Mexican Labor News & Analysis

Violence Forces Mexican Workers Center to Close

The failure of Mexican authorities to address years of violence and threats against a leading worker rights group has forced it to close its office in Puebla following the May 15 kidnapping and torture of José Enrique Morales Montaño, a member of the Workers' Support Centre (Centro de Apoyo al Trabajador or CAT).

Following the kidnapping, the Mexican human rights group ProDESC and CAT conducted a risk assessment, secured the safety of CAT staff, and held a June 1 press conference announcing that “the absence of any guarantee by the Mexican government to protect human rights defenders in Puebla and in Mexico in general” was forcing the CAT to close its office.

The letter of protest from the Tri-National Solidarity Alliance (TNSA) can be viewed here.

Please Take a Moment to Send Off Your Protest Message

Please take a moment to join the Labourstart campaign to send a message to the Mexican President and other state and federal officials.

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On the Eve of the Elections: The Impact of a New Student Movement

By Dan La Botz

As Mexicans prepare to vote on Sunday, July 1 in the national elections, two presidential candidates have pulled ahead and each claims that he will win. Enrique Peña Nieto, candidate of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) that ruled Mexico for over seventy years, is ahead in all of the polls, buoyed up by the PRI’s political machine and the corporate media. Andrés Manuel López Obrador, candidate of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) who pulled into second place and has been gaining on the leader, has the backing of the organization that he spent the last six years building, made up of hundreds of committees and tens of thousands of supporters. Peña Nieto might be called the center right candidate who will continue the neoliberal polices of the last quarter century and López Obrador the center left candidate who advocates what could be called social liberalism, capitalism with a human face.

The latest opinion polls show Peña Nieto likely to win 42 percent of the electorate and López Obrador only 30 percent. (http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/19/us-mexico-election-idUSBRE85I0QV20120619) But López Obrador says the polls are wrong and his understanding of the Mexican people tells him otherwise. “We are going to win again,” he says, alluding to his claim to have won the Mexican election in 2006 only to have it stolen by the sitting president Felipe Calderón. Calderón’s colleague, Josefina Vázquez Mota, the candidate of the National Action Party (PAN) who hoped to become Mexico’s first woman president, has been falling behind, now at only 24 percent in the polls, dragged down by all the problems of Calderón’s presidency: the violence of the drug war that has taken 50,000 lives, the economic crisis, the lack of opportunity for the country’s youth. Adding to the problems she already faced, earlier this month former president Vicente Fox appeared to turn on his own party’s candidate in favor of the PRI, declaring, “A clear winner is emerging…we have to close ranks behind who will win”.

The Impact of the New Student Movement

During the last several weeks the sudden upsurge of the new student movement in Mexico known as “I am 132” has begun to throw itself into the balance, and things are now beginning to tilt a little toward López Obrador, though it is not yet clear that they will tilt far enough and fast enough to bring him victory. The new movement began when a group of socially conscious students at the elite, private, Jesuit Ibero-American University in Mexico City protested against Peña Nieto for his record of violent repression of social movements in the State of Mexico where he was governor.

When Peña Nieto dismissed his youthful critics as a handful of 131 student protestors, others began to put their names and faces on the social media announcing, “I am 132.” Since then the movement has spread from the Ibero to the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) with its 300,000 students, and then to other public universities across the country. Marches in Mexico City have numbered in the tens of thousands and in other cities in the thousands; young people appear to be marching everywhere and daily are taking up new issues.

The new student movement’s presence on the public university campuses and its protests and mass marches have allowed it to begin to have an impact on the country’s “ninis” -- those who, because they don’t have the economic resources, neither study nor work (ni/ni = neither nor). The new student movement has also joined with other social movements, such as those who fight for the rights of Central American immigrants who suffer from police violence and corruption.

The student protests have been fueled by the British Guardian newspaper’s reports that Televisa had been paid by Peña Nieto and other politicians to carry favorable coverage of their campaigns and there are almost daily demonstrations throughout the country against the PRI candidate and the corporate media that back him.. (Links to the Guardian coverage can be found at the end of this article.)

