SEARCH
AFL-CIO Urges Obama to Discuss Workers’ Rights in Mexico |
|
As President Obama travels to Mexico today, the AFL-CIO is calling for the U.S. and Mexican governments to make human and workers’ rights a key part of the agenda.
The AFL-CIO strongly believes that security and prosperity in North America must be based on respect for human rights. According to the AFL-CIO International Department:
While we applaud the administration’s recent initiatives to support Mexican efforts to control the drug cartels, the federation is calling on the U.S. to clearly state that all security operations funded by U.S. taxpayers must respect human rights. Such a policy is particularly important in view of the many violations, nearly all unpunished, that have been documented by respected Mexican and international human rights groups.
Two high-profile cases illustrate Mexico’s failure to protect workers’ rights. Napoleon Gómez Urrutia, leader of the Mexican mine workers union. Gómez, was forcefully removed from his position in 2006. Gómez spoke out against the Mexican government and the Grupo Mexico mining company in response to a tragic mine accident in Pasta de Conchos that left 65 miners dead, many of them members of unions.
Just yesterday, a panel of the Mexico City Federal District Court invalidated arrest warrants and Mexican government extradition requests for Gómez, who is living in exile with his family in Canada after receiving death threats. The same day, though, another court issued an arrest warrant for him.
At the same time, the Mexican government’s inaction in the case of Santiago Rafael Cruz, an organizer for the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) who was murdered in Monterrey in April 2007, also must be addressed. The government has made no serious effort over the past two years to arrest or prosecute the persons responsible for his murder.
Finally, we’re calling on the administration to fulfill President Obama’s pledge to fully enforce the labor rights provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) by subjecting them to the same penalties as commercial disputes. The AFL-CIO also is urging the Mexican government to end practices that limit workers’ freedom to freely choose their representatives, such as employer-controlled “protection contracts,” government restrictions on union registration and firings of workers who advocate union democracy.
Our International Department states that “real security in Mexico and in the region depends not only on reactivating the economy,”
but also on ensuring the benefits of investment and trade flow to the workers, in Mexico as well as the U.S., who build and grow that economy every day.
No Comments
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
