AFL-CIO Joins Global Effort to Support Fair Union Elections at Atento Mexico
Teresa Casertano in the AFL-CIO Organizing Department’s Global Campaigns section sends us this report.
In a recent rally in Mexico City, representatives of communications and IT unions from around the world demanded the giant communications firm, Telefonica, end its efforts to block workers from gaining an authentic voice at the workplace. Larry Cohen, president of the Communications Workers of America (CWA), a longtime ally and partner of the Mexican telecom union, the Sindicato de Telefonistas de la Republica Mexicana (STRM), was among the global union leaders who led the march and spoke at the rally.
The workers are employed at Atento, which operates eight call center facilities. The company prefers an employer-controlled ghost union that has signed a protection contract containing few, if any, benefits for the workers and prohibits them from representing their interests independently through a worker-led organization.
Labor Rights Week Kicks Off with Historic Agreement on Immigrant Workers’ Rights
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The ambassadors of El Salvador, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic joined Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis today to sign a historic partnership to protect the labor rights of migrant workers from these countries who are employed in the United States.
The signing kicks off National Labor Rights Week, Aug. 29-Sept. 5. “Women in the Workplace” is the focus of this year’s Labor Rights Week. Migrant women are at risk of wage theft and safety violations, sexual harassment, workplace violence and gender discrimination.
This week, events are slated in 50 U.S. cities with Mexican and Central American consulates. Consulate officials will work with the Department of Labor, state labor authorities, labor unions, faith leaders and community groups to inform migrant workers about their rights and the resources available if those rights are violated.
Report: NAFTA Has Cost 683,000 Jobs—and Counting
To date, 682,900 U.S. jobs have been lost or displaced since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) took effect in 1994, a new Economic Policy Institute (EPI) study finds. The main reason for the job loss is a $97.2 billion trade deficit with Mexico. In 1993, one year before NAFTA was implemented, the United States had a $1.6 billion trade surplus with Mexico that supported nearly 30,000 U.S. jobs.
All 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have seen jobs lost or displaced to Mexico in the past 17 years, says Robert Scott, EPI’s senior international economist and author of “Heading South: U.S.-Mexico trade and job displacement after NAFTA.”
Mexico’s Mineros to Receive Meany-Kirkland Award
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Over the past five years, the Mexican government has unleashed a systematic attack on workers’ rights. Despite the continuing repression, Mexico’s independent, democratic unions organize and represent the rights of workers. Some of the most egregious attacks have been on the Mine, Metal and Steel Workers Union (SNTMMSSRM), also known as Los Mineros.
The AFL-CIO is awarding Los Mineros and their leader, Napoleón Gómez Urrutia, the 2011 George Meany-Lane Kirkland Human Rights Award. The award will be formally presented later this year. Click here to read the resolution in English and here for Spanish.
Gómez was first elected general secretary of the SNTMMSSRM in 2002 and immediately began challenging government policies of low wages and flexible labor markets, and building alliances with the global trade union movement.
Global Unions Condemn Proposed Anti-Worker Laws in Mexico
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Unions across the United States and around the world are calling on the Mexican government to reject proposed draconian changes to Mexico’s labor laws that if enacted, would lower wages, destroy job security, increase poverty and violate workers’ and human rights.
The proposals, which are supported by Big Business and President Felipe Calderón’s administration, are similar to the anti-worker bills being pushed through state legislatures in the United States. In a statement, the Union Nacional de Trabajadores (UNT), the largest independent trade union confederation in Mexico, says the laws would be:
a regressive initiative that undermines fundamental rights of workers, and strengthens corporate control of labor. It follows the logic of those who think that the only viable offer to overcome the economic crisis is to transfer costs to workers, by reducing wages, lowering job security, and making workers a readily disposable resource for the benefit of capital.
U.S. Now Lags China in Production; Newt Says Create Jobs in Mexico
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Two recent items on the economy struck home in the past few days. One, the United States no longer is the world’s major goods producer. Our nation has now been eclipsed by China, which ended the United States’ 110-year run as the largest goods producer.
The response by the U.S. Council on Competitiveness to this little-reported shift is as wrongheaded as it is dangerous. Said Deborah Wince-Smith, chief executive of the business lobby:
This shows the need for the U.S. to compete in the future not on the basis of commodity manufacturing but on innovation and new kinds of services that are driven by production industries.
Global Marches Demand Workers’ Rights in Mexico
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Across the United States and around the world, thousands of working people marched today to demand that Mexico’s government allow its workers to enjoy the freedom to form a union, to create safe workplaces and bargain for family-supporting wages. The marches are part of a global six-day week of action, which began Feb. 14, to call for an end to the intimidation and labor rights violations of workers in Mexico.
At a rally today in front of the Mexican Embassy in Washington, D.C., some 150 union members marched and chanted in English and Spanish: “Defend Trade Union Rights in Mexico” and “Workers Stand Side by Side.”
You can send a message of solidarity with Mexican workers here through LabourStart, the global workers’ news service.
Five years ago this week, 65 miners were killed in an explosion at the Pasta de Conchos mine in Mexico. An independent panel of health and safety experts investigated the explosion and concluded it was the result of negligence by the mine’s owners, Grupo Mexico. To date, no one has been held accountable for the deaths.
USW Files Complaint Over Union Official’s Arrest in Mexico
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The United Steelworkers (USW) is filing a formal protest with the U.S. State Department after USW Sub-District Director Manny Armenta was arrested this week by Mexican border guards while on his way to meet with lawyers for the Los Mineros Mexican miners union.
On Jan. 24, a customs officer stopped Armenta’s car, which is leased by the union, accusing him of driving a stolen vehicle. He presented documentation, but to no avail. Armenta was arrested, detained overnight and released early Jan. 25 after posting a bond of 80,000 pesos (about $7,750).
The car was impounded, and it has not been returned. His wallet was taken from him in the arrest, but later returned, minus $700 in cash, according to the union.
AFL-CIO-Mexico Action Plan Focuses on Economy, Labor Rights
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The AFL-CIO and the major independent Mexican labor federation, Unión Nacional de Trabajadores (UNT), have agreed on a joint action plan to bring economic and social development to both countries.
The plan, signed by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and the three co-presidents of UNT, calls for the two federations to work jointly to rebuild the industrial base in the United States and Mexico. They will work together across industries to ensure that jobs in these industries are good jobs and workers are represented by unions and to coordinate bargaining across borders.
U.S.-Mexico Border Towns Thrive, Despite Bad Immigration Laws
The area along the U.S.-Mexico border is not a lawless line dividing the two countries. Instead, it is a shared region where folks on both sides share an economy, culture, environment and family ties. They also have developed practical ways to address mutual problems in a way that benefits families in both countries.
Policymakers far away in Washington and Mexico City have preconceived and wrong ideas about the border and, as a result have created immigration policies that don’t work, author and journalist Tyche Hendricks, author of “The Wind Doesn’t Need a Passport: Stories From The U.S.-Mexico Borderlands,” told a crowd of more than 100 persons last evening at the AFL-CIO.
