2008 Enlace Convention Report
by Alan Howard
In marking its first decade of existence, Enlace members reached a series of decisions that reflect the growing strength of their organization and its ability to advance their struggles against some of the most powerful corporations in the world.
Given this progress, it was only natural to cast a look back at the origins of the organization to see how it had managed not merely to survive but to continue its dynamic development through a most difficult decade.
The meeting of representatives from nine Mexican and U.S. worker organizations in October 1997 in San Miguel Allende to explore the question of how to organize low-wage workers did not begin well. All the historical, political and cultural obstacles that have made cross-border labor solidarity and union-community organization alliances such huge challenges were present. But the participants’ deeply held and common commitment to improve the effectiveness of low-wage worker organizing was a powerful incentive to work through these obstacles and a few months later to found an organization with a very large mandate and a very small budget, with some definite ideas but no blueprint for achieving them—and named it Enlace, which means link in Spanish.
The cross-border character of the organization was built into its origins because such a large proportion of low-wage workers in the U.S. were Mexican immigrants and so many workers in Mexico were employed in the production chains of U.S.-based transnational corporations.
“All we really understood at the time,” said Enlace co-executive director Peter Cervantes-Gautschi, “was that these groups shared certain common challenges, chief among them the need to build and continually regenerate strong, democratic organizations. This is what we set out to do.”
It is one of the more remarkable stories of the new global labor movement that ten years later this seed has grown into a sturdy sapling of 21 member organizations representing a base of hundreds of thousands of low-wage workers on both sides of the border.
“We have stuck to some basic guidelines over the past decade and they have served us well,” Cervantes-Gautschi and co-executive director Joann Lo reported to the gathering at the opening session of the convention. “Prioritize campaigns. Don’t duplicate the work of other organizations. Win things that haven’t been won. We’ve had victories and defeats and learned from both.”
One very important and concrete result that has come out of this process is the development of Enlace’s peer-training method known as the Integrated Organizing Approach (IOA), which has already been brought to more than 100 worker centers, unions and ally organizations. The IOA is a system of organizing that has begun to answer the question of how a local, cash-strapped workers’ organization can succeed in a campaign confronting a powerful multinational corporation. The short answer is that the bigger and more powerful a company, the more vulnerable it can be; and that small organizations can learn how to grow bigger and stronger. This approach was used with stunning success in both the Sara Lee and Pung Kook campaigns, in which giant multinational corporations were forced to recognize and bargain with small local worker organizations.
This focus on strategic campaigns and strengthening organizations ran through the two days of panels, workshops and decision-making as the 107 participants shared their experiences and struggled together to clarify the next steps.
The second day of the convention fell on International Women’s Day (IWD), which was the subject of the opening panel that day. Several speakers on the panel reminded the gathering of the origins of IWD at the turn of the 20th Century as large numbers of women were entering the industrial work force for the first time. Their demands for justice and equality greatly strengthened both the union and women’s suffrage movements and led to historic gains for both. But as the speakers also pointed out, this struggle for equality both within unions and the society at large is still unfinished. One of the great strengths of Enlace is the seriousness it has given to this issue from the inception of the organization, which could be seen clearly by the leadership roles that women have in Enlace and by their sheer numbers, with women making up more than 2/3 of those participating in the convention.
Another crucial strength of the organization over the years has been its ability to adapt to new information and circumstances. So it was not surprising that on the last day of the convention Enlace affiliates voted overwhelmingly in favor of a course of action that does not waver from its mandate to strengthen the organizations of low-wage workers but also clearly opens new vistas of geographic scope, institutional relationships and organizational self-sufficiency.
Decisions made by the delegates at the convention included:
• Approval of a partnership agreement between the AFL-CIO and Enlace to develop a long-term work plan consistent with the goals of both organizations. This could include solidarity actions in key cities, bringing issues before the International Labour Organization (ILO), developing legal strategies to aid workers in Mexico and immigrant workers in the U.S., developing a joint protocol to address shareholder issues and actions and to facilitate contact and communication between Enlace and AFL-CIO affiliates, State and Central Labor Councils. Enlace worker centers that choose to affiliate with an AFL-CIO state federation and/or central labor council will maintain their full autonomy and will not be bound by the constitution of the AFL-CIO or its subordinate bodies. The agreement does not mean that either party endorses or agrees with the foreign policy positions of the other.
