More Unions Favor Legalizing Workers

Sunday 29 March 2009

by: Leslie Berestein, The San Diego Union-Tribune

The dynamics of the farm labor population have changed since Cesar Chavez and others began organizing workers in California's fields.

In the early 1960s, a guest-worker program that had imported workers from Mexico since the days of World War II was drawing to a close. Those who were left picking crops were largely legal residents or U.S. citizens of Mexican and Filipino descent, along with working-class white and black Americans.

"Back then, probably 80 percent were documented, and about 20 percent were undocumented. Today it would be just the reverse," said Arturo Rodriguez, president of United Farm Workers, the nation's first farm labor union. The UFW was founded by Chavez, whose birthday is celebrated Tuesday.

The makeup of the nation's manual laborers - and in particular, farm laborers - changed as economic conditions in Mexico and other parts of Latin America coincided with a demand for cheap labor in the United States.

It is now estimated that as many as 90 percent of California's farmworkers are foreign-born, most of them here illegally. This resonates in San Diego County, home to more small farms than any other county in the United States, according to the San Diego County Farm Bureau. Agriculture has repeatedly ranked fourth or fifth among the county's top industries.

Nationwide, the Pew Hispanic Center in Washington, D.C., has estimated that while only 4 percent of unauthorized workers are employed in agriculture, such workers make up the vast majority of farm labor.

As the labor force has changed, so has many organized labor groups'attitude toward unauthorized workers, whom they once viewed as low-paid competition and, in the case of farmworkers, as strikebreakers.

Along with prominent labor groups such as the Service Employees International Union, the UFW, which has about 27,000 members, is a vocal proponent of revamping immigration laws to grant legal status to those already working here.

While guest-worker plans continue to be a sticking point and dissent persists among trade unions in some industries, the general thinking in recent years has gone as such: If you can't beat the competition, let them join.

Unauthorized workers who are easily exploited give an unfair advantage to employers who hire them and drive down wages for other workers, say labor leaders who favor legalization. Giving them legal status and rights would level the playing field, while bringing them into the union fold would boost membership and bargaining muscle.

"There has been a significant change in the mind-set of the labor movement," Rodriguez said.

This is not a new position for the UFW, which lost ground in the 1980s to a combination of political resistance and growers' increasing preference for unauthorized workers as more arrived.

The union has supported initiatives calling for legalization, including the 1986 law that granted amnesty to roughly 3 million people residing in the United States illegally.

As with other labor groups that more recently have endorsed legalization, it is a position that evolved along with the work force. Early on, the UFW's stance was less sympathetic toward the illegal workers, who were viewed as competition.

But that view is often misconstrued, some scholars say.

In 1969, four years into a five-year grape strike, Chavez testified before Congress that if illegal workers were removed from California, "at least from the strike fields, we would win the strike overnight," said Jorge Mariscal, who teaches Chicano studies at UC San Diego.

"There is no question that in the early days, they had a strike going on. The growers were bringing in undocumented people to break the strike, so of course they had to be against that," said Mariscal, who cited the quote in a book he wrote about the Chicano movement, "Brown-Eyed Children of the Sun."

Anti-illegal-immigration activists have often referred to actions the union took at the border in protest of strikebreakers as justification for staging border watches.

During strikes against growers in the 1960s and early 1970s, it was common for growers to bring in workers from Mexico as scabs. In 1974, during a strike against citrus growers in Yuma, Ariz., UFW members stationed themselves at the Arizona-Mexico border.

"The UFW protested the inactivity of the (Immigration and Naturalization Service) and then began stopping Mexican undocumented workers at the border, trying to convince them not to scab," reads a passage from "Cesar Chavez: A Triumph of Spirit," a biography of Chavez co-written by Richard Griswold del Castillo, a professor of Chicano studies at San Diego State University. Some strikebreakers did turn back, but there were also violent confrontations, according to the book.

The position union members took against strikebreakers was born not out of qualms over legal status but out of self-preservation, Rodriguez said.

"If you bring in people more hungry than the ones already here, those workers are forced to do what is necessary to take care of their families," he said.

Today, legalizing workers once seen as competitors has become a priority; the UFW kicked off a new pro-legalization campaign this month.

It is also viewed as a necessity.

"We think this is really critical for the future," Rodriguez said.

»

IN ACCORDANCE WITH TITLE 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107, THIS MATERIAL IS DISTRIBUTED WITHOUT PROFIT TO THOSE WHO HAVE EXPRESSED A PRIOR INTEREST IN RECEIVING THE INCLUDED INFORMATION FOR RESEARCH AND EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES. TRUTHOUT HAS NO AFFILIATION WHATSOEVER WITH THE ORIGINATOR OF THIS ARTICLE NOR IS TRUTHOUT ENDORSED OR SPONSORED BY THE ORIGINATOR.

"VIEW SOURCE ARTICLE" LINKS ARE PROVIDED AS A CONVENIENCE TO OUR READERS AND ALLOW FOR VERIFICATION OF AUTHENTICITY. HOWEVER, AS ORIGINATING PAGES ARE OFTEN UPDATED BY THEIR ORIGINATING HOST SITES, THE VERSIONS POSTED ON TO MAY NOT MATCH THE VERSIONS OUR READERS VIEW WHEN CLICKING THE "VIEW SOURCE ARTICLE" LINKS.
Comments

Another Source of Info About El Salvador

(from http://voiceselsalvador.wordpress.com/about/)

About Voices on the Border

Voices on the Border (Voices) is a non-profit, grassroots network of individuals and organizations promoting just and equitable development in the departments of Usulután and Morazán in El Salvador.

