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<ol><li><font size="3"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(42, 42, 42); line-height: 17px; ">San Diego Demands More School Worker Concessions</span> </b></font></li><li><font size="3"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(42, 42, 42); line-height: 17px; ">Ratings</span> </b></font></li><li><pre style="line-height: 17px; white-space: normal; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font face="Tahoma" size="3"><b>The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor<br>Corporate Profits Up, Worker Wages Down (ahem, crisis of overproduction in industry and finance?) </b></font></pre></li><li><font size="3"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(42, 42, 42); line-height: 17px; ">For Murder of 29 Workers, a Sweet 36 Months in Jail</span> </b></font></li><li><font size="3"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(42, 42, 42); line-height: 17px; ">The Return of Debtors' Prisons</span> </b></font></li><li><pre style="line-height: 17px; white-space: normal; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font face="Tahoma" size="3"><b>Half-Witted Boss of Las Vegas Teacher Union Boss Made some Big, Big Bucks for Selling Labor Peace </b></font></pre></li><li><pre style="line-height: 17px; white-space: normal; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font face="Tahoma" size="3"><b>Detroit Fed of Teachers Declares an Orwellian Victory as Deal Cuts Member pay and benefits </b></font></pre></li><li><pre style="line-height: 17px; white-space: normal; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font face="Tahoma" size="3"><b>UAW, Expert at Concessions, Manages to Give up More at Fairfax, KC, Plant </b></font></pre></li><li><h2 class="ReadMsgSubject" style="line-height: 24px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font size="3">how not to get sick in the imperial valley</font></h2></li><li><h2 class="ReadMsgSubject" style="line-height: 24px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font size="3">FNS Feature: High Tech Workers Demand Justice and Dignityþ</font></h2> </li></ol><div><br></div><div>@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@</div><div><br></div><div><pre style="line-height: 17px; white-space: normal; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><b>San Diego Demands More School Worker Concessions</b> </pre><pre style="line-height: 17px; white-space: normal; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">The San Diego Unified School District made an eleventh-hour plea to its unions<br>Thursday to accept concessions that would protect class sizes from<br>ballooning and save more than 1,600 teaching positions that have been<br>tapped for elimination next year. <br>The teacher union president said no discussions should take place<br>until the state produces more solid budget figures this spring. <br> <a href="http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/mar/01/sd-unified-again-asks-for-teacher-concessions/" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 104, 207); cursor: pointer; ">http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/mar/01/sd-unified-again-asks-for-teacher-concessions/</a></pre><pre style="line-height: 17px; white-space: normal; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><br></pre></div><div>@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(42, 42, 42); line-height: 17px; font-size: 10pt; ">Obamagogue, Gates, And Duncan on the Release of School Worker</span></div><pre style="line-height: 17px; white-space: normal; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Ratings </pre><pre style="line-height: 17px; white-space: normal; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Though Bill Gates wrote an oped against the public release<br>of the TDRs last week, it was too little and too late. In fact, he<br>and Arne Duncan supported the LA Times release of similar unreliable<br>ratings in 2010, which named teachers with low ratings, with Duncan<br>saying, "What's there to hide?" <br>Indeed, he and Duncan have pushed relentlessly for states to create<br>numerical teacher rating systems based at least in part on value-added<br>student test scores. The feds made this condition for states to be<br>considered for Race to the Top funds and now, in order to obtain a<br>waiver from NCLB. <a href="http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 104, 207); cursor: pointer; ">http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/</a></pre><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@</div><div><br></div><div><pre style="line-height: 17px; white-space: normal; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><b>The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor<br>Corporate Profits Up, Worker Wages Down (ahem, crisis of<br>overproduction in industry and finance?)</b> </pre><pre style="line-height: 17px; white-space: normal; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">As we’ve been noting,<br>corporate profits have made it back to their pre-recession heights<br>(even if corporate tax revenue hasn’t followed suit). In fact, in<br>2011, corporate profits hit their highest level since 1950. But as<br>Bloomberg News noted today, this hasn’t translated into wage growth<br>or more purchasing power for workers: <br>Companies are improving margins and generating profits as wage growth<br>for the American worker lags behind the prices of goods and<br>services…While benefiting the bottom line for businesses, the<br>decline in inflation-adjusted wages bodes ill for the sustainability<br>of economic growth as consumers may eventually be forced to cut back.