People Before Profit blog

Who was César Chavez?

Fri, 18 Apr 2003 03:34:00 +0000

Opinion

“César Chávez? Oh, yeah, wasn’t he a great boxer?” This is an all too common answer to the question, “Who was César Chávez?”

César Estrada Chávez was a Mexican American labor leader, civil rights activist and is a hero to millions of working people everywhere. He was a short, brown man, but when it came to fighting for his people, he stood and delivered justice like a giant.

For decades, Mexican Americans have fought hard against exploitation and for equal rights at work and in society, and Chavez best symbolizes that fight. His mother, Juana Estrada, his first source of faith in non-violent spirituality in the cause of justice, grew up here in Tucson.

Born in Yuma, Ariz., in 1927, César attended schools that had “whites-only” signs. While in school, teachers hit him on his knuckles with a ruler for speaking Spanish. He attended 37 schools because his family had to follow the crops in order to work and survive. César had to quit school in the eighth grade to help support his family.

Having lost their family ranch in the Gila valley during the Great Depression, the Chavezes, led by Librado and Juana, left Arizona in search of work in California’s fields.

César, along with his parents and siblings, would often sleep in their car because they were so poor. In fact, it was the intense poverty, racism, exploitation, and oppression he experienced as a child laboring in those “factories in the fields” that would foment the seeds of his monumental desire for justice.

As a young man in California, César was kicked-out of a movie theater for sitting in the “whites-only” section. He protested so strongly that he got arrested. In cities and towns throughout the southwest, Mexican Americans couldn’t sit alongside whites at the movies during the 1940s and ’50s.

After serving in the U.S. Navy, César became a leader for the Community Service Organization. As a leader of this group, César registered and mobilized thousands of Chicanos in California to vote. He organized protests against racial discrimination.

Chávez’s greatest legacy is his work organizing farmworkers. Despite great opposition and defying many who doubted him, César, along with Dolores Huerta, successfully established the United Farm Workers of America, known as the UFW. Under the slogan, “Sí, Se Puede” (Yes, we can), Chavez’s strategies and tactics in building this new type of union involved religious fasts, boycotts, long marches, and strikes. He, like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., advocated a non-violent struggle for justice.

On April 23, 1993, César died unexpectedly in his sleep at a farmworker’s home in San Luís, Arizona, not far from where he was born. Earlier on the date of his death, César had been arguing in court in favor of farmworkers’ rights to boycott the Bruce Church Lettuce Corporation in Arizona. That evening, he told his friends that he felt unusually tired and went to lie down. He fell asleep with the light on and fully dressed. When discovered the next morning, his lifeless, yet peaceful, grasp held a book on Native American art.

His premature death shocked us all. Over forty thousand people attended his funeral in California. His legacy remains for us to remember, and his work remains for us to continue. ¡Sí, Se Puede!

Ray Siqueiros is the chairman of the Third Annual Peace and Justice/Cesar Chavez Day March and Rally in Tucson and can be reached at pww@pww.org

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Almas courage: Colombian journalist risks everything to tell the truth

Fri, 18 Apr 2003 02:47:00 +0000

“Death threats are not new for us. It is a way of life here. Every family in Colombia has come to terms with violence. Everyone in Colombia knows of a relative who has been tortured, disappeared, or killed – treated in the most grotesque ways.”

Alma Rebelde* says these words rather matter-of-factly as she walks us off the set at a television studio in downtown Bogota. A horrendous, decades-old civil war in her country has become, for her, a simple fact of life. Yet there is a slight tremble in her voice. She is about to tell us why.

Alma has just finished hosting a television talk show in which I and three others from the United States – a truck driver from San Diego, a nurse from Atlanta, and a Dominican Christian minister from the Bronx – have been interviewed about our fact-finding visit to Colombia.

As guests of the Colombia’s food and beverage workers union, Sinaltrainal, our labor delegation had taken part in several days of public hearings on the role of transnational corporations and right-wing paramilitary death squads in terrorizing Colombia’s workers. We met with many trade unionists who have been the victims of this employer-instigated terror, especially those working for Coca-Cola and its related bottling companies.

SINALTRAINAL has lost 19 of its leaders to paramilitary assassinations over the past decade, eight of them at Coca-Cola plants. According to the United Confederation of Workers (CUT), the country’s largest union federation, over 3,800 trade union leaders and activists have been assassinated in Colombia since 1986, making it one of the most dangerous countries in the world for unionists.

During the taping of the television show, Alma’s questions brought out our main points, including our observation that the paramilitaries work in league with Colombia’s armed forces to repress the workers. We noted that, with U.S. workers’ taxes being handed over to the military through Washington’s Plan Colombia – a program that has funneled more than $1.3 billion in mainly military assistance to the Colombian government – we are helping to finance the murder of our brother and sister trade unionists. We pledged to do our best to inform workers back home and to take action to stop all U.S. military aid to Colombia.

The show went well, and Alma and the production crew seem pleased. We ask for a copy of the videotape and while we are waiting our San Diego truck driver, Mike, asks her if the program will really be aired, given the political situation in Colombia today.

Our host says, “There is no question of that, it is guaranteed.”

