What Do They Have to Lose?
Unions Need to Stop Being So Nice
By DAVID MACARAY
http://www.counterpunch.com/macaray02052008.html
Should labor unions arbitrarily assume that any plan introduced by management will likely have a negative effect on the workers? Should organized labor quit playing ball with management? Should they stop cooperating? In a word, should unions just say No to everything?
As cynical and profoundly adversarial as these questions may seem, recent history more or less gives Yes as the answer.
Take, for example, the Democracy in the Workplace campaign of the 1980s. Using as its template the Japanese employer-employee relationship (the one reputed to be kicking our butts in the marketplace), American businesses urged unions to think "outside the box," to open themselves up to a whole new philosophy regarding the way we do business.
Dr. W. Edwards Deming, the statistician and ergonomics expert credited with having "invented" the postwar Japanese business model, traveled the United States conducting seminars and hawking his book ("Out of the Crisis") on how to save the American economy. Japan was clearly on the ascendancy, and we were rapidly falling behind.
Management gushed over Deming's innovative 14-point program for improving efficiency, and unions were quick to buy in to his refreshingly pro-labor stance, where workers on the floor were given an opportunity to participate in the decision-making process, share in the profits, and be treated as "equals."
Of course, what happened was hideous and predictable. Management degraded Deming's philosophy by implementing only those parts of it that benefited them in the short-term, and rejecting anything that cost money or resembled "joint-ownership" of the workplace. Because they'd always feared and resented unions, they hoped that "going Japanese" would be an opportunity to neutralize them.
Democracy in the Workplace turned out to be more hype than substance. It took the form of grassroots employee committees which, predictably (and with the company's urging), ignored or sidestepped the elected union leadership. Not that there's anything wrong with employee involvement; in fact, having a majority of the workers genuinely involved in day-to-day activities is a positive force.
But in many cases these ad hoc committees were free-for-alls, with management offering rewards to the weakest, most pliant workers on the floor as payment for supporting company initiatives. This was "democracy" in its least attractive form. Ironically, when it came time for some really serious decision-making to be done, even these company stooges were brushed aside, particularly when their suggestions conflicted with management's master plan.
The mid-1980s and early 1990s turned out to be a period of huge layoffs. Because cutting the workforce was now a priority, Deming's subtle managerial philosophy had been clumsily reduced to an aggressive, unremitting drive to lower head counts. By the time the smoke cleared, and the Democracy in the Workplace movement had petered out, employee rolls had been slashed, unions had been weakened, and company profits had soared.
And then, quite suddenly, the so-called "Japanese Miracle" was relegated to yesterday's news. As other emerging Asian markets arrived on the scene and began competing with Japan, the vaunted Japanese model lost a bit of its luster. Today, if you suggest emulating Japanese techniques, you'll elicit yawns. China is the world's new economic hero. Fortunately, its bizarre mixture of bureaucratic Communism and rapacious turbo-capitalism isn't available for export.
Another example of a bad idea was NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement). This treaty has been with us now for 14 years, and it's obvious that the wildly optimistic predictions were mistaken. NAFTA was supposed to create jobs for American workers; instead, nearly 3 million manufacturing jobs have been lost.
Additionally, NAFTA was supposed to help the Mexican economy to such an extent-create so many new jobs in Mexico-that immigration into the U.S. would be reduced to a trickle. Instead, not only has immigration to the U.S. increased, but Mexican farmers have been devastated by U.S. government subsidies to agribusiness, and workers at the maquiladoras (border factories) have been laid off or had their wages drastically cut.
So who profited from NAFTA? No big surprise. It was the most powerful business groups in the three countries privy to the arrangement: Canada, Mexico and the U.S. President Clinton's chief economic advisor, Robert Rubin (formerly of the financial giant Goldman Sachs), was a personal friend of Carlos Salinas, the wealthy former president of Mexico. NAFTA was a classic "inside job," shoved through Congress by a bipartisan coalition of Republicans and Democrats.
But the best (worst) example of a management enterprise that hurt unions was the swapping of priorities in contract negotiations, which began in earnest during the 1990s and continues today. In order to hang on to their precious health care and pension benefits, unions were persuaded to put off (or even give back) wage increases. With benefits in jeopardy, unions were willing to sign contracts that swapped short-term purchasing power for long-term security.
The central flaw in this strategy was that it had no brakes. Once the unions agreed to forego wage increases in return for maintaining their benefits, management's next move was swift and predictable: they came after the benefits. The unions' voluntary waiver of wage increases served no purpose; health care and pension benefits continued to be eaten away. In the end, unions wound up losing both wages and benefits.
The same applied to the two-tier wage format. Reluctantly, unions agreed to sign contracts that included two-tier wage structures (a configuration where new hires are locked into a permanently lower wage schedule than senior workers) in return for hanging on to their medical and pension coverage. A case of ideological integrity being sacrificed for long-term stability.
This "selling out" of future employees was an extremely tough call for the unions, a trade-off they agonized over. To their credit, many locals refused to go along, even though they were under enormous pressure to do so. For those who did agree, as soon as management had that two-tier wage provision under their belt (and despite assurances that it wouldn't happen), they began cutting into the very medical and pension benefits the union had sold its soul to preserve. It was ugly.
So what's the answer? If going the extra mile, meeting management more than halfway and expecting them to do the right thing, isn't the solution, then what is? One suggestion might be that labor needs to move in the opposite direction. Instead of détente and mutual cooperation, a harsher, more "primitive" approach may be what's needed.
If accommodating management has lead to treachery and deceit, maybe resorting to strikes, more strikes, lawsuits, and calling management's bluff at every turn would be the more effective tactic. Something needs to be done to back them off. Even if that means going to war. Given all the bitter medicine unions have been forced to swallow over the last 25 years, what have they got to lose?
David Macaray, a Los Angeles playwright and writer, was president and chief contract negotiator of the Assn. of Western Pulp and Paper Workers, Local 672, from 1989 to 2000. He can be reached at dmacaray@earthlink.net
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2/12/08
Immigrants Come Here Because Globalization Took Their Jobs Back There
Immigrants Come Here Because Globalization Took Their Jobs Back There
By Jim Hightower, Hightower Lowdown
Posted on February 7, 2008, Printed on February 12, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/76076/
The wailing in our country about the "invasion of immigrants" has been long and loud. As one complainant put it, "Few of their children in the country learn English ...The signs in our streets have inscriptions in both languages ... Unless the stream of the importation could be turned they will soon so outnumber us that all the advantages we have will not be able to preserve our language, and even our government will become precarious."
That's not some diatribe from one of today's Republican presidential candidates. It's the anxious cry of none other than Ben Franklin, deploring the wave of Germans pouring into the colony of Pennsylvania in the 1750s. Thus, anti-immigrant eruptions are older than the United States itself, and they've flared up periodically throughout our history, targeting the Irish, French, Italians, Chinese, and others. Even George W's current project to wall off our border is not a new bit of nuttiness -- around the time of the nation's founding, John Jay, who later became the first chief justice of the Supreme Court, proposed "a wall of brass around the country for the exclusion of Catholics."
Luckily for the development and enrichment of our country, these past public frenzies ultimately failed to exclude the teeming masses, and those uproars now appear through the telescope of time to have been some combination of ridiculous panic, political demagoguery and xenophobic ugliness. Still, this does not mean that the public's anxiety and simmering anger about today's massive influx of Mexicans coming illegally across our 2,000-mile shared border is illegitimate. However, most of what the politicians and pundits are saying about it is illegitimate.
Wedge issue
There is way too much xenophobia, racism and demagoguery at play around illegal immigration, but such crude sentiments are not what is bringing this problem to a national political boil. Polls show -- as do conversations at any Chat & Chew Cafe in the country -- that there is a deep and genuine alarm about the issue among the nonxenophobic, nonracist American majority. In particular, workaday families are fearful about what an endless flow of low-wage workers portends for their economic future, and they're not getting good answers from Republicans, Democrats, corporate leaders or the media.
For the GOP candidates in this year's presidential run, the contest is coming down to who can be the most nativist knucklehead. They accuse each other of not wanting to punish immigrant children enough, of not being absolutists on "English-only" proposals, of having coddled illegal entrants in the past with amnesty proposals and sanctuaries, and of not being hawkish enough on sealing off and militarizing the border.
The leader of the anti-immigrant Republican pack is Tom Tancredo, a Colorado congress-critter who based his ill-fated presidential campaign on immigrant bashing. This goober is so nasty he'd scare small children. His website screeched that immigrants are "pushing drugs, raping kids, destroying lives," and his campaign slogan is a sledgehammer demand: "Deport those who don't belong. Make sure they never come back." As for illegal immigrants, Tom thinks that the term "illegal" is too soft, preferring to demonize immigrants as "aliens." Tancredo doesn't merely rant, he foams at the mouth, maniacally warning about waves of Mexican terrorists who are "coming to kill me and you and your children." Accused of trying to turn America into a gated community, he exulted, "You bet!"
