Economy & Trade, Headlines, Labour, Latin America & the Caribbean, North America

LABOUR: Mexicans File Complaint Against US Applegrowers

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, May 27 1998 (IPS) - A coalition of Mexican trade unions and farmworkers Wednesday filed a broad complaint under a labour side accord of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), charging that the Washington State apple industry failed to protect workers’ rights.

It called on the Mexican government to pursue arbitration under the North American Agreement on Labour Cooperation (NAALC), the side agreement intended to advance worker rights in all three NAFTA signatories – Canada, Mexico, and the United States.

The move marked the 11th case filed with NAALC since it took effect Jan 1, 1994. Nine of the 10 earlier complaints involved alleged failures by Mexico to enforce its labour laws and were brought by U.S. or Canadian parties.

This latest case added “more balance” to the NAALC process, according to Pharis Harvey, director of the Washington-based International Labour Rights Fund (ILFR), which has been a petitioner in several other NAALC cases. “Mexico is not the only country in North America where workers’ rights are violated.”

The new case is also the broadest of any which have been brought to the NAALC so far, according to the ILFR’s general counsel, Terry Collingsworth. The case is being brought against an entire industry which is alleged to have violated seven of the 11 basic labour principles which NAALC was established to protect.

The petitioners include the Mexican National Workers’ Union, the Authentic Labour Front, and the Democratic Farmworkers Front. They alleged that the mainly Mexican migrant workers, who labour in Washington State’s abundant apple orchards, are denied rights to organise, collective bargaining, minimum labour standards, non- discrimination in employment, job safety and health, workers’ compensation, and migrant worker protection.

“This case could provide the most comprehensive test of the effectiveness of NAFTA’s labour side agreement,” said Collingsworth, who helped prepare the petition.

More than 60,000 workers toil in the orchards and warehouses of what is the world’s largest apple-producing industry. Most are Spanish-speaking, and many do not have U.S. work permits. Fear of deportation haunts may of these workers and their families in farming communities where undocumented parents live with documented children, married couple are sometimes half legal, and few extended families are far removed from illegal immigration status.

Union activists maintain the apple industry long has exploited this situation by using the fear of deportation to intimidate workers into not joining a union or pushing for improvement in their working conditions and wages.

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters tried to unionise the field and warehouse workers over the past two years but, so far, has not succeeded. Its campaign drew strong support from the biggest labour confederation, the AFL-CIO, and is viewed as a major test for the future of labour organising in the United States.

Last January, however, the union suffered a significant reverse when workers at two of the state’s largest apple warehouses voted against joining the Teamsters by a relatively narrow margins.

Teamster attorneys filed complaints with the federal government’s National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), calling the votes illegal due to the alleged use by the companies threats, such as inviting raids by the Immigration and Naturalisation Service (INS), against the workers. The Seattle office of the NLRB last week issued a preliminary ruling in which they found merit in some of the Teamsters’ charges and sent the case to an administrative court.

The complaint declared there were frequent safety violations and chemical hazards in packing and shipping plants, while orchard workers are exposed to toxic pesticides. Federal and state health and safety officials, according to the complaint have not been effective in enforcing relevant laws.

In addition, the complaint pointed to what it calls “severe” budget cuts affecting both the NLRB and OSHA which made it impossible to enforce workers’ rights. The Seattle regional NLRB office, for example, has only two spanish-speaking attorneys serving Washington State where the largest minority population group Hispanic.

The complaint also argued that NLRB should have granted the union’s request to order the companies to recognise the Teamsters and reach a collective bargaining agreement precisely because the intimidating effects of the employer’s efforts to thwart a successful organising campaign destroys any possibility of a fair election in the future. In that respect, it contends, deficiencies, delays and weak remedies provided by U.S. labour law do not adequately protect freedom of association and the right to organise.

The complaint said U.S. law discriminated unfairly against migrant workers in a range of social benefits. In Washington State, for example, migrant workers were given lower benefits under workers compensation than resident workers.

The complaint, according to Harvey, marked “an important step for scrutinising labour law enforcement in the United States, where there are severe problems of discrimination against workers who try to form unions and where migrant workers face widespread labour and human rights violation.”

Mexico’s National Administrative Office, which receives complaints, will now review the case and issue a written report “within a reasonable period.”

It may then launch consultations among the NAALC country secretaries of labour after which a committee of outside experts may be convened. They may recommend arbitration which could lead to fines against the US government or the loss of NAFTA benefits for the Washington State apple industry.

 
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