How Independent Are the Students?

The appearance of what is now a national student movement attacking the alliance between the PRI’s Peña Nieto and Televisa clearly helps López Obrador. The PRI has accused López Obrador of using his organization and funds to manipulate the student movement, a charge denied by both López Obrador and the students who claim that they are completely independent.

The Mexican students say simply that they do not want to return to the past with an authoritarian, corrupt and repressive government of the PRI. The students sometimes call their movement “The Mexican Spring,” alluding to the Arab Spring of a year ago, and they invoke the Spanish indignados and the Quebec student strikes which are taking place at the same time. The students argue that it is time for change in Mexico, though their movement has not yet articulated the kind of change they seek.

On June 11, a new “Generation MX” (MX for Mexico) video appeared on the internet, supposedly made by half-a-dozen students, which criticized “I am 132” for serving party interests and having no direction. The video proved to have been made, however, under the direction of Rodrigo Campo, an advisor to the president of COPARMEX, the Mexican Employers Association, though Campo claimed that no political party had had any hand in the creation of the video or the alleged other new student movement that it claimed to speak for. The “Generation MX” video now appears to have been a failed attempt by one of Mexico’s most conservative organizations to derail the new student movement.

What Will Be the Impact?

Whether or not this new movement is moving fast enough and becoming large and broad enough to help López Obardor’s campaign remains to be seen. If it survives the election, the movement could go on to have an impact on the society at large and possibly on the labor movement. Despite the massacre of hundreds at Tlatelolco, the Plaza of the Three Cultures, in October of 1968, many of the students of that generation went on to become activists in the labor unions and in other social movements, they joined left political parties and contributed to the struggles that finally ended the rule of the PRI in 2000. This generation of student activists, even if their activism doesn’t swing the election toward the populist López Obrador, may have a long term impact on Mexican society.

[British Guardian newspaper coverage of Televisa scandal.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/07/mexico-presidency-tv-dirty-tricks
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2012/jun/08/mexico-media-scandal-televisa-pena-nieto-claims
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/11/wikileaks-us-concerns-televisa-pena-nieto
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/12/televisa-mexicans-tv-bias-pena-nieto?newsfeed=true]

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Inside Mexico’s New Youth Rebellion

By Kent Patterson

[Thanks to Kent Patterson and FNS for permission to reprint this article. It is a shortened version of the original article that was originally published by Frontera NorteSur: on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news, Center for Latin American and Border Studies, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, New Mexico.]

In Aguascalientes, Mexico, a group of young people passed out leaflets to passerby in the city’s busy downtown. A young woman wore a homemade poster that protested the murders of women in the state of Mexico, while her companions distributed leaflets that flashed a satiric image of former Mexico state governor and current presidential candidate Enrique Peña Nieto. Contrasting Peña’s spending on publicity with a state debt the 2012 standard-bearer of the Institutional Revolutionary Party and Mexican Green Party reportedly left behind, the broadside also criticized Peña’s gubernatorial record for other affronts to society including increased crime rates, higher malnutrition and the 2006 state raid against protesters in the town of Atenco that resulted in international human rights complaints of police rape.

“Inform yourself well,” the leaflet appealed. “And think through your vote.”

The weekend leafleting was just one of many actions carried out by a new youth movement that’s shaken up the 2012 Mexican elections. Almost from nowhere, the 132 Movement not only succeeded in mobilizing thousands of young people in street protests against Peña and media monopolization, but recast Mexico’s elections by thrusting questions of money and politics, economic power and corruption and education and citizenship into the center of the political process.

Formed by a generation of media and tech-savvy youth, 132 shows no signs of losing its creative knack. A new video produced for the Internet shows parents of 132ers speaking out in support of their children, while another features young people ribbing Peña for declining to appear at the presidential debate scheduled for transmission on the Internet on Tuesday evening, June 19. Peña has said the debate inspired by the 132 Movement will not be fair.