<br>[...] <br>Of the 394 companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index that have<br>reported since Jan. 9, earnings for the quarter ended Dec. 31<br>increased 5.1 percent on average and beat analyst estimates by 3.2<br>percent. Some 70 percent of the companies have posted<br>better-than-projected results. <br>This pattern has become all too familiar during the slow economic<br>recovery. In fact, real wages fell in 2011, despite record corporate<br>profits. “There’s never been a postwar era in which unemployment<br>has been this high for this long,” explained labor economist Gary<br>Burtless. “Workers are in a very weak bargaining position.” <br>Between 2009 and 2011, 88 percent of national income growth went to<br>corporate profits, while just 1 percent went to wages, a stat that is<br>“historically unprecedented.” <br><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/02/22/430190/corporate-profits-wages-2012/?mobile=nc" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 104, 207); cursor: pointer; ">http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/02/22/430190/corporate-profits-wages-2012/?mobile=nc</a></pre><pre style="line-height: 17px; white-space: normal; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><br></pre></div><div>@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@</div><div><br></div><div><pre style="line-height: 17px; white-space: normal; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><b>For Murder of 29 Workers, a Sweet 36 Months in Jail</b> </pre><pre style="line-height: 17px; white-space: normal; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Last June, Alpha Natural Resources Inc. acquired Massey Energy Co. and liabilities<br>related to the Upper Big Branch Mine explosion that killed 29 men in<br>Montcoal, WV. Recently, Alpha has settled all claims with the<br>families of those killed. Today, another chapter closed in this sad<br>story when mine security chief, Hughie Elbert Stover, was sentenced to<br>36 months in prison. Stover was found guilty in a short trial in<br>October 2011 and U.S. attorney Booth Goodwin had asked for a 25 year<br>sentence. <br> <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/walterpavlo/2012/02/29/former-massey-energy-security-chief-sentenced-to-36-months-in-prison/" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 104, 207); cursor: pointer; ">http://www.forbes.com/sites/walterpavlo/2012/02/29/former-massey-energy-security-chief-sentenced-to-36-months-in-prison/</a></pre><pre style="line-height: 17px; white-space: normal; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><br></pre></div><div>@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@</div><div><br></div><div><pre style="line-height: 17px; white-space: normal; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><b>The Return of Debtors' Prisons</b> </pre><pre style="line-height: 17px; white-space: normal; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">The experience of debt collection can be chilling, as this 2007 ABC News report suggests.Consumers<br>around the country have taped threatening phone calls from collectors<br>who have called in the middle of the night, used abusive language and<br>have threatened to have people fired from work or thrown in jail. All<br>of these tactics are illegal under federal law. <br>One of the characteristics of the new social contract ushered in by<br>both George W. Bush and Barack Obama is the increasing power of<br>creditors to govern outright, from tax farming by banks to the use of<br>credit checks to access employment opportunities. <br>There are now thousands of people legally jailed because they aren’t<br>paying their bills, ie. debtor’s prisons have returned. <br>Occasionally elites let it slip that this is not an accident, but is<br>their goa <br> <a href="http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/02/matt-stoller-towards-a-creditor-state-" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 104, 207); cursor: pointer; ">http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/02/matt-stoller-towards-a-creditor-state-</a>–-one-in-seven-americans-pursued-by-debt-collectors.html</pre><pre style="line-height: 17px; white-space: normal; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><br></pre></div><div>@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@</div><div><br></div><div><pre style="line-height: 17px; white-space: normal; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">School worker unions all over the US, particularly NEA locals but<br>AFT too, are facing yet another round of demands for concessions. The<br>last 40 years of the labor "movement" in the US demonstrates that<br>concessions do not save jobs. Like giving blood to sharks, concessions<br>only make bosses want more. The US printed $12.9 trillion and gave<br>that to the banks. Let them print the money and give it to school<br>workers — or do that and give the jobless jobs, and for those who<br>have jobs, a 30 hour week with no cut in pay, and in classrooms, real<br>caps on class sive at 15. What gets people from here to there —<br>strikes, general strikes and civil strife which is far more educative<br>than the test frenzy that goes on in schools now. Meanwhile, NEA has a<br>series of dilemmas: how to pour money and volunteers into the<br>demagogue, Obama's campaign when his education agenda is simply a war<br>agenda — class and empire's war? How to beat back the AFT's<br>millionaire's tax which makes sense, and replace it with the NEA/Brown<br>tax which taxes poor and working people? How to affiliate with the<br>bankrupt and corrupt AFL-CIO which is only good at beating up its own<br>members? And how to stop job actions which would disrupt the Obama<br>campaign when exactly what is needed is job actions.....should be an<br>interesting summer.