At least he's taken a position, even if it's un-American and loopy. Democratic leaders, on the other hand, have mostly tried to do a squishy shuffle, wanting to beef up law enforcement against illegal immigrants while also mouthing soothing words about the good work ethic of our friends south of the border and offering a bureaucratic rigmarole to allow some of the younger ones to gain permanent residency in our country. Worse, such corporate Democrats as Rep. Rahm Emanuel urge the party's candidates either to adopt the Republican's punitive message or simply to try ducking the issue.
Which brings us to the wall, both figuratively and literally. The fact that we are resorting to the construction of an enormous fence between two friendly nations admits to an abject failure by policy makers, who are so bereft of ideas, honesty, courage and morality that all they can do is to try walling off the problem.
We've had experience here in Texas with the futility of tall border fences. Molly Ivins reported a beer-induced incident that took place in 1983. Walling off Mexico had been proposed back then by the Reaganauts, and a test fence had been built way down in the Big Bend outpost of Terlingua. This little town also happened to be the site of a renowned chili cookoff that Molly helped judge, and it attracted a big crowd of impish, beer-drinking chiliheads.
There stood the barrier, 17 feet tall and topped with barbwire. It didn't take many beers before the first-ever "Terlingua Memorial Over, Under, or Through the Mexican Fence Climbing Contest" was cooked up. Winning time: 30 seconds.
Yet here come the border sealers again. Bush & Co. (including Democrats who have allowed the funding) is putting up an initial $1.2 billion to start building this version of the wall, which is projected to cost up to $60 billion over the next 25 years to build and maintain. It's a monster wall -- two or three 40-foot-high rows of reinforced fencing that take a swath of land 150 feet wide and stretch for 700 miles.
The Mexican government and people are insulted and appalled by the wall; ranchers, mayors and families living on either side of the border hate it; environmentalists are aghast at its destructive impact on the ecology of the area. Still, it's being built. Indeed, a 2005 federal act contained a little-noticed section authorizing Bush's Homeland Security czar to suspend any laws that stand in the way of building the wall. Current czar Michael Chertoff has already used this unprecedented authority to waive 19 statutes, including the Endangered Species, Clean Water and National Historic Preservation Acts.
All this for something that will not work. As Gov. Janet Napolitano of Arizona put it, "Show me a 50-foot wall and I'll show you a 51-foot ladder." People have literally been dying to cross into the United States, and it's not possible to build a wall tall enough to stop them. They will keep coming.
Why?
The question that policy makers have not faced honestly is this one: Why do these immigrants come? The answer is not that they are pulled by our jobs and government benefits, but that they are pushed by the abject poverty that their families face in Mexico. That might seem like a mere semantic difference, but it's huge if you're trying to develop a policy to stop the human flood across our border.
Although you never hear it mentioned in debates on the issue, you might start with this reality: Most Mexican people really would prefer to live in their own country. Can we all say, duh? Pedro Martin, who has seen most of the young men and women in his small village depart for El Norte, put it this way: "Up north, even though they pay more, you're not necessarily living as well. You feel out of place. Here you can walk around the whole town, and it's comfortable. Life is easier."
Their family, language, culture, identity and happiness is Mexican -- yet sheer economic survival requires so many of them to abandon the place they love.
Again, why? Because in the last 15 years, Mexico's longstanding system of sustaining its huge population of poor citizens (including small self-sufficient farms, jobs in state-owned industries and subsidies for such essentials as tortillas) has been scuttled at the insistence of U.S. banks, corporations, government officials and "free market" ideologues. In the name of "modernizing" the Mexican economy, such giants as Citigroup, Wal-Mart, Tyson Foods and GE -- in cahoots with the plutocrats and oligarchs of Mexico -- have laid waste to that country's grass-roots economy, destroying the already-meager livelihoods of millions.
The 1994 imposition of NAFTA was particularly devastating. Just as Bill Clinton and the corporate elites did here, Mexico's ruling elites touted NAFTA as a magic elixir that would generate growth, create jobs, raise wages and eliminate the surge of Mexican migrants into the United States. They were horribly wrong:
Economic growth in Mexico has been anemic since '94, and the benefits of any growth have gone overwhelmingly to the wealthiest families.
Since NAFTA, Mexico has created less than a third of the millions of decent jobs it needs.
Average factory wages in Mexico have dropped by more than 5 percent under NAFTA.
Unemployment has jumped, and unskilled workers are paid only $5 a day.
U.S. agribusiness corporations have more than doubled their shipment of subsidized crops into Mexico, busting the price that indigenous farmers got for their production and displacing some 2 million peasant farmers from their land.
Huge agribusiness operations, many owned by U.S. investors, now control Mexican agricultural production and pay farmworkers under $2 an hour.
Since NAFTA passed, there has been a flood of business bankruptcies and takeovers in Mexico as predatory U.S. chains have moved in. U.S. corporations now control 40 percent of the country's formal jobs, with Wal-Mart reigning as the No. 1 employer.
Nineteen million more Mexicans live in poverty today than when NAFTA was passed.
So, here's the deal: Thanks to Mexico's newly corporatized economy, wage earners there get poverty pay of $5 a day (about $1,600 a year), while a few hundred miles north, they might draw that much in an hour. What would you do?
The wrong debate
In our national imbroglio over Mexican immigration (yes, some illegal migrants come from elsewhere, but more than three-fourths are from Mexico), our "leaders" have set us up to look down at impoverished working people forced to leave their homeland and risk death in order to help their families escape poverty.
Instead of coming down on them, why not start looking up -- up at the executive suites on both sides of the border. Up is where the power is. The moneyed elites in those suites are the profiteering few who have rigged all of our trade and labor policies to knock down workers, farmers and small businesses, not merely in Mexico but in our country as well.
In the United States, the middle class feels imperiled because ... well, because it is imperiled. Politicians, economists and the richly paid pundits keep telling us that the American economy is robust and that people's financial pessimism and anxieties are irrational. At the kitchen table level, however, folks know the difference between chicken salad and chicken manure. Yes, these are boom times for the luxury class, but the middle class is imploding. In a recent letter to the editor, a working stiff in California put it this way:
"We've replaced steaks with corn flakes; we can't afford to get sick; our kids can't afford health insurance; we hope that our 10-year-old van keeps running because we can't afford a new one; our kids can't buy a home because housing prices are exorbitant; our purchasing power continually regresses; and worst of all, the poverty and near-poverty classes are growing."
It's this economic fragility that anti-immigrant forces play on. But even if there were no illegal workers in our country -- none -- the fragility would remain, for poor Mexican laborers are not the ones who:
Downsized and offshored our middle-class jobs.
Perverted our bankruptcy laws to let corporations abrogate their union contracts.
Stopped enforcement of America's wage and hour laws.
Perverted the National Labor Relations Board into an anti-worker tool for corporations.
Illegally reclassified millions of employees as "independent contractors," leaving them with no benefits or labor rights.
Subverted the right of workers to organize.
Turned a blind eye to the re-emergence in America of sweatshops and child labor in everything from the clothing industry to Wal-Mart.
Made good healthcare a luxury item.
Let rich campaign donors take over both political parties.
Passed by hook and crook a continuing series of global-trade scams to enrich the few and knock down the many.
Powerless immigrants didn't do these things to us. The richest, most-powerful, best-connected corporate interests did them. Judy Ancel, director of the Institute for Labor Studies at the University of Missouri, offers this example of Iowa Beef Processors (IBP), the largest meatpacker in the United States, now owned by the multibillion-dollar conglomerate Tyson Foods:
Until the late 1970s, meatpacking was a high-wage industry, with highly skilled workers in charge. Factories were in union cities, union contracts provided good wages and benefits, and unions set professional standards for everything from worker training to safety conditions. Then IBP's executives transformed this beneficial model into today's profiteering system. The factories moved to nonunion cities and rural areas, and lower-skilled workers were hired to do repetitive cuts on speeded-up assembly lines. With Reagan as president, meat-industry lobbyists were able to emasculate labor laws, and unions lost their influence over the workplace, which became much less rewarding and more dangerous. IBP began intensive recruiting of Mexican workers (legal or not) to do what had become very nasty work. In only 20 years, meatpacking wages dropped by roughly half, the union was ousted, and the rate of workplace injury became one of the highest of any industry (more than a fourth of meatpacking workers now suffer "accidents").
The fix
Immigration reform cannot be separated from labor and trade reform. We can't fix the former without dealing with the other two. We must stop the exploitative NAFTAfication of such aspiring economies as Mexico and instead develop genuine grass-roots investment policies that give people there an ability to remain in their homeland. Then we must enforce our own labor laws -- from wage and hour rules to the NLRB -- so as to empower American workers to enforce their own rights.
Eliminating the need to migrate from Mexico and rebuilding the middle-class ladder, here is an "immigration policy" that will work. But it requires us to go right at the corporate kleptocracy that now owns Washington and controls the debate.