She explains that her union, the Colombian Television Association (ACOTV) had fought for the right to have a half hour program each month under the total control of the union.

“This is a public station owned by the government and there is no other union contract in Colombia which gives the workers such a right to address the public,” she says. “It may be unique in the world. It took a struggle to win this right. We achieved it during a three-day strike.”

That victory was not without a price, Alma says.

“That strike upset the powers that be and we began getting threats from the paramilitary units right here in Bogota,” she says.

Alma again emphasizes how pervasive the right-wing paramilitary activities are, how almost every family is affected. I asked if she is perhaps exaggerating a bit, at least slightly. She replies, “You don’t believe me? Too bad, it’s the truth as I know it in my heart.”

She thinks for a moment, then faces us with a determined look and a lowered voice.

“Let me tell you the story of just one family, my own. Mine is not a special case. It is repeated over and over.

“My older sister, Gertrudiz – she was a beautiful woman. She and her husband, who was a veterinarian, were going out to a farm to cure some sick animals. His name was Fernando,” she says.

Both Gertrudiz and Fernando were known for their progressive views.

“They were on horseback when they were stopped by a paramilitary unit. Fernando was shot and killed. He received a single bullet right here in the middle of his forehead,” jabbing her finger at her own head.

“Gertrudiz was treated differently. She was violated, raped, and when she was killed, her body was cut up in chunks with a machete,” indicating again, “here, here, here, and here.” We have no way to know if Fernando had to witness the atrocity before his death.

“My brother, Enrique, was younger than Gertrudiz. He was assassinated in Ibague in Tolima.

“Three cousins, Felipe, Manuel, and Esteban were also killed. Felipe met death in Ibague also. Cousin Manuel was assassinated in Bolivar, near the Rio Cauca. They killed Esteban only two months ago in Casablanca, Tolima. A coincidence, yes, Casablanca – the White House,” she says.

“Esteban’s brother, Eduardo, is mayor of Casablanca. He was elected without the help of the two traditional ruling parties – the Liberals and the Conservatives. Eduardo is a leftist. He is mayor but he can no longer live in Casablanca. He became a military target of the paramilitary death squads and, to preserve his life, he is now one of the two and a half million Colombians who are displaced by violence.

“Only two weeks ago, the husband of my younger sister – he participated in Eduardo’s political campaign and was forced into hiding. His life was threatened and he has left for Spain,” she says.

“This current process of death has continued in my family for ten years. Our story is just one single example of what life and death is like for the people of Colombia. We have not even registered a denunciation of the last two assassinations with the government. Doing so would make it all the worse for the family.”

Alma remains stone still. We are stunned; there is not a sound from us. She breaks the silence.

“There is more to this story. It is the second part – no, really, it’s the first,” she says.

“I was born on a farm called Sebastopol where my brothers, sisters, father and mother lived. The place was called Sebastopol when my father bought it. In the 1920s and ’30s many people in Colombia gave their places, even their children Russian names. They admired what the Russian people had done when they threw off capitalism and the Czar. In those years the Russian revolution gave them hope that one day they, too, might end their oppression,” she says.

“In 1956, when I was ten years old, a piece of paper was pushed under the front door at Sebastopol in the night time. It said, ‘Get out, son of a whore!’ My father was a proud man. He believed in the people. He had faith in the future and spoke his mind. He refused to be chased out.

“The very next Sunday – yes, on a Sunday – another scrap of paper came under the door at night. It said, ‘You have two days to leave or face the consequences.’ Still my father didn’t leave. On the second day we heard gunshots – bam! bam! bam! bam!” Her head jerked, remembering each shot. “The shots continued. They killed the mule, the horses, the cow, the goats, the chickens and the dogs – even the two dogs,” she says.

“When my father heard the shooting he immediately gathered us together and rushed us into the dark night with nothing but what we were wearing. We were no further than a hundred meters away when we saw our house burst into flame.

“We traveled all night and well into the next day by foot over the mountains to finally arrive in Ibague where my father and mother decided to settle and, with nothing, build a new life some distance away from the ashes of Sebastopol,” Alma says.

“I tell you this only to show you that this dirty war did not come upon us yesterday. It’s not about drugs. It has been with us since the oil companies came here before 1916. Its images are etched in the living consciousness of all Colombians. One way or another, it is the same for us all and we don’t run away. We don’t cut and run.

“This is our beloved country, the home of our human heritage,” she says. “Our soils are rich with oil, coal, emeralds, gold, and the scars and the victories of our history. We built this country with our hands. The point of this century-old war is to drive us from our land so its bounty, explored or yet undiscovered, can be possessed by the grandmasters of wealth in our country and in your own. That’s what drives this dirty war.”

Bill asks if we, members of the delegation, are now in danger for doing the show.

Alma laughs a humorless chuckle, nods and says, “Not really.”

“When this program airs you’ll be safe at home in the warmth of your own families. Our audience is forty million people. The satellite will carry the signal to Panama, Venezuela, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, and even to your United States. And who do you think will be among those forty million viewers? Our vengeful paramilitaries and regular armed forces, and they won’t sit still about it,” she says.