Voices began its work in 1987 as a project of accompaniment with over 10,000 Salvadoran refugees in Colomoncagua, Honduras and in other refugee camps. In 1989 and 1990, Voices accompanied these refugees as they returned to El Salvador. Upon their return, many refugees founded Comunidad Segundo Montes, in the northern department of Morazán, while others moved to the Lower Lempa region of Usulután.

We have continued accompanying our Salvadoran partners for over twenty years, responding to their needs and priorities, facilitating partnerships with U.S. communities and other international organizations, advocating for justice and equality, and informing U.S. citizens of the realities in El Salvador. At any given time, we are engaged in a number of activities, including:

1. Grant making
2. Community organizing
3. Leading delegations to Salvador
4. Initiating and supporting development projects and activities
5. Advocating for social, economic and political justice
6. Other activities that further the development interests of our partners

Voices’ strength is in its small staff, active board, and network of individuals, organizations, and communities that partner in our activities and support our programs. As we have for over twenty years, we continue to draw our energy and inspiration from our local partners in El Salvador, who face challenges and struggles with grace, humility, and determination.

Please join us in our efforts to promote just and equitable development in El Salvador by:

1. Joining a delegation
2. Volunteering
3. Donating
4. Starting a partner relationship with a Salvadoran community

For more information about Voices, or to learn more about how to get involved, please visit www.votb.org, or contact Thomas R. Hughes at voices@votb.org or (202) 529-2912.

Mining and the Presidential Elections: Rep. Rohrabacher, Paul Behrends, and Pacific Rim

This was just published today on Voices' blog.

http://voiceselsalvador.wordpress.com/electionmining-update-rep-rohrabacher-paul-behrends-and-pacific-rim/

Days before El Salvador’s recent presidential elections, a small chorus of Representatives from the U.S. Congress spoke out against the FMLN political party and their presidential candidate Mauricio Funes. Of those that spoke out, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) was one of the most vociferous.

In a speech on the floor of the House of Representatives, Rep. Rohrabacher labeled the FMLN a pro-terrorist political party that has links to Iran, al-Qaeda, the FARC, Cuba, and Hugo Chavez. He added that while Salvadorans are free to vote for whomever they like, if they elect the FMLN, the U.S. should end the temporary protective status (TPS) for Salvadorans in the U.S., and cut off the flow of remittances to El Salvador. Rep. Rohrabacher and officials from the State Department made similar threats during the 2004 presidential elections in El Salvador, contributing to the ARENA’s victory over the FMLN.

Despite the last minute threats, on March 15, 2009 Salvadorans elected Mauricio Funes as their next president. While Rep. Rohrabacher’s comments on the House Floor caused a stir the week before the elections, the media has largely ignored them in their coverage of the Funes victory. Rep. Rohrabacher on the other hand posted a C-SPAN video of his speech from the House floor on the front page of his official website - http://rohrabacher.house.gov/.

Contrary to Rep. Rohrabacher’s threats, El Salvador’s relationship with the U.S. remains strong. President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton both called to congratulate Funes on his victory, and to schedule meetings with him at an upcoming summit. Funes –a moderate and party outsider– has reiterated that he will respect trade agreements and international law, seek to stem the flow immigration, and maintain strong ties with the U.S.

Within hours of Rep. Rohrabacher and others inserting themselves into the Salvadoran presidential campaigns, thousands of U.S. citizens were calling the State Department to demand a statement of neutrality from the Obama Administration. State Department officials readily obliged by restating their neutrality and willingness to work with the next Salvadoran president. The statements made by Rep. Rohrabacher and others beg the question – do these Congressmen have intelligence or information on the FMLN that the State Department and President do not have, or were other interests in the balance? We propose that the answer may lie in Rep. Rohrabacher’s connections with the Pacific Rim Mining Corporation’s struggle to secure mining permits in El Salvador. (Click here for background information on Pacific Rim)

Early in his career on Capitol Hill, Rep. Rohrabacher had two aides of interest. From 1990-1997, Paul Behrends was a national security aide to the Congressman, before moving on to become a lobbyist. Erik Prince was also an aide to the Congressman before founding Blackwater USA, the private military company famous for, among other things, providing security to State Department officials in Iraq and Afghanistan. The two former aides have maintained a close relationship over the years. Mr. Behrends has been one of Blackwater’s top lobbyists since its conception in 1996, and Blackwater has followed Mr. Behrends to three different lobbying firms, including C&M Capitolink where he is now employed.

C&M Capitolink is a subsidiary of Crowell and Moring, the Washington DC-based law firm representing Pacific Rim, which recently filed notice of intent to pursue arbitration against El Salvador over the mining permits. In 2008, Pacific Rim also hired C&M Capitolink to represent their El Salvador mining interest on Capitol Hill, as well as at the State Department, and National Security Council. Among the three lobbyists that worked on Pacific Rim’s account was Mr. Behrends, Rep. Rohrabacher’s former aide. At first glance, it may seem odd for Pacific Rim, a Canadian mining company, to hire an expert in international security to lobby on their behalf in the U.S., in order to overcome permitting hurdles in El Salvador. In light of the 2009 Presidential Elections in El Salvador, however, Mr. Behrends becomes a more logical choice.

FMLN presidential candidate, Mauricio Funes made it clear that, if elected, he would not grant Pacific Rim mining permits. In fact, those leading the anti-mining movement are some of Funes’ most ardent supporters, and granting the permits would cost him the support of his base. Though President Saca (ARENA) did not have the political capital to grant the mining permits, Pacific Rim has strong allies in the pro-business ARENA party, including former Finance Minister Manuel E. Hinds who serves as the mining company’s economic advisor. ARENA presidential candidate Rodrigo Avila remained silent on the mining issues, leaving the door open for him to grant the permits once elected.

