Global Workers Justice Alliance
Tapachula, Chiapas, Mexico April 30, 2008
After one last substantive session focused on the use of international law, the training shifted into action. The last day was dedicated to how the Global Workers Defender Network will function. These defenders were trained to accomplish three objectives. 1. Educate migrant workers about their rights in the US. 2. Identify cases of workers exploited in the US to refer to Global Workers. 3. Through Global Workers, partner with US organizations who are facing challenges in assisting their worker clients who have returned to their home countries.
After reviewing and discussing the organizational structure, the rules and ethics of assisting migrant workers (an area they are familiar with through their own work) but in a transjurisdictional context, each participant took away a contract to be reviewed and signed by their organizations. Each year, the group will reunite to renew the commitment and discuss the accomplishments and challenges they faced in executing the portable justice mission.
Although Global Workers has already provided critical assistance to US organizations struggling to combat human trafficking and other abuses faced by migrant workers, this training signifies the formalization of the network. Now with 13 organizations trained and committed to the Global Workers Defender Network, we enter into a new and unprecedented stage of justice for global workers.
Tapachula, Chiapas, Mexico April 29, 2008
Day two saw the completion of the US employment law segment, which covered Discrimination (with a special emphasis on sexual harassment, a serious and under addressed problem in the work place, especially for farmworker women), Unions (interestingly the focus of the most extensive questions), Health and Safety (mostly the rights of injured workers), Temporary Guestworkers, and Human Trafficking.
Working in groups, the advocates learned how to put the US law into practice as they analyzed a complicated case study of workers whose employment went awry in the US. Their astute analyses underscored the daily evaluations that they were keenly interested and capturing well the material.
The afternoon transitioned into a look into how the US guestworker program violates Mexican and Guatemalan laws. Led by a Mexican Global Workers board member and a Guatemalan human rights lawyer, the advocates, now on more familiar legal ground, delved energetically into the frequent abuses workers face during the recruitment process to go to the US. It was a fascinating conversation of discovery and analysis.
Tapachula, Chiapas, Mexico April 28, 2008
The fist day of the training was wonderful. Most of the advocates are lawyers and they soaked up the day’s intensive survey of US employment law. All of the US law topics were carefully chosen as most relevant to transnational migrant workers and based upon the manual meticulously elaborated over the past 1.5 years by consulting attorney Nan Schivone. Three experienced US lawyers (two Global Workers board members and the Executive Director) conducted interactive trainings on the US legal system (Latin American societies are based on the civil law system which contrasts with the US common law approach), US Civil Procedure (the US system is quite unique and needed to be carefully explained to the foreign lawyers who will be working hand in hand with US lawyers to make sure the workers can enforce their rights), Wage and Hour Laws (mostly concerning failure to pay a full days wage), Farmworkers, and Immigration law.
The long day wrapped up with a showing of “Farmingville” an excellent documentary about a New York community struggling for and against its newest immigrants, Latino day laborers. The documentary artfully explains all sides of the story and is an intimate glimpse in to the passions surrounding today’s immigration debate. Many advocates requested copies to use as educational tools in their own communities.
Tapachula, Chiapas, Mexico April 27, 2008
This is an historic moment for Global Workers. Tonight 23 advocates from 13 human rights organizations from southern Mexico and Guatemala are arriving in Tapachula, Mexico for a three-day Training on Defending Transnational Migrant Workers in the United States. After over two years of carefully laying the groundwork traveling through the region to identify potential partners (from priests running migrant shelters to seasoned human rights attorneys), this training will be the official launch of the Global Workers Defender Network.
The purpose of the network is to ensure portable justice for transnational migrant workers. By training trusted advocates in the sending communities of migrants in US employment-related law, they will serve as partners with US organizations defending migrant workers. To address the tremendous challenge of helping workers recover stolen wages or facing their human traffickers when they leave the United States, partners in the migrants’ home countries are essential. Without cross border collaboration workers too often must drop their cases or never learn how to challenge their abusers in the first place. The success of the next three days will determine if this vision is possible.
New Orleans, Louisiana March 8, 2008
Today Global Workers met with Brazilian and Mexican workers who were all exploited through the guest worker program and are organizing with the support of the New Orleans Workers Center. The Brazilian workers paid up to $6,000 to secure jobs as welders at the Signal shipyard in Mississippi. But when they arrived they were shocked to discover that there was no work at all. After three months with no pay whatsoever, the desperate workers left the job to seek work elsewhere, despite the fact that the Brazilian recruiter threatened to charge them thousands of dollars if they broke the contract, regardless of the reason.
The Mexican workers traveled to Louisiana to pick strawberries under H-2a contracts. Going into debt of $1,000 with 20% monthly interest, the promise of $8.10 an hour seemed well worth the risk. However, when they arrived they only received an average of $2.00 an hour after the farmer unilaterally, and illegally, changed the terms of their contract. Moreover, the farmer confiscated the passports and would not return them even when one worker wanted to return to Mexico to be with his wife who was about to give birth to their first child. Faced with a total loss of freedom, the workers staged a citizen’s arrest of the farmer to demand the return of their passports and compliance with the contract. After the protest, the workers were fired and now seek work off the books to be able to pay off of their crushing debts before returning home.
The workers confirmed that they received no pre-departure information about their rights or where to turn if they employers did not live up to the contractual commitments. They all agreed that this information would have greatly helped them face their exploitative employers. They felt utterly ignorant, alone, and angry. Upon hearing the mission of Global Workers they were encouraged and stressed that coordinated legal support back home was important to achieve justice against their recruiters. Both groups of workers want their recruiters and employers to be charged for violating human trafficking laws in the USA and Mexico and Brazil. Global Workers will work with them to ensure that this happens.
