Voces de la Frontera
1027 S. 5 th St.
Milwaukee, WI 53204
414-643-1620 info@vocesdelafrontera.net
www.vocesdelafrontera.net

• Mission
– Community based organization
– Organize to protect and improve the lives of low wage and immigrant workers

• Services
– Citizenship classes
– English classes
– Legal clinic
– Labor Rights Workshops
– Leadership development
– Referrals to community resources and agencies
– Health & Safety counseling with
OSHA

The way our global economy is structured
− First year of NAFTA in Mexico: 80,000 manufacturing jobs created and one million agricultural jobs lost
− Since then, 2 million small farmers forced out of work due to subsidized US agribusiness exports
− Around 28,000 small and medium-sized businesses have been eliminated due to
Mega-retailers (such as Wal-Mart) moving into
Mexican market(3)
NAFTA passed in 1994

• Currently, 2,826 maquiladoras, US owns
79%. 300,000 manufacturing jobs at US multinational companies in Mexico moved to China (2003). (4)
• No enforcement labor, safety regulations or environmental standards for U.S manufacturing factories. (5)
• 19 million more Mexicans living in poverty today than in 1994 (6)
•Forced migration: 2.5 million Mexican undocumented in 1995; as of 2006, an additional 8 million crossed the border. (7)

• No motivation in Mexico to change the country
• EZLN
• Civic campaigns for democratic elections (8)
• UNT –national independent union federation (9)
“Today we say enough! …we call on all our brothers and sisters to join us on the only path that will allow us to escape starvation caused by the insatiable ambition of a seventy-year-old dictatorship… ready to sell out our country.”
New Year’s Day
1994—
Declaration of the
Lacandonal
Jungle by
Subcomandante
Marcos of the
EZLN on the day of the signing of
NAFTA

– Since NAFTA, 2.5 million manufacturing jobs were lost nationwide in the US. (10)
– Wisconsin was one of the 10 worst hit states as a total share of jobs losing 25,403 jobs and counting.
(11)
– According to DOL, two years after losing their jobs: 1/3 held new jobs that paid as well, 1/3 earned 15-
20% less, 1/3 dropped out of labor force (12)

– More than 38,000 US small farms have gone out of business as a result of NAFTA and overall US farm income has declined (13)
– In Canada, a decade of competition with the United
States is eroding social investment in public spending on education, unemployment compensation, and other public services. (13)

• Average CEO in US earned
262 times the wages of the average worker. (14)
• 1965- 24X
• 1975 28X
• 1985 52X
• 1995 100X
• 2005 262X

• Immigrants take jobs from
American workers
• 4.5% unemployment in US(15)
• States with higher concentration of undocumented have lower unemployment (16)
• Create jobs (17)
The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie -deliberate, contrived and dishonest -but the myth -persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.
–John F.
Kennedy

• Immigrants don’t pay taxes
• Contribution to Social Security:
$189 billion worth of wages recorded in the suspense file over the 1990's, two and a half times the amount of the 1980's.
(18)
• $7 billion in annual Social Security tax revenue and about $1.5 billion in Medicare taxes. (19)
"Our assumption is that about threequarters of otherthan-legal immigrants pay payroll taxes," said Stephen C.
Goss, Social
Security's chief actuary, using the agency's term for illegal immigration.

140
120
100
Billions annually
80
60
40
20
0
Contribute
Receive

• Increased border patrol is the solution
– From ’86-’98, border patrol’s budget increased six-fold & number of agents stationed at border doubled to 8,500 while undocumented immigration population doubled at same time.
During 80s apprehension rate was 33%, in 2002 it was 5%
– Since 1995, the number of dead on the border has doubled from 254 in 1998 to
472 in 2005
“We must learn to live together as brothers
[and sisters] or perish together as fools.”
–Martin
Jr.

• Armed Vigilantes
– Bodies found with gunshot wounds or bludgeoned
“If our government doesn’t help us boot
‘em,
I guess we’ll just have to up and shoot
‘em!”