• Because anti-immigrant hysteria has reached such a high level in the U.S and weakens the base of many progressive organizations, Enlace will continue its educational campaign on the pressures that drive immigrant workers from Mexico to the U.S. The campaign identifies broader issues that are rarely linked in the mass media to immigration. The educational materials that have been developed will be made available in a variety of formats to Enlace affiliates and their allies to counter the vicious upsurge in anti-immigrant policies by local, state and federal governments as well as the attacks on immigrants by vigilante groups. Enlace will also create a committee to develop a new international campaign on immigration and immigrant workers.
• Continuing support for the Seafood Workers Justice Campaign in Santa Rosalia, Baja California Sur. This campaign is being carried out in close collaboration with Enlace member SINTTIM, its purpose to assist the approximately 4000 workers who are either direct or indirect employees of the huge multinational processors in the area to advance their fight for fair treatment and compensation. As this campaign has progressed and more has been learned about the structure of the global seafood industry, the need to strengthen relations with allies in China, Korea and Japan has become apparent.
• Continue to develop and expand the innovative pre-paid debit card project. This initiative, begun in 2005 in collaboration with the Center for Community Change and the Workers’ Centers Network of Interfaith Worker Justice, has demonstrated a promising potential to provide financial services needed by people who are excluded by banks as well as strengthen the financial base of the worker centers themselves. The cards could be used not only by worker centers and unions in the U.S. but possibly also by civil associations in Mexico. Four Enlace members are currently participating in the program: Workplace Project; Day Labor Program of La Raza Centro Legal; IDEPSCA; and Pilipino Workers Center.
• Continuation of discussions with Cornell University’s Industrial and Labor Relations Extension to develop a joint training program for worker organizations in the U.S., Mexico and other countries.
• Build awareness about and support the campaign of el Centro de Apoyo a la Mujer de las Maquilas de La Laguna, A.C. (the Center of Support for Women in the Maquilas in La Laguna) to defend against the plant closure by Hanes Brands in Torreon, Coahuila, Mexico.
• Nomination of seven new members: CISSLABORAL, SEIU Local 49, Neighbor to Neighbor, CILAS, Centro de Derechos Humanos de Tehuacan (Center for Human Rights of Tehuacan), Union Popular Independiente (Independent Popular Union), Farm Labor Organizing Committee.
These decisions flowed from the discussions that took place in the dozen panels and workshops over the previous two days. A great variety of themes and subjects were touched upon and arguments made in the course of these discussions, but it was possible to see in them how Enlace was evolving to a new stage of its organizational life. As has been the case from its birth, these new developments are being shaped by the strategic necessities of workers in struggle.
Few people in the U.S. beyond the immigrant community and their immediate allies understand the degree of persecution now underway in cities and towns across the country—the document checks, raids, evictions, property seizures, detentions and deportations and all too often physical violence. Nor do they understand the desperate economic crisis in Mexico that drives so many workers North, despite knowing the dangers they will face.
Several of the panels and workshops addressed this situation from different angles. Some focused on immediately practical defensive measures, such as tapping into legal resources like nelp.org or online resources like detentionwatch.net, while others tried to formulate broader, pro-active strategic measures. In this latter category were two workshops that came at the subject from two complementary angles: Expansion and Impact on Immigration of NAFTA; Wall Street and Immigration—Addressing Anti-Immigrant Bigotry.
NAFTA has been in the news lately in the U.S. because of the presidential political campaign, which has once again highlighted the devastating impact on manufacturing workers throughout the country. It’s also been in the news in Mexico, as thousands of small farmers marched in protest against the subsidized corn and beans and other agricultural products imported from the U.S. as a result of NAFTA.
“Every hour Mexico imports $1.5 million worth of agricultural and food products, almost all from the United States,” said Laura Carlsen, Americas Program Director of the Center for International Policy. “In that same hour, 30 people—men, women and children—leave their homes in the Mexican countryside to take up the most dangerous journey of their lives—as immigrants to the United States. These two phenomena are related.” More related, in fact, than most people realize. Carlsen offered the example of the poultry worker in Jalisco left unemployed when imports from the food giant Tyson wiped out the business, and then how Tyson got caught smuggling unemployed workers from Mexico into the U.S. to work in U.S. Tyson plants at sub-minimum wages!
“NAFTA and trade agreements like it are win-win for corporations,” she said, adding the example of the $24 million a year salary for the CEO of Cargill, which as exporter, importer and producer of several agricultural commodities completely controls the Mexican market for these products.
