Anonymous - 10-18-2005 at 05:57 AM
http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/miami/12356.html
The tourism industry in the resort city of La Paz is absorbing ranchers who can no longer make a living in the surrounding countryside.
BY ELINO VILLANUEVA/EL UNIVERSAL
October 17, 2005
LA PAZ, Baja California Sur The sky is still pitch black as the battered, second-hand Toyota pickup makes its way steadily down the Malec?n, or main
seaside boulevard, in this Pacific resort city.
The truck is driven by Dolores Avil?s Avil?s, who for the past 21 years has occupied a very singular job: He picks through and sorts the garbage
discarded from La Paz's luxury hotels.
Now 60 years old, Dolores, or "Lolo" as he is better known, is no longer as spry as he once was, and so his son, Ismael, now rides along. And while
the job title that Lolo has given him is "chauffer and secretary," what Ismael mostly does is leap out of the Toyota at each garbage pile and heave
heavy refuse into the back of the truck.
Every day the two men rise at 3 a.m. at their home in the outlying ranch of Tanales and head for La Paz. They are pepenadores, or garbage pickers, who
support their family by plowing through the trash left behind by the tourism industry, and recycling glass, metal and tin objects for a few pennies.
They also feed their domestic animals with leftovers they find among the refuse.
Their peculiar work, in a sense, is not that unusual. In this city where 47 percent of the local economy is powered by tourism, thousands of people
are making a living in one way or another off the tourism industry. The garbage-picking that Lolo and Ismael do, as well as the menial labor performed
by many of their fellow "rancho" dwellers illustrates the dual nature of La Paz. It is a city rich with tourism-fueled development surrounded by a
poor countryside in the midst of an economic crisis.
According to Jos? Antonio Mart?nez de la Torre, a specialist in the economy of Baja California Sur, the crisis in the surrounding countryside results
from the inability of ranchers to earn a living from livestock herding. This activity, long the principal means of survival for people in the southern
peninsula area, is "in danger of disappearing," said Mart?nez. In its place, ranchers and shepherds are now searching for service jobs in La Paz's
hotels and restaurants.
When those are not available, they search out alternative ways to make a living from the dominant local industry, such as garbage-scavaging.
Lolo Avil?s came from one of these struggling ranching families, and when he could no longer support his family by tending livestock, he says that he
felt "obligated" to seek work in La Paz, first as a dump truck operator, then later as a worker with the local roads commission.
He scraped and saved as he worked, and finally, 21 years ago, he bought himself his first pickup. It was then that he set out on his own as a garbage
scavenger.
La Paz is home to 600 businesses supported by the tourism industry, said Alberto Trevi?o Angulo, local tourism coordinator. There are 14,000 hotel
rooms in the city inhabited by 400,000 visitors each year, and money spent by those visitors accounts for nearly half of the region's economic
activity, he confirmed.
And despite the deteriorating economic situation in the surrounding ranches, says one local labor official, the jobs provided to area residents by the
tourism industry provide a viable escape valve.
Ren? Oyoqui Flores, head of the local Revolutionary Confederation of Laborers and Peasant Farmers (CROC), the union which represents La Paz's service
workers, said that the 52 pesos (slightly less than US5) that workers make as a daily minimum wage here is adequate for supporting their families.
"Everybody earns well here," he said. "There are some who lag behind, like dishwashers or housekeeping staff, but in general, (the workers) make a
good living. Like the wait staff, who make tips from the tourists. Those who don't earn well here are those who are carefree spenders, who are heavy
drinkers, or who have two or three wives to support."
The CROC and its parent union, the CTM, however, have occasionally been accused of providing labor peace to business owners and the government, rather
than looking out for the needs of workers.