One of the ARENA party’s central campaign strategies throughout the election was to paint the FMLN as a pro-terrorist party that is a threat to international security. The ARENA candidate and government made numerous charges that the FMLN had ties to or supported al-Qaeda, Iran, FARC, Cuba, and Hugo Chavez, the same charges that Rep. Rohrabacher summarized in his March 12^th statements on the House Floor. In 2008, the Salvadoran Foreign Minister even visited the U.S. and publically requested that the U.S. government openly support the ARENA, claiming that the FMLN’s ties to Iran would be a threat to U.S. national security.

We propose that Pacific Rim’s primary goal in lobbying Capitol Hill, the State Department, and the National Security Council was likely similar to the Salvadoran Foreign Minister’s request – that the U.S. government openly support the ARENA and help them defeat the FMLN. Mr. Behrends has the connections necessary to make such an appeal. His experience on Capitol Hill gave him access to Rep. Rohrabacher and others who had spoken out against the FMLN in previous elections. His success lobbying for Blackwater gave him strong ties in the State Department and National Security Council, and the officials with the credibility to denounce the FMLN as a pro-terrorist political party and a threat to U.S. national security.

The FMLN candidate maintained a double-digit lead in the polls for most of 2008, and the ARENA seemed to have little chance of catching up. With the FMLN candidate openly opposed to the mining permits, U.S. intervention in the Salvadoran elections against the FMLN would be the clearest path for Pacific Rim to secure their mining permits. Of all the lobbyists in Washington DC, Mr. Behrends was perhaps the one with the experience and contacts to get the U.S. involved.

In the end, only Rep. Rohrabacher and a few others were the only members of the U.S. government to speak out against the FMLN. The ARENA, Pacific Rim, and Mr. Behrends failed to convince the State Department, the National Security Council, Presidents Bush and Obama, and at least 51.3% of Salvadoran voters that the FMLN is an international security threat. Now that the FMLN has won the elections, Rep. Rohrabacher’s threats to end the TPS and flow of remittances seem a bit empty; and unless President Saca somehow grants permits before Funes takes office on June 1^st, it is unlikely that Pacific Rim will be mining in El Salvador within the next five years.

Strained Detention System a Virtual Black Hole

Wednesday 25 March 2009

by: Marina Litvinsky | Visit article original @ Inter Press Service

Antonio Lemus, an immigrant from Mexico, waits at a processing center in Santa Ana, California. (Photo: Lucy Nicholson / Reuters)

Washington - The U.S. government has failed to uphold international human rights standards in its detention of immigrants and asylum seekers, Amnesty International USA (AIUSA) said in a report released Wednesday.

The report, "Jailed Without Justice: Immigration Detention in the USA," shows that tens of thousands of people languish in U.S. immigration detention facilities every year - including a number of U.S. citizens - without receiving a hearing to determine whether their detention is warranted.

According to the report, in just over a decade, the number of immigrants in detention each day tripled from 10,000 in 1996 to more than 30,000 in 2008. Numbers are likely to increase in 2009.

The people detained include lawful permanent residents, undocumented immigrants, asylum seekers and survivors of torture and human trafficking.

"America should be outraged by the scale of human rights abuses occurring within its own borders," said Larry Cox, executive director of AIUSA. "Officials are locking up thousands of human beings without due process and holding them in a system that is impossible to navigate without the legal equivalent of GPS."

"The United States has long been a country of immigrants, and whether they have been here five years or five generations, their human rights are to be respected. The U.S. government must ensure that every person in immigration detention has a hearing to determine whether that detention is necessary," he said.

The report contends that U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents have been incorrectly subject to mandatory detention and spent months or years behind bars before proving they are not deportable. According to AIUSA's research, at least 117 people have been held in mandatory detention for crimes that were ultimately determined not to be deportable offences.

Even more astounding, in 2007 alone, legal service providers identified 322 individuals in detention who may have been able to claim U.S. citizenship.

Mr. W., a U.S. citizen, was placed in immigration detention in Florence, Arizona. According to the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project, he was born in Minnesota and had never left the United States in his life. Because he was detained, he did not have access to his birth certificate, and was working in the prison kitchen for a dollar a day to earn the 30 dollars it would cost to order a copy of his birth certificate. Mr. W. was finally released after being detained for over a month.

Others who are lawful residents of the U.S. languish in detention for so long that they choose to go back to countries where they are at risk of being attacked or imprisoned.

L.N., 27, was born in Afghanistan and came to the U.S. with his family as refugees when he was seven years old. He was placed in deportation proceedings and held in mandatory detention because of a drug conviction in 2007. He began urinating blood not long after, and was experiencing constant fatigue, pain and discomfort. He was first seen by a doctor a month and a half later and after nine months, he had yet to receive any diagnosis or treatment.

He told Amnesty International that he is so frustrated and afraid that he is considering giving up his claim of citizenship and going back to Afghanistan in order to obtain medical care.

"When people who may well be citizens of the United States are desperate enough to be deported to countries they don't even know, there clearly is a breakdown of disturbing proportions within the U.S. system of immigration detention," said Sarnata Reynolds, AIUSA's policy director for Refugee and Migrant Rights.

Because under U.S. law, individuals in deportation proceedings may secure counsel, but at no expense to the government, the vast majority of people - 84 percent - in immigration detention do not have a lawyer, and instead represent themselves. According to AIUSA, representation by legal counsel can have a significant impact on the outcome of an individual's case. One study found that individuals are five times more likely to be granted asylum if they are represented.

For many immigrants, release from detention is out of reach because bonds are set impossibly high.

The report states that although immigration judges have the authority in some cases to release immigrants on their own recognizance or with a minimum bond of 1,500 dollars, reports indicate that the judges are now less likely to do so.

According to the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), in 2006, immigration judges in the United States declined to set bond in 14,750 cases. In 2007, the number increased to 22,254, and in the first five months of 2008, immigration judges had already refused to set bond in 21,842 cases.