• Companies such as Halliburton,
GE, Lockheed, Boeing
• For profit prisons: Corrections
Corporation of America, the Geo
Group, and Texas based Cornell
• Politicians with shares in companies that benefit from the criminalization and detention of the undocumented.
“we’re asking you to come back and tell us how to do our business…We’ re inviting you to tell us how to run our organization.”
Deputy Director of
DHS, Michael
Jackson speaking to more than 400 defense contractors and industrialists,
Jan. 25, 2006

• We have a discriminatory quota system from certain countries
• Work visas primarily for well educated immigrants
• Prior legal channels of migration have been taken away by
Congress
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights; that among these, are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” –Declaration of Independence

• Legal channels for migration to address the current population & future flows
• Fix the broken immigration system in a way that is family centered and realistic
• Enforceable environmental & labor protections for trade agreements (NAFTA & CAFTA)
• Strong labor protections regardless of immigration status

• Become an active member of VF
• Attend town halls
• Refer VF for speaking engagements
• Contact community leaders & legislators
• Vote
• Participate in rallies and marches
• Write editorials to the paper
• Make a donation
• Host a movie and discussion
• Participate in a border tour
• Become active in your labor union
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
-Martin Luther
King, Jr.

•
•
•
(2) Randall Pinkston, “Is NAFTA good for Mexico’s farmers?,” CBS Evening News, July 1, 2006 http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/07/01/eveningnews/main1773839.shtml
(3) Jose Maria Imaz, “NAFTA Damages Small Businesses,” El Barzon (Mexico City), Jan. 1997
(4) Ellen Lenny-Pessagno, “ Mexican Manufacturing Devours U.S. Goods ,” U.S. Commercial Service, Mexico , http://www.buyusa.gov/pittsburgh/mexmanufacturing.html
David Bacon, “Anti-China Campaign Hides Maquiladora Wage Cuts”, February 03, 2003 http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=2949
(5) Human Rights Watch, “TRADING AWAY RIGHTS: The Unfulfilled Promise of NAFTA's Labor Side Agreement,” April 2001 http://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/nafta/index.htm#TopOfPage
Garrett Brown, Speak Out: Portrait of a Failure, NAFTA and Workplace Health and Safety , The Synergist – Monthly magazine of the
American Industrial Hygiene Association, August 2004 http://mhssn.igc.org/brown_synergist.htm
Sierra Club, “NAFTA's Investor Rights: a Threat to the Environment and our Democracy” http://www.sierraclub.org/trade/nafta/backgrounder.asp
(6) Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan, “Trade Brings Riches, but Not to Mexico’s Poor,” Washington Post , March 22, 2003 http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/ffd/2003/0322mexico.htm
(7) Roger Bybee Carolyn Winter, “Immigration Flood Unleashed by NAFTA’s Disastrous Impact on Mexican Economy, Common
Dreams News Center, April 5, 2006 http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0425-30.htm
Jacob Hill, “Free Trade Immigration: Cause and Effect”, Council on Hemispheric Affairs, July 18, 2007 http://www.coha.org/2007/07/18/free-trade-and-immigration-cause-and-effect
(8) Democracy Now interview, Mexico Court Declares Calderon Winner of Disputed Election, Lopez Obrador Vows to Form
Parallel Gov't, September 6th, 2006 http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/09/06/1359233
(9) Dan La Botz, “THE FOUNDING OF THE UNT: A PROGRESSIVE STEP FOR MEXICAN LABOR,” Mexican Labor News and Analysis,
December 5, 1997, Vol. II, No. 22 http://www.ueinternational.org/vol2no22.html
(10) Timi Gerson, Raul Islas, Fiona Wright, and Adalila Zelada, LCLAA and Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, “Another Americas is Possible: The Impact of NAFTA on the US Latino Community and Lessons for Future Agreements,” August 2004
(11) Robert E. Scott, Carlos Salas, Bruce Campbell, Revisiting NAFTA: Still Not Working for North America’s Workers, Economic
Policy Institute, September 28, 2006, Briefing Paper #173 http://www.epinet.org/briefingpapers/173/bp173.pdf
(12) USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, “Farms and Lands in Farms 2002,” Feb. 2003, p. 191.