Unsanitized: Labor Repression in Mexico and Dangers in the COVID Workplace

Also, the testing problem. This is The COVID-19 Daily Report for July 10, 2020.

by

First Response

In a world without coronavirus, this would have been a big week for Trump’s re-election. He had planned to host the leaders of Mexico and Canada to celebrate the updated NAFTA agreement coming into force on July 1. Instead, Justin Trudeau didn’t show up and few paid attention to Andrés Manuel López Obrador showing up. Even fewer have paid attention to the fact that the new NAFTA (the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA), designed to improve labor rights in Mexico and therefore create a more level playing field for North American workers, appears doomed to not accomplish that goal.

Throughout Mexico, workers and worker advocates trying to assert the rights given through USMCA and in the country’s new labor law are being harassed, fired, and arrested. And coronavirus is being used as a smokescreen to facilitate these subjugations. Manufacturing wages in Mexico are 40 percent lower than wages in China, according to Public Citizen’s Lori Wallach, and the resistance from mostly U.S.-owned manufacturing sites along the border ensure that things will stay that way.

On Wednesday, Wallach hosted a remarkable event with Rep. Chuy Garcia (D-IL) and Susana Prieto Terrazas, whose story the Prospect has previously covered. Prieto, a labor attorney, was arrested and held for a month in a Matamoros prison for “leading a riot” at a labor court. In reality, it was a protest that Prieto didn’t attend. She was put in jail because she represents one of the first independent labor unions in Mexico, not the sham “protection unions” that the USMCA was supposed to eliminate. Prieto helped workers in Matamoros win wage hikes last year, and therefore she must be punished.

The main thing that Prieto was organizing at the time of her arrest was workplace and wage protections due to COVID-19. Most of the border manufacturing sites, known as maquiladoras, have not shut down or even slowed down their assembly lines. Masks or other protective equipment were not distributed, and travel on packed buses to the factories continued. Prieto alleged that 25 percent of workers in the maquiladoras have fallen ill, and “death has begun in Matamoros.”

Read all of our Unsanitized reports

So the maquiladora owners reacted to Prieto trying to assist workers in asserting their right not to be killed in a pandemic by throwing her in jail. After a month without release and international outcry, Prieto was finally let out on bail. However, under the stipulations of the order, she was banned from the state of Tamaulipas for 30 months and banished to Chihuahua, while being ordered to pay “reparations” to government officials (really) who were at the labor court protest. There are now warrants for her arrest in Chihuahua, and she expects to be hauled back into prison. This all violates the new Mexican labor law, but those are words on a page, a “fallacy” as Prieto puts it.

Prieto noted that, during her time in prison, she attempted to appeal on multiple occasions, but because the courts were closed due to COVID-19, she could not file the proper documents. Even now, the promised labor tribunals have not opened in the north of the country, where most of the maquiladoras are. “This political persecution against me, they planned it all, so during the pandemic I couldn’t use legal resources,” Prieto said.

So the maquiladoras ignore the coronavirus when it would impact their profits, but capitalize on it to carry out trumped-up charges that they know cannot be challenged. This tactic is likely replicated around the world, with authoritarians and big business using the pandemic to their advantage wherever possible. And because it has crowded out most official concerns, the cries of people like Susana Prieto are seldom heard.

“There’s little for people in either country to celebrate,” on USMCA, said Rep. Garcia. “The continuing threats against Susana Prieto are casting doubts on the prospect that the new NAFTA will deliver better labor conditions.” While López Obrador has nominal control of the federal government, he does not control the state law enforcement apparatus, still in the hands of right-wing officials conducting business as usual for the benefit of the maquiladoras, who are typically under control of U.S. ownership.

Protests and wildcat strikes continue at the Mexican border, as they have in the U.S., from workers unwilling to subject themselves to risk of COVID-19 on the job. Mexican workers have little recourse to assert their rights, and the USMCA doesn’t improve the picture. Prieto is planning to sue, saying that her arrest violated the new trade agreement. “My real crimes,” she said, “have been the defense of workers’ rights.”

This is Only a Test

Here in Los Angeles County testing was once open to everyone who requested one, but after requests surged amid the flood of new cases, it has now been restricted only to the sick. This has been a trend in surge areas of the country, and it still hasn’t been enough to keep up with demand. So we keep hearing stories about people waiting a week or two for test results.

This is really bad for a number of reasons. First, if someone doesn’t know they have tested positive for a week, they could be spreading the disease in their community or to their family members. It makes the entire concept of contact tracing impossible. Worse, it means that the statistics and curves derived from testing might not be showing what we think they’re showing. If a positive test today reflects a test taken a week or two ago, we don’t know if the spread is improving or worsening in real time. Mixing together tests from two days ago and six days ago and twenty days ago presents an artificial picture, and it makes it hard to know if certain interventions work. Finally, if some people are barred from being tested, we just know about less of the population in terms of spread.

Testing is most strained in areas with the biggest surges, which is obvious but also the worst possible outcome, because that’s where you need the most information. It’s worth sinking more effort into pooled testing, where you test 100 people at a time. If they all are negative, the test is negative, and you’ve accomplished with 1 test what you’d otherwise accomplish with 100. That could lower the strain on supplies and lab work. In the meantime, we are living with delays and restrictions. Which means we’re flying somewhat blind.

Days Without a Bailout Oversight Chair

105.

Today I Learned

You can count on the Prospect, can we count on you?

There's no paywall here. Your donations power our newsroom as we report on ideas, politics and power — and what’s really at stake as we navigate another presidential election year. Please, become a member, or make a one-time donation, today. Thank you!