Pascagoula, Mississippi March 6, 2008
Today, 100 of these Indian guest workers quit their jobs at Signal and threw their hard hats at the front gate in a symbolic protest. Angry and defrauded, these workers want justice. A local TV station covered the action. Global Workers was present at the protest in Pascagoula as part of an international legal support team. Global Workers is assisting the workers to bring their plight to the attention of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Special Rapporteurship on Migrants and the United Nations Special Rapporteurs on Migrants and Trafficking. Since Global Workers has yet to establish a program in India, it has worked closely with an Indian colleague who has connected the New Orleans Workers Center for Racial Justice with legal assistance in India. This powerful connection has already resulted in widespread press coverage in India, and potential criminal action against the recruiter, all of which has prompted the Indian government into action. The Indian ambassador to the USA will travel to New Orleans to meet with the workers next week. This collaboration, once again, underscores the importance of working transnationally to address the issues that transnational workers face. Hopefully, this case will spark a movement to push for recruiter laws both in the USA and India. Until the employers are responsible for all transportation and recruitment fees, the workers will be mercilessly exploited with exorbitant fees.
Pascagoula, Mississippi March 5, 2008
The New Orleans Workers Center for Racial Justice asked Global Workers to support a case of Indian H-2b guest workers trafficked to work for Signal International, a large shipyard in Mississippi. Specifically, they wanted to bring legal actions in India against the recruiter and to explore international legal actions in addition to the domestic actions they were about to pursue.
The case of the Indian workers highlights once again the serious problems of the USA guest worker program. On the one hand the US is a strong advocate against trafficking of humans. On the other hand, the government itself is facilitating a program that has resulted in more than one instance of human trafficking.
Signal hired a recruiter in India to bring over 600 welders to the gulf coast, due to an alleged lack of American welders available after Hurricane Katrina. The recruiter charged the Indians $20,000 a piece with the promise that they would receive green cards and be able to bring their families to live with them permanently in the USA. Since many of these workers had spent their entire adult lives holding jobs all over the world as guest workers on short contracts, the opportunity to hold good jobs and live with their families seemed well worth going into deep debt. Once they arrived in the USA they realized that they were terribly deceived. The workers were on H-2b visas, which offer no possibility of converting to green cards (i.e. permanent residency). Their families would never be able to join them and there was no way to pay off the debt with a six month job. To their further humiliation, they were housed in “man camps” with 24 persons to a room with one bathroom. The conditions, they claim, were worse than any country in the middle east where they had previously worked. In response, the workers started to organize. The company reacted by illegally detaining several of the workers with the threat to deport them. The fear of deportation while having a crushing debt drove one worker to attempt suicide. In solidarity, the rest of the workers spontaneously struck to demand their release. Over the course of the next year, the workers continued to organize while the Workers Center and the Southern Poverty Law Center laid the ground work for a massive law suit alleging, amongst other claims, human trafficking.
Oaxaca, Mexico February 10, 2008
Oaxaca is the second state in Mexico where the Transnational Migrant Defender Network will launch in Mexico. This trip was to identify the partner organizations to invite to the first advocate training scheduled for the end of April in Chiapas. Oaxaca is a fascinating state. Highly organized with a myriad of NGOs and civil society groups, it was a challenge to narrow the potential partners. The section of Oaxaca that is the source of the most migrants is in the north west area where the Mixtec indigenous people live. The mountainous area, which is poor for agriculture has long been known as a migrant-sending zone. The organizations there have already been involved in assisting migrant workers and their families with problems faced in the USA, a natural fit for our network. Due to the collapse of Mexican agriculture in the past 5 years other parts of Oaxaca are also beginning to see devastated families send a family member north to seek work. Now all parts of Oaxaca are considered migrant sending areas. The organizations in those zones, however, are just beginning to analyze the affects on the communities and what new services and programs they need to adjust to the new reality. Global Workers looks forward to being part of that discussion. One of the unique aspects of the Global Workers model is its flexibility. By partnering and empowering local organizations, Global Workers can quickly move into a new country to ensure that these new migrants also have access to justice. As companies increasingly seek workers from non-traditional migrant countries, we must be right on their heels ensuring that those workers know and exercise their rights in their own defense. Global Workers require global justice.
Tapachula, Chiapas, Mexico February 7, 2008
Global Workers is excited to announce that it will conduct its first sending-country advocate training April 27-30 in Tapachula. We traveled to Tapachula to coordinate logistics for the training with a local NGO advocate partner, the Friar Matias Center for Human Rights. 25 lawyers and legal assistants from southern Mexico (Chiapas and Oaxaca) will be invited to attend this inaugural training. After years of laying the ground work, Global Workers is in the position to officially launch the Transnational Migrant Defender Network. After the training, these organizations will be committed to: cooperating with USA organizations defending migrant workers in employment-related claims; identifying new cases of migrants who have returned to Mexico and Guatemala but were exploited while working in the USA; and educating migrants and other organizations about migrant labor rights in the USA. Once the network is launched, migrant workers will have increased portable justice, that is the right and ability to access justice in the country of employment even after they have gone home.
New York, December 5, 2007
Global Workers just learned that one worker in Guatemala refused to pay the illegal and exaggerated recruitment fees required for him to go to the US with the guest worker H-2 program. Although the recruiter had already chosen this worker to go, he was dropped off the list when he stood up for his rights. Global Workers is working in coordination with a US NGO to see what can be done for this courageous worker. The hope is that a retaliatory claim can be brought to offer some relief and, equally as important, this sparks a transnational call to end the illegal charges.