“With the showing of just one program like this, I become a military target. It will inflame the vengeance of the paramilitaries. The corporations and the government have no need for censorship in Colombia. They control most of the media and what they don’t control, they intimidate. Even here we know we are spied upon. One program like this one, and I as host, for inviting you and allowing you to air your truth, become a marked person. When the paramilitaries mark you as a military target, they leave nothing to chance.”

Whether for her own protection or out of hospitality, Alma will not let us call taxis to leave the television studio. She insists that all six of us squeeze into her tiny 1975 Datsun and she takes us across Bogota to the SINALTRAINAL office. She says goodbye with a customary embrace and with tears of fear in her eyes – as I have in mine.

Not long ago I received an e-mail from a history professor at Brown University. He saw our program aired in Bogota and asked for more information. It was shown, and Alma Rebelde is surely in danger. How does she face it? Sheer courage and determination: virtues shared by many workers, peasants, and journalists in Colombia today.

In Barrancabermeja, a city under paramilitary control, perhaps the most dangerous and violent city in Colombia, the People’s Organization of Women which fights alongside SINALTRAINAL defending workers’ rights, has a slogan that says it all: “With your Life – Make Love to Fear!”

* Names of people and places in this factual report have been changed to lessen the danger for the real persons involved.

(see related story below)

* * * * * * *

Court rules human rights case can proceed against Coca-Cola bottlers

In July of 2001 the Colombian union Sinaltrainal, the United Steelworkers of America (USWA), and the International Labor Rights Fund (ILRF) filed suit in Miami against Coca-Cola Company and two of its Colombian bottlers. The suit alleges that Coke and its bottlers maintain open relations with paramilitary death squads to intimidate trade union members there.

In a March 31, 2003, ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Jose E. Martinez ruled that cases against the Coca-Cola bottlers Panamerican Beverages, Inc. and Bebidas y Alimentos in Colombia can go forward, a victory for the plaintiffs.

However, the court dismissed Coca-Cola Company and Coca-Cola Colombia from the case on the grounds that their bottling agreements did not explicitly give them control over their bottlers’ labor relations.

Terry Collingsworth of the ILRF indicated that this part of the decision would be appealed.

“We are absolutely convinced as a factual matter that one word from Coca-Cola would stop the campaign of terror against trade union leaders in the Coca-Cola bottling plants in Colombia,” he said.

Meanwhile, Sinaltrainal is said to be preparing to call for a worldwide, year-long boycott of Coca-Cola products starting in July, on the anniversary of the murder of one of its leaders.

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USWA threatens strike for benefits

Fri, 18 Apr 2003 02:16:00 +0000

PITTSBURGH – Steelworkers at National Steel voted April 11 to strike to save their union, pensions, and health care if a bankruptcy court voids their collective bargaining agreement and pension benefits. The threat came as AK (Armco Kawasaki Steel Corporation) made its bid to take over the bankrupt steel corporation, contingent on the court voiding the tentative agreement reached April 9 by the steelworkers union (USWA) and National and US Steel Corporations. The ruling sought by AK would rob 100,000 retired steelworkers of their pensions and health care.

The 6,800 USWA members employed by National in Michigan and Indiana, unanimously approved a strike resolution, stating, “In the event that the bankruptcy court rejects our labor agreements … we will immediately exercise our right to withhold our labor.“

In an unprecedented crisis, in which 34 companies have filed for bankruptcy since 1997 and where corporation executives and bankruptcy lawyers are getting richer by the minute, the USWA has organized mass demonstrations, lobbied, resorted to eminent domain legislation in Cleveland and camped out in Washington D.C. to defend the living standards of hundreds of thousands of families and communities across the country. Thousands of steelworkers and retirees have had their pensions stolen and health care stripped away as a result of bankruptcies.

Now, steelworkers at National Steel are preparing to bank furnaces and ‘shut it down’ if Bankruptcy Judge John H. Squires, in Chicago, awards ownership of National Steel to AK Steel. A decision is expected on April 21.

The union’s ‘corporate strategy’ extends to National’s creditors. “We’re in the process of contacting National Steel’s lenders and creditors to inform them of severe consequences if National’s executives pander to AK Steel’s inability to negotiate a modern, progressive labor agreement,” said USWA President Leo Gerard.

In 1999, AK locked out steelworkers in Mansfield, Ohio, to break the union. The corporation failed and steelworkers are back at work under a union contract after a three-year struggle.

The April 9 tentative agreement had been reached with US Steel and National. US Steel is the other bidder for National Steel, and their offer is also on the table before Judge Squires. The agreement protects retiree pensions and health care at US Steel and enhances those benefits for National retirees, reduces the number of bosses to improve productivity, offers the highest wages in the industry and transfers more workplace control from foremen to steelworkers

The tentative contract cracks down on company contracting out of union work. “We’re not saving these plants for the damned contractors,” said union chief negotiator Tom Conway. US Steel has a hundred-year history of top-heavy management, where often there is one boss for every two workers. The agreement sets that ratio at one boss for every four workers.

The new contract binds US Steel to continue making steel and using raw materials and transportation in North America. In 2000, the corporation began buying up steel mills in the Slovak Republic and is now the largest private owner of steel facilities in Central Europe. Like previous union contracts, it forces a commitment from US Steel to invest and continue to modernize the mills. US Steel employs 13,000 workers.

