. It was not easy, but you have persevered. You have every right to feel extremely proud of yourself. I know your parents are. And so are those who love you.
Some of you are immigrants. Others of you, like me, are children of immigrants. In particular, children of poor working class immigrants. Like me, some of you are the first in your families to graduate from college. No doubt some of you never thought it possible to get a college education. I remember that my immigrant father simply wanted me to finish high school!
Thanks to the Chicano/Chicana Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, and in particular to the student activists of that generation who struggled to open the doors to these previously all white institutions, you are here tonight. In particular, if it were not for the 1969 "Third World Strike" that was organized by Chicano/Chicana and other students of color, I and the rest of the Latino faculty and staff on this stage, would also not be here tonight.
In the process of working and studying hard to get the knowledge you now have, you have also become more critically aware of the harsh realities and tragedies that regretfully exist throughout our nation and the world at large.
You witnessed the terrorism of 9/11. And more tragically, the even more tragic response by the President and the Congress to wage a war of destruction against a sovereign nation that had nothing to do with 9/11. The war in Iraq has taken its toll of thousands of Iraqi innocent lives. Hundreds of lives of U.S. soldiers, including young Latino and Latina soldiers, your age, or younger, have also died and continue to die today in the streets of Iraq. They should have been here or at another university instead of the streets of Iraq where they met their death.
You have also witnessed another kind of war here at home. It is the war waged against hard working Latino undocumented immigrants and their familias who everyday contribute to the U.S. culture and the economy. At the time when Latino blood is being spilled in the battle fields of Iraq, the Republican controlled House of Representatives wants to criminalize them by making it a felony crime for entering the U.S. without papers. That is what the Sensenbrenner Bill (HR 4437) is all about.
Latino undocumented workers have courageously come out of the shadows by the millions to make clear they, like everyone else, deserves equality and human rights. Their struggle has generated a passion for social justice throughout the nation that has not happened since the 1960s when the farm worker movement led by Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta. And the Black and Chicano Civil Rights movements, and the anti-Vietnam War made a similar impact.
I am extremely proud of those of you graduating tonight who have joined me in taking a strong stance against the injustice of the Sensenbrenner Bill HR 4437 here on this campus and who have marched in the streets of Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco, and elsewhere in solidarity with our undocumented hermanos y hermanas.
The millions of Latinos marching for immigrant
Rights in the streets of cities across this nation has
Also generated fear among those who are committed to preserving the status quo. They are the same ones who have framed Diversity as "un-American" and a source of division in our society. They are the same ones who oppose immigrant rights.
They have made Latinos the main target. For example, Samuel Huntington, a political scientist at Harvard, has argued in his writings that Latinos are the most serious threat to the White dominant culture. He fears that our nation will lose its single national language and its core WASP culture. As he put it, "In this new era, the single most immediate and most serious challenge to America's traditional identity comes from the immense and continuing immigration from Latin America, especially from Mexico."
A new Latino leadership must emerge from your ranks to take on the responsibility of developing a new politics that can build on the positives of our diversity. We need a leadership that has a vision of the future that is based on the multicultural and multiracial reality of what our nation has become. A leadership that is dedicated to the process of building bridges between all the different races and cultures.
You have proven thus far that you have the intellectual and the critical thinking capacity to become this kind of leader for the 21st century.
The task will require new vision of Democracy that must include people of all colors. We are not islands unto ourselves. Latino liberation is not possible without making possible the liberation of people of all colors, including white folks who are not part of the white supremacy structure of power.
In reality, as Latinos we represent everybody. We know we are an indigenous people. But we must also know that we are African, Asian, Middle Eastern, and European. We are Christian, but we are also Muslim and Jewish. We own the original meaning of an authentic Diversity. We are America!
I have been marching for social justice, peace, and Democracy since the 1960s. And I won't stop until the day I die. I know that your generation, and those of you in this graduating class in particular, will continue marching long after I'm gone.
I want to share my Vision for an authentic Multiracial Democracy that I have kept in mind throughout my life of struggle and activism. It is my graduation gift to you to keep in mind as you develop into our nation's leaders.
My vision is that Americans of all colors, religions, sexual preferences, men and women will give birth to an authentic Multiracial Democracy.
A Democracy that will promote a true racial and ethnic diversity and equality in everyday life.
A Democracy that honors its immigrant legacies and values as equal all immigrant workers whether they are documented or undocumented.
A Democracy that will promote social justice, religious tolerance, non-violence, and peace at home and abroad.
A Democracy with a government that will include a representative of every diverse group at the table of political power on behalf of the people, not the military-prison-corporate complex.
A Democracy with a national political multiparty electoral system where candidates for election include the poor and working class, not just those who are rich or middle class. With an electoral system where every vote will in fact be counted. No more Florida's, no more Ohio's, no more Bushes.
A Democracy where human needs are prioritized and not the needs of the rich and the corporations. Where health care and education are defined as Human Rights.
A Democracy that prioritizes youth as the most important Investment for the future of our nation and builds more schools instead of prisons.
THIS VISION WILL TAKE A LONG TIME TO MAKE COME TRUE.
But What I have learned in my lifetime is that struggle is life and life is struggle. But most importantly, that victory is in the struggle!
Congratulations to each and every one of you. Love, Peace, and Justice to you all!
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Guest workers: braceros; a bad idea
Guest workers: a worn-out labor idea
Such programs are bad for immigrants and hurt U.S. workers as well.
By John J. Sweeney and Pablo Alvarado
JOHN J. SWEENEY is president of the AFL-CIO. PABLO ALVARADO is executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network.