To house the rapidly increasingly number of detainees, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) increasingly relies on contracts with state and county jails. Approximately 350 facilities hold up to 67 percent of all detained immigrants.

Amnesty International's findings indicate that conditions of detention in many facilities do not meet either international human rights standards or ICE guidelines. Immigration detainees are often detained in jail facilities with barbed wire and cells, alongside those serving time for criminal convictions.

Immigrants are unnecessarily exposed to inappropriate and excessive restraints including handcuffs, belly chains, and leg restraints. Amnesty International received reports that some individuals have been subjected to physical and/or verbal abuse while held in immigration detention, in violation of international standards.

Immigrant detainees also find it difficult to get medical attention. At least 74 immigrants have died in detention during the last five years.

"Conditions in detention centres have been shown over and over again to be in violation of ICE standards and international law, but wholly absent is almost any accountability for these violations," said Reynolds. "Immigration and Customs Enforcement must be held accountable and enact enforceable human rights standards to eliminate inappropriate and dangerous housing conditions."

The AIUSA report, which launches the organisation's campaign to promote and protect the human rights of immigrants, shows that the average cost of locking up an immigrant is 95 dollars per person, per day, or approximately 2,850 dollars per month, funded by taxpayers.

Alternatives to detention programmes, such as such as conditional release, reporting requirements, an affordable bond, or financial deposits, have been shown to be effective and significantly less expensive than holding people in immigration detention. A study of supervised release conducted by the Vera Institute in New York yielded a 91 percent appearance rate at an estimated cost of 12 dollars per person per day.

AIUSA calls on the U.S. government to implement its recommendations which include: ensuring that alternative non-custodial measures are always explicitly considered before resorting to detention; and ensuring the adoption of enforceable human rights detention standards in all detention facilities that house immigration detainees, either through legislation or through the adoption of enforceable policies and procedures by the Department of Homeland Security.

Though ICE has announced the publication of 41 new performance-based detention standards, which will take full effect in all facilities housing ICE detainees by January 2010, AIUSA maintains that "these are still only guidelines, don't ensure compliance with human rights standards, and are not legally enforceable."

"We are reviewing (the report) and are engaged in comprehensive review of detainee health care," Cori Bassett, a public affairs officer at ICE, told IPS. "ICE has made appreciable gains by adopting detention standards," she added, though "the care and treatment (of detainees) does not yet meet our standards of excellence."

"(The Department of Homeland Security) and ICE is committed to measurable and sustainable progress and we pledge to ensure that it occurs," she said.

»

---

IN ACCORDANCE WITH TITLE 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107, THIS MATERIAL IS DISTRIBUTED WITHOUT PROFIT TO THOSE WHO HAVE EXPRESSED A PRIOR INTEREST IN RECEIVING THE INCLUDED INFORMATION FOR RESEARCH AND EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES. TRUTHOUT HAS NO AFFILIATION WHATSOEVER WITH THE ORIGINATOR OF THIS ARTICLE NOR IS TRUTHOUT ENDORSED OR SPONSORED BY THE ORIGINATOR.

"VIEW SOURCE ARTICLE" LINKS ARE PROVIDED AS A CONVENIENCE TO OUR READERS AND ALLOW FOR VERIFICATION OF AUTHENTICITY. HOWEVER, AS ORIGINATING PAGES ARE OFTEN UPDATED BY THEIR ORIGINATING HOST SITES, THE VERSIONS POSTED ON TO MAY NOT MATCH THE VERSIONS OUR READERS VIEW WHEN CLICKING THE "VIEW SOURCE ARTICLE" LINKS.

Indentured Servants, Circa 2009

Wednesday 18 March 2009

by: Barbara Koeppel | Visit article original @ ConsortiumNews.com

Local governments across the US have recently passed stricter laws against undocumented workers, backed by increased enforcement raids on businesses. (Photo: AP / Paul Connors)

The immigration imbroglio is the gorilla in the room that won't go away.

Feeding on this and last years' gigantic job losses and fear of more to come, anti-immigrant anger is exploding across the U.S. Thus, Nativists like Arizona's Sheriff Joe Arpaio are nudged to over-the-top nastiness: Just a month ago, he proudly paraded his villains (aka illegals) through the streets of Phoenix before deporting them.

In fact, since 1872, when the U.S. passed its first anti-immigrant laws - at that time, against Chinese workers - Nativists have played the same xenophobia card: With fundamentalist fervor, they fire up those with fragile incomes to fear immigrants, legal or otherwise. Lately, local governments have passed punishing laws against undocumented workers, while enforcement agencies ratchet up raids on factories and farms.

At the same time, Chambers of Commerce insist foreign guest workers are vital to U.S. businesses. Heeding the call, politicians promise the guests will figure in any new immigration plan. Details, however, are absent.

What they don't say is the U.S. guest worker saga is riddled with abuse. Nor do they mention it squeezes low-skilled domestic workers, who are also bullied in the race to the bottom and are routinely denied jobs, since the guests will work for anything under any conditions, given their desperation.

Thus, before the new administration answers the Chambers' prayers, it must examine our guest worker schemes, which the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) in a 2007 report calls "close to slavery."

The schemes began during World War II with the Bracero program, when a half million Mexicans labored at American farms. Congress ended the program in 1964 because, among other reasons, exploitation was endemic.

Revised Plan

In the 1980s, the U.S. launched two new plans - an H2A guest program for farm workers and H2B scheme for all other low-wage industries, such as poultry and seafood processing, construction, forestry, timber, restaurants and hotels.

Since then, employers have secured millions of guest workers: In 2008, the U.S. issued 124,000 temporary visas. The real number is far greater, because returning workers' visas aren't counted in the figure.