Details of the new contract are on their way to the membership for discussion and ratification.

The author can be reached at dwinebr696@aol.com

Activists demand action against border vigilantes

Thu, 17 Apr 2003 09:20:00 +0000

TUSCON, Ariz. – Border residents are demanding that gun-toting vigilantes and immigrant-hunting parties operating on the Arizona-Mexico border be investigated and stopped. Violent actions by these hate groups have escalated in spite of Arizona’s anti-militia law, State Land Department Lease guidelines and countless reports of human rights abuses.

Over 2,000 signatures of border residents, taken in only two weeks, were presented here to Ariz. Attorney General Terry Goddard on April 9 by a delegation that included representatives from Border Action Network, the American Civil Liberties Union, ranchers and a Cochise County supervisor.

“[Goddard] has the power to stop the vigilante groups. We will work until we see that happen,” said Jennifer Allen, director of the Border Action Network.

Activists in the delegation, who came from the Southern Arizona communities of Douglas, Bisbee, Benson, Arivaca, Nogales, and Tucson, charged that vigilantes have acted with impunity, impersonating the U.S. Border Patrol, illegally detaining people at gunpoint and causing bloodshed and death. The border residents say that in spite of these illegal activities, little action has been taken by local authorities.

“It is clear that the Attorney General’s office needs to give more attention to the investigation of these vigilante groups,” said Father Bob Karney, representing Bishop Kicanes of the Diocese of Tucson. “This is a serious issue. We don’t have the luxury of waiting for a response.”

Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) has called for FBI investigation of these hate groups and their funding ties, stating, “Cockroaches don’t like it when you shine a light on them.”

The author can be reached at susan@susanthorpe.com

Texas workers fight cuts in public services

Thu, 17 Apr 2003 06:47:00 +0000

AUSTIN – The right wing’s drive to slash government services in Texas ran into stiff resistance when about 2,000 workers converged here April 9. They gathered to tell state leaders that Texas can’t afford cuts to the vital services provided by public agencies and their employees.

The occasion for this mass fight back was the Texas State Employees Union (TSEU) Lobby Day, a biennial event that brings state employees to Austin to march, rally, and take their issues directly to state legislators.

This year TSEU, the state’s largest public employee union and a local of the Communication Workers of America (CWA), was joined by workers from a number of private sector unions, other public sector unions, including teachers, the state AFL-CIO and several advocacy groups. Together they presented a united front against these cuts, which will hit hardest working people, the elderly, children, and the state’s most vulnerable citizens. In the past, participation in TSEU’s Lobby Day was limited to its own members and a handful of supporters.

In addition to fighting the cuts, TSEU and its allies demanded affordable health care for all working people, but especially state employees, who face huge increases in their health care costs and an end to the privatization of public services.

The proposed cuts in state services are aimed at making up Texas’ $10 billion budget shortfall. Speakers at the rally pointed out that the state is in the fix it is in now because George W. Bush spent his six years as governor giving state tax breaks to his rich friends. While low-income Texans pay 11.4 percent of their income in state taxes, those with the very highest incomes pay only 3.2 percent.

Joe Gunn, president of the state AFL-CIO, said that working people in Texas are “trying to get back what George Bush gave away, and now he’s trying to do the same thing to the nation.”

Texas also has a tax system riddled with loopholes that make it easy for businesses to avoid paying taxes. In her welcoming address to Lobby Day participants, Judy Lugo, TSEU president, told the crowd that state services could be preserved and expanded if everyone, including the rich and the businesses that they own, paid their fair share of taxes.

Andy Milburn, CWA regional director, said, “powerful corporations have seized control of the nation’s and state government” and were using their power to avoid paying their fair share of the cost to provide public services.

Instead of making businesses and the wealthy pay their fair share, the right wing leaders of the state are demanding that those who can least afford it bear more and more of the cost. For instance, they want to close down one state school and one state hospital, institutions that care for the state’s most vulnerable citizens.

Arthur Valdez, a TSEU executive board member from San Antonio, who works at a state school, said that closing down these institutions was a terrible act of disdain for the people served by state schools and hospital and their families. “It’s time for state officials to stop being so conservative with their compassion for people who need these services,” he said.

After the rally, union members spoke directly to legislators about their demands.

In one meeting, “Tracy,” a TSEU member from Austin, told a legislative aide that the proposed increases in health care coverage would cost her about $150 in prescription medicines she had to take for diabetes and asthma.

“Noelita,” another Austin member, said that when our families face hard times, “we cut back on luxuries, not necessities, not our bread and butter, because that’s what we need to survive. But state leaders are proposing just the opposite. When they cut vital service, they’re cutting the bread and butter of society.”

“Barbara,” a Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) worker, said that plans to privatize workforce programs in Texas will result in higher cost and worse service. She said one program operated by state employees that helps recently released offenders find jobs and re-integrate into society has been recognized for its success, but the TWC commissioner wants to privatize it. She went on to say that there is no way that staff from a private company can have the experience and knowledge to provide the same level of service being provided now.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org

Dying to work: Humanitarian disaster on the desert

Fri, 11 Apr 2003 03:12:00 +0000

SASABE, Sonora, Mexico – The Sonoran desert has a delicate, haunting beauty. Hundreds of species of birds, cacti and lizards have adapted to survive its lack of water and brutal temperatures exceeding 120 degrees. The list of these desert-hardy species does not include human beings.

