COALITION FOR JUSTICE IN THE MAQUILADORAS
TRW Workers Back On The Track of Justice HONOR LABOR DAY by calling TRW headquarters on September 16, supporting TRW workers struggle and to President Obama because of NAFTA failure TRW Headquarters Phone number: On September 16 call 734-855-3871 Neil Marchuk Exec. VP for Human Resources On September 16 call Barack President Obama Phone number: 202-456-1111
Workers of TRW and around the world are paying the consequences of an economic crisis provoked by the irresponsibility of multinational corporations. Celebrate Labor Day honoring the working class by supporting the TRW workers struggle. “If they made their profits with our labor over the years, Support TRW worker’ struggle on September 16th, 2009
TRW WORKERS IN REYNOSA NEED YOUR SUPPORT CJM is organizing a speaking tour of a TRW maquila worker across the US and Canada to gain support for their struggle. Here is what you can do: -Organize an event in your community, church, university or union hall before or after the day of action to gain support for the mobilization and to support the TRW workers’ struggle - Mobilize on the day of action - September 16th – (Mexico Independence Day) to pressure TRW headquarters - Join the phone campaign to call TRW headquarters demanding respect for workers’ rights in Reynosa, Mexico on September 16 -Host Ernesto Lizcano (TRW maquila worker) in your locality – sponsor his lodging, meals, transportation and/or airfare (you can donate free flyer miles or gas for transportation to an airport near your community) -Support Ernesto by translating his speeches at the speaking tour events -Spread the word about the day of action and the phone campaign against TRW on September 16th” -Support CJM by raising funds to cover the expenses of the speaking tour -Support CJM by advertising the book NAFTA from Below in your community **** Background: Last Friday August 21, 2009, the TRW Workers’ Coalition once more took over the Conciliation and Arbitration Board (CAB) in Reynosa, Mexico, denouncing the labor authorities’ corruption and demanding that the President of the CAB respect due process in their case. See the following link: En Linea Directa. After the mobilization that the TRW workers organized on July 17, 2009 (see background of the last TRW alert at this link: , TRW – 2nd Alert), the CAB closed for summer vacation, setting the next hearing for the TRW workers on August 6. CJM members wrote to TRW headquarters alerting them to their lack of accurate information about what was happening at the TRW plants in Reynosa. TRW management argued that they had made an agreement with the CTM union to relocate workers to the other side of the city. However, what TRW headquarters in Michigan didn’t know was that the CTM union lawyer had in fact lodged complaints against the TRW Reynosa factory management and was representing some workers at the CAB with the same complaints that the TRW workers’ coalition had presented. Subsequently, the workers who were represented by the CTM union lawyer turnedto the workers’ coalition for support, because the CTM union lawyer had told them that CTM would NOT represent them anymore in their case against TRW. The workers’ coalition welcomed these workers who were abandoned by the CTM union lawyer. On August 6 the TRW lawyer demanded that the CAB combine all the complaints of the workers who were abandoned by the CTM union and incorporate them under the same case number as the complaints of the TRW workers’ coalition. The President of the CAB was required to notify TRW about combining these complaints, but instead, he scheduled monthly hearings to address the complaints one at a time and to add them one by one to the workers’ coalition case. This means that resolution of the case will be delayed for months if not years. When TRW workers learned on August 21 about this maneuver of the CAB, they decided to call the media and denounce this example of corruption in the labor department. TRW workers are calling for international support. Honor Labor Day by supporting TRW workers in Reynosa. Jaime Ernesto Lizcano, a TRW worker in Reynosa, will be making a speaking tour across the US and Canada to gain support for their struggle. Call or write CJM to support the TRW campaign and Ernesto:
---------------------------- Sample letter to President Obama Dear Mr. President, The NAFTA trade agreement has failed to meet expectations of economic growth and development. Instead, NAFTA has increased unemployment, economic instability and insecurity, poverty and environmental injustice in the three countries of North America. Multinational corporations such as TRW, which is a US corporation based in Livonia, Michigan, have profited from, exploiting cheap labor, thanks to free trade agreements. . After many years of phenomenal profits, corporations are now laying off workers. In the case of TRW in Mexico, they are laying off workers - without the severance payments that the workers are owed by law. Trade agreements are about much more than trade. Trade agreements must have mechanisms to address and resolve the social consequences they create. We believe that, despite the economic crisis, now is the right time to renegotiate NAFTA and address immigration reforms. The evidence of NAFTA’s failure is everywhere - people are suffering the real consequences of unregulated and irresponsible free trade policies. We call on you to investigate and regulate multinational corporations such as TRW, which is violating workers’ rights and operating with impunity in Mexico. We also urge you to uphold your commitment to address immigration reform and renegotiate the NAFTA trade agreement immediately. Respectfully, Name -------- Organization ------------------------- |
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