Workers In The Mexican City Of Matamoros Strike For Higher Pay - And Win
In a rare victory for labor unions in Mexico, factory workers in the border city of Matamoros are receiving salary increases in the wake of a strike, and because of actions by Mexico’s new president.
The decline of unions in the U.S. is well-documented, but it’s worse in Mexico. There, so-called “ghost unions” formed by businesses themselves, rather than by workers, often exploit new hires. And even where real unions are established, workers often earn around a dollar an hour or less.
Mark Stevenson is the Mexico bureau reporter for the Associated Press. He says the protests were triggered by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s decision to double the minimum wage for people living along the border, as of Jan. 1.
“Andrés Manuel López Obrador never intended for this to spark labor activism or anything like that,” Stevenson says. “He just wanted to help the really low-wage workers.”
Read more: http://www.texasstandard.org/stories/workers-in-the-mexican-city-of-matamoros-strike-for-higher-pay-and-win/
