Arrest of Mexican labor activist raises concerns for worker rights
JUNE 9, 2020 / 7:47 PM / UPDATED AN HOUR AGO
Daina Beth Solomon
2 MIN READ
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Labor rights advocates in Mexico called on Tuesday for the release of activist Susana Prieto after her arrest on a charge of threatening public officials, raising questions about worker protections ahead of a new North American trade deal.
Prieto, a labor lawyer, organized strikes last year at several dozen manufacturers in the northern border city of Matamoros in Tamaulipas state, urging better wages.
A central aim of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), which will take effect on July 1, is to improve labor rights and union independence in Mexico.
In recent weeks, Prieto, who has criticized traditional union leadership, has led protests at factories that she has accused of not taking proper measures to protect workers from the coronavirus.
More:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-mexico-labor/arrest-of-mexican-labor-activist-raises-concerns-for-worker-rights-idUSKBN23H02P?rpc=401&
Two winners:
Francisco Javier García Cabeza de Vaca
Governor of Tamaulipas, Mexico
with former President Peña Nieto
Wikipedia:
García was born in Brownsville, Texas [3] and holds dual US and Mexican citizenship;[1] he graduated from McAllen Memorial High School. His family owns Maquinados Industriales de Reynosa and Desarrolladora Cava, companies that have provided service to such clients as Pemex, Caminos y Puentes Federales (CAPUFE), and the National Water Commission (CONAGUA).[4] At the age of 12, he competed as a track and field athlete, the 1979 Tamaulipas state champion.[2] As a result, he was sent to the National Athletic Tournament in Monterrey representing his home state. He received undergraduate degrees in business administration and branding from Houston Baptist University; while at HBU, he played on the school's soccer team.[2] García would also obtain a master's degree from the Universidad de Monterrey[2] and a diploma in project management from a business school in Barcelona.[citation needed]
In the late 1990s, García joined the PAN and began his political career. He served as a regional coordinator for the 1998 Tamaulipas gubernatorial election, and in 2000, he coordinated the Organización Amigos de Fox A.C. Zona Norte de Tamaulipas and was a member of the Consejo Estatal Amigos de Fox, both organizations devoted to the presidential campaign of Vicente Fox.[2] That same year, voters sent him to the LVIII Legislature, where he served as the secretary of the Commission on Population, Borders and Migratory Matters and sat on two work commissions. In 2004, García became a national councilor for the PAN, a position he would hold until 2013.
Around this time, García founded Productos Chamoyada, S.A. de C.V., a Reynosa-based company devoted to the creation of confectionery products. In November 2009, the United States Food and Drug Administration circulated Import Alert 33-12, ordering the seizure of all hard and soft candies containing sweet peppers that Chamoyada and other companies attempted to export into the United States.[5] The alert was issued because a 1997 inspection of similar sweets by the FDA's Dallas Division found them to contain "rodent filth and insect filth".[6]
. . .
Effective January 29, 2016, García resigned from the Chamber of Deputies in order to pursue the governorship of Tamaulipas.[7]
During the elections, a video attributed to Anonymous was released claiming that García owned a variety of undeclared properties, including a $2.5 million home in an exclusive Mexico City golf club allegedly acquired in 2015.[8] The Party of the Democratic Revolution claimed that in three municipalities, organized crime threatened all the political parties and ordered them to support García Cabeza de Vaca's election.[9]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Javier_Garc%C3%ADa_Cabeza_de_Vaca
This man's government appears to be after the essential labor activist Susana Prieto.
Best wishes to a person of conscience. Hope she will endure.
