Leaders of 66 unions, worldwide, urge Mexico to protect labor rights
Open Letter to President Calderon Demands Robust Investigation into Murder of Leader of USA Farm Workers’ Union Letter to be published as full-page ad in La Jornada and La Reforma on Friday, September 9, 2011
At a press conference on September 8, FLOC President and AFL-CIO Vice President Baldemar Velasquez unveiled an Appeal for Justice to Mexican President C. Felipe Calderon from trade union leaders from 18 countries on six continents, which will appear in Mexican newspapers as an open letter to President Calderon on September 9.
Following the press conference, Velasquez, President of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, personally delivered the letter to President Calderon’s residence at the Presidencia Residencia Oficial de los Pinos.
The action by the union leaders grows out of rising concern over Mexican authorities’ failure to mount a vigorous investigation of the brutal murder of union leader Santiago Cruz. As the Appeal for Justice states, “On April 9, 2007, Santiago Rafael Cruz was bound with rope and beaten to death in the offices of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC, AFL CIO), in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, where he worked as an organizer. There can be no doubt that this assassination was a blatant act of intimidation meant to stop the union from aiding farm laborers. As representatives of trade union organizations on six continents, we feel grave concern for the lack of progress in the investigation of this brutal crime.”
“After the U.S. Border Patrol captured one of the suspected killers of trade union leader Santiago Cruz, the suspect was released by the Sonora police before he was prosecuted. We want to know why, we want to know who was the intellectual author of this crime. We want justice and we want trade union rights respected for Mexicans who work here and in the United States of America,” said FLOC President Velasquez. “President Calderon’s handling of this unsolved assassination is of deep concern to people of good will around the globe.”
(Photos, left to right: Leonel Rivero, FLOC's attorney in MX handling Santiago's case; Baldemar Velasquez, FLOC President; Epifania Cruz, Santiago's mother; Sandra Albicker, Centro de Derecho Humanos (Prodh). Below, Velasquez, Rivero, and Cruz deliver letter to President Calderon.)