Originally scheduled solely for the Internet, the June 19 debate between three of the four candidates (Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Josefina Vázquez Mota and Gabriel Quadri) might now be broadcast on some of the smaller Mexican television channels. If the race is tightening as some polls indicate, Peña’s expected absence could prove to a grave error on his part as long as the elections proceed without major manipulation.

In its very short life so far, the 132 Movement has scored impressive victories. In addition to forcing a third presidential debate, the new generation of activists can claim credit for getting the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) to expand the number of election observers.

Cognizant of the fact that only a minority of Mexicans have regular access to the Internet, the 132 Movement employs a host of tactics in its campaign for expanded democracy. Street and bus brigades of leafletters, rock concerts, public showings of videos and mass marches are some of the ways activists reach the public. In Aguascalientes, for instance, activists planned to project a documentary on a large screen in the downtown plaza, but were temporarily thwarted when after-winds from the ironically named Hurricane Carlotta (the same name as the wife of the French-imposed, 19th century Mexican ruler Maximilian) kept blowing the screen down. No matter.

In a burst of ingenuity, the 132ers simply beamed the video onto the nearby wall of the federal building that houses the local offices of the IFE, Interior Ministry and Foreign Relations Secretariat. Produced by movement activists, the documentary explored Peña’s relationship with a historically powerful group of Mexico state politicians, delved into the violent repression of the 1968 and 1971 Mexican student movements, discussed the 1997 Acteal massacre of indigenous Mayans and sprinkled images of the modern world revolt, with protest scenes from Hong Kong, Oakland, Albuquerque and many other places.

In conversations, 132ers identify with a larger global uprising that spans Occupy Wall Street, the Chilean and Quebec students, Spain’s Indignados and many others. And almost as fast as the movement has grown in Mexico, so has solidarity with it abroad. Messages of support have poured in from the U.S., Canada, England, Argentina and Egypt. Returning the gesture, the 132ers held a demonstration last week outside the Canadian Embassy in Mexico City in support of Quebec’s striking university students. Also last week, Camila Vallejo, vice-president of the University of Chile Students Federation, visited Mexico to attend a university seminar and meet with the 132 Movement.

“We must have a global vision of change,” Vallejo was quoted in the Mexico City daily La Jornada. “The problems of the right to education are the ones of the world neo-liberal model. It has to be confronted on a global scale, not to repeat the experiences of other countries or to export ours, but to nurture each other, to share and to learn.” Vallejo expressed surprise that the Mexican movement initially arose at a private school, but others familiar with national peculiarities were not as puzzled.

Longtime Aguascalientes political activist and analyst Fernando Rivera Ibarra told Frontera NorteSur that the Ibero-American University had a role in the 1968 student revolt. “It’s understandable (132) is from the Ibero, because of its Jesuit formation of free thinking,” Rivera said. The veteran political observer noted that the “68 movement transformed into a broader, popular movement for democratic change before it was smashed by government security forces. A similar evolution is beginning to happen with the 132 Movement.

In recent days, the Mesoamerican Migrant Movement (MMM) and the 132 Movement linked up to protest human rights violations against Central American and other migrants passing through Mexico to the United States. “We are 132” declared the MMM in a statement accompanying the occupation of a train that moves migrants across the southern states of Chiapas and Oaxaca. Underscoring that 60 percent of migrants are between 15 and 30 years of age, the MMM urged solidarity with people who suffer “persecution, mistreatment, murder, sexual exploitation, kidnapping and rapes at the hands of organized crime in complicity with the police authorities of Mexico.”

132 Movement activists voice different motivations for joining the struggle-outrage over human rights violations, the economic frustrations of an educated, stifled generation and yearnings for genuine democracy. A serious young man who studied international business and recently graduated from a private university, Julio del Avellano runs a small clothing store that markets his own designs. “I’m in this because of conviction, not out of necessity,” del Avellano said. “We don’t believe in the political system or in the institutions in general. The parties are corrupt, some worse than others, but it’s all bad.”