April 10, 2007
CORPORATE America has made an expanded guest worker program the cornerstone of its preferred brand of immigration reform, and no wonder: It will assure a steady flow of cheap labor from essentially indentured workers too afraid of being deported to protest substandard wages, chiseled benefits and unsafe working conditions.
Such a system will create a disenfranchised underclass of workers. That is not only morally indefensible, it is economically nonsensical. We've had plenty of bad experiences with such shortsighted answers to a complicated problem.
The notorious bracero program all but enslaved immigrant agricultural and railroad workers in the years after World War II. Today we have H-2A and H-2B visa programs to remind us that "temporary" immigration employment models rest on a faulty foundation.
The H-2 programs bring in agricultural and other seasonal workers to pick crops, do construction and work in the seafood industry, among other jobs. Workers typically borrow large amounts of money to pay travel expenses, fees and sometimes bribes to recruiters. That means that before they even begin to work, they are indebted. They leave their families at home, and they are essentially "bound" to employers who can send them home on a whim and who do not have to prove a need to hire them in the first place.
According to a new study published by the Southern Poverty Law Center, it is not unusual for a Guatemalan worker to pay more than $2,500 in fees to obtain a seasonal guest worker position, about a year's worth of income in Guatemala. And Thai workers have been known to pay as much as $10,000 for the chance to harvest crops in the orchards of the Pacific Northwest. Interest rates on the loans are sometimes as high as 20% a month. Homes and vehicles are required collateral. Handcuffed by their debt, the "guests" are forced to remain and work for employers even when their pay and working conditions are second-rate, hazardous or abusive. Hungry children inevitably checkmate protest.
Technically, these programs include some legal protections, but in reality, those protections exist mostly on paper. Government enforcement is almost nonexistent. Private attorneys refuse to take cases. And guest workers, especially the poorest, the least educated and those with the least English, end up with no choice but to put their heads down and toil, innocently undermining employment standards for all U.S. workers in the process.
This doesn't mean that there is no solution to the immigration crisis or no good way to deal with workers and families who will want to come — and who we will need to come — to the United States to work.
In 1997, the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform validated our belief that a "properly regulated system of permanent admissions serves the national interest" and warned that another temporary-worker program would be a "grievous mistake." This means that everyone who is admitted to work must immediately be on a track toward permanent residency or citizenship.
Yes, employers who can prove that they tried and failed to find U.S. workers should be able to hire foreign workers. But no, they shouldn't be able to bring them in under abusive conditions that have a negative effect on the wages and working conditions of other workers.
Yes, we should have caps set to limit the number of employment-based visas issued each year. But no, they should not be determined, as the H-2 quotas are now, by political compromise or industry lobbying. The number of employment-based visas should be set each year by the Department of Labor based on macro-economic indicators that establish the needs of particular industries.
Employers should not be allowed to recruit abroad, a practice that invites bribes, exorbitant fees and potential abuse. Instead, employers should be required to hire from applications filed by workers in their home countries through a computerized job bank.
Foreign workers should enjoy the same rights and protections as U.S. workers, including freedom to form unions and bargain for a better life. Labor laws must protect all workers, regardless of immigration status. If we leave undocumented workers without any real way to enforce labor laws, as our laws do now, we are feeding employers' hunger for more and more exploitable workers, relegating them to second-class status. That hurts all workers.
Scholars have long recognized that the genius of U.S. immigration policy throughout our history has been the opportunity afforded to immigrants for full membership in society. That is the solid foundation on which a morally and economically sound policy can be built, and it is the foundation we are working together to build.
Such programs are bad for immigrants and hurt U.S. workers as well.
By John J. Sweeney and Pablo Alvarado
JOHN J. SWEENEY is president of the AFL-CIO. PABLO ALVARADO is executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network.
April 10, 2007
CORPORATE America has made an expanded guest worker program the cornerstone of its preferred brand of immigration reform, and no wonder: It will assure a steady flow of cheap labor from essentially indentured workers too afraid of being deported to protest substandard wages, chiseled benefits and unsafe working conditions.
Such a system will create a disenfranchised underclass of workers. That is not only morally indefensible, it is economically nonsensical. We've had plenty of bad experiences with such shortsighted answers to a complicated problem.
The notorious bracero program all but enslaved immigrant agricultural and railroad workers in the years after World War II. Today we have H-2A and H-2B visa programs to remind us that "temporary" immigration employment models rest on a faulty foundation.
The H-2 programs bring in agricultural and other seasonal workers to pick crops, do construction and work in the seafood industry, among other jobs. Workers typically borrow large amounts of money to pay travel expenses, fees and sometimes bribes to recruiters. That means that before they even begin to work, they are indebted. They leave their families at home, and they are essentially "bound" to employers who can send them home on a whim and who do not have to prove a need to hire them in the first place.
According to a new study published by the Southern Poverty Law Center, it is not unusual for a Guatemalan worker to pay more than $2,500 in fees to obtain a seasonal guest worker position, about a year's worth of income in Guatemala. And Thai workers have been known to pay as much as $10,000 for the chance to harvest crops in the orchards of the Pacific Northwest. Interest rates on the loans are sometimes as high as 20% a month. Homes and vehicles are required collateral. Handcuffed by their debt, the "guests" are forced to remain and work for employers even when their pay and working conditions are second-rate, hazardous or abusive. Hungry children inevitably checkmate protest.
Technically, these programs include some legal protections, but in reality, those protections exist mostly on paper. Government enforcement is almost nonexistent. Private attorneys refuse to take cases. And guest workers, especially the poorest, the least educated and those with the least English, end up with no choice but to put their heads down and toil, innocently undermining employment standards for all U.S. workers in the process.
This doesn't mean that there is no solution to the immigration crisis or no good way to deal with workers and families who will want to come — and who we will need to come — to the United States to work.