On paper, H2A rules are reasonable. Foreign workers apply in their countries and, when approved, get visas and contracts stating that employers must give the workers at least 75 percent of their promised hours, decent free housing, workmen's compensation insurance (for injuries), transportation to and from their countries, access to free federal legal services and the same health/safety protections afforded U.S. workers.

In reality, the rules are a sham. According to Mary Bauer, SPLC's director of its Immigrant Justice Project, guest workers are cheated every day in every way.

For H2B workers, there's not even a charade. They have no contracts, period.

For both sets of workers, the program should note that only the vulnerable need apply.

Why? Most important, the Department of Labor (DOL) regulations are stacked against them from the start, since they bequeath employers boundless power: Most critical, they only allow the guests to work for the company that gets their visas. No matter how abusive the arrangements, they can't switch jobs. If they complain, they're fired, must leave the U.S. within 30 days, pay for return tickets and lose remaining wages.

This spells financial disaster for the workers because they borrow heavily to pay recruiters' bribes: An average $500-$2,000 in Mexico, $8,000-$12,000 in Thailand, $20,000 in India. Aware of their debt, employers secure their workers' silence.

To make matters worse, a beneficent George W. Bush pushed through midnight regulations in December 2008 as a gift to U.S. companies: The new rules effectively slashed the guests paltry wages by $2-$3 an hour and scrapped housing standards: Before, the DOL had to certify that housing was safe. Now, employers must simply state that, "through no fault of their own" approved housing is unavailable.

Fortunately, President Obama just reversed the changes, but it will still take time for the new rules to kick in.

Holding the Cards

In fact, employers hold all the cards: They confiscate workers' visas, passports and return tickets - though this is illegal. But illegality is irrelevant.

For example, although companies are required to pay hourly wages or equivalent piece rates, Bauer claims most firms ignore the rules most of the time. The case of Bimbo's Best Produce (yes, Bimbo's!), a strawberry grower in Louisiana, is instructive. In 2005, its workers sued for back wages and Bimbo settled. Bimbo applied for more workers in 2006 and 2007, the DOL gave the okay, and, undaunted, the company slashed wages to $3-$4 an hour - well below the minimum wage.

Forestry firms - notorious rule breakers - pay workers $15-$30 for every 1,000 seedlings they plant, which typically takes 12 hours - although the law says they should get $6-$10 an hour. But these firms are not unique. Bauer says almost every company in all sectors that SPLC checked lied about employee time sheets - with as many as 30 hours a week missing from paychecks.

Pay fraud is just one abuse. Housing is dilapidated and unsanitary: For example, the SPLC says that Evergreen Forestry in North Carolina kept workers in a shed with one cold water spigot, no heat or toilets throughout the winter. When workers tried to leave, a boss locked them up until they repaid what he'd lent them to buy sleeping bags, fuel and a portable toilet. Bauer insists these conditions are typical.

Regina Luginbuhl, who heads North Carolina's DOL, disagrees. She says H2A workers are protected against abuses because the program allows them to access free legal services. Also, she says H2A housing is usually "decent" because employers must register with her agency.

But her office has just five full-time inspectors who check only half the guest worker housing units a year. She insists this beats conditions in states like Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, which don't inspect at all.

Illness and injury are also common. Farm workers get dehydrated - several died in the past few years. Water, where provided, is often contaminated. Green sickness from picking tobacco, allergic reactions to pesticides or bee strings may be severe, but workers keep working.

A Sacramento Bee article noted "guest forest workers are routinely subjected to conditions not tolerated elsewhere in the U.S.... .gashed by chain saws and bruised by tumbling logs." When injured, companies rarely pay for medical care, days missed or medicine.

Feeble Enforcement

Finally, the DOL's enforcement of the rules is feeble: In 2004, it checked violations at 89 out of the 6,700 farms with H2A workers. At the 8,900 work sites with H2B workers, the DOL inspected none.

When this reporter tried to update the numbers, Jennifer Kaplan and Susan Bohnert of the DOL's Washington DC press office, insisted the agency doesn't collect them. A supervisor repeated the story.

Without DOL data, advocate groups have no way to tally the true extent of violations, notes Ramon Ramos, a paralegal for 30 years with Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid: Their own statistics only cover a small number of worksites. Worse, when they try to get DOL figures, the states' DOL offices, like the national one, stonewall.

Even when advocates like Legal Aid and SPLC learn of violations and win cases against employers, the DOL sits on its hands: H2B workers sued Shores and Ruark Seafood of Virginia for $150,000 in back wages and won, and the company was fined.

Although the DOL cited the company two other times for wage violations, it still approved the firm's application for new workers. In Arriaga v. Florida Pacific Farms, a judge ruled the company had to repay workers' transport and visas fees. But the DOL didn't enforce the decision.

Bauer says another problem is that DOL's program is completely hidden. "When a worker calls us about an abuse, we need to see his contract and learn if the DOL has inspected the workplace for violations." But the DOL insists this information is "secret" - between employers and the DOL - and the SPLC must file Freedom of Information (FOIA) requests to get it.

And this, in turn, spells gridlock. When the SPLC filed a case against the Mississippi DOL in 2007 for not providing information, the judge ruled in SPLC's favor. Displeased with the decision, the state promptly passed a law saying its DOL office was not obliged to give the information. Seizing on the successful strategy, Kentucky passed a similar law in 2008. Where local DOL offices do respond, the answers arrive two years later, when the workers are long gone.

Speaking Out

The few workers who speak out - usually those who've already been fired or badly injured - are branded troublemakers and blacklisted. Baldemar Velasquez, president of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) said that before his union organized North Carolina's guest farm workers, the state's blacklist had 16,000 names.