If the 132 Movement can be said to have an ideological bent, it’s one of fusion, drawn as much from the battles of the 1910 Mexican Revolution and contemporary Zapatismo as the philosophical sparks of the post-2011 world revolt. According to a young 132er who preferred to identify himself as Alejandro, many activists are influenced by the writings of Stephane Hessel, a 95-year-old European author, World War Two resistance fighter and Nazi concentration camp survivor. A contributor to the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Hessel’s more recent works have explored the inequalities of the world economy, attacks against migrants and environmental destruction.

“TV Azteca is a big show that does not reflect the reality of our country,” said Yoli Ramos, a 20-year-old university student in Aguascalientes. “I believe society could organize to have a better quality of life,” the young woman said. “We know what is wrong and we know what does not function in the government and system...it’s time to act.”

For now, the 132 Movement is pushing for an informed and aware electorate, greater media democracy and government transparency. A big goal, exhibited in protest signs that proclaim “Televisa Makes You an Idiot,” is to get young people away from the Tube and thinking critically about everyday political, economic and social issues. Both Yoli Ramos and Guillermo Sánchez said they will vote for president for the first time on July 1. Given the weight of young people in the current registration rolls, their generation could swing the election and change the course of history in Mexico if it turns out to vote in a significant way on July 1.

With less than two weeks to go before the fateful day, 132 has mapped out a hectic schedule of activities. More street brigades, public video projections of the June 19 debate, a big rock concert and a June 30 mega-march in Mexico City are on the agenda. On Election Day, activists plan to be stationed outside voting booths ready to immediately upload any reported irregularities onto the Internet.

“I would like to clarify that this is a long-term movement that was not born for the election, or to further a candidate,” said Aguascalientes’ Julio del Avellano. “We’re going to make demands on whoever wins, whether its Peña Nieto, Josefina Vázquez, López Obrador or Gabriel Quadri.” The young entrepreneur and activist said the 132 Movement still has a long road ahead of it. “Not all the young people have woken up,” he added, “but the participation of young people has increased in comparison with previous elections.”

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Mexican Government Recognizes Gómez Urrutia as Mine Union's Leader

The Mexican government has finally recognized Napoleón Gómez Urrutia as the general secretary of the Mexican Miners and Metalworkers Union (SNTMMRM) after persecuting him for six years. In May the Mexican Supreme Court ruled that the government had no legal grounds for refusing to recognize him, a decision that led authorities to grant him recognition. The recognition of Gómez represents a significant victory for union rights in Mexico.

Since 2006, Gómez Urrutia has lived in exile in Vancouver, British Columbia after being charged with embezzlement of union funds. Gómez Urrutia and his lawyers, supported by the United Steel Workers, the International Metalworkers Federation, and other union organizations, successfully challenged a series of charges and warrants for his arrest. Canadian officials refused to deport the union leader and granted him permanent residency. Gómez still remains in Canada, though his supporters say that he is planning to return soon.

From exile, Gómez continued to preside over the 300,000 member Miners and Metalworkers Union, participating in union meetings by video conference. While he resided in Canada, the members reelected him to the union’s top office of general secretary.

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Two Presidential Candidates Call for Democratizating Unions

Two of Mexico’s presidential candidates, Enrique Peña Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and Josefina Vázquez Mota of the National Action Party (PAN), speaking at a public meeting titled “Ten Questions About Education” called for “democratizing” Mexico’s labor unions. The other two candidates, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the candidate of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) and Gabriel Quadi of the New Alliance Party (PANAL) which was created by the Mexican Teachers Union were not present.

The call by the two conservative candidates to democratize the union is rather ironic, given their parties’ relations to labor organizations. Peña Nieto’s PRI party has used violence, corruption, and political favors to dominate the largest labor unions from the party’s founding in 1928 until today, while Vázquez Mota’s PAN has historically been opposed to labor unions and has sought labor law reform legislation intended to weaken their power. Workers’ right and power are the last thing either of these candidates could imagine, and the thought would appall them.

