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ABOUT GLOBAL JUSTICE | TOOLS & RESOURCES | india collaboration | gLOBAL TRADE | |
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SOLIDARITY ACROSS BORDERS:
“It is not about competition between Americans and Mexicans or Chinese. It isn’t about who deserves these jobs. Everyone deserves these jobs, everyone deserves a living wage. It doesn’t mater which country you live in.” - Rev. Ben Guess, United Church of Christ
The same year the corporation made the decision to close the KY facility and relocate to the town of Nogales in Sonora, Mexico, Fortune Brands chairman and CEO Thomas C. Hays received approximately $4 million in salary, bonuses and other compensation. Billy Thompson, District 8 Director for the United Steelworkers of America, the Moen workers’ union, says the closure is yet another example of the impact of NAFTA on Kentucky manufacturing “they’re putting profits before people”. Paula Arnquist of the Southern Arizona Alliance for Economic Justice (SAAEJ) in Tucson, Arizona, had an idea. She had spent years organizing cross-border solidarity and leading delegations of concerned U.S. activists to see life on the border and the growth of the maquiladoras in Nogales - a little more than an hour from Tucson. But what if the workers themselves came as a delegation; could see for themselves the new factory and talk directly to Mexican workers and organizers? Jobs with Justice and the Steelworkers began to organize a Kentucky-Sonora worker exchange. Kentucky Jobs with Justice wanted to create a delegation that reflected the JwJ model of building alliances between labor, community, religious and student groups. Here was an opportunity to address “globalization” as it connected to a very real struggle for workers and communities in Kentucky. Members of the delegation included Rose McNary, Sherry Benton, and Viola Melton, members of USWA 13953 and former workers at Moen, USWA staff representative Joe Villines, Rev. Ben Guess, of the Mount Zion United Church of Christ (UCC) in Henderson, KY and now a Minister for Labor Relations for the UCC, Jesse Harris, a worker at Fischer Packing and Civil Rights Director for UFCW 227 (and Gospel Radio Minister!), Hannah Halbert, United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) activist from Transylvania University, Alicia Weber, another USAS activist now working with Tucson AFSC, Paula Arnquist of SAAEJ and Dawn Jenkins and Mary Beth Maxwell of Jobs with Justice. The delegation was organized in collaboration with the wonderful staff of Tucson-based Borderlinks, whose mission is cross-border delegations and solidarity, and Ian Robertson, President of the Tucson Central Labor /Council. A few moments to share from this very rich experience: “Many workers don’t speak up… They don’t speak up because they are afraid they will lose their jobs.” Francisca Tenorio, maqiladora worker and organizer in Agua Prieta, Sonora, Mexico § Driving out of the poor, dusty town of Nogales to the Maquila Industrial Park, complete with lush lawns and landscaping in a community where water is a desperately precious resource. Turning the corner of Free Enterprise Road and Fortunebrands Way to come upon a huge, sparkling new Moen plant; 5 times the production capacity of the facility in Kentucky. § Tears in all of our eyes when Viola, President of her Steelworkers Local for over 20 years, found a part outside the plant that she used to make, describing how it felt to have worked with pride to make her company productive and profitable, only to be abandoned for “corporate greed”. § High in the hills of Nogales, densely populated by workers and their families living in incredible poverty, the late night sounds of dogs barking, roosters crowing; Hannah noting that it reminded her of home in Appalachia; Jesse Harris’ clear voice singing Amazing Grace. § Dinner at Cecilia Guzman’s house and breaking down how workers in Nogales are (not) making it on the average wage of $3.50 a day and learning from Alberto, muralist and long-time organizer, about the fierce repression against attempts to organize a union in his maquila in his days as a student organizer. § Driving across the vast harsh desert that men, women and children attempt to cross every day, risking their lives for work. Trying to comprehend a “border” that blocks some workers with barbed wire and dogs and automatic weapons and shuttles others across as “guestworkers” to serve corporations hungry for low-wage indentured servants. § A sobering conversation between the Kentucky and Mexican workers about the hardwon health and safety precautions for workers in the US that are being callously disregarded in the maquiladoras; Viola’s story of an injury she sustained on the job and her manager’s gloating to her “those safety guards are coming off the machinery in Mexico - we can run them a lot faster without them”... “We’ve been virtually sold to the U.S...this globalization has just benefitted the few, the rich, but we can change things...if you would not have come here, seen this, if Moen had not left Kentucky...now you’re talking to workers here - that opens opportunity!” - Francisco Trujillo, a small businessman in Nogales § The women organizers at Sagrada Familia (Elisa, Pola, Francisca, Carolina, Lety) huddled around their flipcharts, preparing for the Saturday workshop they organized for us - brave, committed, savvy women workers, mothers, grandmothers organizing their