Although the list was dismantled when the North Carolina Growers Association signed a contract with FLOC in 2004, blacklisting elsewhere is alive and well. Legal Aid's Ramos says he hasn't seen formal lists in other states, but knows the principle operates.

"Mexican guest workers tell me their previous U.S. employers won't re-hire them." Why? "They might have asked for water in the fields, or something like that. Not because they're slackers. I've never met a guest farm worker who didn't give 100 percent, because they want to return," Ramos says.

Critics like Bauer and Ramos insist the abusers are not a few bad apples, but the norm. In 2008, the SPLC sued Signal International for 600 highly skilled Indian pipe fitters and welders hired to work on ships in Texas and Mississippi for defense contractors (Signal is a subsidiary of Northrup Grummon).

Snared by ads that Signal ran in Indian newspapers promising high wages, along with permanent visas for workers and their families, each worker paid recruiters (illegally) $20,000 to land the job.

Once in the U.S., Signal paid entry level wages ($13 an hour); the jobs were temporary; families were not allowed to come; the men were kept in guarded labor camps and forced to work. SPLC charged Signal with human trafficking, fraud, racketeering and civil rights abuses; but the men are $20,000 poorer and stuck. Bauer adds that U.S. skilled workers' wages would be at least double.

Critics also claim that the DOL and employers' practices hurt companies that want to play by the rules, because they can't compete with the majority, which break them. Critically, they lower wages and conditions for all unskilled workers.

Recruiting Abuses

The exploitation extravaganza begins even before the guests reach American shores. U.S. companies contract with foreign recruiting firms to find poor workers, who sign on - despite the recruiters' bribes.

How do recruiters pull it off? FLOC's Velasquez says workers don't know this is illegal or how else to get in the program. Second, the DOL insists it doesn't control what happens outside U.S. borders.

Velasquez says "The whole system is wildly profitable for everyone but the workers. Recruiting is very big business."

Big enough to murder for.

In 2005, when FLOC opened an office in Monterey, Mexico to educate workers about their rights, its staff were stalked, slandered by local newspapers, and the office burglarized.

In 2007, a FLOC organizer, alone in the office, was murdered. Police caught one of the killers and FLOC gave them the names of two others. But the other two have not yet been arrested.

Observers say the DOL could improve conditions in a stroke - since it doesn't need Congress to change the program: If it lifted the rule that ties the guest workers to one employer, the men would be free to bargain for a better deal or change employers, taking their visas with them. Eventually, the worst employers would lose their workers and have to clean up their acts.

Also, the DOL could offer H2B workers the same protections as H2A workers receive (on the books).

It could also crack down on employers that break the rules and levy fines that count. At the very least, it could reject violators' requests for new workers.

But Velasquez says "unless all guest workers have labor rights, as FLOC won in North Carolina, they won't be able to fight the abuses." Still, he's optimistic.

"The state's growers now run decent guest worker programs. Why not elsewhere?" he asks.

One hope is that Hilda Solis, the new Secretary of Labor, will right some decades-old wrongs. However, history isn't on her or the guest workers' side.

--------

Barbara Koeppel is a free-lance investigative reporter based in Washington DC.

»

---

IN ACCORDANCE WITH TITLE 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107, THIS MATERIAL IS DISTRIBUTED WITHOUT PROFIT TO THOSE WHO HAVE EXPRESSED A PRIOR INTEREST IN RECEIVING THE INCLUDED INFORMATION FOR RESEARCH AND EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES. TRUTHOUT HAS NO AFFILIATION WHATSOEVER WITH THE ORIGINATOR OF THIS ARTICLE NOR IS TRUTHOUT ENDORSED OR SPONSORED BY THE ORIGINATOR.

"VIEW SOURCE ARTICLE" LINKS ARE PROVIDED AS A CONVENIENCE TO OUR READERS AND ALLOW FOR VERIFICATION OF AUTHENTICITY. HOWEVER, AS ORIGINATING PAGES ARE OFTEN UPDATED BY THEIR ORIGINATING HOST SITES, THE VERSIONS POSTED ON TO MAY NOT MATCH THE VERSIONS OUR READERS VIEW WHEN CLICKING THE "VIEW SOURCE ARTICLE" LINKS.

Victoria FMLN: Un video sobre el dia historico de las elecciones salvadoreñas/Video of El Salvador's historic election day

From Jess Freeston
jfreeston@gmail.com


---English below---

Al momento que envio este corréo, el video está en la portada del sitio de web, www.therealnews.com. Se trata del dia historico, el 15 de marzo. (disculpeme porque hay partes que son solamente en inglés)

Despues se poderá encontrar acá: http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=3425&updaterx=2009-03-19+09%3A20%3A4

Aunque dura 12 minutos, no pudé incluir todo los hechos que queria.

Sin embargo, espero que le guste a usted.

Saludos grandotes.

Jesse.

ENGLISH

The video I put together from election day in El Salvador is up the front page of www.therealnews.com right now.

After a few days, you can find it here: http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=3425&updaterx=2009-03-19+09%3A20%3A48

Even at 12 minutes long I wasn't able to include all the information I wanted to, so it lacks in historical context. Nonetheless, I hope you enjoy. I know it was one of the most amazing days I've ever experienced and I can only hope that the video communicates half of that.

All the best from El Salvador.

Jesse.

El Salvador: Voting in Rebel Territory Written by Marc Becker

Wednesday, 18 March 2009
Upside Down World
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1771/1/

Heading out from San Salvador to Chalatenango, the roads are covered
with political propaganda from the ruling right-wing ARENA party. In the
lead up to the March 15 presidential elections in this small Central
American country, all of the utility posts have been painted in the
party’s colors of red, white, and blue. Presidential candidate Rodrigo
Avila beams down from billboards with promises that he will rule with
“sabiduría,” with wisdom. Smaller banners promise a future of freedom
and prosperity.