The Wall Street and Immigration workshop highlighted what’s not in the news these days is the relationship of the huge U.S. financial service companies to Mexico. Of course we are seeing these days, and dramatically, how the manipulation of conveniently unregulated markets by the huge U.S financial service companies has resulted in more than 3 million home foreclosures in the last year and a half alone, but the damage these companies have done to working people in Mexico and the Mexican economy is even greater. When the Mexican Peso was devalued in 1994, it set off a financial crisis that allowed U.S. financial firms, with the assistance of the U.S. Treasury Secretary, Robert Rubin—now Chair of Citigroup’s Executive Committee—to acquire tremendous leverage over Mexican financial markets and eliminate all kinds of regulations.
With an ever increasing share of Mexicans’ debt going to Citigroup, J.P. Morgan, Bank of America, Chase Manhattan and other household names, interest rates on business and farm loans rose from an average of 11% to 56%, credit card interest rates went from 7% to 61%, car loans from 7% to 91% and home loans from 5% to 75%.
Imagine the effect this crushing debt has had on millions of Mexican families, and the extent to which it has contributed to the massive migration north over the past decade. Most of these same U.S. financial firms also invest in companies that profit by employing immigrant workers who are routinely forced to accept illegally low wages because their lack of documentation makes them vulnerable to unscrupulous employers. And finding a way to profit from virtually everything in this cycle of human misery they have done so much to create, these financial firms have made huge investments in the thriving corporations contracted by the federal government to build and run new prisons for immigrants.
When we accurately identify the economic and political players who are fundamentally responsible for the plight of immigrant workers and their families, we will find that they are the same interests putting the squeeze on the entire U.S. working class.
The participation in the Convention of Apo Leong, director of the Hong Kong-based Asia Monitor Resource Centre (AMRC), had both a practical and symbolic significance for Enlace. Symbolically, it was recognition of the strategic step that Enlace has taken in the course of several campaigns that required crossing many national borders beyond the one separating the U.S. and Mexico. Practically, it reflected the fact that activists, labor rights NGO’s, worker centers and unions everywhere must understand what is happening in China and to Chinese workers, because, as Leong remarked, “China has been integrated into the world market with tremendous implications for workers in China and around the world.”
Drawing on his own direct experiences as well as the “participatory action research” AMRC has produced for three decades, Leong provided the convention with a detailed and nuanced picture of the limitations and possibilities facing Chinese workers that is rarely seen. Despite the social and political control exercised by the Chinese government and factory management, Leong said there were massive numbers of young and increasingly aware workers learning from their own spontaneous industrial actions and receptive to more cohesive forms of organization. He also saw opportunities for greater cooperation and mutual support among Enlace members and Asian groups like AMRC. On the same panel Garrett Brown, coordinator of the Maquiladora Health and Safety Support Network, and Lynda Yanz of the Maquila Solidarity Network, described the experiences of their own organizations in China and other Asian countries and agreed that it was both possible and necessary to develop these ties.
Coming at this question from a slightly different angle, Jennifer Gordon, founder of the Workplace Project and now of Fordham Law School, noted the importance of looking beyond our immediate experiences for possible models for protecting the rights of migrant workers. She cited examples of programs and governmental agreements involving workers from Nepal, the Philippines, Argentina and Brazil that could be viewed as the first steps toward “global hiring halls,” in which workers could move legally from one country to another to work as long as they were members of unions that participated in the implementation of such agreements which would also protect workers against retaliation for exercising their legal rights. Gordon warned, however, that these initiatives were in a very early stage of development and required further study and monitoring.
Similarly, participants in the panel on International Organizing Campaigns cited the importance of being able to engage with unions and allies anywhere in the world to bring pressures to bear on both governments and companies. Peter Olney, organizing director of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), recounted the extraordinary history of the ILWU’s internationalist actions in solidarity with struggles around the world and the union’s own current campaign against the Blue Diamond Almond Growers Association in California.
In marching to the beat of a different drummer over this first decade of its existence, Enlace has rarely indulged in some of the standard organizational pageantry like gala award dinners. An exception was made for the 10th anniversary and reflected what makes this organization special. The presenters and awardees included individuals and organizations, old pros and new young leaders still on the shop floor, women and men hailing from Mexico, the United States and Canada. And the speeches, whether in Spanish or English, were very short.
Each of these recipients could be the subject of this entire report, but even a brief note helps explain how their unique contributions to the organization and how they complement each other have done so much to create this remarkable Enlace story.
Elizabeth “Betty” Robles Ortega—Betty learned about working class struggle as a young woman trying to earn a living on the assembly line of a maquila factory in Ciudad Juarez in the 1980s. From the very beginning of her experience in the maquila, Betty has been a fighter. She went on to help found SEDEPAC, the organization that led the epic battle against the giant multinational Sara Lee in Coahuila, and was one of the founders of Enlace. Besides all the other ways she contributes to the struggle, Betty is blessed with a golden singing voice that touches the heart and stirs the soul.
