Take Action to Ensure Full Investigation of FLOC Organizer’s Murder

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2007/04/16/take-action-to-ensure-full-investigation-of-floc-organizers-murder/

Take Action to Ensure Full Investigation of FLOC Organizer’s Murder

by James Parks, Apr 16, 2007

The brutal murder of Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) organizer Santiago Rafael Cruz in Monterrey, Mexico, last week shows the need for the union movement to continue its fight for justice for workers worldwide.

Witnesses who found the body say Cruz was tortured by more than one person and that the union’s office, which is located in the Mexican state of Nuevo Leon, showed no sign of forced entry or robbery. Since the Monterrey office opened in 2005 with support from the AFL-CIO’s Solidarity Center, FLOC has been constantly attacked in the media for “destabilizing” Mexican businesses. The office has been broken into several times, and union files and equipment have been destroyed. FLOC staff members have been threatened with deportation and violently intimidated.

FLOC President Baldemar Velasquez says the brutal nature of the murder in the FLOC offices in Monterrey indicates this killing has serious human rights implications for Mexican workers coming to work in the United States. A thorough investigation of Cruz’s murder is needed to reveal those forces involved in the abuses of “guest workers” bound for this country, particularly in the recruiting system, he says.

FULL article at link.