We must challenge Democrats, especially, to broaden the debate and to recognize that they must choose sides -- to be for workers or for more trade imperialism. Right now, the Democratic leadership is siding with imperialism and exacerbating the economic causes of Latino migration. For example, just last month, Speaker Nancy Pelosi engineered a vote to extend NAFTA to Peru, a corporate favor that could be called the Tom-Rahm Bipartisan Axis of Immigration Stupidity, for it drew enthusiastic support from both Tom Tancredo and Rahm Emanuel.
America's immigration problem is not down on the border, it's in Washington and on Wall Street.
From "The Hightower Lowdown," edited by Jim Hightower and Phillip Frazer, January 2008. Jim Hightower is a national radio commentator, writer, public speaker and author of the new book Swim Against the Current: Even a Dead Fish Can Go With the Flow. (Wiley, March 2008)
© 2008 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/76076/
By Jim Hightower, Hightower Lowdown
Posted on February 7, 2008, Printed on February 12, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/76076/
The wailing in our country about the "invasion of immigrants" has been long and loud. As one complainant put it, "Few of their children in the country learn English ...The signs in our streets have inscriptions in both languages ... Unless the stream of the importation could be turned they will soon so outnumber us that all the advantages we have will not be able to preserve our language, and even our government will become precarious."
That's not some diatribe from one of today's Republican presidential candidates. It's the anxious cry of none other than Ben Franklin, deploring the wave of Germans pouring into the colony of Pennsylvania in the 1750s. Thus, anti-immigrant eruptions are older than the United States itself, and they've flared up periodically throughout our history, targeting the Irish, French, Italians, Chinese, and others. Even George W's current project to wall off our border is not a new bit of nuttiness -- around the time of the nation's founding, John Jay, who later became the first chief justice of the Supreme Court, proposed "a wall of brass around the country for the exclusion of Catholics."
Luckily for the development and enrichment of our country, these past public frenzies ultimately failed to exclude the teeming masses, and those uproars now appear through the telescope of time to have been some combination of ridiculous panic, political demagoguery and xenophobic ugliness. Still, this does not mean that the public's anxiety and simmering anger about today's massive influx of Mexicans coming illegally across our 2,000-mile shared border is illegitimate. However, most of what the politicians and pundits are saying about it is illegitimate.
Wedge issue
There is way too much xenophobia, racism and demagoguery at play around illegal immigration, but such crude sentiments are not what is bringing this problem to a national political boil. Polls show -- as do conversations at any Chat & Chew Cafe in the country -- that there is a deep and genuine alarm about the issue among the nonxenophobic, nonracist American majority. In particular, workaday families are fearful about what an endless flow of low-wage workers portends for their economic future, and they're not getting good answers from Republicans, Democrats, corporate leaders or the media.
For the GOP candidates in this year's presidential run, the contest is coming down to who can be the most nativist knucklehead. They accuse each other of not wanting to punish immigrant children enough, of not being absolutists on "English-only" proposals, of having coddled illegal entrants in the past with amnesty proposals and sanctuaries, and of not being hawkish enough on sealing off and militarizing the border.
The leader of the anti-immigrant Republican pack is Tom Tancredo, a Colorado congress-critter who based his ill-fated presidential campaign on immigrant bashing. This goober is so nasty he'd scare small children. His website screeched that immigrants are "pushing drugs, raping kids, destroying lives," and his campaign slogan is a sledgehammer demand: "Deport those who don't belong. Make sure they never come back." As for illegal immigrants, Tom thinks that the term "illegal" is too soft, preferring to demonize immigrants as "aliens." Tancredo doesn't merely rant, he foams at the mouth, maniacally warning about waves of Mexican terrorists who are "coming to kill me and you and your children." Accused of trying to turn America into a gated community, he exulted, "You bet!"
At least he's taken a position, even if it's un-American and loopy. Democratic leaders, on the other hand, have mostly tried to do a squishy shuffle, wanting to beef up law enforcement against illegal immigrants while also mouthing soothing words about the good work ethic of our friends south of the border and offering a bureaucratic rigmarole to allow some of the younger ones to gain permanent residency in our country. Worse, such corporate Democrats as Rep. Rahm Emanuel urge the party's candidates either to adopt the Republican's punitive message or simply to try ducking the issue.
Which brings us to the wall, both figuratively and literally. The fact that we are resorting to the construction of an enormous fence between two friendly nations admits to an abject failure by policy makers, who are so bereft of ideas, honesty, courage and morality that all they can do is to try walling off the problem.
We've had experience here in Texas with the futility of tall border fences. Molly Ivins reported a beer-induced incident that took place in 1983. Walling off Mexico had been proposed back then by the Reaganauts, and a test fence had been built way down in the Big Bend outpost of Terlingua. This little town also happened to be the site of a renowned chili cookoff that Molly helped judge, and it attracted a big crowd of impish, beer-drinking chiliheads.
There stood the barrier, 17 feet tall and topped with barbwire. It didn't take many beers before the first-ever "Terlingua Memorial Over, Under, or Through the Mexican Fence Climbing Contest" was cooked up. Winning time: 30 seconds.
Yet here come the border sealers again. Bush & Co. (including Democrats who have allowed the funding) is putting up an initial $1.2 billion to start building this version of the wall, which is projected to cost up to $60 billion over the next 25 years to build and maintain. It's a monster wall -- two or three 40-foot-high rows of reinforced fencing that take a swath of land 150 feet wide and stretch for 700 miles.
The Mexican government and people are insulted and appalled by the wall; ranchers, mayors and families living on either side of the border hate it; environmentalists are aghast at its destructive impact on the ecology of the area. Still, it's being built. Indeed, a 2005 federal act contained a little-noticed section authorizing Bush's Homeland Security czar to suspend any laws that stand in the way of building the wall. Current czar Michael Chertoff has already used this unprecedented authority to waive 19 statutes, including the Endangered Species, Clean Water and National Historic Preservation Acts.
All this for something that will not work. As Gov. Janet Napolitano of Arizona put it, "Show me a 50-foot wall and I'll show you a 51-foot ladder." People have literally been dying to cross into the United States, and it's not possible to build a wall tall enough to stop them. They will keep coming.
Why?
The question that policy makers have not faced honestly is this one: Why do these immigrants come? The answer is not that they are pulled by our jobs and government benefits, but that they are pushed by the abject poverty that their families face in Mexico. That might seem like a mere semantic difference, but it's huge if you're trying to develop a policy to stop the human flood across our border.
Although you never hear it mentioned in debates on the issue, you might start with this reality: Most Mexican people really would prefer to live in their own country. Can we all say, duh? Pedro Martin, who has seen most of the young men and women in his small village depart for El Norte, put it this way: "Up north, even though they pay more, you're not necessarily living as well. You feel out of place. Here you can walk around the whole town, and it's comfortable. Life is easier."
Their family, language, culture, identity and happiness is Mexican -- yet sheer economic survival requires so many of them to abandon the place they love.
Again, why? Because in the last 15 years, Mexico's longstanding system of sustaining its huge population of poor citizens (including small self-sufficient farms, jobs in state-owned industries and subsidies for such essentials as tortillas) has been scuttled at the insistence of U.S. banks, corporations, government officials and "free market" ideologues. In the name of "modernizing" the Mexican economy, such giants as Citigroup, Wal-Mart, Tyson Foods and GE -- in cahoots with the plutocrats and oligarchs of Mexico -- have laid waste to that country's grass-roots economy, destroying the already-meager livelihoods of millions.
The 1994 imposition of NAFTA was particularly devastating. Just as Bill Clinton and the corporate elites did here, Mexico's ruling elites touted NAFTA as a magic elixir that would generate growth, create jobs, raise wages and eliminate the surge of Mexican migrants into the United States. They were horribly wrong:
Economic growth in Mexico has been anemic since '94, and the benefits of any growth have gone overwhelmingly to the wealthiest families.
Since NAFTA, Mexico has created less than a third of the millions of decent jobs it needs.
Average factory wages in Mexico have dropped by more than 5 percent under NAFTA.
Unemployment has jumped, and unskilled workers are paid only $5 a day.
U.S. agribusiness corporations have more than doubled their shipment of subsidized crops into Mexico, busting the price that indigenous farmers got for their production and displacing some 2 million peasant farmers from their land.
Huge agribusiness operations, many owned by U.S. investors, now control Mexican agricultural production and pay farmworkers under $2 an hour.
Since NAFTA passed, there has been a flood of business bankruptcies and takeovers in Mexico as predatory U.S. chains have moved in. U.S. corporations now control 40 percent of the country's formal jobs, with Wal-Mart reigning as the No. 1 employer.
Nineteen million more Mexicans live in poverty today than when NAFTA was passed.
So, here's the deal: Thanks to Mexico's newly corporatized economy, wage earners there get poverty pay of $5 a day (about $1,600 a year), while a few hundred miles north, they might draw that much in an hour. What would you do?
The wrong debate
In our national imbroglio over Mexican immigration (yes, some illegal migrants come from elsewhere, but more than three-fourths are from Mexico), our "leaders" have set us up to look down at impoverished working people forced to leave their homeland and risk death in order to help their families escape poverty.