Once past the town of Chalatenango, however, the ARENA propaganda
quickly disappears, replaced by the distinctive red graffiti of the
leftist FMLN party and posters of their champion, journalist Mauricio
Funes. By the time we arrive at Cambridge’s sister city of San José de
las Flores and Madison’s sister city of Arcatao, not a single ARENA
marker is to be seen anywhere.

We are deep in rebel territory, in the red zone of the 1980s where the
Salvadoran military moved in with a brutal force, massacring local
populations with the goal of subjugating and depopulating the zone. Here
local farmers fought back, joining the Farabundo Martí National
Liberation Front to demand an end to economic exploitation and social
exclusion. When the civilian refugees who had been forced out of the
zone unilaterally decided to return in 1986, cities in North America
joined them in sistering relations. After the 1992 peace accords, the
FMLN became a legal political party but it was beaten repeatedly at the
polls by the conservative and much better funded ARENA party.

Morning always comes early in the country side, but on Sunday, March 15,
it comes even earlier to Arcatao. Poll workers are to show up at 5 a.m.
to begin their work, but by 4 a.m. FMLN militants are already present at
the municipal building on the square in an attempt to head off any
attempts at fraud. Although we are in the middle of the dry season, it
had rained hard the night before. The last couple of days had been hot,
but rather than making the air muggy, it now felt fresh and cooler.

Polls are not supposed to open until 7 a.m., but local activists are so
eager for the outcome of these historic elections that voting begins 15
minutes early. Buses and trucks roar up to the plaza and disgorge their
passengers who quickly queue up to vote. Several voters are missing
limbs that were blown off in the war. Memories of the conflict weight
heavily on many in this area.

In El Salvador, rather than voting in schools or other public buildings,
the election booths are placed outside right on the sidewalk in front of
the municipal building. Every 450 voters warrant one booth. Arcatao’s
eligible voter population just rose above 1800, meaning that there are 5
polling stations, the last one with only 46 voters.

Each polling station has 4 workers (president, secretary, and 2
spokespeople) and 4 observers, with half from each party. The 2
observers are clearly labeled as to their party, but the poll workers
are not allowed to carry party identifications, even though they are
there in representation of their party. Nevertheless, most of the FMLN
poll workers are wearing red. The eager president of the first table
takes it to the furthest extreme; she is decked out in red down to her
shoes and finger nails.

Some of the hardest core party activists, however, have absolutely no
party markers. They are working with the municipal electoral board, and
it is in their own best interests that the vote in Arcatao is counted
accurately, fairly, and with absolutely no hint of fraud or impropriety.
The election results here are a forgone conclusion. The FMLN workers are
friendly and upbeat, while the ARENA activists are cold, distant, even
sullen.

Table 4 has a long drawn out discussion, almost a fight, regarding
whether voters have to mark their ballots in the privacy of the voting
booths set up for this purpose, or whether they can mark them on the
table in plain site of everyone present. The majority of FMLN voters
seem content to vote openly right on the table; they had nothing to
hide. Most ARENA voters, however, use the booth.

Leading up to the election there were incessant rumors that sweatshop
workers would lose their jobs unless they took a cell phone picture of
their ballot marked for ARENA. But here in Arcatao there are no
sweatshops, and we do not see any voters taking pictures of their ballots.

The other persistent rumor is that Hondurans are crossing the border to
vote for ARENA. From Arcatao, Honduras lies just on the other side of
the mountains to the north. Driving into town signs warned against
Hondurans trying to vote. Rumors circle around that the woman in pink
over there is Honduran, but she hangs around long after casting her
vote, hardly the profile of a partner in a criminal fraudulent process.
The president of Table 2, an ARENA activist proudly decked out in white
and blue, two of the party’s tri-color, is also rumored to be a Honduran.

I ask a local resident whether they easily distinguish between
Salvadoran and Hondurans, but across this porous border it is not so
easy to tell. Apparently most of these alleged Hondurans are dual
citizens, and in our reading of the electoral code nothing can prevent
them from voting in El Salvador. To me, the anti-Honduras sentiment
smacks of nativism.

Electoral observer missions are theoretically neutral, but whoever has
observed of participated in such a mission is well aware of the fallacy
of such assumptions. We keep our distance from local community leaders,
all of whom are inevitably FMLN activists with whom we have been meeting
over the course of the past two days. Our goal is to protect the
integrity and legitimacy of our reporting, but I don’t think the ruse
fools anyone; everyone knows where our sympathies lie.

Part of our job as observers is to document irregularities in the voting
process. Since this is a leftist stronghold, most of those violations
are naturally the fault of local FMLN poll workers. All are so small
that it hardly seems possible that they could in any way affect the
election’s outcome. Other violations are systemic and bear witness to
one of the weakest electoral systems in Latin America. For example, the
FMLN and ARENA decided on a voter-marking ink that is too light to see.
Voters randomly mark any digit on their hands, even though a search of
the election code states that the ink should go on the thumb.

The electoral code also stipulates that no political propaganda is
supposed to be in the polling station, but outside on the plaza in one
of the FMLN’s most loyal strongholds, party propaganda is impossible to
avoid. A FMLN flag waves over the plaza; FMLN graffiti is on the columns
holding up the awning over the sidewalk; FMLN posters adorn the walls of
the municipal buildings. FMLN markers are so prevalent and so ubiquitous
that people seem to forget that they exist.

By 9:30, almost everyone has already voted. The polls do not close until
5 p.m., so the day slowly drags on, and the crowds that were present in
the early morning slowly disperse. Only the poll workers, observers, a
few straggler voters, and party diehards are left on the plaza. The sun
slowly drifts across the sky. Poll workers move the voting stations into
the street where they are under the shade of trees from the late
afternoon sun. Someone drives a truck into the middle of the booths and
blares a radio tuned to a pro-FMLN call-in talk show. No one seems to mind.