In 1997, the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform validated our belief that a "properly regulated system of permanent admissions serves the national interest" and warned that another temporary-worker program would be a "grievous mistake." This means that everyone who is admitted to work must immediately be on a track toward permanent residency or citizenship.
Yes, employers who can prove that they tried and failed to find U.S. workers should be able to hire foreign workers. But no, they shouldn't be able to bring them in under abusive conditions that have a negative effect on the wages and working conditions of other workers.
Yes, we should have caps set to limit the number of employment-based visas issued each year. But no, they should not be determined, as the H-2 quotas are now, by political compromise or industry lobbying. The number of employment-based visas should be set each year by the Department of Labor based on macro-economic indicators that establish the needs of particular industries.
Employers should not be allowed to recruit abroad, a practice that invites bribes, exorbitant fees and potential abuse. Instead, employers should be required to hire from applications filed by workers in their home countries through a computerized job bank.
Foreign workers should enjoy the same rights and protections as U.S. workers, including freedom to form unions and bargain for a better life. Labor laws must protect all workers, regardless of immigration status. If we leave undocumented workers without any real way to enforce labor laws, as our laws do now, we are feeding employers' hunger for more and more exploitable workers, relegating them to second-class status. That hurts all workers.
Scholars have long recognized that the genius of U.S. immigration policy throughout our history has been the opportunity afforded to immigrants for full membership in society. That is the solid foundation on which a morally and economically sound policy can be built, and it is the foundation we are working together to build.
Sunday, April 08, 2007
Immigrants March in Los Angeles
Thousands march in LA to protest immigration plan
By Peter Prengaman, Associated Press | April 8, 2007
LOS ANGELES -- Thousands of people marched through downtown yesterday, demanding a way for the country's estimated 12 million illegal immigrants to become citizens and condemning President Bush's latest proposal.
Carrying signs saying "Amnesty Now," about 15,000 people danced to Mexican ranchera music and passed large American flags over their heads.
Organizers said many illegal immigrants were angry about a White House plan that would grant them work visas but require them to return home and pay thousands of dollars to become legal US residents.
"Charging that much, Bush is going to be even more expensive than the coyotes," said protester Armando Garcia, 50, referring to smugglers who transport people across the Mexican border.
Alfredo Gonzalez, 33, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, marched with his wife and daughters, 6 and 8 years old. He said he fears the immigration raids occurring across the country.
"If they kick me out, who is going to take care of my daughters? The government? I don't think so," he said. "We need full legalization and need it now."
Immigrant rights advocates say many of California's illegal immigrants feel betrayed by President Bush, who they had long considered an ally.
"People are really upset," said Juan Jose Gutierrez, president of Los Angeles-based Latino Movement USA, one of several organizers of the rally. "For years, the president spoke in no uncertain terms about supporting immigration reform. . . . Then this kind of plan comes out and people are so frustrated."
The White House's draft plan, which was recently leaked, calls for a new "Z" visa that would allow illegal immigrant workers to apply for three-year work permits. They would be renewable indefinitely, but would cost $3,500 each time.
To get a permit and become legal permanent residents, illegal immigrants would have to return to their home country, apply at a US embassy or consulate to reenter legally, and pay a $10,000 fine.
The proposal has been sharply criticized by Hispanic advocacy groups, Democrats, the Roman Catholic Church, and unions that have many immigrants in their ranks. They argue the cost of work permits and the green card application -- which could total more than $20,000 -- are prohibitive for low-wage earners.
The plan is far more conservative than the one passed by the Senate last year with bipartisan backing and support from President Bush.
That plan would have allowed many of the country's estimated 12 million illegal immigrants to stay in the United States, work, and apply to become legal residents after learning English, pay small fines and back taxes, and clear a background check.
Many conservatives in the Senate opposed that plan, and it failed to gain traction in the then Republican-controlled House, which at the end of 2005 passed the punitive immigration bill that angered immigrant communities and led to massive protests.
In Arizona last week, authorities found at least 80 suspected illegal immigrants in a house west of Phoenix and arrested two suspected smugglers, a police official said.
Authorities shot tear gas into the house Friday, forcing one of the suspected smugglers out. They found the other suspect hiding in the attic, Peoria police spokesman Mike Tellef said.
He said authorities became aware of the drop house after a Michigan resident called US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, saying one of their relatives had called because the smugglers were demanding more money.
The immigrants were in the custody of ICE. Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for the agency, did not confirm how ICE became aware of the drop house and declined to release further information.
© Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
By Peter Prengaman, Associated Press | April 8, 2007
LOS ANGELES -- Thousands of people marched through downtown yesterday, demanding a way for the country's estimated 12 million illegal immigrants to become citizens and condemning President Bush's latest proposal.
Carrying signs saying "Amnesty Now," about 15,000 people danced to Mexican ranchera music and passed large American flags over their heads.
Organizers said many illegal immigrants were angry about a White House plan that would grant them work visas but require them to return home and pay thousands of dollars to become legal US residents.
"Charging that much, Bush is going to be even more expensive than the coyotes," said protester Armando Garcia, 50, referring to smugglers who transport people across the Mexican border.
Alfredo Gonzalez, 33, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, marched with his wife and daughters, 6 and 8 years old. He said he fears the immigration raids occurring across the country.
"If they kick me out, who is going to take care of my daughters? The government? I don't think so," he said. "We need full legalization and need it now."
Immigrant rights advocates say many of California's illegal immigrants feel betrayed by President Bush, who they had long considered an ally.