Instead of coming down on them, why not start looking up -- up at the executive suites on both sides of the border. Up is where the power is. The moneyed elites in those suites are the profiteering few who have rigged all of our trade and labor policies to knock down workers, farmers and small businesses, not merely in Mexico but in our country as well.
In the United States, the middle class feels imperiled because ... well, because it is imperiled. Politicians, economists and the richly paid pundits keep telling us that the American economy is robust and that people's financial pessimism and anxieties are irrational. At the kitchen table level, however, folks know the difference between chicken salad and chicken manure. Yes, these are boom times for the luxury class, but the middle class is imploding. In a recent letter to the editor, a working stiff in California put it this way:
"We've replaced steaks with corn flakes; we can't afford to get sick; our kids can't afford health insurance; we hope that our 10-year-old van keeps running because we can't afford a new one; our kids can't buy a home because housing prices are exorbitant; our purchasing power continually regresses; and worst of all, the poverty and near-poverty classes are growing."
It's this economic fragility that anti-immigrant forces play on. But even if there were no illegal workers in our country -- none -- the fragility would remain, for poor Mexican laborers are not the ones who:
Downsized and offshored our middle-class jobs.
Perverted our bankruptcy laws to let corporations abrogate their union contracts.
Stopped enforcement of America's wage and hour laws.
Perverted the National Labor Relations Board into an anti-worker tool for corporations.
Illegally reclassified millions of employees as "independent contractors," leaving them with no benefits or labor rights.
Subverted the right of workers to organize.
Turned a blind eye to the re-emergence in America of sweatshops and child labor in everything from the clothing industry to Wal-Mart.
Made good healthcare a luxury item.
Let rich campaign donors take over both political parties.
Passed by hook and crook a continuing series of global-trade scams to enrich the few and knock down the many.
Powerless immigrants didn't do these things to us. The richest, most-powerful, best-connected corporate interests did them. Judy Ancel, director of the Institute for Labor Studies at the University of Missouri, offers this example of Iowa Beef Processors (IBP), the largest meatpacker in the United States, now owned by the multibillion-dollar conglomerate Tyson Foods:
Until the late 1970s, meatpacking was a high-wage industry, with highly skilled workers in charge. Factories were in union cities, union contracts provided good wages and benefits, and unions set professional standards for everything from worker training to safety conditions. Then IBP's executives transformed this beneficial model into today's profiteering system. The factories moved to nonunion cities and rural areas, and lower-skilled workers were hired to do repetitive cuts on speeded-up assembly lines. With Reagan as president, meat-industry lobbyists were able to emasculate labor laws, and unions lost their influence over the workplace, which became much less rewarding and more dangerous. IBP began intensive recruiting of Mexican workers (legal or not) to do what had become very nasty work. In only 20 years, meatpacking wages dropped by roughly half, the union was ousted, and the rate of workplace injury became one of the highest of any industry (more than a fourth of meatpacking workers now suffer "accidents").
The fix
Immigration reform cannot be separated from labor and trade reform. We can't fix the former without dealing with the other two. We must stop the exploitative NAFTAfication of such aspiring economies as Mexico and instead develop genuine grass-roots investment policies that give people there an ability to remain in their homeland. Then we must enforce our own labor laws -- from wage and hour rules to the NLRB -- so as to empower American workers to enforce their own rights.
Eliminating the need to migrate from Mexico and rebuilding the middle-class ladder, here is an "immigration policy" that will work. But it requires us to go right at the corporate kleptocracy that now owns Washington and controls the debate.
We must challenge Democrats, especially, to broaden the debate and to recognize that they must choose sides -- to be for workers or for more trade imperialism. Right now, the Democratic leadership is siding with imperialism and exacerbating the economic causes of Latino migration. For example, just last month, Speaker Nancy Pelosi engineered a vote to extend NAFTA to Peru, a corporate favor that could be called the Tom-Rahm Bipartisan Axis of Immigration Stupidity, for it drew enthusiastic support from both Tom Tancredo and Rahm Emanuel.
America's immigration problem is not down on the border, it's in Washington and on Wall Street.
From "The Hightower Lowdown," edited by Jim Hightower and Phillip Frazer, January 2008. Jim Hightower is a national radio commentator, writer, public speaker and author of the new book Swim Against the Current: Even a Dead Fish Can Go With the Flow. (Wiley, March 2008)
© 2008 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/76076/
The Politics of Humanity: Deporting Victims of Abuse
The Politics of Humanity: Deporting Victims of Abuse
By XicanoPwr On January 30, 2008
¡Para Justicia y Libertad! - http://xicanopwr.com
America’s sudden interest in the Black and Brown tension that has recently dominated the airwaves has only provided a perfect cover for the anti-immigration forces. Last year, I wrote a post about Emelina Ramirez Bojorquez, the Georgia immigrant who was thrown into detention as an “illegal alien” after a domestic disturbance. This time, Ana Bertha Arellano, who lives in Sacramento, is not only a victim of domestic abuse, but also a victim of an overzealous government agency that feels they are above the law.
Arellano, who was snuck into the United States by her husband, a permanent resident, was beaten and humiliated for more than nine years. Like Emelina Ramirez, Arellano never had her immigration status adjusted for permanent residency. In the beginning of her marriage, her husband would tell her he was going to get the process going so she could attain legal residence. However, this turned out to be a lie because he used her undocumented status to prevent her from complaining about his subsequent beatings and verbal taunts.
After years of being beaten and humiliated, she muster up enough courage to leave her abusive husband and sought help from the Mexican Consulate. There, officials recommended she apply for a temporary visa under Violence Against Women Act, the law that protects undocumented immigrants from abusive spouses who use their position as citizens to intimidate their spouses who did not have legal immigrant status in the United States. The law allows the abused spouse to file a self-petition for legal residency based on marriage to an abusive citizen or LPR, who will not file a petition for them.
Arellano hired a lawyer and petitioned for legal residency under that program. She was granted a visa under VAWA and a work permit so she could support herself and her children by working legally. To support herself and her children, she has opened her own restaurant in Sacramento and is receiving health insurance by working as a janitor, which she cleans offices all night. However, this might come to a crashing halt. Once again, the Department of Homeland Security has decided to abuse their prosecutorial discretion. Homeland Security has now set its sight on victims of domestic abuse as they are now considering eliminating the domestic violence program that was meant to protect people like Emelina Ramirez Bojorquez and Ana Bertha Arellano.
“I have my own health insurance. I don’t take any aid for anything. I don’t want anything else but a chance to have some stability for my family,” said Arellano, 37, one of the thousands of immigrants, many mothers of U.S.-born children, who could be affected if the policy shifts.
After applying for her green card six months ago, she is now being told by the Sacramento office of Citizenship and Immigration Services that her application for a green card has been put on hold. According to the Sacramento Bee, Homeland Security is considering whether to reject green-card petitions for immigrant abuse survivors if they entered the United States in the past illegally. The Bee also reported that more than 30,670 immigrants married to US spouses have been granted Violence Against Women Act visas, however, now they will soon be in limbo. Arellano fears that her green-card application will soon be rejected and being deported is the ultimate punishment for her.
Spousal abuse has long been one of the most critical and widespread problems endured by women who do not have legal residency in the United States but are married to someone who does. The argument anti-immigrant nativist use to justify Arellano’s deportation and people like her is simple, battered undocumented women should not be treated any differently as any other undocumented immigrant, therefore, they should be sent back to their homelands. Another argument that is often made is that the fact that they have suffered abuse is a tragedy, but by allowing battered spouses to stay in this country; other immigrant groups will also try to use the same excuse. It is interesting how simplistic they make their arguments and sadly, it unfairly blames the victim and not the truly guilty party, the perpetrator of the violence.
While it is true that there are millions of reported/unreported incidents of domestic violence occurring across the country, the fact is domestic abuse remains to be a social crisis people rather not talk about. Immigrant women, like other abused women, may depend on their abusers for financial support, and breaking free of dependency is never easy. If they do escape, many of them face barriers, which often include language difficulties and cultural communities that discourage victims from talking about the abuse.
By eliminating the Violence Against Women Act’s domestic violence program, Homeland Security will only force more battered immigrants into the shadows and some into an early grave at the hands of their abuser. Domestic violence is a social problem of epidemic proportions that must be eradicated. By not responding to Arellano’s plight now, we send out the message that there really is no justice for immigrants who are victims of domestic violence.
By XicanoPwr On January 30, 2008
¡Para Justicia y Libertad! - http://xicanopwr.com
America’s sudden interest in the Black and Brown tension that has recently dominated the airwaves has only provided a perfect cover for the anti-immigration forces. Last year, I wrote a post about Emelina Ramirez Bojorquez, the Georgia immigrant who was thrown into detention as an “illegal alien” after a domestic disturbance. This time, Ana Bertha Arellano, who lives in Sacramento, is not only a victim of domestic abuse, but also a victim of an overzealous government agency that feels they are above the law.