Wade Rathke—Wade also was present at the 1997 meeting that laid the foundation of Enlace and has been a constant force in its development ever since. He is better known as the founder and Chief Organizer of ACORN and SEIU Local 100, an innovative leader of the social justice movement who for over 40 years has been steady, fearless and effective in his insistence that workers must create mass organizations that they themselves control and that increasingly this must be done across national borders.
Workplace Project (WPP)—For many years after its founding on Long Island, NY in 1992, WPP worked quietly and diligently to assist the growing number of immigrant workers in the area. In 2005 the organization and its work came to national attention when it led the successful battle against mass evictions and other, sometimes violent, assaults on the immigrant community. Nadia Marin-Molina, now WPP executive director, was one of the first participants in Enlace’s Coach Program in 1998, and accepted the award on behalf of the organization.
Eva Padilla Carrera—Eva was born in Matamoros into a poor family with 12 brothers and sisters and had to go to work in the maquila at the age of 15. She began working with SEDEPAC, became a grass roots leader in Torreon and in 1999 joined Enlace’s Coach Program. Since then she has used her Coach training to found and help develop several worker rights groups in Torreon and has trained more than 800 workers of the maquila MADERO International.
Frente Autentico del Trabajo (FAT)—The FAT, a founding member of Enlace and a long-time former member of its board, is a national union federation that has been a beacon of hope in the Mexican labor movement for more than 40 years. In struggle after struggle, as it confronts both employer and the sinister power of the “official” unions that constantly undermine Mexican workers, the FAT has been an exemplary ally in organizing and helping to coordinate solidarity actions not only in Mexico but countries around the world.
Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance (KIWA)—Founded in 1992, a founding member of Enlace and currently a member of its executive board, KIWA brings together Latino/a and Korean immigrant workers in the Koreatown area of Los Angeles. KIWA has led campaigns that raised wages and improved working conditions in the Korean restaurant and supermarket industries and has provided exceptional solidarity to the campaigns of other Enlace members. The award was accepted by KIWA executive director Danny Park.
SEIU Local 1877—Through its inspirational Justice for Janitors Campaign in the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s, Local 1877 galvanized a new generation of union organizers and leaders who have contributed to building our movement far beyond the scope of the original effort. Local 1877 is a founding member of Enlace and has helped to build and support it throughout its history. The Local’s leaders like Chava Bustamante and Lino Pedres, who accepted the award on behalf of the union, have served on Enlace’s leadership committee and executive board.
Arturo Alcalde Justiniano—Arturo is one of the most revered labor lawyers in Mexico, that rare combination of brilliant scholar and practical idealist who can be counted on to come to the aid of beleaguered workers fighting for their rights who often would not have any legal representation if not for this extraordinarily energetic and gifted man. Enlace members fighting the Korean-based multinational Pung Kook in Baja California Sur and Sara Lee in Frontera can testify to that, as can tens of thousands of other workers throughout Mexico and around the world.
Jeff Fiedler—A pioneer in the development of corporate campaigns using in-depth research to identify how a corporation is vulnerable to pressure from workers, Jeff practiced his trade for many years as head of the Food and Allied Service Trades department of the AFL-CIO and has provided Enlace members much valuable assistance over the past eight years. He is widely recognized as one of the most effective corporate researchers in the world—and one of the most modest. “I can’t say no,” he said, upon accepting the award. “Same as everyone else in this room.”
Ann Bastian—It is very difficult to describe Ann in a few words. This award was presented to her in her capacity as a senior program officer at the New World Foundation, which has provided Enlace with critical and timely support. But Ann is also an organizer, teacher and author with degrees from Harvard and the London School of Economics and a recipient of the Intellectual Freedom Award from the American Library Association. She is also known for her sense of humor. “Given what foundations put organizations like Enlace through,” she cracked, “this is like giving an award to your dentist.”
There was one surprise award that was not on the program. On behalf of the Enlace staff, Katy Riker presented an award to Enlace co-executive director Peter Cervantes-Gautschi, “for creating a happy and humane workplace that is translating a vision into action,” said Riker. Peter accepted the award, uncharacteristically speechless.
Alan Howard is former assistant to the president of UNITE and a journalist who has written for the New York Times Magazine, the Nation and public television.
ENLACE 10TH ANNIVERSARY CONVENTION
March 7-9, 2008, Mexico City, Mexico
In marking its first decade of existence, Enlace members reached a series of decisions that reflect the growing strength of their organization and its ability to advance their struggles against some of the most powerful corporations in the world.