"People are really upset," said Juan Jose Gutierrez, president of Los Angeles-based Latino Movement USA, one of several organizers of the rally. "For years, the president spoke in no uncertain terms about supporting immigration reform. . . . Then this kind of plan comes out and people are so frustrated."
The White House's draft plan, which was recently leaked, calls for a new "Z" visa that would allow illegal immigrant workers to apply for three-year work permits. They would be renewable indefinitely, but would cost $3,500 each time.
To get a permit and become legal permanent residents, illegal immigrants would have to return to their home country, apply at a US embassy or consulate to reenter legally, and pay a $10,000 fine.
The proposal has been sharply criticized by Hispanic advocacy groups, Democrats, the Roman Catholic Church, and unions that have many immigrants in their ranks. They argue the cost of work permits and the green card application -- which could total more than $20,000 -- are prohibitive for low-wage earners.
The plan is far more conservative than the one passed by the Senate last year with bipartisan backing and support from President Bush.
That plan would have allowed many of the country's estimated 12 million illegal immigrants to stay in the United States, work, and apply to become legal residents after learning English, pay small fines and back taxes, and clear a background check.
Many conservatives in the Senate opposed that plan, and it failed to gain traction in the then Republican-controlled House, which at the end of 2005 passed the punitive immigration bill that angered immigrant communities and led to massive protests.
In Arizona last week, authorities found at least 80 suspected illegal immigrants in a house west of Phoenix and arrested two suspected smugglers, a police official said.
Authorities shot tear gas into the house Friday, forcing one of the suspected smugglers out. They found the other suspect hiding in the attic, Peoria police spokesman Mike Tellef said.
He said authorities became aware of the drop house after a Michigan resident called US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, saying one of their relatives had called because the smugglers were demanding more money.
The immigrants were in the custody of ICE. Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for the agency, did not confirm how ICE became aware of the drop house and declined to release further information.
© Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
Monday, April 02, 2007
Labor activists murdered in Columbia
Baltimore Sun April 2, 2007
WASHINGTON -- Carmen Cecilia Santana Romana, a 28-year-
old mother of three and a national trade union officer,
was shot dead in her home in Antioquia, Colombia, on
Feb. 7. Her murder came as little surprise; the most
dangerous country in the world for trade unionists is
Colombia, which will become Washington's newest free
trade partner unless Congress stops the deal.
Some Democrats may be eager to show that they are not
obstructionists on trade by cutting a deal with the
Bush administration to "fix" the U.S.-Colombia Free
Trade Agreement and passing the revised accord. But
that's the wrong approach with Colombia. Congress
should reject the pact outright.
In Colombia, trade unionists who are not murdered are
often threatened, attacked or kidnapped. The
overwhelming majority of cases are unsolved; many are
never investigated, and the perpetrators go unpunished,
ready to strike again. The government says 58 unionists
were murdered in Colombia in 2006, up from 40 the year
before. Labor groups report even higher totals: 77
murdered in 2006, up from 70 in 2005.
Colombia is a violent country, but its trade unionists
are not random casualties. They are especially targeted
when exercising their rights to organize and bargain
collectively, moments of great potential for change.
Change threatens Colombia's two main guerrilla groups
and its Mafia-like paramilitaries, often linked to the
anti-union violence. Change also threatens the
government, which has proved more likely to be
infiltrated by paramilitaries than to pursue them and
more likely to grant them concessions than to impose
punishment.
Despite $4 billion in U.S. support through Plan
Colombia, the Colombian government has yet to take a
tough stand against paramilitaries. Since paramilitary
demobilization began four years ago, Colombia has doled
out the benefits of the process while imposing few of
the burdens. Demobilized paramilitary leaders were
supposed to stop illegal activity, but paramilitaries
are still involved in violence and drug trafficking.
And leaders can continue masterminding crimes from
prison on unrestricted cell phones.
Paramilitary influence may well reach into the
country's highest circles of power. On Feb. 22, the
Colombian intelligence agency's head from 2002 to 2005
was arrested on charges of conspiring with
paramilitaries, including in the killing of union
leaders and academics. The Colombian Supreme Court has
ordered the arrest of nine congressmen from President
Alvaro Uribe's coalition for their links with
paramilitaries. More than a dozen other politicians are
also under investigation. Mr. Uribe is spinning these
developments as evidence of his willingness to clean
house, yet they resulted from independent
investigations by judicial institutions and the media.
The U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement, signed in
November 2006 and awaiting congressional consideration,
would reward Colombia with prized access to American
markets even as its workers' rights are brutally
violated.
The vital labor rights fixes that congressional
Democrats proposed last week for all pending and future
free trade accords would not come close to addressing
Colombia's problems.
Its human rights problems go far beyond its weak labor
laws and their poor enforcement. They cannot be solved
through corrections to the trade agreement. Human
Rights Watch, which normally takes no position on free
trade per se, opposes any free trade accord with
Colombia because of its egregious record on human
rights.
Before Colombia enjoys a free trade agreement with the
United States, it must take a hard line on
paramilitarism by initiating serious investigations and
prosecutions of cases of violence and threats against
trade unionists and by protecting potential witnesses.
The U.S. government should fund the human rights unit
of the Colombian attorney general's office to help meet
these goals, conditioned upon continued "measurable
progress" toward their fulfillment. But it should not
reward the country with a free trade agreement.
If the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement enters into
force, U.S. producers will compete directly against
Colombian producers whose workers often cannot exercise
basic rights without risking their lives. The United
States will also have demonstrated a double standard in
its "war on terror," rewarding with much-coveted trade
benefits a country that stands by while its narco-
terrorist paramilitaries crush fundamental human
rights. ______
Carol Pier is a senior researcher on labor rights and
trade at Human Rights Watch. Her e-mail is
pierc@hrw.org.