Arellano, who was snuck into the United States by her husband, a permanent resident, was beaten and humiliated for more than nine years. Like Emelina Ramirez, Arellano never had her immigration status adjusted for permanent residency. In the beginning of her marriage, her husband would tell her he was going to get the process going so she could attain legal residence. However, this turned out to be a lie because he used her undocumented status to prevent her from complaining about his subsequent beatings and verbal taunts.
After years of being beaten and humiliated, she muster up enough courage to leave her abusive husband and sought help from the Mexican Consulate. There, officials recommended she apply for a temporary visa under Violence Against Women Act, the law that protects undocumented immigrants from abusive spouses who use their position as citizens to intimidate their spouses who did not have legal immigrant status in the United States. The law allows the abused spouse to file a self-petition for legal residency based on marriage to an abusive citizen or LPR, who will not file a petition for them.
Arellano hired a lawyer and petitioned for legal residency under that program. She was granted a visa under VAWA and a work permit so she could support herself and her children by working legally. To support herself and her children, she has opened her own restaurant in Sacramento and is receiving health insurance by working as a janitor, which she cleans offices all night. However, this might come to a crashing halt. Once again, the Department of Homeland Security has decided to abuse their prosecutorial discretion. Homeland Security has now set its sight on victims of domestic abuse as they are now considering eliminating the domestic violence program that was meant to protect people like Emelina Ramirez Bojorquez and Ana Bertha Arellano.
“I have my own health insurance. I don’t take any aid for anything. I don’t want anything else but a chance to have some stability for my family,” said Arellano, 37, one of the thousands of immigrants, many mothers of U.S.-born children, who could be affected if the policy shifts.
After applying for her green card six months ago, she is now being told by the Sacramento office of Citizenship and Immigration Services that her application for a green card has been put on hold. According to the Sacramento Bee, Homeland Security is considering whether to reject green-card petitions for immigrant abuse survivors if they entered the United States in the past illegally. The Bee also reported that more than 30,670 immigrants married to US spouses have been granted Violence Against Women Act visas, however, now they will soon be in limbo. Arellano fears that her green-card application will soon be rejected and being deported is the ultimate punishment for her.
Spousal abuse has long been one of the most critical and widespread problems endured by women who do not have legal residency in the United States but are married to someone who does. The argument anti-immigrant nativist use to justify Arellano’s deportation and people like her is simple, battered undocumented women should not be treated any differently as any other undocumented immigrant, therefore, they should be sent back to their homelands. Another argument that is often made is that the fact that they have suffered abuse is a tragedy, but by allowing battered spouses to stay in this country; other immigrant groups will also try to use the same excuse. It is interesting how simplistic they make their arguments and sadly, it unfairly blames the victim and not the truly guilty party, the perpetrator of the violence.
While it is true that there are millions of reported/unreported incidents of domestic violence occurring across the country, the fact is domestic abuse remains to be a social crisis people rather not talk about. Immigrant women, like other abused women, may depend on their abusers for financial support, and breaking free of dependency is never easy. If they do escape, many of them face barriers, which often include language difficulties and cultural communities that discourage victims from talking about the abuse.
By eliminating the Violence Against Women Act’s domestic violence program, Homeland Security will only force more battered immigrants into the shadows and some into an early grave at the hands of their abuser. Domestic violence is a social problem of epidemic proportions that must be eradicated. By not responding to Arellano’s plight now, we send out the message that there really is no justice for immigrants who are victims of domestic violence.
Avanza marcha campesina “Del Chamizal al Zócalo”
Avanza marcha campesina “Del Chamizal al Zócalo”
Monday, 21 January 2008
http://www.greenpeace.org/mexico/news/arranca-marcha-campesina-del
http://www.larazaunida.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=637&Itemid=44
df, México — Organizaciones campesinas de Chihuahua, integrantes del Movimiento de Resistencia Campesina “Francisco Villa”, siguen adelante con una marcha integrada por tractores que arrancó en El Chamizal, Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, el día 18 de enero, y que concluirá en el Zócalo de la Ciudad de México el día 31 del mismo mes.
A esta marcha, que da continuidad a la campaña “Sin maíz no hay país y sin frijol tampoco”, se sumarán contingentes campesinos de las distintas entidades por donde pase la manifestación para, prácticamente, tomar la Ciudad de México el próximo día 31. El objetivo de todas estas movilizaciones es lograr la renegociación del Tratado de Libre Comercio de América del Norte (TLCAN) en lo relacionado al campo.
La marcha, que recorrerá cerca de 2 mil kilómetros de largo, será una denuncia de las mentiras que el gobierno Federal difunde desde que estallaron las protestas campesinas este primero de enero. A diferencia de lo que señalan las secretarías de Agricultura y Economía y el mismo Felipe Calderón, las importaciones de alimentos han superado a las exportaciones en un 17 por ciento y se ha disminuido la producción de alimentos per cápita en nuestro país.
Todo lo anterior hace necesario que de inmediato se renegocie el TLCAN en materia agropecuaria, y que se ponga en marcha un programa sujeto a evaluación de reactivación del campo mexicano y construcción de la soberanía alimentaria con base en la producción de campesinos e indígenas.
El siguiente es el pronunciamiento que han emitido las organizaciones participantes en la marcha:
Marcha campesina “Del Chamizal al Zócalo”
Pronunciamiento de la nación
Porque el TLCAN y todo el conjunto de políticas agropecuarias y comerciales puestas en marcha desde 1982 han constituido una verdadera guerra contra las agriculturas campesina e indígena.
Porque luego de 14 años, el TLCAN, si bien ha favorecido las exportaciones agroalimentarias, ha disparado también las importaciones al punto que tenemos un déficit anual promedio del dos mil millones de dólares.
Porque quienes se benefician de las exportaciones son sólo el 2 por ciento de las unidades de producción y el 80 por ciento de las exportaciones está en manos de empresas extranjeras.
Porque con el TLCAN y estas políticas, ha descendido la producción de alimentos per cápita en nuestro país y se ha disparado de un 10 a un 40 por ciento nuestra dependencia de los alimentos del extranjero.
Porque durante 25 años se derrumbaron la inversión pública y el crédito al campo, y se desmantelaron las instituciones, organismos, presupuestos y programas que constituían la red de protección del campo mexicano.
Porque el TLCAN y estas políticas han causado la expulsión de cinco millones de personas del campo mexicano y el 70 por ciento de la población que resta en él vive en la pobreza.
Porque en todos estos años para poder competir con los Estados Unidos se han devastado los bosques, los suelos y se han sobreexplotado nuestros mantos acuíferos.
Porque Estados Unidos no ha cumplido con el TLCAN al aumentar sus subsidios agrícolas de cinco mil a treinta mil millones de dólares y al aplicar barreras no arancelarias a nuestra producción agrícola.
Porque los consumidores mexicanos no han sido beneficiados con menores precios: en 1994 se podían comprar 20 kilos de tortilla u 8 kilos de frijol con un salario mínimo, y ahora, sólo es posible comprar 6 kilos de tortilla y 3 de frijol.
Porque las importaciones de maíz entrañan el riesgo de introducir transgénicos al país y destruir nuestras semillas nativas, además de desmantelar la producción local causando la quiebra y la migración de millones de productores campesinos e indígenas.
Porque definitivamente no estamos en condiciones de competir con la agricultura más tecnificada y más subsidiada del planeta.
Porque es un deber ético y patriótico defender nuestra agricultura como una realidad no sólo productiva, sino también social, comunitaria y cultural.
Porque es un deber ético y patriótico defender y construir nuestra soberanía alimentaria basada en las agriculturas campesinas e indígenas.
Porque hay bases jurídicas para controlar las importaciones y exportaciones de máiz y frijol, y aun para renegociar el TLCAN en materia agropecuaria.
Porque queremos un campo justo, próspero y sustentable donde vivan dignamente pequeños, medianos y grandes productores.
Porque queremos un México fuerte, cimentado en la producción de sus propios alimentos.
Por todo esto:
Nos sumamos a la campaña nacional en Defensa de la Soberanía Alimentaria y la Reactivación del Campo Mexicano Sin maíz no hay país, sin frijol tampoco, ¡Pon a México en tu boca!
Apoyamos la marcha del Movimiento de Resistencia Campesina “Francisco Villa”.
Exigimos la renegociación del TLCAN en materia agropecuaria y el rescate del campo mexicano.
Actuar
Hay varias formas en que puedes participar con Greenpeace, colabora con nosotros.
Donar
Nuestras campañas existen gracias a personas como tú, que nos apoyan con un pequeño donativo mensual. Únete, hazte Socio Greenpeace.
Monday, 21 January 2008
http://www.greenpeace.org/mexico/news/arranca-marcha-campesina-del
http://www.larazaunida.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=637&Itemid=44
df, México — Organizaciones campesinas de Chihuahua, integrantes del Movimiento de Resistencia Campesina “Francisco Villa”, siguen adelante con una marcha integrada por tractores que arrancó en El Chamizal, Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, el día 18 de enero, y que concluirá en el Zócalo de la Ciudad de México el día 31 del mismo mes.