*_<br><br><b>Half-Witted Boss of Las Vegas Teacher Union Boss Made some Big, Big<br>Bucks for Selling Labor Peace</b> </pre><pre style="line-height: 17px; white-space: normal; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Leaders of the local teachers union are<br>lashing out at their former executive director and the Clark County<br>School District superintendent in response to Sunday's Review-Journal<br>stories about the huge salaries drawn by union officials and the<br>questionable spending of $2.4 million in taxpayer funds. <br>"We have no justification for the fact that former Executive Director<br>(John) Jasonek was able to triple dip, earning additional and<br>excessive salaries," Ruben Murillo, president of the Clark County<br>Education Association, wrote on the union's website Monday. <br>Phone calls to Murillo on Monday and Tuesday were not returned. <br>Murillo's statement that Jasonek's *_$632,546 in compensation_* was<br>"excessive" is something new. He and current union Executive Director<br>John Vellardita claimed the opposite when interviewed in early<br>February. At the time, they defended Jasonek's compensation of<br>$632,546 for running the union and two related organizations in 2009,<br>the last year for which a required Internal Revenue Service report is<br>available. ..*_The figures for 2009 show the teachers union spent<br>36.3 percent of its $4.1 million budget on nine leaders. Such<br>salaries, ranging from $139,785 to $208,683,_*aren't business as<br>usual. <br><a href="http://www.lvrj.com/news/teachers-union-leaders-criticize-ex-director-s-excessive-salaries-140820203.html" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 104, 207); cursor: pointer; ">http://www.lvrj.com/news/teachers-union-leaders-criticize-ex-director-s-excessive-salaries-140820203.html</a></pre><pre style="line-height: 17px; white-space: normal; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><br></pre></div><div>@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@</div><div><br></div><div><pre style="line-height: 17px; white-space: normal; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><b>Detroit Fed of Teachers Declares an Orwellian Victory as Deal Cuts<br>Member pay and benefits</b> </pre><pre style="line-height: 17px; white-space: normal; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">The settlement, announced by the district<br>late Wednesday morning and approved by U.S. District Judge George<br>Caram Steeh, includes a lump-sum payment equal to 2.5 percent of<br>employees' 2011-12 earnings and limited reinstatement of step<br>increases. <br>The deal also provides partial payment of accumulated sick days for<br>employees who submit a notice of retirement by March 19. <br>Last July, Roberts reduced district employees' pay by 10 percent and<br>required them to pay 20 percent of health care costs. <br><a href="http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120229/SCHOOLS/202290411/1026/schools/DPS-teachers-get-money-back-pay-cut-settlement" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 104, 207); cursor: pointer; ">http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120229/SCHOOLS/202290411/1026/schools/DPS-teachers-get-money-back-pay-cut-settlement</a></pre><pre style="line-height: 17px; white-space: normal; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><br></pre></div><div>@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@</div><div><br></div><div><pre style="line-height: 17px; white-space: normal; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><b>UAW, Expert at Concessions, Manages to Give up More at Fairfax, KC,<br>Plant</b></pre><pre style="line-height: 17px; white-space: normal; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">The first negotiated package was voted down last month by<br>Local 31 members, which triggered another round of talks. Another<br>local contract was approved early Friday morning with 57 percent of<br>production workers and 70 percent of skilled trade employees approving<br>the deal. <br>“We have a new local contract at Fairfax,” said George Ruiz,<br>president of Local 31. “It was a decent package for the times we<br>live in.” <br>The issue that proved most troublesome involved work teams at the<br>plant. GM sought a change that would allow it to reassign an employee<br>to another team when returning from a leave of absence. <br>The teams, often made up of five to 10 employees, typically have<br>better jobs the longer they exist, so a returning employee risked<br>getting a worse job. <br>Union negotiators were able to stop the change that would have allowed<br>the reassignment but had to give some other things back. Two<br>concessions were a cut in the work clothing allowance, and no longer<br>requiring the automaker to replace clothing damaged on the job. <br>“If you want something, you have to give something up,” Ruiz said.<br> <br><a href="http://www.kansascity.com/2012/03/02/3463828/local-contract-approved-at-gm.html" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 104, 207); cursor: pointer; ">http://www.kansascity.com/2012/03/02/3463828/local-contract-approved-at-gm.html</a></pre><pre style="line-height: 17px; white-space: normal; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><br></pre></div><div>@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@</div><div><br></div><div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; ">HOW NOT TO GET SICK IN THE IMPERIAL VALLEY<br style="line-height: 17px; ">By David Bacon</font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">New America Media</div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">http://newamericamedia.org/2012/03/imperial-valley-residents-must-fight-for-right-to-breathe-clean-air.php<br></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "> SEELEY, CA (2/20/12) -- Until his knee gave out, Ramon Villa Jr. dreamed he'd be a soccer star. Across Seeley's pitted playing field of dirt and grass, he and his friends would chase the ball through the desert sunset every day after school. Seeley's de facto town center is that field. With a fire station in one corner, it is as much of a downtown as Seeley's ever likely to have.