communities - eager to learn and share and strategize about this global corporate power that unites us across borders. We are eager to host their trip to Kentucky planned for spring of 2002! “The thing is, NAFTA is affecting workers in the United States as much as it is affecting workers here and in Canada. When I talked to (the Kentucky) workers, I told them that the impact of NAFTA is felt really harshly here…The mergers of huge corporations are really crushing the working class. I realized there (in the U.S.) it is really similar.” - Carolina Chavez, organizer and maquiladora worker, Agua Prieta, Sonora, Mexico Less than two months after our return, the Cagle-Keystone workers in Albany, Kentucky voted overwhelmingly for representation with UFCW 227, securing bargaining rights for 1,500 poultry workers! This victory occurred despite the numerous ”visits” paid by the INS and local law enforcement to Mexican workers who are a majority of the workforce. UFCW 227, Jesse’s local, organized with these workers to address low wages, health and safety violations and flagrant racism and workplace abuse of these immigrant workers’ rights. Supporting these and other workers’ Right to Organize is a top priority for KY Jobs with Justice. These new Kentuckians’ lives and livelihoods are intimately linked to those of Viola, Rose, Sherry and their thousands of brothers and sisters across the state who have lost manufacturing jobs. Our goal this winter and spring, as we prepare to host a return delegation of Mexican workers and organizers to KY is to make these linkages around the global economy less and less theoretical and more and more personal and practical bonds of international solidarity. Solidarity Across Borders: Mexican Delegation to Kentucky a Huge Success! From June 6-12, 2002, Kentucky JwJ hosted a delegation of workers and organizers from Mexico’s border region and from the Southern Arizona Alliance for Economic Justice (SAAEJ), who came to KY to learn about the impacts of free trade on U.S. workers, to share their stories of the negative impacts of globalization in Mexico, and to strategize about how to fight corporate greed together! The delegation was the second part of a project that began in October 2000, when a delegation of laid-off workers from the Hoov-R-Line plant Providence, KY, joined JwJ and community leaders for a trip to Mexico to see the new plant and to meet some of the workers and organizers fighting for economic justice in Mexico. The week included a number of exciting events. On June 6, the Mexican delegation joined workers from Louisville Ladder, a company that recently laid-off 150 workers and moved production to Mexico, to speak out against Fast Track and damaging free trade policies.
The Mexican delegation had meetings with workers and unions to learn about working conditions and the impacts of globalization here, including a reunion with USWA Local 13953 members from the first delegation, a meeting with the USWA Local 9443 Safety Committee to learn about the health and safety protections they’ve established, and a meeting with UFCW Local 227 members from the FarBest turkey-processing plant to learn about what life is like on this side of the border for undocumented immigrant workers from Mexico and other parts of Latin America. Finally, KY JwJ organized a Workers’ Rights Board Hearing on Free Trade on June 11 in Henderson, KY. State Senator David Boswell, Rev. Michael Erwin, and NAACP state vice-president Anna Davis Nall sat on the WRB that heard testimony from the Mexican workers and organizers, as well as UFCW Local 227 members from a nearby Carhart clothing plant, who talked about how the KY garment industry has been devastated by free trade. Kentucky-Sonora Worker Exchange Video The Kentucky-Sonora Worker Exchange video tells the moving stories of workers and communities on both sides of the border that confront similar problems with the same corporations. This 23-minute video also highlights how workers and communities can unite to solve these problems. The Kentucky – Sonora Worker Exchange video is available to be purchased for $12 plus $3 shipping. Contact info@jwj.org to order.
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In 1999, Hoov-R-Line (a factory owned by Moen and the mega-corporation Fortunebrands) announced it would be closing down its very productive, very profitable operation in Providence, Kentucky. Worker Viola Melton recalls the manager’s “reporting that the company was earning record-breaking profits and quality standards only a few weeks before he reported that Moen would be closing and moving to Mexico.” This plant closing has been devastating to the town of 6,000. 144 workers, many of whom had worked at Hoov-R-Line for 15-25 years for union wages and benefits, are out of work. Said Sherry Benton “After 19 years of working at Moen and at age 50, I am starting over again”. 
USWA local 106 member and Louisville Ladder worker Gail Hellenger said “I am the face of NAFTA. I’ve been at Louisville Ladder for 3 and 1/2 years. Prior to that I was at American Air Filter International for 7 years. Both of these facilities have shut down as a direct result of the implementation of NAFTA. We need to hold these corporations accountable and defeat Fast Track and the FTAA. We need to stand strong together with these Mexican workers.” KY JwJ collected over 50 letters urging Congress Representatives Anne Northup and Baron Hill to vote against Fast Track at the event!