Given this progress, it was only natural to cast a look back at the origins of the organization to see how it had managed not merely to survive but to continue its dynamic development through a most difficult decade.
The meeting of representatives from nine Mexican and U.S. worker organizations in October 1997 in San Miguel Allende to explore the question of how to organize low-wage workers did not begin well. All the historical, political and cultural obstacles that have made cross-border labor solidarity and union-community organization alliances such huge challenges were present. But the participants’ deeply held and common commitment to improve the effectiveness of low-wage worker organizing was a powerful incentive to work through these obstacles and a few months later to found an organization with a very large mandate and a very small budget, with some definite ideas but no blueprint for achieving them—and named it Enlace, which means link in Spanish.
The cross-border character of the organization was built into its origins because such a large proportion of low-wage workers in the U.S. were Mexican immigrants and so many workers in Mexico were employed in the production chains of U.S.-based transnational corporations.
“All we really understood at the time,” said Enlace co-executive director Peter Cervantes-Gautschi, “was that these groups shared certain common challenges, chief among them the need to build and continually regenerate strong, democratic organizations. This is what we set out to do.”
It is one of the more remarkable stories of the new global labor movement that ten years later this seed has grown into a sturdy sapling of 21 member organizations representing a base of hundreds of thousands of low-wage workers on both sides of the border.
“We have stuck to some basic guidelines over the past decade and they have served us well,” Cervantes-Gautschi and co-executive director Joann Lo reported to the gathering at the opening session of the convention. “Prioritize campaigns. Don’t duplicate the work of other organizations. Win things that haven’t been won. We’ve had victories and defeats and learned from both.”
One very important and concrete result that has come out of this process is the development of Enlace’s peer-training method known as the Integrated Organizing Approach (IOA), which has already been brought to more than 100 worker centers, unions and ally organizations. The IOA is a system of organizing that has begun to answer the question of how a local, cash-strapped workers’ organization can succeed in a campaign confronting a powerful multinational corporation. The short answer is that the bigger and more powerful a company, the more vulnerable it can be; and that small organizations can learn how to grow bigger and stronger. This approach was used with stunning success in both the Sara Lee and Pung Kook campaigns, in which giant multinational corporations were forced to recognize and bargain with small local worker organizations.
This focus on strategic campaigns and strengthening organizations ran through the two days of panels, workshops and decision-making as the 107 participants shared their experiences and struggled together to clarify the next steps.
The second day of the convention fell on International Women’s Day (IWD), which was the subject of the opening panel that day. Several speakers on the panel reminded the gathering of the origins of IWD at the turn of the 20th Century as large numbers of women were entering the industrial work force for the first time. Their demands for justice and equality greatly strengthened both the union and women’s suffrage movements and led to historic gains for both. But as the speakers also pointed out, this struggle for equality both within unions and the society at large is still unfinished. One of the great strengths of Enlace is the seriousness it has given to this issue from the inception of the organization, which could be seen clearly by the leadership roles that women have in Enlace and by their sheer numbers, with women making up more than 2/3 of those participating in the convention.
Another crucial strength of the organization over the years has been its ability to adapt to new information and circumstances. So it was not surprising that on the last day of the convention Enlace affiliates voted overwhelmingly in favor of a course of action that does not waver from its mandate to strengthen the organizations of low-wage workers but also clearly opens new vistas of geographic scope, institutional relationships and organizational self-sufficiency.
Decisions made by the delegates at the convention included:
• Approval of a partnership agreement between the AFL-CIO and Enlace to develop a long-term work plan consistent with the goals of both organizations. This could include solidarity actions in key cities, bringing issues before the International Labour Organization (ILO), developing legal strategies to aid workers in Mexico and immigrant workers in the U.S., developing a joint protocol to address shareholder issues and actions and to facilitate contact and communication between Enlace and AFL-CIO affiliates, State and Central Labor Councils. Enlace worker centers that choose to affiliate with an AFL-CIO state federation and/or central labor council will maintain their full autonomy and will not be bound by the constitution of the AFL-CIO or its subordinate bodies. The agreement does not mean that either party endorses or agrees with the foreign policy positions of the other.
• Because anti-immigrant hysteria has reached such a high level in the U.S and weakens the base of many progressive organizations, Enlace will continue its educational campaign on the pressures that drive immigrant workers from Mexico to the U.S. The campaign identifies broader issues that are rarely linked in the mass media to immigration. The educational materials that have been developed will be made available in a variety of formats to Enlace affiliates and their allies to counter the vicious upsurge in anti-immigrant policies by local, state and federal governments as well as the attacks on immigrants by vigilante groups. Enlace will also create a committee to develop a new international campaign on immigration and immigrant workers.