A esta marcha, que da continuidad a la campaña “Sin maíz no hay país y sin frijol tampoco”, se sumarán contingentes campesinos de las distintas entidades por donde pase la manifestación para, prácticamente, tomar la Ciudad de México el próximo día 31. El objetivo de todas estas movilizaciones es lograr la renegociación del Tratado de Libre Comercio de América del Norte (TLCAN) en lo relacionado al campo.
La marcha, que recorrerá cerca de 2 mil kilómetros de largo, será una denuncia de las mentiras que el gobierno Federal difunde desde que estallaron las protestas campesinas este primero de enero. A diferencia de lo que señalan las secretarías de Agricultura y Economía y el mismo Felipe Calderón, las importaciones de alimentos han superado a las exportaciones en un 17 por ciento y se ha disminuido la producción de alimentos per cápita en nuestro país.
Todo lo anterior hace necesario que de inmediato se renegocie el TLCAN en materia agropecuaria, y que se ponga en marcha un programa sujeto a evaluación de reactivación del campo mexicano y construcción de la soberanía alimentaria con base en la producción de campesinos e indígenas.
El siguiente es el pronunciamiento que han emitido las organizaciones participantes en la marcha:
Marcha campesina “Del Chamizal al Zócalo”
Pronunciamiento de la nación
Porque el TLCAN y todo el conjunto de políticas agropecuarias y comerciales puestas en marcha desde 1982 han constituido una verdadera guerra contra las agriculturas campesina e indígena.
Porque luego de 14 años, el TLCAN, si bien ha favorecido las exportaciones agroalimentarias, ha disparado también las importaciones al punto que tenemos un déficit anual promedio del dos mil millones de dólares.
Porque quienes se benefician de las exportaciones son sólo el 2 por ciento de las unidades de producción y el 80 por ciento de las exportaciones está en manos de empresas extranjeras.
Porque con el TLCAN y estas políticas, ha descendido la producción de alimentos per cápita en nuestro país y se ha disparado de un 10 a un 40 por ciento nuestra dependencia de los alimentos del extranjero.
Porque durante 25 años se derrumbaron la inversión pública y el crédito al campo, y se desmantelaron las instituciones, organismos, presupuestos y programas que constituían la red de protección del campo mexicano.
Porque el TLCAN y estas políticas han causado la expulsión de cinco millones de personas del campo mexicano y el 70 por ciento de la población que resta en él vive en la pobreza.
Porque en todos estos años para poder competir con los Estados Unidos se han devastado los bosques, los suelos y se han sobreexplotado nuestros mantos acuíferos.
Porque Estados Unidos no ha cumplido con el TLCAN al aumentar sus subsidios agrícolas de cinco mil a treinta mil millones de dólares y al aplicar barreras no arancelarias a nuestra producción agrícola.
Porque los consumidores mexicanos no han sido beneficiados con menores precios: en 1994 se podían comprar 20 kilos de tortilla u 8 kilos de frijol con un salario mínimo, y ahora, sólo es posible comprar 6 kilos de tortilla y 3 de frijol.
Porque las importaciones de maíz entrañan el riesgo de introducir transgénicos al país y destruir nuestras semillas nativas, además de desmantelar la producción local causando la quiebra y la migración de millones de productores campesinos e indígenas.
Porque definitivamente no estamos en condiciones de competir con la agricultura más tecnificada y más subsidiada del planeta.
Porque es un deber ético y patriótico defender nuestra agricultura como una realidad no sólo productiva, sino también social, comunitaria y cultural.
Porque es un deber ético y patriótico defender y construir nuestra soberanía alimentaria basada en las agriculturas campesinas e indígenas.
Porque hay bases jurídicas para controlar las importaciones y exportaciones de máiz y frijol, y aun para renegociar el TLCAN en materia agropecuaria.
Porque queremos un campo justo, próspero y sustentable donde vivan dignamente pequeños, medianos y grandes productores.
Porque queremos un México fuerte, cimentado en la producción de sus propios alimentos.
Por todo esto:
Nos sumamos a la campaña nacional en Defensa de la Soberanía Alimentaria y la Reactivación del Campo Mexicano Sin maíz no hay país, sin frijol tampoco, ¡Pon a México en tu boca!
Apoyamos la marcha del Movimiento de Resistencia Campesina “Francisco Villa”.
Exigimos la renegociación del TLCAN en materia agropecuaria y el rescate del campo mexicano.
Actuar
Hay varias formas en que puedes participar con Greenpeace, colabora con nosotros.
Donar
Nuestras campañas existen gracias a personas como tú, que nos apoyan con un pequeño donativo mensual. Únete, hazte Socio Greenpeace.
LA NUMERALIA DEL MAÍZ Y EL FRIJOL
La Numeralia Del Maiz Y El Frijol
Monday, 21 January 2008
http://www.greenpeace.org/mexico/news/la-numeralia-del-ma-z-y-el-fri
http://www.larazaunida.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=636&Itemid=44
DF, México — Con la apertura vía TLCAN a la libre importación de estos dos granos, nos dimos a la tarea de presentarte las cifras que rodean al maíz y al frijol mexicanos. Se trata de una aproximación en números a dos alimentos básicos cuya producción en estas tierras se encuentra rodeada de problemas tan difíciles como añejos. Con estos datos, no quedan ganas ni de decir “provecho”.
PARA ABRIR BOCA:
179 millones de hectáreas arables son las que poseen los Estados Unidos*, contra las 27.3 millones que se encuentran en México.
1484 son los tractores que existen allá por cada mil campesinos*.
En México, por cada mil campesinos... hay 20 tractores.
EL MAÍZ
23.3 millones de toneladas de maíz de distintos tipos produce México.
52% es el total de la superficie agrícola mexicana destinada a cultivar este grano.
2 millones es el número de los productores mexicanos de maíz que poseen menos de cinco hectáreas de tierra.
2.8 toneladas de maíz por hectárea es lo que producen estos agricultores.
9 a 14 toneladas por hectárea es el rendimiento de maíz en el norte de México, es decir, más de cuatro veces el promedio nacional.
Del total de la producción mexicana de maíz:
57% es para consumo humano.
29% es para consumo animal.
20% se destina a la industria de alimentos.
67% es el número de productores de maíz que trabajan en superficie de temporal (o sea, la que sólo depende de la lluvia para producir), que no cuentan con acceso a crédito ni a apoyo gubernamental de ningún tipo, y producen únicamente para autoconsumo.
300 por ciento más caro es cultivar una hectárea de maíz en México que en los Estados Unidos. Mientras en Estados Unidos el costo es de 19.89 dólares, en México la hectárea sale a 79.68 dólares.
8.4 toneladas de maíz por hectárea es lo que producen los campesinos de Estados Unidos (casi el triple que los mexicanos).
28.9 millones de toneladas de maíz son las que México importaba antes de firmar el TLC con Estados Unidos y Canadá.
63.3 millones de toneladas de maíz son las que importa actualmente.
0% Posibilidad de que México pueda incrementar su oferta de maíz.
110 mil millones de dólares es lo que se gastó México en importar alimentos entre 1994 y 2005.
2 millones de agricultores desempleados son los que el campo mexicano ha exportado a los Estados Unidos desde la entrada en vigor del TLCAN.
6 millones. Número de mexicanos que han abandonado el campo desde 1995.
10 millones son las toneladas de maíz amarillo forrajero contaminado con transgénicos que han ingresado recientemente al país.
EL FRIJOL
300 mil son los productores de frijol del país que estarán en desigual competencia por la desgravación total de las importaciones.
1.19 millones de toneladas de frijol produce México al año.
18.9 kilogramos de frijol consumía cada mexicano en 1990.
11.9 kilogramos consumía al cerrar el 2006. México carece de centros de acopio eficientes y de esquemas prácticos para comercializar el frijol que produce.
87% de las siembras de frijol en México son de temporal.
300 mil campesinos producen frijol en México.
48% son pequeños productores, esto es, poseen menos de cinco hectáreas.
51 mil 500 toneladas anuales de frijol se importaban en 1994.
75 mil 63O toneladas se importarán en 2008. Esto representa el 7.6% del consumo total del país.
3 y 4 pesos es el precio del kilo de frijol de importación.
5.50 pesos es el precio del kilo de frijol mexicano.
1.21 millones de toneladas de frijol es la producción promedio de frijol en los EEUU entre 1994 y 2006.
1.19 millones de toneladas produjo México en el mismo lapso... sólo que el rendimiento estadounidense por hectárea es de 1.8 toneladas: tres veces mayor al mexicano.
Para la elaboración de esta numeralia se tomaron como base datos hallados en el estudio “Un México para todos” publicado por la Fundación para la Democracia y Fundación Arturo Rosenblueth en 2005; en el periódico La Jornada (13 de noviembre de 2007); en el material de consulta “El campo en cifras: Los resultados de las políticas neoliberales 1982-2006” de Víctor Suárez, e Iván Polanco; y en el Estudio de la Cámara de Diputados al respecto del campo mexicano publicado en el diario Ovaciones el 31 de diciembre de 2007.
