IN MEXICO, A NEW DAWN FOR INDEPENDENT UNIONS?
By David Bacon
NACLA Report on the Americas, 7/2019
https://davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com/2019/08/in-mexico-new-dawn-for-independent.html
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10714839.2019.1650507
In his speech to Mexican Congress during his December 1, 2018 inauguration, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador charged that 36 years of neoliberal economic reforms had lowered the purchasing power of Mexico's minimum wage (now worth about $4 U.S. per day) by 60 percent. "Neoliberal economic policy has been a disaster, a calamity for the public life of the country," he charged. "During the neoliberal period we became the country with the second highest rate of migration in the world-24 million Mexicans, living and working in the United States... We will put aside the neoliberal hypocrisy. Those born poor will not be condemned to die poor."
At the end of April of this year the new government took one step toward undoing this neoliberal inheritance, when the Chamber of Deputies and then the Senate passed a labor law reform bill proposed by López Obrador's party, the National Regeneration Movement (MORENA).
Workers and independent and progressive unions in Mexico have high hopes that the new government will undo many of the policies that have tilted the economic and political playing field sharply toward corporations. Labor law reform is just one component of such a process, but the debate around it highlights the extent to which conditions for workers and unions have deteriorated in three decades, and their impatience to reverse course.
People greet the inauguration of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
The new labor reform deals primarily with the rights of unions and the workers that comprise them. For more than half a century, a set of established, conservative ("charro") unions have been tied to the government and the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), which ruled for most of that time. In return for political support, "charro" leaders held office sometimes for life, with no accountability to their members. Labor boards made up of representatives of conservative unions, employers, and a pro-employer government made it extremely difficult for workers to form independent organizations. In thousands of workplaces, "charro" unions and employers negotiated secret "protection" contracts guaranteeing labor peace. Whenever workers would try to organize independently to win better wages and conditions, employers would usually claim a "protection" union already represented them, which would pose an enormous legal obstacle to the workers in any attempts to establish their own unions.
In the quarter century since the negotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), however, independent and progressive unions have grown despite the obstacles. The strength of the old unions, meanwhile, appears increasingly hollow as their membership declines.
[. . .]
David Bacon is a California writer and photographer, and former union organizer. He has written about Mexican labor and politics for 30 years. He is the author of The Children of NAFTA (UC Press, 2004), The Right to Stay Home (Beacon Press, 2013), and most recently In the Fields of the North / En los campos del norte (Colegio de la Frontera Norte and UC Press, 2017).
Exhibition Schedule
Exhibitions of photographs are scheduled for the following venues and dates:
In the Fields of the North / En los campos del norte
Scheduled exhibitions:
Exhibition Schedule
Exhibitions of photographs are scheduled for the following venues and dates:
In the Fields of the North / En los campos del norte
Scheduled exhibitions:
September 1, 2019 - December 22, 2019
Hi-Desert Nature Museum, Yucca Valley
January 5, 2020 - March 1, 2020
Community Memorial Museum of Sutter County, Yuba City
March 15, 2020 - June 21, 2020
Los Altos History Museum, Los Altos
March 21, 2021 - May 23, 2021
Carnegie Arts Center, Turlock
In Washington’s Fields
Scheduled exhibition:
February 5, 2020 - July 15, 2020
Washington State History Museum, Tacoma, WA
More Than a Wall - The Social Movements of the Border
Scheduled exhibition:
August 29,, 2020 - November 29,, 2020
San Francisco Public Library
Deportations
Scheduled exhibition:
April 10, 2020 - May 1, 2020
Uri-Eichen Gallery, Chicago IL
In the Fields of the North / En los Campos del Norte
Photographs and text by David Bacon
University of California Press / Colegio de la Frontera Norte
302 photographs, 450pp, 9”x9”
paperback, $34.95 (in the U.S.)
