Articles by David Bacon

Source: The Nation

They’re peacefully resisting US-style neoliberal measures intended to crush the unions—a backbone of Mexico’s social-justice movements.

Update: On Sunday, June 19, federal police in Oaxaca fired on teachers and supporters in the Mixteca town of Nochixtlán, killing at least four and wounding 30 more.  Another was killed in Hacienda Blanca, near Oaxaca City, according to the press service AIPIN, which also reported that people were refused care at the hospital in Nochixtlán.  The federal government continues to refuse to talk with the CNTE.

On Sunday night, June 12, as Ruben Nuñez, head of Oaxaca’s teachers union, was leaving a meeting in Mexico City, his car was overtaken and stopped by several large king-cab pickup trucks. Heavily armed men in civilian clothes exited and pulled him, another teacher, and a taxi driver from their cab, and then drove them at high speed to the airport. Nuñez was immediately flown over a thousand miles north to Hermosillo, Sonora, and dumped into a high-security federal lockup. read more

Source: New American Media

As families celebrated Thanksgiving and Christmas, farmworkers across the country who help harvest the food that was prepared this holiday season continue to struggle under bitter working and living conditions. Jose Lopez comes from the Mixteco town of Jicayan de Tovar in Guerrero. He’s worked in the fields for 10 years, but makes so little that he has to borrow money to pay his bills, and has almost none left over to send to his family in Mexico. He told his story to New American Media associate editor David Bacon. read more

Source: Truthout

Iraqi oil workers are the backbone of the industry that produces most of their country’s wealth. And since the US invasion and fall of Saddam Hussein, they’ve also organized its strongest and most vocal union. They’ve shut their industry down in the past, successfully challenging Halliburton during the US occupation and forcing it to leave Iraq. To try to stop Iraq’s government from signing unfavorable contracts virtually handing over the oil to foreign transnational corporations, they shut off the oil spigots again after the US withdrew. read more

Source: In These Times

Many Iraqi oil workers thought the fall of Saddam Hussein would mean they would finally be free to organize unions, and that their nationally owned industry would be devoted to financing the reconstruction of the country. But the reality could not have been more different. Earlier this month, the head of the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions, Hassan Juma’a (below right), was hauled into a Basra courtroom and accused of organizing strikes, a charge for which he could face prison time. The union he heads is still technically illegal: Saddam’s ban on public-sector unions was the sole Saddam-era dictate kept in place under the U.S. occupation, and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki hasn’t shown any interest in changing it since most U.S. troops left. read more

Source: In These Times

As the Mexican Senate tried to convene last week, unionists, youth protesters from the #YoSoy132 movement and social activists of every stripe blocked the chamber’s doors, trying to prevent legislators from meeting to consider the reforma laboral. On October 2, tens of thousands marched from the Tlatelolco (Plaza of Three Cultures), where hundreds of students were shot down by Mexican Army troops on the same date in 1968, to the Zocalo at the city center. Reverberating chants signaled an equally massive rejection of this deeply unpopular proposal. read more

Source: Truthout

The Colombia Free Trade Agreement opens Colombia to foreign corporations and investment, creating an improved environment for the exploitation of natural resources and labor. Union leaders, activists, farmers, indigenous and Afro-Colombian peoples are paying the price – in blood.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has restarted talks with the country’s main guerilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) – for which he’s received laudatory press outside of the country, and a more cautious response inside it. read more