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Nomad
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Farmer workers strike in San Quintin
I didn't see a post about this, so here's this:
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2015/mar/28/mexico-farm-worke... [www.utsandiego.com] »
SAN QUINTIN, Mexico — As thousands of farm workers headed for the strawberry fields of these low coastal valleys early Saturday, hundreds of others
prepared to ride buses across Baja California, continuing the campaign launched this month for higher wages and improved working conditions in the
region’s export-oriented farms.
Nearly two weeks after the launch of a farm workers’ strike that led to road blocks along the Transpeninsular Highway and threatened the output of one
of Mexico’s most important agricultural regions, calm has returned to Colonet, Vicente Guerrero, San Quintin and other communities that grow
strawberries, raspberries, tomatoes and other produce.
As the protesting farm workers made their way north Saturday, Baja California Gov. Francisco Vega de Lamadrid and top Cabinet officials gathered at
state government offices in San Quintin with local business and civic leaders. Authorities reported that most striking workers were back on the job,
despite the breakdown of talks on Friday between strike leaders and the growers.
Strike leaders are looking for new ways to keep pressure on the growers that are the region’s main employer, and are an important source of supply for
U.S. consumers. Several hundred workers joined a 10-bus caravan aimed at generating support statewide, while a new alliance with the United Farm
Workers was launched to provide visibility for the issue in the United States.
Throughout the conflict, the large growers have maintained a low profile, expressing their point of view through cautiously worded statements, saying
they respect labor laws and are limited in their ability to raise workers’ salaries.
Following days of negotiations, the main growers group, the Agricultural Council of Baja California, on Friday offered a 15 percent wage hike, a
percentage they said is unprecedented in Mexico — but far short of the increase demanded by the strikers, led by the National, State and Municipal
Alliance for Social Justice.
The talks, mediated by the Baja California government, collapsed Friday when the growers’ representative, Alberto Muñoz, walked out after reading a
statement. The wages paid in San Quintin “are superior to those established nationally by authorities charged with setting them,” the statement said.
Raising them any higher “would lead to economic collapse,” it said.
On Saturday, a few dozen farm workers waited by an unpaved road off the Transpeninsular Highway in the community of Vicente Guerrero, preparing to
join a caravan of buses that would take them to Ensenada, Tijuana and finally Mexicali, the state capital.
Though the most sensitive issue has been wages, the workers are making a number of other demand of the growers: that they recognize seniority, offer
paid holidays and three months pregnancy leave, give workers social security benefits and ban sexual harassment of female workers.
“The truth is, at times we don’t have enough to buy shoes,” said Maurilia Ventura Jose, 37, a mother of three who said neither she nor her husband
have worked since the strike began on March 17, surviving with the food they had in the house.
Ventura and other farm workers, many of them from indigenous communities in the southern state of Oaxaca, say the going rates paid by the growers,
ranging from $6.50 to $10 for a day’s work, have left them struggling to pay bills and put food on the table.
Strike leaders originally called for establishment of a minimum wage for farm workers in the region of about $20 per day, or $2 per box of
strawberries, but in negotiations this week, they lowered their demand to $13 per day, or about $1.30 per box of strawberries.
Strike leaders refused to change their final demand: “If it’s necessary to appear before Congress, we’ll do so,” said Fidel Sanchez, one of the main
spokesmen, who has been sharply critical of the Baja California government and accused officials of siding with the growers.
Pablo Alejo Lopez, the state’s main negotiator, said the farm workers’ demands for $20 a day, “perhaps is just, but one has to understand that for a
company, this generates a sharp increase, puts their finances at risk.” The government “is also concerned that the sources of jobs are not lost,” said
Lopez. “And this should also be of concern to the workers.”
Jose Zavala, a researcher at the Colegio de la Frontera Norte in Tijuana, said the strike is the result of poverty and injustice that have long
festered in the region.
Public institutions have been weak, he said, and the large growers are the “de facto authority in the region,” said Zavala, who has studied San
Quintin for two decades. “The depressed living conditions have persisted for decades, we can say for generations,” he said.
Figures on the numbers of workers affected by the decision vary widely. Strike leaders say there are close to 80,000 agricultural workers in the
region, though state officials say their tally shows that there are between 25,000 and 31,000 in the southern part of Baja California, with the total
depending on the season.
If the large growers have strong U.S. connections, the striking workers have forged their own cross-border relationship, with the United Farm Workers.
The UFW launched a petition this week “standing in solidarity with the workers from San Quintin” and naming one of the region’s largest growers,
Berrymex, which supplies Driscoll’s, a major U.S. berry distributor.
Response to the petition “has been overwhelming,” with more than 25,000 signatures in three days, said Erik Nicholson, vice president of the UFW,
which sent representatives to San Quintin to observe the negotiations. “We’ve been reaching out proactively to retailers to let them know of the
situation,” Nicholson said.
Driscoll’s issued a response from Soren Bjorn, executive vice president for Driscoll’s of the Americas. He said “our contracts clearly state growers
are required to follow all laws that protect employees … each and every grower is aware that non-compliance could result in termination of their
association with Driscoll’s.”
The strike began on March 17, and over the next two days protesters established blockades along the Transpeninsular Highway, the Baja California
peninsula’s main artery. Violence erupted at the initial stages, with rock-throwing incidents and the vandalizing and looting of local stores.
Baja California’s Public Safety Secretary, Daniel de la Rosa, said that about 1,000 police from various agency and Mexican soldiers converged in the
region to establish order.
By Wednesday of this week, as strike leaders negotiated with the growers inside the salon of a restaurant in San Quintin, groups of farm workers
continued to gather by the side of the road well into the night. Protesters held up signs, and asked for contributions, but waved vehicles through
without incident.
On Thursday, as negotiations grew increasingly heated, some 2,000 protesters joined a peaceful 14-mile march to state government offices in San
Quintin, heavily surrounded by police in riot gear. But many other workers reported to work, some picked up in company buses escorted by police
patrols with flashing lights.
The strike has put workers on edge — both those who have been striking and those who have continued to work.
“I am a bit nervous that there’ll be retributions, that they’ll see us as problematic,” said Isabel Cruz Santiago, a 30-year-old mother of three who
joined the strike.
Erick Jesus Peto Fuentes, 30, said he was forced to turn back twice from his job at Berrymex when the company bus was pelted with rocks. “I have a
9-year-old daughter and 7-month-old son. They don’t ask if there’s a strike, they just want food,” Peto said.
Peto said Thursday that he had seen his pay for picking raspberries rise from 91 cents per container to $1.18 since the strike began.
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BajaNomad
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http://forums.bajanomad.com/viewthread.php?tid=78097
When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.
– Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
We know we must go back if we live, and we don`t know why.
– John Steinbeck, Log from the Sea of Cortez
https://www.regionalinternet.com
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bent-rim
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Mood: Living la vida mota
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I hope there is a two tiered economy in Baja. One for Gringos and another for the locals.
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