WASHINGTON -- Carmen Cecilia Santana Romana, a 28-year-
old mother of three and a national trade union officer,
was shot dead in her home in Antioquia, Colombia, on
Feb. 7. Her murder came as little surprise; the most
dangerous country in the world for trade unionists is
Colombia, which will become Washington's newest free
trade partner unless Congress stops the deal.
Some Democrats may be eager to show that they are not
obstructionists on trade by cutting a deal with the
Bush administration to "fix" the U.S.-Colombia Free
Trade Agreement and passing the revised accord. But
that's the wrong approach with Colombia. Congress
should reject the pact outright.
In Colombia, trade unionists who are not murdered are
often threatened, attacked or kidnapped. The
overwhelming majority of cases are unsolved; many are
never investigated, and the perpetrators go unpunished,
ready to strike again. The government says 58 unionists
were murdered in Colombia in 2006, up from 40 the year
before. Labor groups report even higher totals: 77
murdered in 2006, up from 70 in 2005.
Colombia is a violent country, but its trade unionists
are not random casualties. They are especially targeted
when exercising their rights to organize and bargain
collectively, moments of great potential for change.
Change threatens Colombia's two main guerrilla groups
and its Mafia-like paramilitaries, often linked to the
anti-union violence. Change also threatens the
government, which has proved more likely to be
infiltrated by paramilitaries than to pursue them and
more likely to grant them concessions than to impose
punishment.
Despite $4 billion in U.S. support through Plan
Colombia, the Colombian government has yet to take a
tough stand against paramilitaries. Since paramilitary
demobilization began four years ago, Colombia has doled
out the benefits of the process while imposing few of
the burdens. Demobilized paramilitary leaders were
supposed to stop illegal activity, but paramilitaries
are still involved in violence and drug trafficking.
And leaders can continue masterminding crimes from
prison on unrestricted cell phones.
Paramilitary influence may well reach into the
country's highest circles of power. On Feb. 22, the
Colombian intelligence agency's head from 2002 to 2005
was arrested on charges of conspiring with
paramilitaries, including in the killing of union
leaders and academics. The Colombian Supreme Court has
ordered the arrest of nine congressmen from President
Alvaro Uribe's coalition for their links with
paramilitaries. More than a dozen other politicians are
also under investigation. Mr. Uribe is spinning these
developments as evidence of his willingness to clean
house, yet they resulted from independent
investigations by judicial institutions and the media.
The U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement, signed in
November 2006 and awaiting congressional consideration,
would reward Colombia with prized access to American
markets even as its workers' rights are brutally
violated.
The vital labor rights fixes that congressional
Democrats proposed last week for all pending and future
free trade accords would not come close to addressing
Colombia's problems.
Its human rights problems go far beyond its weak labor
laws and their poor enforcement. They cannot be solved
through corrections to the trade agreement. Human
Rights Watch, which normally takes no position on free
trade per se, opposes any free trade accord with
Colombia because of its egregious record on human
rights.
Before Colombia enjoys a free trade agreement with the
United States, it must take a hard line on
paramilitarism by initiating serious investigations and
prosecutions of cases of violence and threats against
trade unionists and by protecting potential witnesses.
The U.S. government should fund the human rights unit
of the Colombian attorney general's office to help meet
these goals, conditioned upon continued "measurable
progress" toward their fulfillment. But it should not
reward the country with a free trade agreement.
If the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement enters into
force, U.S. producers will compete directly against
Colombian producers whose workers often cannot exercise
basic rights without risking their lives. The United
States will also have demonstrated a double standard in
its "war on terror," rewarding with much-coveted trade
benefits a country that stands by while its narco-
terrorist paramilitaries crush fundamental human
rights. ______
Carol Pier is a senior researcher on labor rights and
trade at Human Rights Watch. Her e-mail is
pierc@hrw.org.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Cesar Chavez: Presente
César Chávez: "Presente"
By Duane E. Campbell
The spirit of Cesar Chavez lives on in the struggle for union rights and justice in the fields of California. Along with Dolores Huerta, Philip Vera Cruz, and others, César created the United Farm Workers (UFW) the first successful union of farm workers in U.S. history. There had been more than ten prior attempts to build a farm workers union.
The United Cannery and Packinghouse Workers (UCAPAWA) organized in the 1930's, the National Farm Workers Union (NFW) led by Ernesto Galarza tried to organize Farm workers in the 40's and 50's. In 1959, the AFL-CIO tried to organize again with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC). AWOC had several weaknesses, including a top down leadership selected by AFL-CIO leaders, not by farm workers, and a strategy of working cooperatively with labor contractors. AWOC continued the prior efforts of Ernesto Galarza and the NFW in struggling against "braceros" or guest workers, contract workers imported from Mexico, from breaking strikes. A renewed "guest worker" bill is presently before Congress.
Each of the prior attempts to organize farm worker unions were destroyed by racism and corporate power. Chávez chose to build a union that incorporated the strategies of social movements and allied itself with the churches, students, and organized labor. The successful creation of the UFW changed the nature of labor organizing in the Southwest and contributed significantly to the birth of Latino politics in the U.S.
Today, under the leadership of UFW president Arturo Rodriguez, over 28,000 farm workers enjoy benefits on the job. They are incorporated into California's educational, health and civic communities. The UFW has shown the AFL-CIO that immigrants can and must be organized. In 2002 we won significant victories in the legislature and numerous elections.
César Chavez, Dolores Huerta, Philip Vera Cruz, and others deliberately created a multiracial organization, Mexican, Mexican American, Filipino, African-American, Dominican, Puerto Rican and Arab workers, among others, have been part of the UFW. This cross racial organizing was necessary in order to combat the prior divisions and exploitations of workers based upon race and language. Dividing the workers on racial and language lines always left the corporations the winners.