It was noon on the desert, but a mean wind was blowing through a clearing just outside this tiny dusty border town, when the first van of the day pulled in. Fourteen or fifteen passengers poured out, somewhat reluctantly perhaps. They huddled together near their vehicle. Some carried their gallon of water in their hand, and that was all they had. Others sported newly purchased backpacks. They looked out of place, like city folks, not desert hikers, with their light jackets. An open pickup truck approached and the group clambered on board. Standing up on the bed of the truck it must have been possible to see the desert stretched out for hundreds of miles to the north right up to the mist-covered Santa Catalina Mountains. But no one was looking.

By the time the truck returned empty, half an hour later, several more vans and a bus had pulled into the now bustling clearing. It began to have the feel of a busy Greyhound depot with vans arriving and pickups departing, drivers and dispatchers, passengers and vendors milling about.

In the next hours and days, this small group and hundreds of others would be making their way north on foot, across a desert whose surface reaches 140 degrees in the day and can fall to freezing temperatures at night.

*

Every day, hundreds of construction workers, cooks, meat packers, factory workers, nursing home attendants, hotel employees, and agricultural workers, members of the U.S. workforce, find themselves making a life-threatening journey across this desert to get to their jobs. “It looks like entering the U.S. through the desert is some kind of employment screening test administered by the U.S. government for the hospitality, construction and recreation industries … ,” Healing Our Borders, a faith-based organization from Douglas, Ariz., notes bitterly.

According to the American Immigration Law Foundation, Mexican immigrants make up four percent of the U.S. workforce, and are located in key sectors of the economy. Meatpacking tops the list with a workforce of 26.8 percent Mexican immigrants. Agriculture comes next with 22.9 percent. Manufacture of apparel, plastics and furniture are in the 10-15 percent range. And Mexican immigrants now make up nearly 10 percent of the construction industry.

In 2002, there were 163 recorded deaths of migrant men, women and children within the Tucson Sector of the Border Patrol. The Catholic Diocese of Tucson says, “The deaths, unacceptable in themselves, were of the most miserable – dying of thirst, dehydration, cactus pain, and unbearable heat.” Unrecorded deaths may be many times that number; human remains quickly disappear given the harsh conditions and activities of wild animals

Mass death on the desert is not a natural phenomenon. It has soared 600 percent since 1994, when a new border policy was implemented in the anti-immigrant frenzy whipped up by right-wing politicians like then-California governor Pete Wilson. That was the year of the vicious Proposition 187, which denied public services to California’s undocumented residents. Until then, the bulk of south-north immigration came through urban entry points such as Laredo and El Paso, Tex., and San Diego.

With great fanfare, Operation Gatekeeper was announced by the Department of Immigration and Naturalization (INS) in 1993 with the stated goal of “shift[ing] the immigration traffic eastward from San Diego to desert and mountain regions” where the Border Patrol “enjoyed a strategic advantage over would-be crossers.” Urban crossing points in Arizona and Texas were sealed off. A new INS military infrastructure was put in place, with over 8,000 agents outfitted with night-vision goggles and all-terrain vehicles, miles of three-tiered fortress-like walls and stadium-strength floodlighting. The Border Patrol’s human-tracking systems added helicopters, 47 infrared scopes and 766 underground sensors. INS incarceration facilities were greatly expanded.

Nevertheless, the U.S. Congress’s General Accounting Office found there was “no persuasive evidence” that the $5.5 billion operation had decreased illegal entries along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexican border.

More than 1,500 people have died along the length of border trying to cross into the U.S. since 1994, according to former Tucson Sector Chief of the Border Patrol Ron Sanders.

The American Friends Service Committee states “border crossing is not merely an enforcement issue … “ Powerful economic factors are responsible, says the AFSC, and therefore “the migrants simply keep coming, now diverted into more treacherous terrain.”

*

“We can’t live on what we grow anymore,” Refugio, 24, a soft-spoken campesino from Hidalgo, told this reporter. He was waiting for the pickup truck that would drive his group into the desert, the next step on his way to a job he had lined up in Tennessee. He had worked all his life in agriculture, he said, but could no longer make a living. No, he didn’t own land. He laughed at the question. He and the rest of his family always had worked for others. “The corn and vegetables they bring across the border from the U.S. now sell for less than the ones we grow. So a lot of the farmers stopped growing and the pay is much less than it used to be.” Refugio said some in his village had looked for work in Mexico City, while he and his traveling companions had made arrangements with a coyote (human smuggler) to bring them to their jobs in the U.S.

*

Jose Matus, from the Tucson-based Coalicion de Derechos Humanos (Coalition for Human Rights), says, “They will never stop immigration, no matter what they do. Hunger and poverty are stronger than any force they put out there.” U.S. trade policies, he said, have damaged the economic position of millions of city and rural workers in Mexico, adding to the pressure to emigrate to the U.S. “NAFTA [North American Free Trade Agreement] has displaced the ‘mom and pop’ operations in Mexico – the little clothing stores, auto mechanic shops, convenience stores – and replaced them with Walmart.”