• Continuing support for the Seafood Workers Justice Campaign in Santa Rosalia, Baja California Sur. This campaign is being carried out in close collaboration with Enlace member SINTTIM, its purpose to assist the approximately 4000 workers who are either direct or indirect employees of the huge multinational processors in the area to advance their fight for fair treatment and compensation. As this campaign has progressed and more has been learned about the structure of the global seafood industry, the need to strengthen relations with allies in China, Korea and Japan has become apparent.
• Continue to develop and expand the innovative pre-paid debit card project. This initiative, begun in 2005 in collaboration with the Center for Community Change and the Workers’ Centers Network of Interfaith Worker Justice, has demonstrated a promising potential to provide financial services needed by people who are excluded by banks as well as strengthen the financial base of the worker centers themselves. The cards could be used not only by worker centers and unions in the U.S. but possibly also by civil associations in Mexico. Four Enlace members are currently participating in the program: Workplace Project; Day Labor Program of La Raza Centro Legal; IDEPSCA; and Pilipino Workers Center.
• Continuation of discussions with Cornell University’s Industrial and Labor Relations Extension to develop a joint training program for worker organizations in the U.S., Mexico and other countries.
• Build awareness about and support the campaign of el Centro de Apoyo a la Mujer de las Maquilas de La Laguna, A.C. (the Center of Support for Women in the Maquilas in La Laguna) to defend against the plant closure by Hanes Brands in Torreon, Coahuila, Mexico.
• Nomination of seven new members: CISSLABORAL, SEIU Local 49, Neighbor to Neighbor, CILAS, Centro de Derechos Humanos de Tehuacan (Center for Human Rights of Tehuacan), Union Popular Independiente (Independent Popular Union), Farm Labor Organizing Committee.
These decisions flowed from the discussions that took place in the dozen panels and workshops over the previous two days. A great variety of themes and subjects were touched upon and arguments made in the course of these discussions, but it was possible to see in them how Enlace was evolving to a new stage of its organizational life. As has been the case from its birth, these new developments are being shaped by the strategic necessities of workers in struggle.
CHANGING THE NARRATIVE AROUND LOW-WAGE IMMIGRANT LABOR
Few people in the U.S. beyond the immigrant community and their immediate allies understand the degree of persecution now underway in cities and towns across the country—the document checks, raids, evictions, property seizures, detentions and deportations and all too often physical violence. Nor do they understand the desperate economic crisis in Mexico that drives so many workers North, despite knowing the dangers they will face.
Several of the panels and workshops addressed this situation from different angles. Some focused on immediately practical defensive measures, such as tapping into legal resources like nelp.org or online resources like detentionwatch.net, while others tried to formulate broader, pro-active strategic measures. In this latter category were two workshops that came at the subject from two complementary angles: Expansion and Impact on Immigration of NAFTA; Wall Street and Immigration—Addressing Anti-Immigrant Bigotry.
NAFTA has been in the news lately in the U.S. because of the presidential political campaign, which has once again highlighted the devastating impact on manufacturing workers throughout the country. It’s also been in the news in Mexico, as thousands of small farmers marched in protest against the subsidized corn and beans and other agricultural products imported from the U.S. as a result of NAFTA.
“Every hour Mexico imports $1.5 million worth of agricultural and food products, almost all from the United States,” said Laura Carlsen, Americas Program Director of the Center for International Policy. “In that same hour, 30 people—men, women and children—leave their homes in the Mexican countryside to take up the most dangerous journey of their lives—as immigrants to the United States. These two phenomena are related.” More related, in fact, than most people realize. Carlsen offered the example of the poultry worker in Jalisco left unemployed when imports from the food giant Tyson wiped out the business, and then how Tyson got caught smuggling unemployed workers from Mexico into the U.S. to work in U.S. Tyson plants at sub-minimum wages!
“NAFTA and trade agreements like it are win-win for corporations,” she said, adding the example of the $24 million a year salary for the CEO of Cargill, which as exporter, importer and producer of several agricultural commodities completely controls the Mexican market for these products.
