Unions fight against abuse of migrant laborers

Mexican and US organizers are risking their lives to prevent guest workers from being swindled by unscrupulous 'recruiters.'

from the June 11, 2007 edition

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How guest workers get swindled

For over 60 years, Mexicans have crossed the border legally each year, to harvest tobacco in North Carolina, extract meat from crabs in Maryland, pick blueberries in Maine, among other menial jobs. In 2006, some 37,000 workers got visas to carry out agriculture and other low-skill labor. More than three-fourths come from Mexico.

Most US growers rely on private agencies to recruit guest workers under the H2A agriculture and H2B nonagriculture programs, representing tens of millions of dollars, according to a recent report by the Southern Law Poverty Center. Some recruiters are legitimate. Others fan across countries like Mexico, charging prices often starting at $600, about six months' worth of earnings for many laborers.

FLOC opened its office in Mexico in 2005, a year after winning a historic agreement with the North Carolina Growers Association that temporarily puts the burden of recruitment fees and visa costs onto employers in that state, not on the workers heading there.

"The enormous corruption was the first thing we discovered," says Baldemor Velasquez, FLOC's president in Ohio. "People are desperate. They will pay."

But not any more.

Organizers risk lives to prevent abuse

Dozens of men stand under trees in a run-down park in front of a church in Nuevo Laredo. Mr. Benavides circulates among clusters of men and hands them union brochures detailing their rights. Joe Mueller, a Christian Peacemaker, stands in the background, monitoring Benavides's movements in light of current threats against the union.

The murder of Santiago Rafael Cruz, who was born in Oaxaca and had worked the tobacco fields in North Carolina with Benavides before moving to Monterrey in 2007 to help expand union activities, while shocking, didn't come out of nowhere. The offices had been robbed twice – their computers and all members' contact information on it – and their staff workers have received anonymous death threats.

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