In the 60's Chávez became the pre-eminent civil rights leader for the Mexican and Chicano workers, helping with local union struggles throughout the nation. He worked tirelessly to make people aware of the struggles of farm workers for better pay and safer working conditions. It is a testament to Cesar Chavez's skills and courage that the UFW even survived. They were opposed by major interests in corporate agriculture including the Bruce Church and Gallo Corporations as well as the leadership of the Republican Party then led by Ronald Reagan. Workers were fired, beaten, threatened and even killed in pursuit of union benefits . Non union farm workers today continue to live on sub-poverty wages while producing the abundant crops in the richest valley, in the richest state in the richest nation in the world.
In response to corporate power, Cesar developed new strategies, such as the boycott, based upon his personal commitment to non-violence in the tradition of Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr. César Chavez died in his sleep on April 23, 1993 near Yuma, Arizona.
Today Mexican, Mexican American and Puerto Rican union leadership is common in our major cities and in several industries. For myself and others, the UFW was a school for organizing. Hundreds of activists in labor and community organizations owe their skills to UFW training and experience. Along with improved working conditions, salaries, and benefits, training this cadre of organizers remains a major legacy of the UFW.
César taught us that all organizations have problems, that all organizations are imperfect. But, if you wait for the perfect organization, nothing gets done. Building popular organizations builds people's power, and democracy. Chavez' legacy to popular struggles, to Chicano/Mexicano self determination and to unions for the immigrant workers is beyond measure. He is present in all of our work. I plan to march on March March 31,2007 in memory of Cesar Chavez' contributions building a more democratic society for working people. You can find our more about this remarkable leader at www.ufw.org
And, www.cesarchavezfoundation.org
Duane Campbell is a Professor of Bilingual/Multicultural Education at Calif. State University-Sacramento and the author of Choosing Democracy; a practical guide to multicultural education. (Merrill/Pren Hall.2004)
Sacramento March. 10 Am. South Side Park.
Democracy, Honest government in Bolivia
Democracy Pays Off in Bolivia
By Mark Weisbrot
March 19, 2007, McClatchy-Tribune Information Services
March 26, 2007, Taiwan News
"In our culture, there is a cosmic law. Don’t steal. Don’t lie. Don’t be lazy . . . in our culture, honesty is very important. I’m convinced still that it was that honesty that allowed me to arrive at the presidency."
That was Bolivian President Evo Morales in an interview during his first trip ever to the United States last September. Morales, an Aymara Indian, is the first indigenous president in South America in more than five centuries.
He appears to be practicing what he preaches. The workday for the President and his cabinet begins at 5 a.m. and often goes past 11 p.m. There is no hint of corruption in the presidency, nor would it be tolerated. And as he passed his first year in office last month, the benefits of honest government were showing.
In the last year the government's revenue from hydrocarbons (mostly natural gas) has increased by more than $340 million dollars, an amount that – relative to Bolivia's economy – is about 70 percent bigger than our federal budget deficit. It has tripled in the last two years, and is expected to triple again over the next four years, due to the government's decision to re-nationalize the industry.
In the United States we don't usually associate nationalization with good government, but for a country that is highly dependent on natural resource exports it can make a huge difference for the public to get its share of the revenues from these resources, rather than having corrupt officials give them away to foreign companies.
This is especially true if the government is committed to using these revenues to benefit the poor. In Bolivia, the poorest country in South America, this includes 64 percent of the population. The Morales government has been investing in the poor: for example, it has approved a program of free reproductive health services for women, is expanding health care to children and people over 60, and building rural clinics. More than 5 million acres of previously state-owned land have been distributed to people in the countryside, and the government has plans to redistribute an area the size of Nebraska.
These are all reforms that Morales promised in his electoral campaign, which he won with the largest margin in Bolivia's history of democratic elections. That is the way democracy is supposed to work: people vote for change, and they get it.
Not everyone sees it that way. Last month, the former US National Intelligence Director, John Negroponte, now the number two official in the State Department, said that democracy "is at risk" in Bolivia. And Bolivia's government is often portrayed here in Cold War terms reminiscent of the 1950s: as part of an "anti-American" alliance of left governments – generally including Venezuela and Cuba – that we should be worried about.
This obscures what is really happening in Bolivia, which has little to do with any foreign countries but is a product of its own political process. The drafting of a new constitution, re-nationalization of the gas industry, land reform, and the rejection of a U.S.-sponsored trade agreement are all demands that came directly – and very insistently – from the Bolivian people. The Bolivians tried Washington's prescription for economic development for decades – and it failed miserably. Aside from the glaring inequality that is obvious to any visitor, the country's per capita income today is less than it was a quarter-century ago. So now they are trying something different, and have put together their own national development plan. But the government has maintained good relations with Washington and still sees the United States as an important trading partner.
The Morales government has made mistakes – for example in dealing with movements for local autonomy in the wealthier eastern regions of the country. But it appears to learn from its mistakes, and has avoided the repression deployed by its predecessors – the prior government killed dozens of people in the streets -- even in the face of violent protests. It faces many daunting challenges, mostly in putting together an efficient and effective government at all levels and implementing a development strategy that can reduce the country's dependence on natural resources. But honest government at the top is a good start, and worthy of respect.
Mark Weisbrot is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, in Washington, D.C.
By Mark Weisbrot
March 19, 2007, McClatchy-Tribune Information Services
March 26, 2007, Taiwan News
"In our culture, there is a cosmic law. Don’t steal. Don’t lie. Don’t be lazy . . . in our culture, honesty is very important. I’m convinced still that it was that honesty that allowed me to arrive at the presidency."