Economists recognize the large influx of immigrants in the 20th century as a key factor in the growth of the American economy. Immigration, actually creates jobs because “immigrants may expand the demand for goods and services through their consumption,” says a study cited by the American Immigration Law Foundation. Immigration policies that governed the entry of 22 million European immigrants through Ellis Island from 1892 to 1924 allowed for the orderly processing of 700,000 immigrants per year through that one entry point.

But no such legal and orderly process is available to the 250,000 per year Mexican workers who are added to the U.S. workforce. This has created a permanent sub-class of the American work force that exists in the shadows of legality, subject to abuse and super-exploitation. America’s undocumented, mostly Mexican, now number 9 million, 3 percent of our population.

*

The group that set out that noon from Sasabe will likely be hiding beside cactus during the day and then moving north under cover of night. It could take them days to get to their designated pick-up point, hopefully less, because one gallon of water is the minimum one needs to get through a day on the desert.

Heat stroke and the Border Patrol aren’t the only perils facing the group. Every night, armed vigilantes round up and detain migrants. Their websites advertise “Fun in the Sun” for adventure-seekers from across the country to join them in stalking human beings on Arizona’s public lands and ranches.

Bragging that he packs a “45-caliber 1911 government-issue,” one of the newest residents of Tombstone, Ariz., Chris Simcox, told the monthly meeting of the local Republican club how he moved there from California to launch “Civil Homeland Defense,” to protect America from the “security risk and cultural risk of illegal immigration.” Simcox didn’t seem to have a much higher opinion of U.S. workers. “We have plenty of Americans who could take these jobs if they were forced to,” he told the World. “Americans have gotten fat, lazy and apathetic. Cut off unemployment after 13 weeks and pay them minimum wage … America needs to sacrifice!”

Most Tombstone residents seem to wish Simcox would just disappear. “The whole thing just stinks,” says Steve Goldstein, the owner of Tombstone’s biggest tourist attraction, Big Nose Kate’s Saloon. “Tombstone is a wonderful little town with a tremendous Mexican heritage filled with a cross-section of people.”

Every day at high noon Tombstone stages a Wild West “shootout” in front of the saloon. Today, even the light-hearted drama set against the awe-inspiring beauty of the region is overshadowed, like every other aspect of life in southern Arizona, by the real-life daily tragedy of thousands of desperate men, women and children being pursued by an army of border patrols and stalked by gun-toting vigilantes across the desert and through backyards, gulleys, ranches and nature preserves.

“The terrible direct human cost is not the only price we are paying,” says Pima County Supervisor Richard Elias. “The fenced and militarized border inhibits the movement of [endangered] wildlife ... Severe damage by off-road Border Patrol vehicles alters landscapes and damages watersheds …”

Arizonans say the militarization of their region is destroying the fabric of their treasured social and cultural life. The Tucson Catholic Diocese states, “walls of steel, barbed wire, … growth of vigilantism … create a culture of militarization and death that don’t reflect our values, damage our history on this border and increase ill will.”

Jose Matus of Derechos Humanos points out that the Tohono O’odham Nation’s territory straddles the Mexico-Arizona border for hundreds of miles. Its members’ rights of mobility, even to access the Nation’s medical service, are being violated by Border Patrol activities. Pima County Supervisor Elias reports, “Border Patrol agents routinely harass and often deport Tohono O’odham members who try to interact with family members south of the line who cannot show them ‘proper’ papers.”

Lorenzo Torrez, chair of the Arizona Communist Party, points to the grotesque ever-expanding 16-foot iron fence through the desert as the ultimate symbol of the militaristic, anti-democratic and brutal border policy. A broad array of human rights, labor, and faith-based groups has spoken out against the crises posed by border policies, he says, focusing on opposition to militarization of the region and the need for a legal process for workers to enter the U.S.

Derechos Humanos, housed in a small bungalow on a busy Tucson street, is the center of a whirlwind of vigils, demonstrations, and workshops aimed at changing government policies, documenting Border Patrol abuses, and fighting racist violence of the vigilantes, says organizer Kat Rodriguez.

Newly-elected Congressman Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), in his first official action, called for investigation of the activities of the vigilante groups and their funding.

Humane Borders, headed by Rev. Robin Hoover, runs a church-based network of volunteers who maintain dozens of life-saving water stations marked by blue flags atop 20-foot-poles across the Arizona desert.

Meanwhile, in Ohio, the end of the journey for many migrants, the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) has proposed a new initiative, FREEDOM Act, which includes legislation to provide for temporary residency renewable after three years. Migrants “could apply in Mexico and then enter the country legally,” without the abuses of the infamous bracero or H2A guest-worker programs, says FLOC’s immigrant rights campaign lead organizer, Beatriz Maya. The proposed visas would not tie the worker to any one job or employer, she said.

