Tijuana Maquiladora Tour: April 5

Tijuana Maquiladora Tour
Come to learn about Tijuana communities and workers'
conditions and struggles!

Saturday, April 5, 2014
9 am to 3 pm 

– Important Notice:

·         Citizens returning from Mexico should present an U.S. passport. (Otherwise, they need an official ID, birth certificate, and waiting in line when returning to the U.S. for a period of time to be decided by the border gate officer.) More information: the U.S. State Dept. web site: US Citizens - Documents needed for entry into the U.S..

·         All tour participants must read the US travel alert to Mexico and sign the tour waiver. Please click here to get the Tour waiver.  

– Tour Schedule (There may be slight variations from tour to tour.)

·      9:00 am sharp- San Ysidro. Additional information about the meeting place will be provided.

·      9:15 am- The crosses at the border: More than 7,000 immigrants have died trying to cross the border since 1994, when NAFTA was imposed.

·      9:30 am- Otay Industrial Park, Sanyo and other maquiladoras: workers’ labor conditions, labor rights and struggles 

NOTE: We will visit the Tijuana industrial area but won’t enter any factory.

·      11:15 am- Metales y Derivados: maquiladoras, distorted urban development and wild industrialization in Tijuana

·      12:00 pm- Foxconn: the largest maquiladora in both Tijuana and the world

·      12:45 pm- Lunch

·      1:15 pm:- Group dialogue about the experience; time for questions and comments

·      2:00 pm- Working women in Tijuana are organizing artisan cooperatives and promoting an alternative economy. They will bring their handcrafts to the tour. To learn in advance about these cooperatives, please go to: Cooperativa Ollin Calli  

·      3:00 pm- Return to the bus station

– Registration

·      $30 regular, $20 students, $ 50 solidarity

·      Registration covers the bus, lunch, and a donation to the workers’ organizations.

·      For tour registration go here: sdmaquila.org

Sponsored by Colectivo Ollin Calli Tijuana, San Diego Maquiladora Workers' Solidarity Network and the Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras

Who Pays the Price? The Human Cost of Electronics

This short documentary reveals the hazards of the electronics industry in China profiling workers poisoned by chemicals and their struggle for compensation.

Thousands of young people in China enter export factories to make the West's favorite electronic gadgets, only to find they have contracted occupational diseases or worse, leukemia, by the age of 25.

Published on Mar 4, 2014

Cooperativa Calli Ollin

Cooperativa Calli Ollin, or Cooperative in Movement (in Nahuatl Aztec language) favors fair trade against the so-called "free" trade and maquiladora exploitation. The Coop Calli Ollin promotes artisan creativity producing:

• Embroidery and textile designs and honoring indigenous tradition
• Jewelry based on motifs and materials like wood, seeds and crystals that recognize and honor our Mother Earth
• Art that promotes the use of natural materials and recycling culture
• Mexican food that recognizes the culinary tradition of different regions of Mexico

Border Environmental Justice: Arroyo Alamar

Environmental Health Coalition, Colectivo Ollín Calli, and members of the Colectivo Chilpancingo Pro Justicia Ambiental, Jóvenes Pro Justicia Ambiental, residents of the Colonia Chilpancingo and neighborhoods adjacent to the Arroyo Alamar and their supporters announced the submission of a petition to procure an injunction against the Arroyo Alamar channelization project that the National Water Commission is developing. More info: Arroyo Alamar.

This is the connection with maquilas: the creek will be destroyed to create a highway linking the maquiladora industrial parks in Tijuana to the maquiladora warehouses in San Diego (Otay). While the highway is perhaps needed, the Alamar creek and its environment does not have to be destroyed to build a new road, especially in a zone where water is a very limited resource.

Maquilapolis

Extraordinary documentary where maquiladora workers and activists discuss the history of the maquiladora industry in Tijuana, the relationship with NAFTA, the labor and living conditions, the complicity of the government with the maquiladora exploitation, the major obstacles for organizing in the production lines, and more.

Maquilapolis