Poll workers are ready to pack up the booths long before closing time,
but they hold out until the end. At exactly 5 p.m. the head of the local
electoral board announces that it is time, and the workers grab
everything off the table and disappear into the municipal building to
count the votes. The president of each table holds up the ballots one by
one for everyone to see. Votes for FMLN go into one pile, the occasional
vote for ARENA into a second, and a couple spoiled ballots into a third.
As a check against fraud, the president is also supposed to show the
signature and stamp on the reverse side verifying the ballot’s
legitimacy, but at Table 4 this does not happen. It is late, and no one
seems to mind.

By 7 p.m., most of the ballots in Arcatao are counted. For the
municipality, the FMLN scores 849 to ARENA’s 469. The almost 2-to-1
margin is a landslide, though probably by no means the FMLN’s widest
margin of victory. I hear a story that in January’s legislative
elections in San José de las Flores ARENA only gained 3 votes in one
booth, one vote less than the four officials working that table for the
party of the government.

It is dark outside, and some people gather in the corner cafe to watch
returns on TV. But all of the media outlets in El Salvador favor the
right, so most people remain out on the square where the municipality
has set up an Internet video stream on a computer projector to show more
sympathetic coverage. It isn’t until after 10 p.m. that the electoral
council declares a FMLN victory. The gathered crowd greets this news
with fireworks and shouts of joy. Local political leaders give speeches
embracing their victory. Poll workers who have been awake now for close
to 20 hours go home exhausted but happy.

The 2009 elections are the fourth time that the FMLN contested for
presidential power through the electoral process. Together with wins in
January’s local and legislative elections, the FMLN will be the dominant
party when it takes office in June. Not only does this bring an end to
20 years of conservative ARENA rule, but it is also the first time that
a leftist government has been elected in Salvadoran history.

Ten years ago, before Hugo Chávez took office in Venezuela, Cuba’s was
the only leftist government in the Americas. Now the left is dominant,
even hegemonic, in Latin America, and hopefully the few conservative
dominoes will fall as well.

Marc Becker (marc@yachana.org) is a Latin American historian from
Arcatao’s sister city of Madison, Wisconsin. He observed the elections
with U.S. El Salvador Sister Cities. More information and photographs
from the elections are on his webpage at
http://www.yachana.org/reports/salvador/.




The U.S.-El Salvador Sister Cities Homepage is: http://www.elsalvadorsolidarity.org

Mauricio Funes: The Next President of El Salvador

from U.S.-El Salvador Sister Cities Staff

March 16, 2009 8:00 am

The wait is over. After almost 20 years of an ARENA government and the FMLN being the opposition, things have changed.

Yesterday the Salvadoran people went to the polls in impressive numbers to elect Mauricio Funes as the next president of El Salvador. With the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) reporting 99.4% of the votes counted, Funes has won with 51.3% (1,349,142 votes) and his contender, Rodrigo Avila, received 48.7% (1,280,995 votes).

In his victory speech at 9:07pm last night Funes said “We have signed a new peace and reconciliation accord for the country itself. I invite, from this moment on, the different social and political powers to build national unity together.”

As the results came in streets throughout the country began to fill with people. Thousands of people rushed to the Plaza Masferrer in San Salvador to celebrate. In Arcatao the street in front of the mayor’s office was full of people dancing. In Las Anonas the celebration was in the community center. All over El Salvador people came together to rejoice in the victory they had waited so long to celebrate.

The news that came from our observers was generally positive. In Tecoluca, Arcatao, and La Libertad the entire process went smoothly. In Tecoluca the FMLN won 6,106 votes and ARENA won 3,482. In Arcatao the FMLN won 849 votes and ARENA 304. We still don’t have the exact numbers for La Libertad but our observers reported wining both voting centers.

However in the community of Cinquera, which has been the host to so much tension and violence over the last couple months, also saw violence on elections night. Once the 419 votes were counted for the FMLN and the 304 were counted for ARENA, the community went to the park to wait for the national the results. Unfortunately, things became violent and an ARDM organizer was beaten by ARENA sympathizers. When a youth from the radio station tried to video what was happening, he was threatened and chased by ARENA supporters, who fired 3 shots in the air. The ARDM called the attorney general for an investigation and waited at the police station for them to arrive. The rest of the community celebrated the victory in their houses. Our observers are all safe. This reminds us, as Sister Cities, that while we are excited and relieved with the FMLN win on a national level, we still have an important role accompanying the organized communities in El Salvador, especially those whose local government are ARENA.

We would like to end by thanking everyone in the U.S.-El Salvador Sister Cities network for all your hard work, dedication, faith, and support. We, as staff, feel extremely grateful for the opportunity to have worked with all of you during this exciting time, and equally grateful to have the opportunity to continue working with you. We would like to especially thank the volunteers we have had on the ground here in January and March: Jenny, Karen, Leigh, Vanessa, Annie, Sean, and Ian. With out your help and support we would have never been able to accomplish what we have.

We will send out more information throughout the week as well as our official observation report so stay tuned.

Sí se pudo!

U.S.-El Salvador Sister Cities Staff

"The PICA Blog" - Somethings To Think About

Hi,
I'm going to try my hand at running the PICA Blog.

I'll be placing PICA-related news items and discussion points on the blog, in the hopes that the material will be useful/helpful to furthering understanding of PICA concerns/issues and that the Blog will encourage discussion and constructive dialogues.

If you have an item you'd like posted to the PICA Blog, that you want to share with the PICA world, please send it to me and I'll get it on for ya.

-John Greenman
jgreenman@gwi.net