*

Twenty-two-year-old Rosario was by far the most confident of the group in the Sonoran desert. His huge, rough hands didn’t match his youthful grin. He was proud to explain he’s a skilled drywaller returning to his job in North Carolina, where he learned the trade. The group of friends accompanying him left together from Hidalgo, and had each made arrangements to go to different jobs in Tennessee and Florida. They were interested to hear about an upcoming newspaper article on the injustice of the border policy and they offered to pose for a last group shot for the piece and as a recuerdo – a keepsake of their friendship. Their message, they all chimed in with the exuberance of youth: “Tell the people, we just want to work!”

The author can be reached at rwood@pww.org

PDF version of 'Dying to work: Humanitarian disaster on the desert'

March unemployment report: More bad news

Fri, 11 Apr 2003 02:25:00 +0000

None of the numbers in the March unemployment report are good:

* Official unemployment stuck in the 5.8 percent range.

* Manufacturing jobs declining for 36 consecutive months.

* About a fifth of unemployed workers without a job for 27 weeks or longer.

* More than 2.6 million private-sector jobs gone since March 2001.

* Fewer people working than at any time since late 1999, the longest period without a growth in the number of jobs for 20 years.

* The unemployment rate for African American workers (10.2 percent) twice that of white workers.

* One-sixth of all teenagers without jobs.

* Five million “discouraged” workers who have given up the search for non-existent jobs and are no longer included in the official count of the unemployed.

* Unemployment among college graduates the highest since April 1993.

* Wage growth in 2002 slowed by about 1.0 percent because of rising unemployment.

The White House response to the March unemployment report: More tax cuts for the rich to “grow the economy.”

And there are other numbers – those showing the number of workers who have run out of unemployment benefits and become what the Bureau of Labor Statistics calls “exhaustees.”

In February, more than 325,000 workers exhausted their state-funded benefits and became eligible for benefits under the Temporary Extended Unemployment Compensation (TEUC), the federally-funded program that pays benefits for a maximum of 13 weeks. The number of “exhaustees” has now increased for 24 straight months when compared to the same months in the previous year and is the highest level for any February on record.

One more statistic: Not only is the number of workers exhausting their state benefits increasing; so, too, is the percentage of recipients who exhaust their benefits. The “exhaustion rate” in February 2003 was 50 percent, a record for a February. (The exhaustion rate for the 12-month period ending in February 2003 averaged 43 percent, the highest rate ever since record-keeping began in 1973.)

The TEUC program is set to end May 31. Unless Congress acts before then, no new workers will be able to draw these benefits after that date. Congress will be taking its Easter recess soon.

What better time to talk to your Representative about this and other questions?

The author can be reached at fgab708@aol.com

Whole Foods: Fresh fruit, rotten benefits

Thu, 10 Apr 2003 08:36:00 +0000

NEW YORK – Over 300 United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) members and supporters, protesting Whole Foods’ anti-union policies, held a spirited rally here April 4 as part of a local effort to inform customers that the organic grocery store isn’t all its cracked up to be.

“Whole Foods presents a false image. They’ve created an environment that seems leftwing and progressive. But Whole Foods is far to the right when it comes to workers rights,” Patrick Purcell, director of organizing for UFCW Local 1500, told the World.

Nationally, union members make 28 percent more on average than non-union workers and are more likely to receive health care benefits and pensions. According to Purcell, “Full-time Whole Foods workers pay $250 dollars a month for health care. Employers in union grocery stores in New York pay the freight – dental, vision and family coverage.”

Rob Ecker, a Local 1500 member, said, “The union is very important. It keeps the standard of living at a level where people can take care of their families.” Adding, “New York is a union town. We stick together. We help each other. And we’re gonna get the Whole Foods employees a wage they can live off of.”

Whole Foods, the nation’s largest organic grocery store chain, which made $68 million in profits last year, has “spent millions to create an image as a good employer. But, their anti-union policies have lowered the standard for the entire New York community,” said Frank Margiotta, director of Public Relations for UFCW Local 1262.

“Non-union stores drop the standard for everyone, affecting union gains and everyone suffers,” Margiotta continued.

Currently only one Whole Foods grocery store, located in Madison, Wisc., is unionized. April Reitano, a worker from the Madison store, was in New York for the rally. She told the World, “Whole Foods wasn’t living up to its core values, its philosophy.”

On their website, Whole Foods boasts, “We are actively involved in our communities … supporting food banks, sponsoring neighborhood events, compensating our team members for community service … and contributing at least five percent of total net profits to not-for-profit organizations.”

It goes on to say, “Whole Foods Market believes companies, like individuals, must assume their share of responsibility for our planet.”

On the next five percent day, April 10, Whole Foods is expected to generate a donation of $20,000 to the Trust for Public Land, a national non-profit land conservation organization. While Whole Foods has shown that grocery stores can support organic farming, sustainable agriculture and “share responsibility for our planet,” they have done very little to share responsibility when it comes to workers’ rights to unionize.

Purcell quoted Whole Foods CEO, John Mackey, as saying, “Whole foods employees can fulfill their higher purpose of making the world a better place. They can experience love and joy.” But, when it comes to unions Mackey feels a little different. “Unions spread resentment and mistrust. Unions don’t want employees to be happy. Having a union is like having herpes,” said Mackey.

According to Reitano, “Whole Foods is about money. That’s the bottom line.”