The Wall Street and Immigration workshop highlighted what’s not in the news these days is the relationship of the huge U.S. financial service companies to Mexico. Of course we are seeing these days, and dramatically, how the manipulation of conveniently unregulated markets by the huge U.S financial service companies has resulted in more than 3 million home foreclosures in the last year and a half alone, but the damage these companies have done to working people in Mexico and the Mexican economy is even greater. When the Mexican Peso was devalued in 1994, it set off a financial crisis that allowed U.S. financial firms, with the assistance of the U.S. Treasury Secretary, Robert Rubin—now Chair of Citigroup’s Executive Committee—to acquire tremendous leverage over Mexican financial markets and eliminate all kinds of regulations.
With an ever increasing share of Mexicans’ debt going to Citigroup, J.P. Morgan, Bank of America, Chase Manhattan and other household names, interest rates on business and farm loans rose from an average of 11% to 56%, credit card interest rates went from 7% to 61%, car loans from 7% to 91% and home loans from 5% to 75%.
Imagine the effect this crushing debt has had on millions of Mexican families, and the extent to which it has contributed to the massive migration north over the past decade. Most of these same U.S. financial firms also invest in companies that profit by employing immigrant workers who are routinely forced to accept illegally low wages because their lack of documentation makes them vulnerable to unscrupulous employers. And finding a way to profit from virtually everything in this cycle of human misery they have done so much to create, these financial firms have made huge investments in the thriving corporations contracted by the federal government to build and run new prisons for immigrants.
When we accurately identify the economic and political players who are fundamentally responsible for the plight of immigrant workers and their families, we will find that they are the same interests putting the squeeze on the entire U.S. working class.
EXPANDING THE GEOGRAPHIC SCOPE OF THE WORK
The participation in the Convention of Apo Leong, director of the Hong Kong-based Asia Monitor Resource Centre (AMRC), had both a practical and symbolic significance for Enlace. Symbolically, it was recognition of the strategic step that Enlace has taken in the course of several campaigns that required crossing many national borders beyond the one separating the U.S. and Mexico. Practically, it reflected the fact that activists, labor rights NGO’s, worker centers and unions everywhere must understand what is happening in China and to Chinese workers, because, as Leong remarked, “China has been integrated into the world market with tremendous implications for workers in China and around the world.”
Drawing on his own direct experiences as well as the “participatory action research” AMRC has produced for three decades, Leong provided the convention with a detailed and nuanced picture of the limitations and possibilities facing Chinese workers that is rarely seen. Despite the social and political control exercised by the Chinese government and factory management, Leong said there were massive numbers of young and increasingly aware workers learning from their own spontaneous industrial actions and receptive to more cohesive forms of organization. He also saw opportunities for greater cooperation and mutual support among Enlace members and Asian groups like AMRC. On the same panel Garrett Brown, coordinator of the Maquiladora Health and Safety Support Network, and Lynda Yanz of the Maquila Solidarity Network, described the experiences of their own organizations in China and other Asian countries and agreed that it was both possible and necessary to develop these ties.
Coming at this question from a slightly different angle, Jennifer Gordon, founder of the Workplace Project and now of Fordham Law School, noted the importance of looking beyond our immediate experiences for possible models for protecting the rights of migrant workers. She cited examples of programs and governmental agreements involving workers from Nepal, the Philippines, Argentina and Brazil that could be viewed as the first steps toward “global hiring halls,” in which workers could move legally from one country to another to work as long as they were members of unions that participated in the implementation of such agreements which would also protect workers against retaliation for exercising their legal rights. Gordon warned, however, that these initiatives were in a very early stage of development and required further study and monitoring.
Similarly, participants in the panel on International Organizing Campaigns cited the importance of being able to engage with unions and allies anywhere in the world to bring pressures to bear on both governments and companies. Peter Olney, organizing director of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), recounted the extraordinary history of the ILWU’s internationalist actions in solidarity with struggles around the world and the union’s own current campaign against the Blue Diamond Almond Growers Association in California.
STARS, COACHES, EXCEPTIONAL ALLIES, ORGANIZATIONS AND FUNDERS
In marching to the beat of a different drummer over this first decade of its existence, Enlace has rarely indulged in some of the standard organizational pageantry like gala award dinners. An exception was made for the 10th anniversary and reflected what makes this organization special. The presenters and awardees included individuals and organizations, old pros and new young leaders still on the shop floor, women and men hailing from Mexico, the United States and Canada. And the speeches, whether in Spanish or English, were very short.
Each of these recipients could be the subject of this entire report, but even a brief note helps explain how their unique contributions to the organization and how they complement each other have done so much to create this remarkable Enlace story.