</font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "> Across the street on all four sides sit the sun-bleached homes of Imperial Valley farm workers. Seeley, an unincorporated community not far from the Mexican border, has only 1700 residents. It's not a big place, not even a formal town.</font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "> For years the kids would play after school, when the broiling daytime temperature dropped, but they'd have to stop when it got dark. Ramon's mom Carolina would point her pickup at the field and turn on the headlights, just to give them another half hour of play.<br style="line-height: 17px; ">They'd get thirsty-- in the summer the thermometer can top 110 degrees. Sweating and out of breath, to get a drink the young players would put their heads under the spigot for a garden hose, just a few inches off the ground.</font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "> So Carolina Villa decided she had to do something. With her sister Liz, she organized town residents to call on the Seeley County Water District, which owns the field. After some discussion, they won a few lights on tall aluminum poles. With the help of the planning department, they also got a real water fountain, so the players wouldn't get burrs from the grass in their ears when they drank.</font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "><br style="line-height: 17px; "></font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><img src=""></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "><br style="line-height: 17px; "></font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "><i style="line-height: 17px; ">Ramon Villa Jr. shows he can still keep the ball in the air, with the field's new lights behind him.</i></font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><br></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "> It was not easy for the Villas and other parents to get simple amenities for their kids, like light and water, because Seeley is one of the many unincorporated communities in rural California that lack the most basic services, like sewers, sidewalks and streetlights. According to Policy Link, a foundation promoting economic and social equity, "Throughout the United States, millions of people live outside of central cities on pockets of unincorporated land. Predominantly African-American and Latino, and frequently low-income, these communities ... have been excluded from city borders."</font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "> Imperial County has ten unincorporated towns the size of Seeley and its sister community Heber, and 59 other smaller colonias. Three years ago, Policy Link partnered with California Rural Legal Assistance to create the Community Equity Initiative, to find legal and organizing-based strategies for dealing with the critical situations confronting California's unincorporated communities.</font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "> CRLA attorneys Phoebe Seaton (who directs the Community Equity Initiative) and Ilene Jacobs point to efforts by larger neighboring cities to avoid responsibility for unincorporated areas and their residents. Both Seeley and Heber are less than ten miles from El Centro, the Imperial County seat. "Local governments, desperate to protect their resources, perpetuated the political, social and economic isolation of these communities. The local governments, in turn, fail to provide basic services to these communities that were intentionally excluded from planning and infrastructure investment," the two charged in "Advocating for Equity In California's Rural Communities."</font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "><br style="line-height: 17px; "></font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><img src=""></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "><br style="line-height: 17px; "></font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "><i style="line-height: 17px; ">The graffiti house.</i></font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "> </font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "> Light and water on the field made it more attractive to kids with little to do in this small community. But basic amenities for the town's youth just scratch at the surface of the problems faced by Seeley residents.</font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "> One alternative pulling at young people is the graffiti house, an abandoned home across the street from the elementary school. There the local mota smokers and mainliners get together and party, leaving beer bottles and even syringes lying on the empty floors. From partying, the craziness just escalates. Huge holes have been punched through walls covered in graffiti. Electrical conduits have been pulled out and ripped open, in search of copper wire to sell for scrap.</font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "> Being a teenager in Seeley has its dangers. But an even worse one isn't visible at all. It's in the air.</font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "><br style="line-height: 17px; "></font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><img src=""></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "><br style="line-height: 17px; "></font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "><i style="line-height: 17px; ">Joahn Molena with his dog and his grandmother's chickens.</i></font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "><br style="line-height: 17px; "></font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "> As Joahn Molena sits in his back yard, hugging his pit bull in front of his henhouse, dust coats everything outside his home. Molena's proud of his white Honda Civic, with its mag wheels. It's a few years old, but in primo condition. But of course, he has to wash it almost every day because dust in Seeley is everywhere. </font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "> It blows in from the fields that surround the unincorporated communities. In Heber, that dust comes from the empty expanses at the edge of town, that used to house corrals for the El Toro Land and Cattle Co. The hooves of the cattle housed there ground animal waste into the earth in those empty lots. Neighbors worry now about what the dust might contain. Manuel Gonzalez (who is retired, but asked that his real name not be used) lives at the end of the street, where it meets the field. "Every day my wife vacuums up the dust in the house, but an hour later it's back."