*En números de 2005 y 2003 repectivamente. Información tomada del suplemento “La Jornada del campo”. 18 de diciembre de 2007.
Monday, 21 January 2008
http://www.greenpeace.org/mexico/news/la-numeralia-del-ma-z-y-el-fri
http://www.larazaunida.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=636&Itemid=44
DF, México — Con la apertura vía TLCAN a la libre importación de estos dos granos, nos dimos a la tarea de presentarte las cifras que rodean al maíz y al frijol mexicanos. Se trata de una aproximación en números a dos alimentos básicos cuya producción en estas tierras se encuentra rodeada de problemas tan difíciles como añejos. Con estos datos, no quedan ganas ni de decir “provecho”.
PARA ABRIR BOCA:
179 millones de hectáreas arables son las que poseen los Estados Unidos*, contra las 27.3 millones que se encuentran en México.
1484 son los tractores que existen allá por cada mil campesinos*.
En México, por cada mil campesinos... hay 20 tractores.
EL MAÍZ
23.3 millones de toneladas de maíz de distintos tipos produce México.
52% es el total de la superficie agrícola mexicana destinada a cultivar este grano.
2 millones es el número de los productores mexicanos de maíz que poseen menos de cinco hectáreas de tierra.
2.8 toneladas de maíz por hectárea es lo que producen estos agricultores.
9 a 14 toneladas por hectárea es el rendimiento de maíz en el norte de México, es decir, más de cuatro veces el promedio nacional.
Del total de la producción mexicana de maíz:
57% es para consumo humano.
29% es para consumo animal.
20% se destina a la industria de alimentos.
67% es el número de productores de maíz que trabajan en superficie de temporal (o sea, la que sólo depende de la lluvia para producir), que no cuentan con acceso a crédito ni a apoyo gubernamental de ningún tipo, y producen únicamente para autoconsumo.
300 por ciento más caro es cultivar una hectárea de maíz en México que en los Estados Unidos. Mientras en Estados Unidos el costo es de 19.89 dólares, en México la hectárea sale a 79.68 dólares.
8.4 toneladas de maíz por hectárea es lo que producen los campesinos de Estados Unidos (casi el triple que los mexicanos).
28.9 millones de toneladas de maíz son las que México importaba antes de firmar el TLC con Estados Unidos y Canadá.
63.3 millones de toneladas de maíz son las que importa actualmente.
0% Posibilidad de que México pueda incrementar su oferta de maíz.
110 mil millones de dólares es lo que se gastó México en importar alimentos entre 1994 y 2005.
2 millones de agricultores desempleados son los que el campo mexicano ha exportado a los Estados Unidos desde la entrada en vigor del TLCAN.
6 millones. Número de mexicanos que han abandonado el campo desde 1995.
10 millones son las toneladas de maíz amarillo forrajero contaminado con transgénicos que han ingresado recientemente al país.
EL FRIJOL
300 mil son los productores de frijol del país que estarán en desigual competencia por la desgravación total de las importaciones.
1.19 millones de toneladas de frijol produce México al año.
18.9 kilogramos de frijol consumía cada mexicano en 1990.
11.9 kilogramos consumía al cerrar el 2006. México carece de centros de acopio eficientes y de esquemas prácticos para comercializar el frijol que produce.
87% de las siembras de frijol en México son de temporal.
300 mil campesinos producen frijol en México.
48% son pequeños productores, esto es, poseen menos de cinco hectáreas.
51 mil 500 toneladas anuales de frijol se importaban en 1994.
75 mil 63O toneladas se importarán en 2008. Esto representa el 7.6% del consumo total del país.
3 y 4 pesos es el precio del kilo de frijol de importación.
5.50 pesos es el precio del kilo de frijol mexicano.
1.21 millones de toneladas de frijol es la producción promedio de frijol en los EEUU entre 1994 y 2006.
1.19 millones de toneladas produjo México en el mismo lapso... sólo que el rendimiento estadounidense por hectárea es de 1.8 toneladas: tres veces mayor al mexicano.
Para la elaboración de esta numeralia se tomaron como base datos hallados en el estudio “Un México para todos” publicado por la Fundación para la Democracia y Fundación Arturo Rosenblueth en 2005; en el periódico La Jornada (13 de noviembre de 2007); en el material de consulta “El campo en cifras: Los resultados de las políticas neoliberales 1982-2006” de Víctor Suárez, e Iván Polanco; y en el Estudio de la Cámara de Diputados al respecto del campo mexicano publicado en el diario Ovaciones el 31 de diciembre de 2007.
*En números de 2005 y 2003 repectivamente. Información tomada del suplemento “La Jornada del campo”. 18 de diciembre de 2007.
Military Recruitment and the Immigration Debate
From Draft NOtices, October - December 2007
The Dilemma of "Double Deportation"
Military Recruitment and the Immigration Debate
—Jorge Mariscal
http://www.comdsd.org/article_archive/DilemmaDoubleDeprotation10-07.html
In an obscure memoir of the U.S. war in Southeast Asia, an undocumented Mexican who had enlisted in the U.S. Army with the aid of an unscrupulous recruiter, writes: “I realized that for me to live in the United States, the system was asking me to pay a high price. Now I probably would have to give my life. Was it worth it?”
During the Vietnam War period, citizens from foreign countries in the U.S. military were rare and unknown to the public. Today, although they make up only a small percentage of the overall force, they appear regularly in media stories, Pentagon publicity, and nativist rants about a Mexican invasion.
Non-citizens make up 3-5% of total military personnel. To date, they have received more than 200 medals and awards in the combat zone. More than 100 of them have received posthumous citizenship after making the ultimate sacrifice. The majority of them have roots in Mexico and Latin America.
Is the U.S. military becoming a foreign legion? Not yet, but the strain on active duty, Reserve, and National Guard personnel is becoming unbearable. General David Petraeus’s report to Congress last month — and even recent statements made by Democratic Party presidential candidates — make clear that the occupation of Iraq will last many more years. Fresh bodies will be hard to find, so there is renewed interest in a piece of legislation that could produce a bumper crop of eligible non-citizens for recruiters.
The Development Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act has been floating around the halls of Congress for more than six years, and Draft NOtices was one of the first publications to warn about its military component. If passed, the legislation would provide a pathway to permanent residency for undocumented young people who were raised and completed high school in the United States. Those who qualify would have to complete two years of college or enlist in the military in order to earn a permanent green card.
The Latino community was quick to support the legislation because of its educational component, but for the first five years there was a deafening silence in Latino circles about the military option. This changed only recently when the Pentagon and elected officials began to openly discuss the DREAM Act as a possible fix for the military’s manpower needs.
In 2006, Bill Carr, Acting Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Military Personnel Policy, told reporters that the DREAM legislation would help boost military recruiting. Last July, Senator Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) said, "The DREAM Act would address a very serious recruitment crisis that faces our military. Under the DREAM Act, tens of thousands of well-qualified potential recruits would become eligible for military service for the first time."
Lt. Col. Margaret Stock of the U.S. Army Reserve and a faculty member at West Point who helped draft the legislation confirmed that the DREAM Act could help recruiters meet their goals by providing a "highly qualified cohort of young people." She added, “Passage of the bill could well solve the Armed Forces’ enlisted recruiting woes.”
Drawing on cultural stereotypes about “Hispanic culture,” she told the Orange County Register that “Hispanic immigrants who would be affected by this bill would be even more likely to join the military because it is considered the honorable thing to do in the Hispanic culture.” One wonders if Lt. Col. Stock is teaching her cadets such banal and reductive clichés about diverse Latino traditions.
The irony, of course, is that while the Pentagon chases young non-citizens to fill the ranks of the U.S. occupation forces, other non-citizen workers whose economic contributions to the nation are undeniable are being pursued and harassed by other agencies of the U.S. government.
As one worker told me, Latino communities are experiencing a “double deportation.” On the one hand, military recruiters are flooding high schools with Latino majorities and the Pentagon is pushing hard for passage of the DREAM Act. Many of those young people who are successfully recruited will end up in Iraq and Afghanistan. A metaphorical deportation, of course, but from the family’s point of view a painful removal of a loved one nonetheless.
At the same time, the undocumented parents and siblings of those soldiers, sailors, aviators, and Marines watch as armored vehicles carrying teams of armed officers invade their neighborhoods to conduct Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids. Just this month, for example, in the working-class neighborhood of Barrio Logan in San Diego, local police surrounded a ten-block area while helicopters circled overhead and ICE agents swept through in full combat regalia. Similar actions are taking place across the country.
Some of these parents have been arrested and scheduled for deportation hearings. Remember that these are parents whose sons and daughters are fighting “for democracy” in Iraq. One such case is that of U.S. Army Private Armando Soriano, 20, who died in Iraq in 2004. This summer ICE raids swept through Houston. Armando’s father was detained and is currently threatened with deportation.
