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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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 Posted: Wed Jul 04, 2007 4:06 pm Post subject: |
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| jkelly80 wrote: |
| Private companies hire paramilitary groups to kill, maim, and torture trade unionists throughout Latin America!!! Yes! That's it. |
Can you cite any specific and data-based examples of this killing, maiming, and torturing trade-unionists throughout Latin America? |
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Mosley
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Wed Jul 04, 2007 4:36 pm Post subject: Ford.... |
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| Not to get too off-topic here but: Wasn't Ford the one who gave his workers the then unheard of wage of $5/a day many years before the UAW got in at Ford? |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Wed Jul 04, 2007 4:38 pm Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
| jkelly80 wrote: |
| Private companies hire paramilitary groups to kill, maim, and torture trade unionists throughout Latin America!!! Yes! That's it. |
Can you cite any specific and data-based examples of this killing, maiming, and torturing trade-unionists throughout Latin America? |
http://lanic.utexas.edu/project/labor95/brown.html
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| Finally, the period from 1982 to the present has not been friendly to organized labor in Latin America. Independent labor leaders like La Quina of the Mexican petroleum workers have been jailed, while national labor leaders such Fidel Vel�squez be grudgingly support the free-trade reforms. |
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/world/4914050.html
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LA CEJA, COLOMBIA � The reaction was fast and furious when 40 workers at the Bochica flower-packing plant tried to form a union.
Their homes were spray-painted with graffiti labeling them Marxist guerrillas. Paramilitary death squads sent them leaflets proclaiming them targets. Even the police weighed in, warning the Bochica employees that they could not guarantee their safety.
Eventually, 18 workers changed their minds or were fired, putting an end to the drive, because, under Colombian law, a union requires at least 25 members.
Colombia is the most dangerous spot on the globe for organized labor. |
http://www.stuffedandstarved.org/drupal/node/143
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Farm Labour Organiser killed in Mexico
Here's something from the United Electrical Radio and Machine Workers of America, covering the intimidation and violence suffered by farmworkers (and their union organisers) in Mexico and the US.
Santiago Rafael Cruz, Labor Oranizer For U.S. Union, Killed In Mexico
By Dan La Botz
Santiago Rafael Cruz, an organizer for the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) based in Toledo, Ohio, was murdered in Monterrey, Mexico on April 9. Cruz was found bound and beaten to death in the union offices; there had been no forced entry and there was no robbery. Baldemar Velasquez, president of FLOC, believes that he may have been murdered because the union had disturbed the operations of corrupt individuals involved in labor contracting operations in Mexico. |
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jkelly80
Joined: 13 Jun 2007
Location: you boys like mexico?
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Wed Jul 04, 2007 5:18 pm Post subject: |
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| mindmetoo wrote: |
| Gopher wrote: |
| jkelly80 wrote: |
| Private companies hire paramilitary groups to kill, maim, and torture trade unionists throughout Latin America!!! Yes! That's it. |
Can you cite any specific and data-based examples of this killing, maiming, and torturing trade-unionists throughout Latin America? |
http://lanic.utexas.edu/project/labor95/brown.html
| Quote: |
| Finally, the period from 1982 to the present has not been friendly to organized labor in Latin America. Independent labor leaders like La Quina of the Mexican petroleum workers have been jailed, while national labor leaders such Fidel Vel�squez be grudgingly support the free-trade reforms. |
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I will address these standard, leftist, rapid-fire allegations, which is what they are, one at a time.
You ought to remove this one, Mindmetoo. I asked for data-based examples on privately-sponsored paramilitary squads killing, maiming, and torturing trade-unionists throught Latin America. (And Jill Kelly here, no surprise, seems to want to reduce these phenomenon to American interests, that American corporations are running these death squads, which is another matter entirely, even though I will address this claim as well.)
In any case, I do not deny and can easily support any claim that Latin American govts have always tended to suppress labor. The specific claim I am interested in here is -- from Jkelly80's post -- the alleged pervasive use of company-sponsored paramilitary organizations who kill, maim, and torture trade-unionists all over Latin America and the Caribbean. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Wed Jul 04, 2007 5:52 pm Post subject: |
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I will need a little more time on the Colombian case, Mindmetoo. As you know, Colombian affairs are a mess. I will review what I have on La Violencia and the guerrilla wars that have plagued the nation since Castro's era and respond. In the meantime...
| mindmetoo wrote: |
| Quote: |
Santiago Rafael Cruz, Labor Oranizer For U.S. Union, Killed In Mexico
By Dan La Botz
Santiago Rafael Cruz, an organizer for the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) based in Toledo, Ohio, was murdered in Monterrey, Mexico on April 9. Cruz was found bound and beaten to death in the union offices; there had been no forced entry and there was no robbery. Baldemar Velasquez, president of FLOC, believes that he may have been murdered because the union had disturbed the operations of corrupt individuals involved in labor contracting operations in Mexico. |
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Here are some other excerpts from this article...