</font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "><br style="line-height: 17px; "></font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><img src=""></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "><br style="line-height: 17px; "></font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "><i style="line-height: 17px; ">Manuel Gonzalez looks at the empty field where feedlots used to be.</i></font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "><br style="line-height: 17px; "></font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "> And just across Fawcett Rd. are El Toro's current feedlots. Hundreds, even thousands of cattle are housed in dense pens, eating their way to eventual slaughter. In the furnace-like heat of the Imperial Valley summer, the smell of cattle waste wafts across the town, giving neighbors a good idea of what the dust is made of. So many feedlots cover the valley that the smell gets to Seeley as well.</font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "> Other air pollutants also come with the industrial agriculture that has dominated the Imperial Valley since the All-American Canal, and the Alamo Canal before it, brought Colorado River water to its natural desert in 1900. Seeley and Heber themselves were the products of the land boom that followed. The post office in Seeley, named for developer Henry Seeley, opened in 1909. Heber is even older, and was founded by the Imperial Valley Land Company in 1903, and named for developer A.H. Heber. </font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "><br style="line-height: 17px; "></font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><img src=""></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "><br style="line-height: 17px; "></font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "><i style="line-height: 17px; ">A cropduster sprays a field south of Seeley.</i></font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "><br style="line-height: 17px; "> Today, the land surrounding the two towns is farmed in huge tracts of hundreds of acres. To make the desert productive, ranchers not only built the world's largest irrigation canal, but also developed farming methods dependent on chemical fertilizers and strong pesticides. Even with the recent advance of some large-scale organic operations, it's still common to drive a local highway and see a cropduster, a small airplane, make circular swoops and passes over the green crops. From the nozzles on its wings, a fine spray of pesticide coats the leaves below. Air moves, however, and with it, the chemical spray from the plane - what's called pesticide drift. </font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "> Communities like Seeley and Heber, located in the middle of the fields, can get that drift, even diluted by breezes and wind.</font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "><br style="line-height: 17px; "></font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><img src=""></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "><br style="line-height: 17px; "></font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "><i style="line-height: 17px; ">A tractor sprays pesticides on a field of green onions farmed by La Brucherie Produce, south of Seeley.</i></font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "><br style="line-height: 17px; "></font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "> In other fields, a more traditional way of spraying is often visible. Tractors pull a rig with tanks of chemicals, and spray nozzles that release them just inches from the plants. Less drift, perhaps, but after many years, powerful pesticides and fertilizers are omnipresent, not just in the fields, but in the small communities they surround as well.<br style="line-height: 17px; "> Then, when the crops are in, Imperial Valley farmers are notorious for burning. Big mowers cut and collect the stalks left from crops after they're harvested. Piles of dry plants are then set alight next to local fields and highways. The smoke is often so intense that roads are blocked to traffic, or at least they're supposed to be. </font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "> Carolina and Liz Villa went from getting lights and water for the soccer field to protesting burning of local fields, because smoke is not just a danger to traffic, but to the lungs of the young people out kicking the ball in the Seeley field.</font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "><br style="line-height: 17px; "></font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><img src=""></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "><br style="line-height: 17px; "></font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "><i style="line-height: 17px; ">Burning a field near Heber.</i></font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "><br style="line-height: 17px; "></font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "> According to Maria-Elena Young, an adolescent health analyst at the California Adolescent Health Collaborative, an estimated 200,000 young Latinos living in rural areas have been diagnosed with asthma. A third of Heber's 4200 residents are under 18, and 98% of its residents are Latino. The demographics of Seeley are about the same. In both towns, one in every four families lives below the poverty line.