That was Bolivian President Evo Morales in an interview during his first trip ever to the United States last September. Morales, an Aymara Indian, is the first indigenous president in South America in more than five centuries.
He appears to be practicing what he preaches. The workday for the President and his cabinet begins at 5 a.m. and often goes past 11 p.m. There is no hint of corruption in the presidency, nor would it be tolerated. And as he passed his first year in office last month, the benefits of honest government were showing.
In the last year the government's revenue from hydrocarbons (mostly natural gas) has increased by more than $340 million dollars, an amount that – relative to Bolivia's economy – is about 70 percent bigger than our federal budget deficit. It has tripled in the last two years, and is expected to triple again over the next four years, due to the government's decision to re-nationalize the industry.
In the United States we don't usually associate nationalization with good government, but for a country that is highly dependent on natural resource exports it can make a huge difference for the public to get its share of the revenues from these resources, rather than having corrupt officials give them away to foreign companies.
This is especially true if the government is committed to using these revenues to benefit the poor. In Bolivia, the poorest country in South America, this includes 64 percent of the population. The Morales government has been investing in the poor: for example, it has approved a program of free reproductive health services for women, is expanding health care to children and people over 60, and building rural clinics. More than 5 million acres of previously state-owned land have been distributed to people in the countryside, and the government has plans to redistribute an area the size of Nebraska.
These are all reforms that Morales promised in his electoral campaign, which he won with the largest margin in Bolivia's history of democratic elections. That is the way democracy is supposed to work: people vote for change, and they get it.
Not everyone sees it that way. Last month, the former US National Intelligence Director, John Negroponte, now the number two official in the State Department, said that democracy "is at risk" in Bolivia. And Bolivia's government is often portrayed here in Cold War terms reminiscent of the 1950s: as part of an "anti-American" alliance of left governments – generally including Venezuela and Cuba – that we should be worried about.
This obscures what is really happening in Bolivia, which has little to do with any foreign countries but is a product of its own political process. The drafting of a new constitution, re-nationalization of the gas industry, land reform, and the rejection of a U.S.-sponsored trade agreement are all demands that came directly – and very insistently – from the Bolivian people. The Bolivians tried Washington's prescription for economic development for decades – and it failed miserably. Aside from the glaring inequality that is obvious to any visitor, the country's per capita income today is less than it was a quarter-century ago. So now they are trying something different, and have put together their own national development plan. But the government has maintained good relations with Washington and still sees the United States as an important trading partner.
The Morales government has made mistakes – for example in dealing with movements for local autonomy in the wealthier eastern regions of the country. But it appears to learn from its mistakes, and has avoided the repression deployed by its predecessors – the prior government killed dozens of people in the streets -- even in the face of violent protests. It faces many daunting challenges, mostly in putting together an efficient and effective government at all levels and implementing a development strategy that can reduce the country's dependence on natural resources. But honest government at the top is a good start, and worthy of respect.
Mark Weisbrot is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, in Washington, D.C.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Chiquita and terrorism
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20070320_chiquitas_slipping_appeal/
Posted on Mar 20, 2007
By Amy Goodman
What do Osama bin Laden and Chiquita bananas have in common? Both have used their millions to finance terrorism.
The Justice Department has just fined Chiquita Brands International $25 million for funding a terrorist organization ... for years. Chiquita must also cooperate fully with ongoing investigations into its payments to the ultra-right-wing Colombian paramilitary group Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia. Chiquita made almost monthly payments to the AUC from 1997 to 2004, totaling at least $1.7 million.
The AUC is a brutal paramilitary umbrella group, with an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 armed troops. It was named a terrorist organization by the United States on Sept. 10, 2001. Among its standard tactics are kidnapping, torture, disappearance, rape, murder, beatings, extortion and drug trafficking.
Chiquita claims it had to make the payments under threat from the AUC in order to protect its employees and property. Chiquita’s outside lawyers implored them to stop the illegal payments, to no avail. The payments were made by check through Chiquita’s Colombian subsidiary, Banadex. When Chiquita executives figured out how illegal the payments were, they started delivering them in cash. Chiquita sold Banadex in June 2004 when the heat got too intense.
While the AUC was collecting U.S. dinero from Chiquita, it was butchering thousands of innocent people in rural Colombia. Chengue (pronounced CHEN-gay) was a small farming village in the state of Sucre. About 80 AUC paramilitary members went into the town in the early hours of Jan. 17, 2001. They rounded up the men and smashed their skulls with stones and a sledgehammer, killing 24 of them. One 19-year-old perpetrator confessed, naming the organizers of the mass murder, including police and navy officials. To date, he is the only one who has been punished. This is just one of hundreds of massacres carried out by AUC.
Chiquita has had a long history of criminal behavior. It was the subject of an extraordinary exposé in its hometown paper, The Cincinnati Enquirer, in 1998. The paper found that Chiquita exposed entire communities to dangerous U.S.-banned pesticides, forced the eviction of an entire Honduran village at gunpoint and its subsequent bulldozing, suppressed unions, unwittingly allowed the use of Chiquita transport ships to move cocaine internationally, and paid a fortune to U.S. politicians to influence trade policy. The lead reporter, Mike Gallagher, illegally accessed more than 2,000 Chiquita voice mails. The voice mails backed up his story, but his methods got him fired. The Enquirer issued a front-page apology and paid Chiquita a reported $14 million. The voice-mail scandal rocked the Enquirer, burying the important exposé.