In late September, Senator Durbin agreed to drop the in-state tuition rate clause of the DREAM Act in response to pressure from restrictionist groups and to garner more Republican votes. This change would have blocked many undocumented students from taking the college option and, inadvertently or not, would have placed them on the military pathway to legalization. Despite Durbin’s concessions, the DREAM amendment was not attached to this year’s defense appropriations bill and so disappeared once again into the congressional ether for at least several more months, if not forever.
If the DREAM Act ever does resurface and is eventually approved, thousands of Latino youth who are unable to take the college option will be tempted to enlist to attain legal status. With no end in sight to the occupation of Iraq and with other wars looming in the future, they, like the undocumented Mexican soldier in Vietnam, will have to ask themselves whether or not the price is simply too high.
Information sources: Congressional Record--Senate (July 13, 2007); Ernesto Portillo, Jr., “DREAM Act better than nothing, but flawed,” Arizona Star (September 26, 2007); Vanja Petrovic, “DREAM Act blocked from defense bill,” Orange County Register (September 27, 2007).
This article is from Draft NOtices, the newsletter of the Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (http://www.comdsd.org)
The Dilemma of "Double Deportation"
Military Recruitment and the Immigration Debate
—Jorge Mariscal
http://www.comdsd.org/article_archive/DilemmaDoubleDeprotation10-07.html
In an obscure memoir of the U.S. war in Southeast Asia, an undocumented Mexican who had enlisted in the U.S. Army with the aid of an unscrupulous recruiter, writes: “I realized that for me to live in the United States, the system was asking me to pay a high price. Now I probably would have to give my life. Was it worth it?”
During the Vietnam War period, citizens from foreign countries in the U.S. military were rare and unknown to the public. Today, although they make up only a small percentage of the overall force, they appear regularly in media stories, Pentagon publicity, and nativist rants about a Mexican invasion.
Non-citizens make up 3-5% of total military personnel. To date, they have received more than 200 medals and awards in the combat zone. More than 100 of them have received posthumous citizenship after making the ultimate sacrifice. The majority of them have roots in Mexico and Latin America.
Is the U.S. military becoming a foreign legion? Not yet, but the strain on active duty, Reserve, and National Guard personnel is becoming unbearable. General David Petraeus’s report to Congress last month — and even recent statements made by Democratic Party presidential candidates — make clear that the occupation of Iraq will last many more years. Fresh bodies will be hard to find, so there is renewed interest in a piece of legislation that could produce a bumper crop of eligible non-citizens for recruiters.
The Development Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act has been floating around the halls of Congress for more than six years, and Draft NOtices was one of the first publications to warn about its military component. If passed, the legislation would provide a pathway to permanent residency for undocumented young people who were raised and completed high school in the United States. Those who qualify would have to complete two years of college or enlist in the military in order to earn a permanent green card.
The Latino community was quick to support the legislation because of its educational component, but for the first five years there was a deafening silence in Latino circles about the military option. This changed only recently when the Pentagon and elected officials began to openly discuss the DREAM Act as a possible fix for the military’s manpower needs.
In 2006, Bill Carr, Acting Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Military Personnel Policy, told reporters that the DREAM legislation would help boost military recruiting. Last July, Senator Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) said, "The DREAM Act would address a very serious recruitment crisis that faces our military. Under the DREAM Act, tens of thousands of well-qualified potential recruits would become eligible for military service for the first time."
Lt. Col. Margaret Stock of the U.S. Army Reserve and a faculty member at West Point who helped draft the legislation confirmed that the DREAM Act could help recruiters meet their goals by providing a "highly qualified cohort of young people." She added, “Passage of the bill could well solve the Armed Forces’ enlisted recruiting woes.”
Drawing on cultural stereotypes about “Hispanic culture,” she told the Orange County Register that “Hispanic immigrants who would be affected by this bill would be even more likely to join the military because it is considered the honorable thing to do in the Hispanic culture.” One wonders if Lt. Col. Stock is teaching her cadets such banal and reductive clichés about diverse Latino traditions.
The irony, of course, is that while the Pentagon chases young non-citizens to fill the ranks of the U.S. occupation forces, other non-citizen workers whose economic contributions to the nation are undeniable are being pursued and harassed by other agencies of the U.S. government.
As one worker told me, Latino communities are experiencing a “double deportation.” On the one hand, military recruiters are flooding high schools with Latino majorities and the Pentagon is pushing hard for passage of the DREAM Act. Many of those young people who are successfully recruited will end up in Iraq and Afghanistan. A metaphorical deportation, of course, but from the family’s point of view a painful removal of a loved one nonetheless.
At the same time, the undocumented parents and siblings of those soldiers, sailors, aviators, and Marines watch as armored vehicles carrying teams of armed officers invade their neighborhoods to conduct Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids. Just this month, for example, in the working-class neighborhood of Barrio Logan in San Diego, local police surrounded a ten-block area while helicopters circled overhead and ICE agents swept through in full combat regalia. Similar actions are taking place across the country.
Some of these parents have been arrested and scheduled for deportation hearings. Remember that these are parents whose sons and daughters are fighting “for democracy” in Iraq. One such case is that of U.S. Army Private Armando Soriano, 20, who died in Iraq in 2004. This summer ICE raids swept through Houston. Armando’s father was detained and is currently threatened with deportation.
In late September, Senator Durbin agreed to drop the in-state tuition rate clause of the DREAM Act in response to pressure from restrictionist groups and to garner more Republican votes. This change would have blocked many undocumented students from taking the college option and, inadvertently or not, would have placed them on the military pathway to legalization. Despite Durbin’s concessions, the DREAM amendment was not attached to this year’s defense appropriations bill and so disappeared once again into the congressional ether for at least several more months, if not forever.
If the DREAM Act ever does resurface and is eventually approved, thousands of Latino youth who are unable to take the college option will be tempted to enlist to attain legal status. With no end in sight to the occupation of Iraq and with other wars looming in the future, they, like the undocumented Mexican soldier in Vietnam, will have to ask themselves whether or not the price is simply too high.
Information sources: Congressional Record--Senate (July 13, 2007); Ernesto Portillo, Jr., “DREAM Act better than nothing, but flawed,” Arizona Star (September 26, 2007); Vanja Petrovic, “DREAM Act blocked from defense bill,” Orange County Register (September 27, 2007).
This article is from Draft NOtices, the newsletter of the Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (http://www.comdsd.org)
ICE arrests MEChA president and her family
ICE arrests MEChA president and her family
LA VOZ DE AZTLAN
Los Angeles, Alta California
January 17, 2008
http://www.aztlan.net/mecha_president_arrested.htm
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has arrested the President of MEChA at Palomar College in San Marcos, California. The 22 year old student, Paola Oropeza, was accused of being in the USA illegally. Also arrested was her father Guillermo Oropeza, her mother María de Jesus Oropeza, and her older sister Claudia Oropeza.
MEChA or Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan is a student group with chapters in many high schools, colleges and universities that promotes Mexican culture and history. MEChA also promotes higher education among Chicano youths. The organization has been under constant attack by USA xenophobes, racists and bigots because the student organization also promotes ethnic pride.
Lauren Mack, a spokeswoman for ICE in San Diego said that Paola, Guillermo and María de Jesus have been deported to Mexico but that Claudia is presently incarcerated at a federal facility.
The arrest of Paola Oropeza, an exemplary college student and pro-immigrant activist, signals that ICE may now be targeting MEChA and its leadership. This is a warning sign to other MEChA Chapters throughout Aztlan.
The San Diego area has seen a series of escalating and hostile actions by ICE and the US Border Patrol. Yesterday, the three major Mexican political parties strongly condemned the launching into Mexican territory of noxious chemical gas canisters by the US Border Patrol. The gas canisters have been launched across the border into Tijuana neighborhoods on several occasions and have injured Mexican civilians including school children.
LA VOZ DE AZTLAN
Los Angeles, Alta California
January 17, 2008
http://www.aztlan.net/mecha_president_arrested.htm
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has arrested the President of MEChA at Palomar College in San Marcos, California. The 22 year old student, Paola Oropeza, was accused of being in the USA illegally. Also arrested was her father Guillermo Oropeza, her mother María de Jesus Oropeza, and her older sister Claudia Oropeza.
MEChA or Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan is a student group with chapters in many high schools, colleges and universities that promotes Mexican culture and history. MEChA also promotes higher education among Chicano youths. The organization has been under constant attack by USA xenophobes, racists and bigots because the student organization also promotes ethnic pride.
Lauren Mack, a spokeswoman for ICE in San Diego said that Paola, Guillermo and María de Jesus have been deported to Mexico but that Claudia is presently incarcerated at a federal facility.
The arrest of Paola Oropeza, an exemplary college student and pro-immigrant activist, signals that ICE may now be targeting MEChA and its leadership. This is a warning sign to other MEChA Chapters throughout Aztlan.
The San Diego area has seen a series of escalating and hostile actions by ICE and the US Border Patrol. Yesterday, the three major Mexican political parties strongly condemned the launching into Mexican territory of noxious chemical gas canisters by the US Border Patrol. The gas canisters have been launched across the border into Tijuana neighborhoods on several occasions and have injured Mexican civilians including school children.
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