Elizabeth “Betty” Robles Ortega—Betty learned about working class struggle as a young woman trying to earn a living on the assembly line of a maquila factory in Ciudad Juarez in the 1980s. From the very beginning of her experience in the maquila, Betty has been a fighter. She went on to help found SEDEPAC, the organization that led the epic battle against the giant multinational Sara Lee in Coahuila, and was one of the founders of Enlace. Besides all the other ways she contributes to the struggle, Betty is blessed with a golden singing voice that touches the heart and stirs the soul.
Wade Rathke—Wade also was present at the 1997 meeting that laid the foundation of Enlace and has been a constant force in its development ever since. He is better known as the founder and Chief Organizer of ACORN and SEIU Local 100, an innovative leader of the social justice movement who for over 40 years has been steady, fearless and effective in his insistence that workers must create mass organizations that they themselves control and that increasingly this must be done across national borders.
Workplace Project (WPP)—For many years after its founding on Long Island, NY in 1992, WPP worked quietly and diligently to assist the growing number of immigrant workers in the area. In 2005 the organization and its work came to national attention when it led the successful battle against mass evictions and other, sometimes violent, assaults on the immigrant community. Nadia Marin-Molina, now WPP executive director, was one of the first participants in Enlace’s Coach Program in 1998, and accepted the award on behalf of the organization.
Eva Padilla Carrera—Eva was born in Matamoros into a poor family with 12 brothers and sisters and had to go to work in the maquila at the age of 15. She began working with SEDEPAC, became a grass roots leader in Torreon and in 1999 joined Enlace’s Coach Program. Since then she has used her Coach training to found and help develop several worker rights groups in Torreon and has trained more than 800 workers of the maquila MADERO International.
Frente Autentico del Trabajo (FAT)—The FAT, a founding member of Enlace and a long-time former member of its board, is a national union federation that has been a beacon of hope in the Mexican labor movement for more than 40 years. In struggle after struggle, as it confronts both employer and the sinister power of the “official” unions that constantly undermine Mexican workers, the FAT has been an exemplary ally in organizing and helping to coordinate solidarity actions not only in Mexico but countries around the world.
Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance (KIWA)—Founded in 1992, a founding member of Enlace and currently a member of its executive board, KIWA brings together Latino/a and Korean immigrant workers in the Koreatown area of Los Angeles. KIWA has led campaigns that raised wages and improved working conditions in the Korean restaurant and supermarket industries and has provided exceptional solidarity to the campaigns of other Enlace members. The award was accepted by KIWA executive director Danny Park.
SEIU Local 1877—Through its inspirational Justice for Janitors Campaign in the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s, Local 1877 galvanized a new generation of union organizers and leaders who have contributed to building our movement far beyond the scope of the original effort. Local 1877 is a founding member of Enlace and has helped to build and support it throughout its history. The Local’s leaders like Chava Bustamante and Lino Pedres, who accepted the award on behalf of the union, have served on Enlace’s leadership committee and executive board.
Arturo Alcalde Justiniano—Arturo is one of the most revered labor lawyers in Mexico, that rare combination of brilliant scholar and practical idealist who can be counted on to come to the aid of beleaguered workers fighting for their rights who often would not have any legal representation if not for this extraordinarily energetic and gifted man. Enlace members fighting the Korean-based multinational Pung Kook in Baja California Sur and Sara Lee in Frontera can testify to that, as can tens of thousands of other workers throughout Mexico and around the world.
Jeff Fiedler—A pioneer in the development of corporate campaigns using in-depth research to identify how a corporation is vulnerable to pressure from workers, Jeff practiced his trade for many years as head of the Food and Allied Service Trades department of the AFL-CIO and has provided Enlace members much valuable assistance over the past eight years. He is widely recognized as one of the most effective corporate researchers in the world—and one of the most modest. “I can’t say no,” he said, upon accepting the award. “Same as everyone else in this room.”
Ann Bastian—It is very difficult to describe Ann in a few words. This award was presented to her in her capacity as a senior program officer at the New World Foundation, which has provided Enlace with critical and timely support. But Ann is also an organizer, teacher and author with degrees from Harvard and the London School of Economics and a recipient of the Intellectual Freedom Award from the American Library Association. She is also known for her sense of humor. “Given what foundations put organizations like Enlace through,” she cracked, “this is like giving an award to your dentist.”
There was one surprise award that was not on the program. On behalf of the Enlace staff, Katy Riker presented an award to Enlace co-executive director Peter Cervantes-Gautschi, “for creating a happy and humane workplace that is translating a vision into action,” said Riker. Peter accepted the award, uncharacteristically speechless.
Alan Howard is former assistant to the president of UNITE and a journalist who has written for the New York Times Magazine, the Nation and public television.
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