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| Who would want Cruz killed? To answer that question we have to understand the labor contracting system in Mexico. Labor contractors usually funnel as many as 70,000 workers into the H2A Visa program which permits them to work legally for agricultural employers in the United States. To get these jobs, which pay more than ten times what they could make in agriculture in Mexico, workers often have to pay the contractors and to bribe various other middlemen. While workers should have paid no more than $360 in fees, some contractor agents called runners or enganchistas charged workers as much as $12,000, according to Velasquez. The racketeers in Mexico were making thousand of dollars, perhaps millions by over-charging workers... |
I see no references to American corporate-funded and/or -directed death squads in this piece, Mindmetoo. I see a lot of references to standard Mexican corruption, however. Jkelly80's AFL-CIO link seems to agree.
| Quote: |
| While the Mexican police have yet to arrest or charge any suspects, the labor contractors had a motive and may well have been responsible. |
This seems to represent the allegation in a nutshell. And it seems a very, very weak allegation to me, Mindmetoo.
I asked for "specific and data-based examples of this killing, maiming, and torturing trade-unionists throughout Latin America" that Jkelly80 has spoken of. And I have not seen anything to support this general, simple-present-tense-articulated, allegation about Latin American and Caribbean affairs. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Wed Jul 04, 2007 5:58 pm Post subject: |
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| jkelly80 wrote: |
| Both Chiquita banana and Coca-[C]ola have been implicated... |
Accused, Jkelly80, not implicated.
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| An American labor-rights group and the United Steelworkers union have filed a suit in the United States that accuses Coca-Cola and some bottlers here of using a right-wing paramilitary group to intimidate and, in some cases, assassinate labor organizers. Coca-Cola adamantly rejected the accusations on Monday. |
This example is on-point and I thank you for it. However, I see reference to an allegation and a denial. I also see reference to a law-suit.
What have you got on the outcome of this action? |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Wed Jul 04, 2007 6:02 pm Post subject: |
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| jkelly80 wrote: |
| Chiquita payed out 25 million. |
I was aware of this story. I do not see how...
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| Prosecutors said the company made the payments in exchange for protection for its workers. In addition to paying the AUC, prosecutors said, Chiquita made payments to the National Liberation Army, or ELN, and the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, as control of the company�s banana-growing area shifted. |
supports your allegation that American corporations finance and direct paramilitary death-squads who routinely kill, maim, and torture trade-unionists all over the region. It looks to me, at least in this case, that Chiquita payed these guerrillas to protect their workers and apparently their banana-fields, too. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Wed Jul 04, 2007 6:04 pm Post subject: |
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Gentlemen: I see nothing but allegations and mostly off-point examples that you seem to believe support Jkelly80's allegations that American corporations fund and direct Latin American paramilitary organizations to kill, maim, and torture trade-unionists.
Must dismiss this claim as extremely hyperbolic. You cannot support an allegation merely with other allegations. |
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jkelly80
Joined: 13 Jun 2007
Location: you boys like mexico?
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| Posted: Wed Jul 04, 2007 6:31 pm Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
| jkelly80 wrote: |
| Chiquita payed out 25 million. |
I was aware of this story. I do not see how...
| Quote: |
| Prosecutors said the company made the payments in exchange for protection for its workers. In addition to paying the AUC, prosecutors said, Chiquita made payments to the National Liberation Army, or ELN, and the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, as control of the company�s banana-growing area shifted. |
supports your allegation that American corporations finance and direct paramilitary death-squads who routinely kill, maim, and torture trade-unionists all over the region. It looks to me, at least in this case, that Chiquita payed these guerrillas to protect their workers and apparently their banana-fields, too. |
Protect their product, yes. Their labor, no. You're quoting Chiquita's lawyers' statement to the SEC, give me a break Between the FARC, ELN and AUC, you have almost the totality of Colombia's guerillas forces. Who else is left? These guys were muscle they were hiring to crack down on laborers not sufficiently awed by all the stunning successes of neo-liberalism.
FARC and ELN began as leftist organizations but now their only concern is funding--they're paid to union-bust as well, and have routinely slaughtered peasants themselves. AUC is just paid to do what AUC already does--torture kill and maim left wing supporters--often guerillas--in Colombia. Part of the left being trade unions.