“Whole Foods provides fresh fruit. And rotten benefits,” said Brian Petronella, president of UFCW Local 371, adding, “the only solution is to organize, organize, organize.”

The author can be reached at tonypec@pww.org

Tent city set up to save hospital

Fri, 04 Apr 2003 03:39:00 +0000

LOS ANGELES – With chants of “Save Rancho” and “These cuts won’t heal,” over 150 community, labor and disabled activists, many in wheelchairs, marched in front of the Rancho Los Amigos Hospital administration building here recently demanding that Los Angeles County not close this important and specialized hospital.

“We will be here for as long as it takes. Make no mistake about it, this is an issue of life and death,” shouted Annelle Grajeda, Service Employees International Union Local 660 general manager.

Grajeda called on everyone to join the tent city set up on hospital grounds, which is called the “Ranch.” Union members, community and disabled activists have vowed to remain in the tents until assurance is given that the hospital will not be closed.

Thousands of L.A. County residents rely on Rancho Los Amigos. To many patients, the hospital is literally a matter of life and death. Rancho is the only hospital west of the Mississippi that specializes in head and spinal injuries. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted early this year to close the hospital citing budget considerations.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org

Dont spend a nickel on a Mt. Olive pickle

Thu, 03 Apr 2003 09:27:00 +0000

TOLEDO, Ohio – “Don’t spend a nickel on a Mt. Olive pickle!” shouted the crowd of over 400 people as they marched down Broadway Avenue here. Students, community members, and organized labor gathered to commemorate the four-year anniversary of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee’s (FLOC) boycott campaign against the Mt. Olive Pickle Company. FLOC has been battling the pickle giant to recognize their union and grant a fair contract with decent wages, and most important, safe working conditions in the fields.

The event was organized, in part, to honor Bernadina and Alfredo Hernandez, the widow and son of Raymundo Hernandez, a Mexican farm worker who came to the United States under the H2A guest worker program. Hernandez was left to die in the fields after suffering from pesticide poisoning, sunstroke, or both.

According to co-workers, Hernandez suffered from vomiting and nausea the day he disappeared and was told to go sit under a tree while the work continued. He never received medical treatment.

Hernandez never made it back to the camp that day. His body was found months later by his coworkers, who went searching for him. The Department of Labor, responsible for the guest worker program, did nothing. His body was finally returned to his family in Mexico when FLOC took up the cause, raising money to send his remains home and to take care of the family.

Hernandez was hired by the North Carolina Growers Association, whose membership includes the majority of Mt. Olive growers

The goal of the boycott is to persuade the Mt. Olive Pickle Company to participate in three-way negotiations between FLOC, Mt. Olive, and the growers to ensure higher wages and better working conditions for the farm workers.

Workers who are already organized by the United Farm Workers in California, as well as those organized by FLOC in the northwest Ohio area, not only receive significantly better wages for their work, but also a much higher level of safety and respect in their living and working conditions.

“You, are on the right side of justice,” Toledo Mayor Jack Ford told the marchers, many of whom were high school students. For these students who came from 13 Toledo area high schools, the day started out with an assembly at Toledo Christian High School featuring a question and answer session with Bernadina Hernandez and addresses by Arturo Rodriguez, president of the United Farm Workers, and Baldemar Velazquez, president of FLOC. Ford’s daughter was one of the main student organizers.

Velazquez thanked the crowd for coming out to support the cause of the farm workers. “The boycott will not end until justice is served, until the farm workers get the respect and dignity that all human life deserves,” he said.

Terrence O’Sullivan, president of the Laborers International Union, called on everyone to remember that America is a country made up of immigrants. “We all came from somewhere,” he said. “It is the workers, working immigrants, that make this country so great!” he told the cheering crowd.

The Student Council President of the Christian Schools, Bryce Ell said, “We think the only place inhumane acts can take place are in third world countries, but this is happening right here on our own soil.”

The author can be reached at adamncommunist@yahoo.com

Bush takes aim at overtime pay

Thu, 03 Apr 2003 09:20:00 +0000

Millions of American workers will be getting a shorter paycheck and a longer work week if the Bush administration’s proposed changes to Fair Labor Standard Act (FLSA) regulations are carried out. The new guidelines would enable employers to categorize even low-paid workers as “managers, administrators and professionals,” allowing them to avoid the obligation to pay time-and-a-half for all time worked after 40 hours in a week.

According to AFL-CIO spokesperson Kathy Roeder, up to 3 million of the 80 million workers currently covered under the FLSA may lose their protection. “This is a pay cut for middle-class earners,” said Roeder, noting that many white collar workers earning as little as $22,000 base pay could now be in danger of being designated as “managers” and losing their overtime premium.

“The Fair Labor Standard Act was originally passed in 1938 to guarantee that the United States would operate under the standard of a 40-hour work week,” said Roeder, warning that many workers could face new overtime burdens when employers lose their financial incentive to limit the work week to 40 hours.

No legislative approval is required for the administration’s proposed new definitions of “managers” and “administrators,” but there is a 90-day comment period. Roeder noted that there has been a tremendous response from the AFL-CIO’s “e-activist” network with messages to the White House and both houses of Congress.

The author can be reached at rwood@pww.org