Neither candidate, however, was really talking about workers having democratic rights in their unions or their workplaces. Their remarks about democratizing the unions were aimed at Elba Esther Gordillo and the Mexican Teachers Union (el SNTE) which she has headed for a quarter of a century. Gordillo’s political machine, based on her million member union, has made her a powerbroker, first with the PRI and more recently with the PAN. Now on the outs with both, she is a despised figure among both politicians and many of her union’s members.

Both Peña Nieto and Vázquez Mota talked about freeing the Secretary of Public Education from the powerful teachers union. Vázquez Mota was the most explicit, saying, “Mexico can’t take any more caciques (political bosses); it’s a good time to say good-by to Elba.”
Public education has been a big issue in the campaign. In Mexico, of every 100 students who begin elementary school, only 64 graduate, only 24 finish high school, and only 10 earn a bachelor’s degree. Only 3 conclude post graduate studies. Many Mexicans blame the corrupt relationship between the Secretary of Public Education and the Mexican Teachers Union for the poor state of education in the country.

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Women Workers at Flex-N-gate Demand Their Labor Rights

This article above was originally published on the website of the International Metalworkers Federation.

MEXICO: Women workers dismissed by the auto parts company Flex-N-Gate have asked Volkswagen Mexico to apply the Bratislava Declaration to ensure their labor rights are respected by the company.

The Bratislava Declaration is an agreement between Volkswagen in Germany and auto industry workers in Mexico, signed in 2002. The agreement established that the company can compel its commercial partners and suppliers to guarantee respect for labor rights.

Verónica Carreón Leal and Sara Ortega Hernández, who are members of a group of dismissed women workers, say that Volkswagen must ensure compliance with point 1.1 of the declaration, which recognizes “the fundamental right of all workers to form trade unions and other representative bodies and join them...”

They say they will continue the fight for recognition of union representatives that have no connection with the PRI-dominated trade union central, the CTM, and its leaders Gonzalo Torres Chetla and Leobardo Soto.

The International Metalworkers Federation (IMF) has expressed its support for their fight “to choose their own, legitimate and democratic trade union representatives” at Flex-N-Gate and joined the workers in asking Volkswagen to ensure compliance with the Bratislava Declaration.

In a letter to the workers, the IMF General Secretary, Jyrki Raina, said that the organization “strongly condemns all violations of labor rights at Flex-N-Gate, which include heavy workloads and ill-treatment of workers as well as the denial of the freedom of association. We demand that the company complies scrupulously with national and international legislation.”

The independent union of Volkswagen auto workers (SITIAVW) asked the IMF to try and curb injustices at other suppliers and announced that it would be discussing the matter with managers at Volkswagen Mexico’s Puebla plant and taking the matter up at the World Council.

June 03, 2012 – Valeska Solis

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Unions Debate Way Forward to Achieve Labor Rights in Mexico

This article was originally published on the website of the International Metalworkers Federation (IMF).

GENEVA:

It was a full house in Room IV of the International Labor Organization, where representatives from the international Labor movement and independent union movement in Mexico condemned protection contracts and barriers to Freedom of Association in Mexico. Panelists and discussion participants also identified ways in which unions can act and move forward.

The panel discussion was hosted by the International Trade Union Confederation and Global Union Federations, with Steve Benedict, the ITUC's Director for Human and Trade Union Rights, opening the event. [See video at: http://www.imfmetal.org/index.cfm?c=30108&l=2.]

It is estimated and widely accepted in Mexico that nearly 90 per cent of all collective bargaining agreements are protection contracts. “This is a serious crisis for Freedom of Association, a crisis for our workers, our unions and in some cases even the employers are rejecting this system,” said Christy Hoffman, deputy general secretary of UNI Global Union, who co-chaired the event.

