Free Susana Prieto Terrazas NOW!
A Statement by the Puntorojo Editorial Collective
On Monday, June 8th, the lawyer and labor leader Susana Prieto Terrazas was detained and arrested in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico by the Tamaulipas State Police. The city of Matamoros is located along the Texas-Mexico border directly across from Brownsville, Texas. She is being falsely accused of “attacks against public servants, riots and threat and coercion of individuals” by the Attorney General of the State of Tamaulipas. She is really being targeted for organizing maquiladora workers and challenging the corrupt and venal “charro” unions that work with state and federal officials to repress the new worker’s movement in Mexico.
Susan Prieto Terrazas, along with the workers’ rank and file movement, played a key role in last year's wildcat strikes which won their two key demands: a 20 percent wage increase and a $32,000 MXN annual bonus.
The 2019 wildcat strikes were triggered by the Day Laborers, Industrial Workers, and Maquila Industries Union's (SJOIIM – Sindicato de Jornaleros y Obreros Industriales y de la Industria Maquiladora) failure to renegotiate 45 collective bargaining contracts with the maquiladora bosses. Another factor was a federal resolution to increase the minimum wage by 16 percent within the interior of the country while doubling the minimum wage along the newly established Free Zone of the Northern Border (ZLFN – Zona Libre de la Frontera Norte). However, the wage increase had little to no effect on maquiladora workers in the Gulf Coast city of Matamoros since they were already earning between $155 and $176 MXN per day. Moreover, the contracts discussed above contain a clause which stipulates that any percentage increase in the minimum wage be reflected in the salaries of all workers, including those who make above the minimum.
Initially, the workers of three maquila plants defied their union leadership but within a matter of days the wildcat strike spread to 45 maquiladora plants and saw the participation of more than 35,000 workers across the city of Matamoros. By January 24, it was reported that output from the maquiladora sector had declined by 35 percent — a loss of upwards of $100 million — sending shock waves through the industry. Historically, the federal government has sided with the bosses but last year Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) left it up to the conservative state government of Tamaulipas, headed by governor Francisco Javier Garcia Cabeza de Vaca, to repress the wildcat strikes.
The strength, organization, and unity of the workers movement thwarted overt repression. The enemies of Susana Prieto Terrazas and SNITIS has to bide their time.
The successful movement has since led to the formation of a new and authentic union movement, the National Independent Syndicate of Workers Industrial and Service Workers 20/32 (SNITIS – Sindicato Nacional Independiente de Trabajadores de Industrias y Servicios Movimiento 20/32).
Most recently, maquiladora workers who have been compelled to return to work by their US-based operators without protection from the spread of infection. SNITIS has been supporting workers who have protested or walked out in protest in order to save their own lives. With the consent of AMLO, the state governors of Tamaulipas, Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, and Nuevo León reopened hundreds of maquiladoras even though infection rates have spiked in the border region, characterizing the reopening of production for export as “essential.” In other words, securing profits for international capital is more essential than workers’ lives. Predictably, COVID-19 infections have been spreading among the workers.
Before and during the pandemic, SNITIS has been consistently growing and registering members, to the frustration and anger of the old guard of villainous CTM union bosses, US capitalist investors that profit from the super-exploitation of maquiladora workers, and the rightwing state governor Francisco García Cabeza de Vaca. They are now using the threat of safety strikes to crack down on Susana Prieto Terrazas and the SNITIS.
The maquiladora workers struggle in Mexico is linked to workers' struggles in the US, especially against COVID-19. By detaining and arresting labor lawyer Susana Prieto Terrazas the state government of Tamaulipas is once again clamping down on the Mexican working class, specifically those working within the maquiladora sector, which takes an especially morbid form at the time of COVID-19. Along with the ongoing rebellion for Black liberation it further illustrates how black and brown working class people are deemed disposable by both governments, in order to generate profits for transnational capitalists.
We call on our Latinx, Chicanx, Mexicanx, and transborder readership to act in solidarity and demand that Susana Prieto Terrazas be set free!
#TodosSomosSusana #SusanaPrietoLibre #libertadparasusanaya #susanalibreya
