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Living Wage Rights
Articles
AFSC Newsletter Women's
Ways of Organizing
Raúl Ramírez Baena,
"Maquiladora
Workers Can't Meet Basic Needs on Plant Wages," reprinted from
Frontera Norte-Sur, July 6, 2001
Books
William P. Quigley, Ending Poverty
As We Know It (2003)
Law professor Bill Quigley makes the
argument that people who
work hard for a living should not have to live in poverty. Yet that is
the reality created by American society, politics and the market
economy. The concepts in this book dramatize the impact of the global
economy primarily in America and encourage us to re-think our priorities
about work, wealth and the human right to life, liberty and the pursuit
of happiness.
If these values are in fact the American
ideal, then they
should be the values of Americanism that we export to the poorer
nations whose working classes are doing jobs that have been relocated
by multinational companies but are now being paid a fraction of what was
earned by America's working classes.
Films
Maquilas: A Tale of Two Mexicos (Review)
"CFO Border Trip" by Heather
Courtney
In October 1999, a group of Austin
residents took a trip to Piedras Negras, Coahuila, to meet a group of
women who work in the maquiladoras and who use popular education techniques
to empower each other on how to use Mexican labor law and survival strategies
for confronting abuse, unfair firings and anti-democratic harassment by
corrupt unions.
About
the Director
"The Morristown Project" – Video Letters/Cartas
between American and Mexican workers in the Maquiladoras by independent
filmmaker Anne Lewis
Independent filmmaker Anne Lewis'
Morristown Video Letter/Video Cartas is part of the Morristown Project,
a compilation of personal narratives about life, work, disappointment
and hope. The video letters are produced in Spanish and English and present
the stories of workers in East Tennessee (Appalachian and Mexican), the
interior of Mexico and in Ciudad Juarez right across from El Paso, Texas.
The video letters are intended for
use with discussion groups and/or for popular education and labor organizing
on both sides of the Mexican border. The common threads in the voices
of the factory, maquiladora and farm workers are poverty, migration, landlessness,
invisibility, job insecurity and the need to organize against and critique
the globalized economy.
For information on obtaining copies
contact Anne Lewis at annelewi@airmail.net.
Other Resources
Comité Fronterizo de Obreras
(CFO)
http://www.cfomaquiladoras.org
This workers group has volunteers in five cities at the Mexican border
and is daily confronting the issue of living wage rights for maquiladora
workers.
The Living Wage Action Coalition
http://www.livingwageaction.org/
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