REPORT ON SITESABES ELECTION
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On May 30 - 31st, a team of nine international observers participated in the first secret ballot election ever ordered by a labor board in Mexico. The decision by Lic. Libia Gomez Padilla, the president of the Junta Local de Conciliacion y Arbitraje in Leon, Guanajuato, to hold an election by secret ballot was unprecedented and a major step forward. The general practice in Mexican labor board elections is that workers are required to express their choice out loud in front of the labor authorities and representatives of the employer and competing unions. This is obviously an extremely intimidating and often risky proposition, as workers are subjected to psychological and often physical violence.