A Brief History of the Migrant Bracero Farm Workers Wikipedia | |
go to original May 24, 2017 |
The Longest Harvest: The Bracero Program (Ben Clark)
The Bracero Program was a series of laws and diplomatic agreements, initiated on August 4, 1942, when the United States signed the Mexican Farm Labor Agreement with Mexico.
It operated as a joint program under the State Department, the Department of Labor, and the Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS) in the Department of Justice. Under this pact, the laborers were promised decent living conditions in labor camps, such as adequate shelter, food and sanitation, as well as a minimum wage pay of 30 cents an hour.
The agreement also stated that braceros would not be subject to discrimination such as exclusion from "white" areas. This program was intended to fill the labor shortage in agriculture. The program lasted 22 years and offered employment contracts to 5 million braceros in 24 U.S. states - becoming the largest foreign worker program in U.S. history.
The workers who participated in the bracero program have generated significant local and international struggles challenging the U.S. government and Mexican government to identify and return 10 percent mandatory deductions taken from their pay, from 1942 to 1948, for savings accounts that they were legally guaranteed to receive upon their return to Mexico at the conclusion of their contracts.
... Many field working braceros never received their savings, but most railroad working braceros did. Lawsuits presented in federal courts in California, in the late 1990s and early 2000s (decade), highlighted the substandard conditions and documented the ultimate destiny of the savings accounts deductions, but the suit was thrown out because the Mexican banks in question never operated in the United States.
Today, it is stipulated that ex-braceros can receive up to $3,500.00 as compensation for the 10% only by supplying check stubs or contracts proving they were part of the program during 1942 to 1948. It is estimated that, with interest accumulated, $500 million is owed to ex-braceros, who continue to fight to receive the money owed to them.
Read the rest at Wikipedia
Related: U.S. Once Welcomed Mexican Laborers (Mail Tribune)
Related: Combative Farm Workers in Only Indigenous-Led US Union Win Labor Rights Defenders Award (teleSUR)
Related: Union Workers Block Vancouver-Based First Majestic Silver’s Mexico Mine (Business Vancouver)
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