Mexican garment workers form independent union

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SOCIALIST ACTION JANUARY 1988 Out of the Sept. 19, 1985, earthquake in Mexico City, in which 800 garment shops were destroyed and many garment workers were killed, emerged an independent democratic union of garment workers.

Faced with the disaster of the earthquake, thousands of previously unorganized women banded together to force the manufacturers and the government to give pensions to the victims' families and severance pay to displaced workers.

Their tactics included picketing the bosses' homes, sit-ins, and mass marches. Within a month after the earthquake, the government granted union recognition to the garment workers. Theirs was the first independent union to be recognized in 10 years.

Luz Vasquez Martinez, a national leader of the Garment Workers Union (September 19th), was interviewed by Socialist Action reporter Lita Blanc at the Fourth Feminist Conference of Latin America and the Caribbean held in Taxco, Mexico, in October 1987.

Socialist Action: How did the union emerge?

Luz Vasquez Martinez: The union was formed in the aftermath of the Sept. 19 earthquake. Before this time, we knew absolutely nothing about unions or organizing ourselves.

But with the earthquake, which brought tragedy to all of us, we saw the true face of the bosses. Rather than try to save those who were buried alive in the rubble, they were only concerned about getting their equipment and goods out of the destroyed factories. They ignored the cries of the trapped victims and simply abandoned them.

We could not accept this, and we feared for our jobs. We began to organize ourselves. We demanded machinery to dig out the earthquake victims, severance pay for displaced workers, and the reopening of our workplaces. On Oct. 20, 1985, after a march of 5000 garment workers, we demanded union recognition.

S.A.: Had you tried to win union recognition in the past?

Vasquez: Ten years ago, some compañeras had tried, but in Mexico it's not an easy thing. But in our case, the whole world was looking at Mexico. There was a lot of press coverage, and the plight of the garment workers go:

... Palestine (continued from pal amassed to defend the wounded, who, they rightfully feared, would never be seen again.

of rebellion "The youngsters in Gaza and the West Bank where riots erupted, "wrote Jerusalem Post correspondent Hirsh Goodman, "have not received any terrorist training, nor are they members of a terrorist organization. Rather, they are members of that Palestinian generation that grew up knowing nothing but occupation."

Indeed, in 1947, 54 percent of Palestine was handed to the Zionist colonizers, who constituted 29 percent of the population and who, until then, had succeeded in occupying but 6 percent of the land. Within six months, Zionist shock troops seized 75 percent of the land, driving nearly 1 million people into exile. Whole villages were prOCAMN ILE bry Ralph Schoenman Luz Vasquez Martinez massacred in an openly genocidal attempt to depopulate the country.

Of the 475 Palestinian towns and villages, 385 were razed to the ground— wiped off the face of the earth and from the map of Palestine published by the newly formed Israeli state.

The people of Gaza, driven from their land in 1948, were confined to an area of 130 square miles, 80 percent of them in refugee camps of mud huts.

Twenty years ago, in 1967, Israel seized the Gaza Strip and the West Bank and proceeded to confiscate the arable land and available water. About 2200 Zionist settlers, three-tenths of 1 percent of the population, own and occupy 40 percent of Gaza today—the arable and fertile part— while 650,000 Palestinians live in abject poverty.

A similar pattern exists on the West Bank, with its population of 750,000 Palestinians. Here Zionist settlers comprise 5 percent of the population and occupy over 50 percent of the most fertile lands.

Since 1967, when Israel seized the West Democracy in America: Fact and Fiction Dynamics of the Nicaraguan Revolution by Alan Benjamin and Jeff Mackler How Can Labor Fight Back? A Strategy for Today by Nat Weinstein and Carl Finamore South Africa: The Black Unions Go Forwar Toward a Socialist America:

What Socialist Action Stands For edited by Asher Harer The Meaning of Gorbachev's Reforms by Alan Benjamin The Legacy of Malcolm X by Joe Ryan, Nat Weinstein, and Kwame M.A. Somburu Marxism's Lessons for Today by Ann Robertson a lot of attention. All this created tremendous pressure on the government. Within 72 hours, on a Sunday, we were officially recognized as a union.

S.A.: What's the average size of the garment shops? Vasquez: In Mexico City, most of the shops have 10 to 20 workers. About 90 percent of the workers are women. There are also thousands of "clandestine"

Bank and Gaza, 350, 000 Palestinians have been imprisoned without any rights under sustained torture documented by The London Sunday Times, Amnesty International, and others.

This scale of repression has been essential to maintain what the deposed mayor of Gaza, Rashad Shawaa, has called "the Soweto of the Middle East."