Specific cases where workers have been denied the right to join a union, and in some cases faced brutal retaliation, were presented by Hector Barba García of the National Union of Workers (UNT), Genaro Trejo Arteaga and Oscar Alzaga of the Mexican Miners and Metal Workers Union (SNTMMSRM). Panelists denounced the overt complicity between Mexican authorities and transnational companies such as Wal-Mart, JCI, Atento, PKC,Excellon, and Grupo Mexico to deprive workers of their right to Freedom of Association.

“This is a call to action,” said Liz Shuler, AFLCIO Secretary Treasurer speaking about cross-border strategies to combat the criminalization of social and union struggle in Mexico. “We need to build our capacity to better deliver solidarity and build our union networks around the world to take on this fight.”

A plan for moving forward was outlined by the International Metalworkers' Federation's Assistant General Secretary, Fernando Lopes, who identified five major areas for focus and action:

• Work with the ITUC, GUFs and the ILO to push the government to adhere to ILO international standards and implement recommendations made by the Committee on Freedom of Association regarding protection contracts (case no. 2694).

• Support global and regional campaigns and networks fighting for Freedom of Association in Mexico, such as the ITUC (global) and the TriNational Solidarity Alliance-GUFs, US, Canada and Mexico (regional).

• Participate in and grow mobilizations in support of February Global Days of Action on Mexico. A week of events held annually around February 19 around the world.

• Hold multinationals accountable for their role and how they profit from having protection contracts. Identify multinationals who have made commitments to adhere to international Labor standards, such as Global Framework Agreements, OECD guidelines and members of the Global Compact to urge companies to abandon the protection contract system.

• Make union building a priority so independent unions have the capacity to represent workers who are breaking out of the protection contract system.

Jun 13, 2012 – Kristyne Peter

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Mexican Teacher Protests Get Attention of Orbitz and Customers

Travelers to Mexico who booked their tickets through Orbitz recently receive this email, suggesting that teacher protests are having an effect.

Dear [customer’s name],

Here at Orbitz we are always watching for events that may affect your travel.
We wanted to let you know that numerous teachers in Mexico City, Mexico have been protesting near Benito Juárez International Airport (MEX). These protests have prevented passengers from using the main airport access and are causing delays to and from the airport. These protests are expected to last for the next few days.

We recommend that you allow additional time for travel to and from the airport.

Thanks for booking with Orbitz.

Sincerely,
The Orbitz Care Team

Orbitz Customer Relations
500 West Madison Street, Suite 1000
Chicago, IL 60661

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Labor Shorts: SANDAK Update, FAT Presentation to RR Workers, and Durango Miners File OECD Complaint

SANDAK Workers Continue Struggle

After finally obtaining a declaration that their strike was legal, the SANDAK workers filed a new strike notice in January, this time for the annual wage increase. Once again the employer has asked that the Tlaxcala Labor Board find it to have been "inexistente" or illegal since last March. Instead of either making an affirmative determination or ordering a vote to determine whether workers in fact supported the strike, the labor board has begun to interview them one at a time. Last week, two buses of workers went to the Labor Board to demand that the President act in accordance with the law. This short video from the Sandak workers documents their experience (in Spanish).

FAT presentation at Railroad Workers United convention

As indicated in our last issue, Benedicto Martínez Orozco, a national leader of the FAT, spoke at the Railroad Workers United convention. A short video of his remarks can be viewed here.

Workers and Communal Land Owners File OECD Complaint

Communal landowners from the Ejido “La Sierrita” and workers from La Platosa mine in Durango, Mexico have filed a complaint against Excellon Resources under the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Corporations with government offices in Ottawa and Mexico City alleging labor rights violations and failure to comply with the land use contract with the Ejido on whose land the company operates. Click here for more information.