order the book on the UC Press website:
ucpress.edu/9780520296077
use source code 16M4197 at checkout, receive a 30% discount
En Mexico se puede pedir el libro en el sitio de COLEF:
https://www.colef.mx
Los Angeles Times reviews In the Fields of the North / En los Campos del Norte - clickhere
En los campos del Norte documenta la vida de trabajadores agrícolas en Estados Unidos -
Entrevista con el Instituto Nacional de la Antropologia y Historia
http://www.inah.gob.mx/es/boletines/6863-en-los-campos-del-norte-documenta-la-vida-de-trabajadores-agricolas-en-estados-unidos
Entrevista en la television de UNAM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdSaBKZ_k0o
David Bacon comparte su mirada del trabajo agrícola de migrantes mexicanos en el Museo Archivo de la Fotografia
http://www.cultura.cdmx.gob.mx/comunicacion/nota/0038-18
Trabajo agrícola, migración y resistencia cultural: el mosaico de los “Campos del Norte”
Entrevista de David Bacon por Iván Gutiérrez / A los 4 Vientos
http://www.4vientos.net/2017/10/04/trabajo-agricola-migracion-y-resistencia-cultural-el-mosaico-de-los-campos-del-norte/
"Los fotógrafos tomamos partido"
Entrevista por Melina Balcázar Moreno - Milenio.com Laberinto
http://www.milenio.com/cultura/laberinto/david_baconm-fotografia-melina_balcazar-laberinto-milenio_0_959904035.html
Das Leben der Arbeiterschaft auf Ölplattformen des Irak
http://www.nrhz.de/flyer/beitrag.php?id=25973
Die Kunst der Grenze
http://www.nrhz.de/flyer/beitrag.php?id=24304Notruf für "eine andere Welt"
http://www.nrhz.de/flyer/beitrag.php?id=24087
Die Apfel-Pflücker aus dem Yakima-Tal
http://www.nrhz.de/flyer/beitrag.php?id=23990
"Documenting the Farm Worker Rebellion"
"The Radical Resistance to Immigration Enforcement"
Havens Center lectures, University of Wisconsin, click here
San Francisco Commonweallth Club presentation by David Bacon and Jose Padilla, clickhere
EN LOS CAMPOS DEL NORTE: Farm worker photographs on the U.S./Mexico border wall
http://us7.campaign-archive2.com/?u=fc67a76dbb9c31aaee896aff7&id=0644c65ae5&e=dde0321ee7
Entrevista sobre la exhibicion con Alfonso Caraveo (Español)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJeE1NO4c_M&feature=youtu.beTHE REALITY CHECK - David Bacon blog
http://davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com
Cat Brooks interview on KPFA about In the Fields of the North
https://kpfa.org/player/?audio=263826 - Advance the time to 33:15
Book TV: A presentation of the ideas in The Right to Stay Home at the CUNY Graduate Center
http://booktv.org/Watch/14961/The+Right+to+Stay+Home+How+US+Policy+Drives+Mexican+Migration.aspx
Other Books by David Bacon
The Right to Stay Home: How US Policy Drives Mexican Migration (Beacon Press, 2013)
http://www.beacon.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=2328
Illegal People -- How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants (Beacon Press, 2008)
Recipient: C.L.R. James Award, best book of 2007-2008
http://www.beacon.org/Illegal-People-P780.aspx
Communities Without Borders (Cornell University/ILR Press, 2006)
http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100558350
The Children of NAFTA, Labor Wars on the U.S./Mexico Border (University of California, 2004)
http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520244726
En Español:
EL DERECHO A QUEDARSE EN CASA (Critica - Planeta de Libros)
http://www.planetadelibros.com.mx/el-derecho-a-quedarse-en-casa-libro-205607.html
HIJOS DE LIBRE COMERCIA (El Viejo Topo)
http://www.tienda.elviejotopo.com/prestashop/capitalismo/1080-hijos-del-libre-comercio-deslocalizaciones-y-precariedad-9788496356368.html?search_query=david+bacon&results=1
For more articles and images, see http://dbacon.igc.org and http://davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com
and https://www.flickr.com/photos/56646659@N05/albums
Recipient: C.L.R. James Award, best book of 2007-2008
http://www.beacon.org/Illegal-People-P780.aspx
Communities Without Borders (Cornell University/ILR Press, 2006)
http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100558350
The Children of NAFTA, Labor Wars on the U.S./Mexico Border (University of California, 2004)
http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520244726
En Español:
EL DERECHO A QUEDARSE EN CASA (Critica - Planeta de Libros)
http://www.planetadelibros.com.mx/el-derecho-a-quedarse-en-casa-libro-205607.html
HIJOS DE LIBRE COMERCIA (El Viejo Topo)
http://www.tienda.elviejotopo.com/prestashop/capitalismo/1080-hijos-del-libre-comercio-deslocalizaciones-y-precariedad-9788496356368.html?search_query=david+bacon&results=1
For more articles and images, see http://dbacon.igc.org and http://davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com
and https://www.flickr.com/photos/56646659@N05/albums