</font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "> "Geography, poverty and air quality all come together to affect the health of young people in the unincorporated rural towns of California," explains CRLA attorney Phoebe Seaton. "Health dangers are compounded by things like agricultural burning, and then exacerbated by lack of access to healthcare." </font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "> Policy Link's report, "Why Place and Race Matter," states, "<font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; ">Health indicators dramatically illustrate the point. In every instance, people of color suffer disproportionately from conditions that shorten life or compromise its quality." The report concludes, "Racially based inequities in local environments-the almost immeasurable gulf in resources between a Brentwood and an East Los Angeles, a Montclair and an East Oakland, a Carmel and a King City-lie at the root of our gaping health disparities and the alarming rise of preventable chronic diseases.<font face="Helvetica">"</font></font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "><br style="line-height: 17px; "></font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><img src=""></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "><br style="line-height: 17px; "></font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "><i style="line-height: 17px; ">Seeley's one restaurant, the Taqueria La Pasadita, is famous for homemade flour tortillas.</i></font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "><br style="line-height: 17px; "></font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "> A January 2009 study by the California Department of Public Health linked air pollution to asthma, and in mid-February another study found that the Environmental Protection Agency had seriously underestimated the amount of air pollution coming from particulate matter.</font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "> According to the ARB, smoke like that emitted from agricultural burning can increase the number of hospital visits by children by 10%, and that looks only at those children with access to healthcare. Imperial County, California's poorest, is home to thousands of farm worker families without that access. Many of them live in its poorest communities - unincorporated towns like Seeley and Heber.</font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "> According to a 2005 Border Asthma and Allergies (BASTA) Study conducted by the California Department of Public Health, 20.2% of children in Imperial County are diagnosed with asthma. The national average is 13.7%. Imperial County consistently has the highest asthma hospitalization rates among all California counties. From 2000 to 2004, ten asthma deaths occurred in Imperial County.</font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "><br style="line-height: 17px; "></font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><img src=""></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "><br style="line-height: 17px; "></font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "><i style="line-height: 17px; ">Carolina and Liz Villa.</i></font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "><br style="line-height: 17px; "> When Carolina and Liz Villa set up Seeley Citizens United, they hoped that the activism that produced the lights and drinking fountain in the soccer field might be harnessed to work on these basic health and environmental problems. Seeley's organization, and a similar one in Heber, began to look for ways to reduce pollution and its health consequences on a valley-wide level, since they aren't confined to just two small towns. </font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "> When Imperial County organized an Environmental Health Leadership Summit to examine health disparities, the two sisters went to make their case. Together, they partnered with Luis Olmedo and the valley's Comite Civico to use public exposure to force attention on farm workers' health problems. They helped set up the Imperial Vision Action Network, and then the Imperial County Environmental Justice Enforcement Task Force. They got help from Megan Beaman, a lawyer in CRLA's Coachella office who'd worked on a similar program earlier in the Coachella Valley. The two efforts together form the first community-based environmental reporting site in California.</font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "><br style="line-height: 17px; "></font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><img src=""></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "><br style="line-height: 17px; "></font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "><i style="line-height: 17px; ">The El Toro Land and Cattle Co. feedlot, across Fawcett Rd. from Heber.</i></font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "><br style="line-height: 17px; "></font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "> Acting on an anonymous report, this February the Environmental Justice Task Force exposed a proposal to open yet another cattle feedlot near Calexico, just a few miles from Seeley and Heber. Carolina Villa and Luis Olmedo said an anonymous report to the IVAN network alerted them to the plans for the operation. "I want to have faith permits are not given out when the facilities are not ready," Villa told the Imperial Valley Press. Olmedo declared simply, "It's clearly an environmental disaster."</font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "> But disasters and health hazards are no long business as usual in those two tiny towns.</font> Ramon Villa Jr., his mom and aunt all believe that the way not to get sick in the Imperial Valley is to make sure their voices get heard.