Baja Farmworkers Demand Federal Intervention to Resolve Problems in San Quintin Antonio Heras - La Jornada
go to original April 11, 2015

In March, Al Jazeera met the farmworkers striking in northwestern Mexico (Al Jazeera English)

The Alliance of National, State and Municipal Organizations for Social Justice repeated their request for Secretary of Government Relations, Miguel Angel Osorio Chong, to intervene to resolve the problems of farmworkers in the San Quintín Valley. They also asked that a National Oversight Commission be established to monitor agricultural workers' working and social conditions.

In a meeting held on Friday between farmworkers and a committee of federal legislators [Chamber of Deputies] at the Santa Isabel de San Quintín hall, which at times became rocky, the main indigenous leaders demanded from the Deputies: "In the four months remaining in the current Legislative Session, it's the only thing you can do for farmworkers [i.e., fulfill our requests]."

The delegation of Deputies was made up of the PAN [National Action Party] Euphrosyne Cruz Mendoza, president of the Committee on Indigenous Affairs; PRI [Party of the Revolutionary Institution] Shantall Zepeda Escobar, and the PRD [Party of the Democratic Revolution] Roberto Cabrera Solis and Yazmín Copete. Although announced, neither Martha Edith Vital Vera, the PVEM [Ecological Green Party of Mexico], nor Juan Luis Martínez Martínez, Morena [Movement for National Regeneration] showed up.

Fermín Salazar, Alliance leader, complained that they might have traveled to Baja California just to "take a souvenir photograph", without bringing proposals for the farmworkers. Salazar said he had hoped for a proposed salary increase, the initial agreement with the agricultural enterprises, since their demands are already known: "How we hope not to see one more photo in the press above the caption: 'Six Deputies Travel to San Quentin to Review Work Stoppage'."

Read the rest at Mexico Voices

Mexico Voices is a blogging endeavor aimed at raising the awareness of U.S. citizens regarding the destructive impact of the U.S. economic policy and the War on Drugs on Mexico — on its people, their economic and physical security and their human rights, on the nation’s dysfunctional justice system, and on the rule of law and Mexico’s fragile democracy. Visit the website at MexicoVoices.blogspot.mx

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