U.S. patron's worried stance U.S. officials, worried about the support for the Palestinians throughout the Arab world, have called for Israeli restraint. But on Dec. 15, one week after the uprising was under way, Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin signed an agreement with U.S. Secretary of Defense Frank C.

Carlucci.

In a Los Angeles Times article titled, "U.S. upgrades Israel's status as an ally," it is reported that Israeli companies will now be allowed to bid for Pentagon contracts on an equal footing with American firms. This will give the Israeli state access to a range of U.S. weapons and military technology pamphlets!

Lessons of the P-9 Strike by Jake Cooper Philippines: Reform or Revolution? by Roberto Pumarada Everyday Life in Capitalist America by Hayden Perry Student Activism in the 1980g by Adam Wood and Suzanne Forsyth Lessons of Working Class Defeats: An Analysis of th Popular Fronts in Spain, Chile and Peru by Bill Wilner, Jeff Mackler, Alan Benjamin, et al.

Is the 'Rainbow' a Real Alternative: A Response by Shirley Pasholk, Joe Ryan, Kwame M.A. Somburu The Hidden History of Zionism by Ralph Schoenman Stock Market Crash: Its Meaning for Working People by Emest Mandel, Nat Weinstein, et al. sweatshops where workers have no rights at all. In addition, there are countless seamstresses who do "home work."

S.A.: Have you tried to organize those who are working at home?

Vasquez: We have contact with some, but because of their isolation it's extremely difficult to organize them.

S.A.: How were things different after the union was recognized?

Vasquez: Our first demand was that the families of the victims be paid a pension. Then we began to actually organize ourselves as workers. We have obtained 13 collective-bargaining agreements.

S.A.: What are the most important aspects of these agreements?

Vasquez: In the past, compañeras with as many as 20 years' seniority did not get social security, vacation, or any other benefits. We won these rights. We did away with the 12-hour workday. We now have an eight-hour day with a guaranteed minimum wage.

S.A.: What else have you been fighting for?

Vasquez: We're now demanding better working conditions, adequate light, and clean bathrooms. We're also fighting to have maternity-leave rights respected.

S.A.: Have you taken up any other issues which affect garment workers as women?

Vasquez: We have been fighting sexual harassment as well as the pregnancy test which the bosses make you take before they hire you.

S.A.: What is this test?

Vasquez: In order to get work, you have to have a doctor's statement that you are not pregnant. Even though the bosses don't have the legal right to ask such a thing, you have to go along if you want work.

To this day if a compañera begins to question these things, she can be fired. Some workers who are real fighters have been blacklisted and can't get work anywhere.

S.A.: How many women are organized in your Vasquez: We have 5000 members, of whom 2500 have already won collective-bargaining agreements. The seed of organization has been planted.

S.A.: What impact do you think the struggle of the garment workers has had on the Mexican movement as a whole?

Vasquez: I think we've shown that if women who between work and family life are so overworked, so exhausted, and oppressed by husbands who won't even let them go out by themselves—if women are able to wage a struggle to better their lives, why can't the men? We've set an example.

that has been restricted up until now.

This is only the latest manifestation of U.S. support to the Zionist state. In fact, Israel is a totally artificial and dependent state that would crumble tomorrow were it not for the aid and loans provided by the U.S. government. U.S. economic and military aid in 1988 will exceed $3 billion. Palestinians not subdued Despite the Israeli state's terrorist violence, the Palestinian people have not been subdued.

A mother of a Palestinian man shot three times in the head by Israeli soldiers was asked by New York Times correspondent John Kifner if she would let her remaining sons join the demonstrations. "As long as I am alive," she responded, "I am going to teach the young people to fight... I don't care whatever happens, as long as we get our land."

Deposed Mayor Rashad Shawaa expressed the same sentiment: "The youth have lost hope that Israel will ever give them their rights. They feel the Arab countries are unable to accomplish anything. They feel that the PLO has failed to achieve a thing." Los Angeles Times correspondent Dan Fisher's account is even more significant. "This new-found sense of unity has been one of the most striking changes to foreign observers and non-Gaza Palestinians," Fisher writes. "It is a phenomenon that extends to previous divisions between young and old and between those who work in Israel and those who do not." "A pamphlet circulated throughout the Gaza Strip, " Fisher continues, "bears this out. 'Real religion is based on revolution, the pamphlet reads. It urges in words of classic communism, 'Workers of Palestine Unite!' It is signed Jihad Islam."

The kidnappings, torture, detention, and deportation ordered by the Israeli leaders— all of them close allies of the United States-will not staunch the vast tide of revolutionary struggle unleashed by the long-suffering and now self-activating masses of Palestine.

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