</div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><br></div><hr style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; ">For more articles and images, see http://dbacon.igc.org</font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "><br style="line-height: 17px; "></font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; ">See also Illegal People -- How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants (Beacon Press, 2008)</font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; ">Recipient: C.L.R. James Award, best book of 2007-2008</font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; ">http://www.beacon.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=2002</font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "><br style="line-height: 17px; "></font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; ">See also the photodocumentary on indigenous migration to the US</font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; ">Communities Without Borders (Cornell University/ILR Press, 2006)</font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; ">http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/cup_detail.taf?ti_id=4575</font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; "><br style="line-height: 17px; "></font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; ">See also The Children of NAFTA, Labor Wars on the U.S./Mexico Border (University of California, 2004)</font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><font color="#000000" style="line-height: normal; ">http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9989.html</font></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><br></div><pre style="font-size: 15px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">--
</pre><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">__________________________________<br><br>David Bacon, Photographs and Stories<br>http://dbacon.igc.org</div></div><div style="line-height: 17px; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-family: Georgia; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><br></div><div>@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@</div><div><br></div><div><pre style="line-height: 17px; white-space: normal; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">March 3, 2012 <br><br>FNS Feature <br><br>Mexican High-Tech Workers Demand Justice and Dignity. <br><br>The two high-tech workers laughed when asked if they could afford the smartphones made by their colleagues on Mexican production lines. “No, no, no,” chuckled Maria and Alma, two Guadalajara workers who have labored for years in Mexico’s Silicon Valley. A cheap $20 cell phone has to make do for Maria, while Alma uses a similarly low-priced contraption she won on a five-dollar raffle ticket. “It’s not a luxury, it’s a necessity, especially when you have kids,” Alma said. <br><br>The two women, who asked that their real names not be used because of possible employer retaliation, recently sat down with Frontera NorteSur to discuss their jobs and lives as factory workers in Mexico’s second largest city and one of the world’s most important centers in the electronics industry supply chain. <br><br>An assembly-line worker, Maria makes about $10 for an eight hour shift six days a week. Although Maria said she gets all the benefits afforded by Mexican law, she must renew her work contract every two months. A quality control specialist, Alma has more responsibilities than Maria but gets the same amount of pay. A third woman who joined the conversation worked in the local high-tech industry until she was fired two years ago. Unlike Maria and Alma, the friend completed higher education training for a technician’s career but still maxed out her earnings at approximately $500 monthly after a dozen years in the industry. <br><br>All the women interviewed have multiple children to support, and two of them are single mothers. Living in Guadalajara these days is expensive, they said. The lowest rent hovers around $100 a month, a cylinder of gas costs a couple of days’ pay and the price of staple corn tortillas is now well above a dollar. Tomatoes, eggs and the hot chile de arbol essential for so many Mexican sauces have all gone up in price recently. A family budget for four or more people can get quickly dented just by forking out the bus fare necessary for moving around a sprawling city. <br><br>To make ends meet, the women play what might be called the Mexican Shuffle. They take out pay-day loans from a bank, dip into small savings accounts, accept packages of basic commodities from churches and contemplate the ever-expanding doors of pawn shops. Like other low-income Mexicans, they participate in tandas, a form of economic solidarity in which members of a group contribute ten bucks or so and then pay out the sum total to a member on a rotating basis. Guadalajara’s women workers get by on a “miracle,” Maria laughed again. “God is great!” <br><br>Maria and her friends said they endure an employment system in which a job is on an increasingly temporary basis, unpaid furloughs pop up, promised bonuses do not materialize, overtime is not properly compensated and “labor representation” is performed by “unions” the workers often do not even know exist. Complaints are waved away by the constant fluttering of an economic wand. <br><br>“If you don’t like the work, there are five other people outside willing to do it,” Maria said. “You have no option.” While Maria and her friends say they are too afraid to speak out publicly, many workers like themselves channel their grievances through the non-governmental Mexican organization Cereal. <br><br>“These are very generalized, across-the board situations, especially in the electronics industry,” said Felipe Burgueno, Cereal’s outreach coordinator. “Many of the (high-tech) businesses are sustained by women, and many of them are housewives. They are frequently paid less than the men and get treated worse.” <br><br>Celebrating its 15th anniversary this month, Cereal documents the complaints of workers, negotiates with employers, helps fired