Chiquita was formerly called the United Fruit Co., which with the help of its former lawyer, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, and his brother Allen Dulles’ Central Intelligence Agency overthrew the democratically elected president of Guatemala, Jacobo Arbenz Guzman, in 1954. And you can go back further. Colombian Nobel Laureate Gabriel García Márquez wrote in his classic “One Hundred Years of Solitude” about the 1928 Santa Marta massacre of striking United Fruit banana workers: “When the banana company arrived ... the old policemen were replaced by hired assassins.”
While the U.S. is seeking extradition of Colombia-based Chiquita executives, the administration of President Alvaro Uribe in Colombia, with its own officials now linked to the right-wing paramilitaries, has countered that Colombia would seek the extradition of U.S.-based Chiquita executives. Colombian prosecutors are also seeking information in Chiquita’s role in smuggling 3,000 AK-47 rifles and millions of rounds of ammunition to paramilitaries in November 2001.
A $25-million fine to a multibillion-dollar corporation like Chiquita is a mere slap on the wrist, the cost of doing business. Presidents like George W. Bush and Uribe, businessmen first, while squabbling over extraditions, would never lose track of their overarching shared goal of a stridently pro-corporate, military-supported so-called free-trade regime. As long as that remains the same, union organizers and hard-working farmers, like the men of Chengue, will continue to be killed on behalf of Chiquita or some other multinational company.
That next organic, fair-trade banana you buy just might save a life.
Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on 500 stations in North America.
© 2007 Amy Goodman; distributed by King Features Syndicate
A Progressive Journal of News and Opinion. Editor, Robert Scheer. Publisher, Zuade Kaufman.
Copyright © 2007 Truthdig, L.L.C. All rights reserved.
Posted on Mar 20, 2007
By Amy Goodman
What do Osama bin Laden and Chiquita bananas have in common? Both have used their millions to finance terrorism.
The Justice Department has just fined Chiquita Brands International $25 million for funding a terrorist organization ... for years. Chiquita must also cooperate fully with ongoing investigations into its payments to the ultra-right-wing Colombian paramilitary group Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia. Chiquita made almost monthly payments to the AUC from 1997 to 2004, totaling at least $1.7 million.
The AUC is a brutal paramilitary umbrella group, with an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 armed troops. It was named a terrorist organization by the United States on Sept. 10, 2001. Among its standard tactics are kidnapping, torture, disappearance, rape, murder, beatings, extortion and drug trafficking.
Chiquita claims it had to make the payments under threat from the AUC in order to protect its employees and property. Chiquita’s outside lawyers implored them to stop the illegal payments, to no avail. The payments were made by check through Chiquita’s Colombian subsidiary, Banadex. When Chiquita executives figured out how illegal the payments were, they started delivering them in cash. Chiquita sold Banadex in June 2004 when the heat got too intense.
While the AUC was collecting U.S. dinero from Chiquita, it was butchering thousands of innocent people in rural Colombia. Chengue (pronounced CHEN-gay) was a small farming village in the state of Sucre. About 80 AUC paramilitary members went into the town in the early hours of Jan. 17, 2001. They rounded up the men and smashed their skulls with stones and a sledgehammer, killing 24 of them. One 19-year-old perpetrator confessed, naming the organizers of the mass murder, including police and navy officials. To date, he is the only one who has been punished. This is just one of hundreds of massacres carried out by AUC.
Chiquita has had a long history of criminal behavior. It was the subject of an extraordinary exposé in its hometown paper, The Cincinnati Enquirer, in 1998. The paper found that Chiquita exposed entire communities to dangerous U.S.-banned pesticides, forced the eviction of an entire Honduran village at gunpoint and its subsequent bulldozing, suppressed unions, unwittingly allowed the use of Chiquita transport ships to move cocaine internationally, and paid a fortune to U.S. politicians to influence trade policy. The lead reporter, Mike Gallagher, illegally accessed more than 2,000 Chiquita voice mails. The voice mails backed up his story, but his methods got him fired. The Enquirer issued a front-page apology and paid Chiquita a reported $14 million. The voice-mail scandal rocked the Enquirer, burying the important exposé.
Chiquita was formerly called the United Fruit Co., which with the help of its former lawyer, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, and his brother Allen Dulles’ Central Intelligence Agency overthrew the democratically elected president of Guatemala, Jacobo Arbenz Guzman, in 1954. And you can go back further. Colombian Nobel Laureate Gabriel García Márquez wrote in his classic “One Hundred Years of Solitude” about the 1928 Santa Marta massacre of striking United Fruit banana workers: “When the banana company arrived ... the old policemen were replaced by hired assassins.”
While the U.S. is seeking extradition of Colombia-based Chiquita executives, the administration of President Alvaro Uribe in Colombia, with its own officials now linked to the right-wing paramilitaries, has countered that Colombia would seek the extradition of U.S.-based Chiquita executives. Colombian prosecutors are also seeking information in Chiquita’s role in smuggling 3,000 AK-47 rifles and millions of rounds of ammunition to paramilitaries in November 2001.
A $25-million fine to a multibillion-dollar corporation like Chiquita is a mere slap on the wrist, the cost of doing business. Presidents like George W. Bush and Uribe, businessmen first, while squabbling over extraditions, would never lose track of their overarching shared goal of a stridently pro-corporate, military-supported so-called free-trade regime. As long as that remains the same, union organizers and hard-working farmers, like the men of Chengue, will continue to be killed on behalf of Chiquita or some other multinational company.
That next organic, fair-trade banana you buy just might save a life.
Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on 500 stations in North America.
© 2007 Amy Goodman; distributed by King Features Syndicate
A Progressive Journal of News and Opinion. Editor, Robert Scheer. Publisher, Zuade Kaufman.
Copyright © 2007 Truthdig, L.L.C. All rights reserved.
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