WELCOME TO THE ARCHIVE (1994-2014) OF THE MAQUILA SOLIDARITY NETWORK. For current information on our ongoing work on the living wage, women's labour rights, freedom of association, corporate accountability and Bangladesh fire and safety, please visit our new website, launched in October, 2015: www.maquilasolidarity.org
Given how important it is that the NAALC process focus on the larger issues that were raised in Public Communication #2003-01 (Puebla), a summary outlining the fundamental violations described by those who testified in both Washington and Toronto was presented to the Canadian NAO. According to this summary, the five central components of the Complaint, as illustrated by the testimony provided on May 28 in Toronto, are:
In June 2010, Blanca Velasquez, the Director of the Worker Support Centre in Puebla (CAT, for its Spanish acronym) was in Toronto for a conference on "Building Solidarity with the Democratic Labour Movement in Mexico" organized by Canadian unions and international federations. Blanca spoke about the organizing efforts at auto parts factories in Puebla owned by Johnson Controls. After the meeting, Blanca discussed her experience as a woman leader in the labour rights movement.
A three-day strike by workers at a Johnson Controls auto parts plant in Puebla, Mexico, backed by an international solidarity campaign, has won the workers the right to be represented by a union of their free choice. The agreement sets an important precedent in Mexico where employers often sign "protection contracts" with corrupt unions without the workers' knowledge and/or consent in order to prevent those workers from organizing or affiliating with a democratic union.
On April 28, 2010, Enrique Morales Montaño and Coral Juarez Melo, of the Centro de Apoyo al Trabajador (CAT) were visiting employees of the multi-national Johnson Controls Inc. (JCI) in the community of Santo Toribio, when Enrique was physically assaulted by the son of Magdaleno Texis, a local leader of the CROM, the illegitimate union at the Johnson Controls Puebla factory. Please help support the CAT by sending a letter to Mexican President Felipe de Jesus Calderon Hinojosa asking him to guarantee the safety of Coral Juarez and Enrique Morales.
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