workers get severance pay and advocates for the right of workers to collective bargaining and union representation of their choice. Cereal has focused its efforts on electronics industry workers but is beginning to hear more from other sectors of the workforce, according to Burgueno. <br><br>Some workers are taking collective action. On February 21, a small group of former Jabil Circuit employees, some of them wearing masks and holding signs, staged a demonstration outside the gate of the company’s Guadalajara plant. The protesters demanded the reinstatement of dismissed workers, freedom of association, steady work and labor justice. In a press statement, the demonstrators contended that pay inequity among “workers performing the same activities” violated Article 4 of the Mexican Constitution that guarantees equal pay for equal work. <br><br>The Guadalajara action was also endorsed by the National Coalition of Workers and Ex-Workers of the Electronics Industry. A phone call to Jabil’s headquarters in Florida was not immediately returned. <br><br>Last fall, Cereal released a report that highlighted the low pay of electronics industry workers in Mexico. According to the Jesuit-affiliated group, the $8.70 average rate of daily pay in the electronics industry is sufficient to cover only 60 percent of the cost of a basket of food and other routinely-consumed goods. In a production cost analysis, Cereal asserted that workers only receive 0.1 percent, or 64 cents, of the sales price of a smartphone that retails for more than $600 abroad. <br><br>Covering a variety of issues, the report included case studies of worker experiences with Nokia, Lenovo, Philips, Blackberry, Dell, Foxconn, and Celestica. Since the Mexican high-tech sector is so reliant on sub-contracted workers hired through temporary agencies, the report also discussed the Manpower and Azanza temporary employment firms. <br><br>“Frequently, workers who sign seven-day contracts stay in the company months and even years, signing contracts every week,” Cereal said in a statement announcing the release of the report. <br><br>Jorge Barajas, Cereal coordinator for Guadalajara, said industry reactions to the report varied. While Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Sanmina were most responsive, some finger-pointing went on with Blackberry, for example, telling Cereal to speak with its supplier Jabil about labor problems, Barajas said. On the other hand, Sanmina rehired 10 workers and made severance and social security payments to 20 others, according to the longtime labor activist. “These are verified, concrete changes,” he said. <br><br>For years Cereal and other non-governmental organizations have dialogued with the heavy hitters in the high-tech world assembled in the Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition (EICC), an initiative which was launched 8 years ago to promote business, labor and environmental best practices. <br><br>According to the EICC’s mission statement, the organization envisions “a global electronics industry supply chain that consistently operates with social, environmental and economic responsibility.” Available in 16 languages, the EICC has a code of conduct its 67 member companies must commit to implement in their employment and production policies. <br><br>The EICC Code of Conduct upholds adherence to all local laws regarding wages and benefits, and explicitly recognizes the right of workers to freedom of association. <br><br>“Workers shall be able to communicate openly with management regarding working conditions without fear of reprisal, intimidation or harassment,” the EICC Code of Conduct states. <br><br>Barajas said the results of the management-labor dialogue have been mixed at best, with progress noted in different individual grievances but little headway made in changing structural conditions like the growing use of temporary workers, the lack of genuine union representation and revolving lay-offs. <br><br>Since the beginning of the year, Cereal has estimated that about 3,000 high-tech workers have been laid off from Guadalajara plants.<br><br>“There was a lot of expectation in the beginning but (EICC) has lost a lot of credibility in the last two years among unions and NGOs because of its inability to affect changes in the industry,” Barajas said. “There is a lot of debate about the utility of the EICC, even in the industry.” <br><br>The lot of high-tech industry workers in Guadalajara and elsewhere will be on the agenda of an international gathering scheduled for Amsterdam this upcoming May. The meeting is expected to draw representatives from the EICC and its European counterpart as well as unions and groups like Cereal. According to Barajas, labor activists are increasingly looking to the United Nations as the possible forum for resolving worker grievances in an emblematic industry that spans the globe. <br><br>For Guadalajara high-tech worker Maria, the right of workers to organize and enjoy a decent career is a fundamental one that’s currently missing from their lives. “I want my job, but I want it with dignity,” she said. “This is something we deserve.” <br><br><br>-Kent Paterson<br><br><br>Frontera NorteSur: on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news<br>Center for Latin American and Border Studies<br>New Mexico State University <br>Las Cruces, New Mexico<br><br>For a free electronic subscription <br>email:fnsnews@nmsu.edu</pre><pre style="line-height: 17px; white-space: normal; color: rgb(42, 42, 42); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><br></pre></div><div>@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@</div><br><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><font size="2">Material appearing here is distributed without profit or monitory gain to those who have expressed an interest in receiving the material for research and educational purposes. 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