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News in Brief: TPP and G-20

Mexico to Join TPP

Mexico and Canada announced that they would join the Trans-Pacific Free Trade Agreement (FTA) — sometimes called the Trans-Pacific Partnership or TPP. For more information about this agreement, see: http://www.citizenstrade.org/ctc/trade-policies/tpp-potential-trade-policy-problems/ and http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-20/pacific-trade-talks-extend-invites-to-canada-mexico.html

Civil Society Organizes Critique of G-20; Proposes Alternatives

In addition to events in Baja California, the SME hosted a day long meeting on energy, there was a spirited march, and various unions that participate in the Tri-National Solidarity Alliance (TNSA) joined a labor panel as part of a two day seminar International Alternatives to the G-20.

Speaking on the labor panel facilitated by Martha Heredia were UNT (México), Ashim Roy, NTUI (India), Juan José Gomez Beristain, SME (México), Tony Salvador, IDEALS/APL (Philippines), Lorraine Clewer, AFL-CIO, US, Andrew Dinkelaker, UE (US), Armando Robles, UE, (US) Venanzi Luna, UFCW, (US), and Mark Rowlinson, USW-Canadá

To read about the events in English, go to the blog of Lacy MacAuley, Media Relations Manager, Institute for Policy Studies at http://lacymacauley.wordpress.com/

The final civil society declaration appears here: Declaration Peoples Summit 06-19-2012-1.doc

Information in Spanish appears on the web site of the Coalicion G-20 at http://www.coaliciong20.org/

Press (in Spanish) appears below:
http://bambuser.com/channel/suysulucha
http://www.livestream.com/owinfs_g20
http://www.proceso.com.mx/?p=311093
http://www.coaliciong20.org/?p=1063 (vidéo of the speaches at March)
http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2012/06/16/sociedad/036n2soc
http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2012/06/16/sociedad/037n1soc
http://www.coaliciong20.org/?p=951 (audio)
http://www.coaliciong20.org/?cat=23
http://www.oem.com.mx/elsudcaliforniano/notas/n2582605.htm
http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2012/06/16/sociedad/037n1soc
http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2012/06/16/sociedad/036n2soc
http://www.reforma.com/nacional/articulo/661/1321369/

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Resources

• "No Matter What the Result, We Will Continue to Resist," Says Mexican Electrical Workers Union Leader, by David Bacon, TruthoutSaturday, 02 June 2012.

• “Mexico's 'maquiladora' labor system keeps workers in poverty” By Tim Johnson, McClatchy Newspapers, Posted on Sat, Jun. 16, 2012 11:00 PM, at http://www.kansascity.com/2012/06/16/3656744/mexicos-maquiladora-labor-system.html#storylink=cpy

• “Union boss Elba Esther Gordillo keeps a stranglehold on Mexico's schools”, by Tim Johnson, McClatchy Newspapers, Posted on Sat, Jun. 16, 2012 11:00 PM
Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/06/16/3654610/union-boss-elba-esther-gordillo.html#storylink=cpy

• Solidarity message from Landless Workers Movement of Brazil: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hUSCv-GPqU

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Support Requested

Author Todd Miller is soliciting contributions for his newest project -- a book that will examine the build-up and proliferation of the U.S. Border Patrol into the country (and national life), and the industry that this generates -- through kickstarter

He notes: "This article, "The Big Business of Border Control", published last week, also gives a good idea of some things that I'll be writing about."

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Up-coming Events

This summer, Mexico's Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity (MPJD) will launch a "Peace Caravan" through the US South, in an effort to bring identities to the thousands of people who have been killed, disappeared, tortured or displaced as a result of the US Drug War in Mexico and failed US policies towards Latin America. The caravan will begin August 12 in San Diego and end September 12 in Washington, DC.

Mexican poet Javier Sicilia writes: "We are a movement that emerged last year in response to widespread violence in Mexico stemming from the policies of the war against drugs and drug cartels. The 60,000 deaths, the 10,000 disappearances, and the 160,000 internally displaced people during the past six years is a tragedy caused directly by failed security policies." Sicilia's own son, Juan Francisco, was murdered along with 6 other youths last year in Morelos. Click here for Sicilia's full invitation to US activists to join the Caravan and here formore information.

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