by Aileen Montour

This year I was fortunate to be part of a 10 member delegation of UU’s traveling to Mexico to see first hand the effects of economic globalization, learn about the trade labor movement, build cross-border alliances, deepen my understanding of UU faith in action and explore the Action/Study/Reflection process of "Liberation Theology". This experience would also help to prepare us for this year’s GA and the Statement of Conscience on Economic Globalization. We were from congregations throughout New England, New York and the Mid-West: our trip leader was Bob Alpern from California; our translator, Brenda Cotto-Escalera.

We were met upon arrival and escorted for the week by some of the leaders of the Mexican labor movement, FAT (Frente Autentico del Trabajo—with union, agricultural and craft co-operative sectors), primarily Erick Quesnel with his wife Juana Maria and 10 year old daughter Alicia.

The first day started early at the FAT headquarters, where we were to learn about organizing in Mexico and the history of unions and labor laws in Mexico. It turns out that while every worker has a union by law, most of these unions are government created mostly to ensure that no real union can organize the workers. Labor law is dictated by business organizations. FAT seeks to convert workers who have been shaped in an abusive world of limited expectations into workers who fully realize that it is their right as human beings to be able to live a life of dignity in a fully democratic environment.

We heard testimony from gas station workers who are struggling to organize with the help of FAT. These workers receive no salary, only tips, are required to sell a daily quota of gas additives (or pay for them from their tips at the end of the day), may be forced to work on the owner’s private home after hours and are subject to sexual abuse, often assaulted or fired for complaining or organizing. After sharing a lunch of tamales with these workers to celebrate the anniversary of the post revolutionary constitution, we went to one of the gas stations that had recently voted successfully to organize and to hear their courageous personal stories. The workers we met with were grateful for our listening, learning about their plight and offering our support.

After 2 days of visits, tours and labor studies at the FAT office, we left for Temamatla, a nearby village where the RORAC Foundation, of which FAT is a member, is located. RORAC is working to bring some economic hope to people who have been displaced by the Mexican economy and with colonies of people whose common land has been sold forcing them to re-form around the city. Some of their efforts include craft co-operatives; work with people in a rural community to build cisterns to collect rain water for crop irrigation during the dry season, build waterless toilets, support a women’s co-operative to build and run a local bakery. We were welcomed into this community and after sharing lunch, we toured their village and viewed the proposed site of the bakery. I’ve just learned that they already have the baking room and the furnace. Dolores Millan Pedrosa(Dona Lola), la presidenta of the co-operative and the auxiliary nurse/midwife of the community, was taking a baking course to learn how to make good bread.

While at Temamatla, we heard lectures from Dr. Alberto Arroyo, an economics professor and specialist in the problems of globalization. NAFTA has devastated Mexico for several major reasons:

• The U.S. is dumping cheap, government subsidized agricultural products at below cost on Mexico, driving farmers off their land.
• Under revisions made to the constitution for NAFTA, goods manufactured in Mexico no longer have to be made with some Mexican components. Mexican suppliers are bankrupted as trans-national corporations provide their own parts, duty and tax free.
• Mexico’s main export is cheap labor and even that is declining. In the 9 years to 2002, Maquiladora employment has declined 9% while production has increased by 56%. Real salaries declined by 39%. The reality is there is no money, few jobs for Mexicans in Mexico. The Mexican economy is supported by the labor that crosses the border illegally.
• Constitutional reform of 1992 demanded by the NAFTA agreement repealed the article that granted common land to villages that could not be sold or divided and only inherited collectively. The idea was to attract business by making land available for rent or sale, but resulted in displacing whole communities.

Back in Mexico City we met with Jesus Camposlinos, President of the Council of Arbitration, and a friend of FAT, who is concerned with the rising rate of unemployment, falling wages and the weakening of labor unions. He is working to undo the influence of years of corruption and trying to publish contracts to make the process more transparent and just.

Berta Elena Lujan Uranga, Chief Financial Oversight Officer for the government of Mexico City and former FAT organizer, told us more about the increasing resistance and uprisings not only of the poor peasants but also the middle class farmers as a result of the predicted negative effects of the free trade treaties now coming to fruition: more than 10 million illegal immigrants to the U.S., thousands of farmers and peasants in bankruptcy, people from the countryside in a battle for survival (25 million in the poorest areas of the peasant communities). The free trade policies have not brought better work conditions for the people in Mexico, but only more dependence on the U.S. and Canada.

"How have you loved God through the poor" and asking in every situation "What is an option for the poor" were the questions raised by Samuel Ruiz, the retired Bishop of Chiapas in a session that lasted hours and was most moving and inspiring. We learned about the Action/Reflection/Theory process of Liberation Theology and his experiences in Chiapas. While I had never heard this version of theology in my Catholic past, his expressed belief that orthopraxy, or what you do, is far more important than orthodoxy, what you believe, really resonated with my current UU values. Direct experience of seeing and living how the poor live makes the difference. To move UU’s to more activism, we must stand and work with the poor, not just giving money and reading about it. We can have the power of the community of faith in the world, or faith in action to help bring about the kind of world in which we wish to live.

By the end of our time in Mexico, it had become too obvious and apparent that the free trade treaties and government policies that support them have come at the sacrifice of rights and opportunities for the citizens and workers and of democracy itself. Business at any cost leads to abuse of the powerless and great benefits only for some very large corporations.

What can UU’s do? Become informed. Support and understand the statement of conscience that was approved at this year’s GA. Look for quality of life indicators that help detect and monitor the problems in other countries and here at home. Oppose other free trade agreements under negotiation: CAFTA and FTAA. Come to the Ministerial in Miami in November or sign up for the next UUJEC study trip to Mexico in February 2004.