Secondly, Chiquita was not simply accused. It admitted to dealing with AUC FARC and the ELN to USDOJ and was then fined. It knew in 2003 that AUC was receiving money even though it was on the terrorism list since 2001. Same old same old. A corporation's only social responsibility is to its stockholders, right? Developing middle class consumption in Colombia is nearly impossible--therefore no market to cultivate, therefore no real financial interest in the nation's stability, not to mention any moral one. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Wed Jul 04, 2007 6:54 pm Post subject: |
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| jkelly80 wrote: |
| Protect their product, yes. Their labor, no. You're quoting Chiquita's lawyers' statement to the SEC, give me a break. |
Would you suppress their lawyer's voice in such a debate as this, Jkelly80?
| jkelly80 wrote: |
| These guys were muscle they were hiring to crack down on laborers not sufficiently awed by all the stunning successes of neo-liberalism...they're paid to union-bust...AUC is just paid to do what AUC already does--torture[,] kill[,] and maim left[-]wing supporters --often guerillas -- in Colombia. Part of the left being trade unions. |
I am waiting for you to produce substantial and persuasive data to support this charge. Your only response is to repeat the allegation.
| jkelly80 wrote: |
| Chiquita was not simply accused. It admitted to dealing with AUC[,] FARC[,] and the ELN to USDOJ and was then fined. It knew in 2003 that AUC was receiving money even though it was on the terrorism list since 2001. |
I have not memorized every fact of this case, Jkelly80. But this indeed represents the gist of it as far as I know.
You make an unsupported leap and exceed the evidence by a long-shot, however.
| jkelly80 wrote: |
| Same old same old. A corporation's only social responsibility is to its stockholders, right? Developing middle[-]class consumption in Colombia is nearly impossible -- therefore no market to cultivate, therefore no real financial interest in the nation's stability, not to mention any moral one. |
I do not see what this more general, sweeping anticorporation allegation has to do with the more specific one regarding American corporations that you raised earlier.
You dislike and mistrust corporations. I understand that much. What I do not follow is how you go from this to your allegation that American corporations fund and direct Latin-American paramilitary "death-squads" to kill, maim, and torture trade-unionists and labor leaders all over the region.
How do you know this, Jkelly80?
Last edited by Gopher on Wed Jul 04, 2007 7:11 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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jkelly80
Joined: 13 Jun 2007
Location: you boys like mexico?
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| Posted: Wed Jul 04, 2007 6:59 pm Post subject: |
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| Not a leap a flavoring particle. Chiquita is cold hard evidence--unfortunately the US put a right wing Latin American group on the terrorism list and Chiquita found themselves in a politically untenable situation. No shit I distrust coroporations--there is ample evidence of their lack of concern for human life. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Wed Jul 04, 2007 7:29 pm Post subject: |
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| jkelly80 wrote: |
| I distrust coroporations--there is ample evidence of their lack of concern for human life. |
The same with humans.
I'm not defending 'corporations,' but I just love it when almost every publicly-owned enterprise gets painted with the same brush so effortlessly. |
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jkelly80
Joined: 13 Jun 2007
Location: you boys like mexico?
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| Posted: Wed Jul 04, 2007 8:23 pm Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
| jkelly80 wrote: |
| I distrust coroporations--there is ample evidence of their lack of concern for human life. |
The same with humans.
I'm not defending 'corporations,' but I just love it when almost every publicly-owned enterprise gets painted with the same brush so effortlessly. |
The Global GDP is roughly 66 trillion dollars. The combined revenue of the twenty largest corporations is about 3.5 trillion. Roughly 5%. Too much of a concentration of wealth leads to too much of a concentration of power.
I don't think the coroporate sector is monolithic either, but there are more than a few very large ones that act callously and wield undue influence. |
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jkelly80
Joined: 13 Jun 2007
Location: you boys like mexico?
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| Posted: Wed Jul 04, 2007 8:56 pm Post subject: |
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Would you suppress their lawyer's voice in such a debate as this, Jkelly80?
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Ah yes, the lawyers. Legally, yes innocent until proven guilty, but bull shit is bull shit right? Or maybe neither of us is wholly familiar with the situation? I'll admit that. Maybe it was money so the AUC could get on the bus to get to the unemployment office and stay with its sister? Can I prove that it wasn't? You got me there! Maybe AUC was going to buy a few ATM's and needed start up money. Maybe, now I have to prove it's not, right?
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I am waiting for you to produce substantial and persuasive data to support this charge. Your only response is to repeat the allegation.
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I do not personally possess any evidence. I have never been to Colombia nor have I worked for Chiquita banana. I have never used a Kalishnikov. I have never seen Lenin lying in state. I have never been to Central America, not to mention South America. I couldn't distinguish between a Colombian and Venezuelan variety of Spanish, nor am I familiar with the pre-Colombian linguistics of native tribes. There is ample evidence by various persons familiar with the goings on in Colombia in testimony before Congress given on June 28th of this year. In the interests of full disclosure, however, I have never been to the Capitol building, nor do I know what type of wood was used in the furniture. I do not know what kind of wood is considered ornamental in Bogota, Cali, or Medellin, and what is considered functional. I have not read the transcripts of the testimony before Congress. I am useless it seems. |
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