Thread: Are We next?

Is this what will happen if we allow for a tri-national goverment?

http://www.signonsandiego.com


Picketers storm newspaper offices in southern Mexico


By Morgan Lee
ASSOCIATED PRESS

8:41 a.m. July 19, 2005

MEXICO CITY – Picketers stormed the offices of a newspaper in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, destroying computers and dragging from the building journalists and press workers who had been blocked inside for about a month, a reporter at the paper said on Tuesday.

Noticias of Oaxaca, which has been critical of the state government, has been blockaded by picketers claiming to be striking workers. The newspaper's employees say the protesters aren't participating in any strike and that the government is waging a campaign against the paper.

Reporter Octavio Velez said he was dragged out of newspaper offices on Monday night, as a mob of 80 or more people forced open the doors of Noticias and destroyed computers and furniture inside.

"They came in with clubs, pipes and sticks," Velez said. "They destroyed the doors, the windows. They overtook us with violence."

No serious injuries were reported. Two press workers were missing on Tuesday, Velez said.

The newspaper conflict escalated Monday after President Vicente Fox indicated he would intervene, Velez said. The president's office did not comment immediately Tuesday. Oaxaca state officials have not responded to repeated requests for comment.

But a state police commander has suggested that distributing the paper could be considered a crime during the "strike," which is led by a ruling-party union official.

The union protesting outside the paper, the Revolutionary Confederation of Workers and Peasants, or CROC, has allegedly hijacked trucks carrying the paper, as part of their labor action. Union officials could not be reached immediately for comment.

Velez said police who arrived on the scene Monday night did nothing to intervene and "gave legitimacy to this act of delinquency," a reference to the allegedly false strike.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists and other press-freedom groups have called on the Oaxacan government to halt the picket line and stop seizures of copies of the newspaper.

Velez said some picketers wore masks and carried pistols as they broke in to Noticias on Monday, although there was no gunfire.

"We filed a police report, but the government is judge and jury," Velez said.

Velez said the paper would continue to publish, but declined to say where or how, citing safety concerns.

Well...well....if I read the article correctly, we have UNION ACTION in Mexico!!

Perhaps these journalists don't understand that unless you are union on stirke or go on strike in sympathy, you are considered a SCAB!!

A scab is a hated entity by union members because you are viewed as a Traitor to the cause of the working man and woman on strike trying to improve the working conditions and wage and salary levels of citizens.

So....you need to either strike in sympathy or go get yourself your own army to protect yourselves.

I'm very happy to see this UNION ACTION IN MEXICO!!

Mexico certainly needs better wages and salaries, eh? That's a much better way to improve the "development" of Mexico rather than this sicko-wacko notion of Sombrero Man in the White House concerning a combining of nations with Mexico.

Unions I think are the Key to solving the impoverished third world conditions of Mexico and we know from our own American History, that this is a viable, legitimate, and absolutely correct way to improve a society when the pendulums of life and fairness have failed to swing properly.

Are we next? We were FIRST. Already been there, done that. Americans established unions and fought for the working man and woman long ago which have done more to create our standard of living for the majority of Americans than any other citizen action in our history.

Will the illegals organize? They already have in North Carolina. They formed a union and went on strike against Mount Olive Pickle Company and improved their wage and gained workman's compensation coverage.

Figure THAT? They aren't even supposed to be here; they can't even be employed legally; they are making more per hour than most people in rural North Carolina. Figure THAT?

The world is nuts. They should go home and strike THERE!!

It is our solemn moral obligation to send these people home to their countries so they can use what they have learned about our System to improve their countries, their wages and salaries, their living conditions and build reasonable standards of living for themselves and their Next Generations....just like WE did....decades ago.

NOT us, the following places should be next! The "Ciudad de los Palacios" ("City of Palaces"), that is, Mexico City and in perticular the Palacio de Gobierno (Government Palace) and the Templo Mayor should be next! You can tell a lot just from the names, I call Mexico Saudi America.

Judy,
I took the article as saying this was not a real union, but rather a strike against the newspaper by the Mexican Government for speaking badly against the government there...

Noticias of Oaxaca, which has been critical of the state government, has been blockaded by picketers claiming to be striking workers. The newspaper's employees say the protesters aren't participating in any strike and that the government is waging a campaign against the paper.

That seems to fit in correctly with a third world country who doesn’t allow its citizens to have the Freedom of Speech.

It could happen here after CAFTA and the FTAA pass...

And, don't forgot the woman who wrote the letter to the Editor of the Durham Sun who signed it as Director of NCOSH. We ASSUMED that this was a North Carolina state agency that was complaining about the arrests of those illegals at Seymour Johnson AFB. BUT, after I did a Google search on NCOSH, it turns out to be the AFL-CIO. This just doesn't make one lick of sense to me. They want to unionize these illegals while Americans can't get even a halfway decent paying job. I bet there are TONS of Americans who would be happy to work at Seymour Johnson AFB at regular wages and would not HAVE to have some union demanding higher pay for them.

This woman from NCOSH was just STEAMED that ICE had set up those illegals to arrest them by telling them they were having an OSHA meeting and that they would be served coffee and donuts. I let her have it!!

Bootsie!! Is that for real about NCOSH? There is a North Carolina Occupational Safety and Health Division. But maybe the AFL-CIO has a division in North Carolina called the same thing? The state agency is like a state OSHA organization within our department of labor. They are very active. Drive around the state looking for violations and issue big fines to violators, especially on construction sites where everything is visible. Hard to imagine them missing all those illegal 100% hispanic work crews, huh?

Originally Posted by jp_48504

Judy,
I took the article as saying this was not a real union, but rather a strike against the newspaper by the Mexican Government for speaking badly against the government there...

Noticias of Oaxaca, which has been critical of the state government, has been blockaded by picketers claiming to be striking workers. The newspaper's employees say the protesters aren't participating in any strike and that the government is waging a campaign against the paper.

That seems to fit in correctly with a third world country who doesn’t allow its citizens to have the Freedom of Speech.

It could happen here after CAFTA and the FTAA pass...

I think you are correct. I posted an article earlier before these thugs broke into the building and it appeared the police were part of the angry mob outside the building.

https://www.alipac.us/ftopict-6651-noticias.html+oaxaca

www.alertnet.org

Fox government steps into Mexico newspaper standoff
20 Jul 2005 21:03:35 GMT

Source: Reuters

OAXACA, Mexico, July 20 (Reuters) - Mexico's government is stepping into an ugly standoff between union picketers and an influential newspaper that says it is being targeted by powerful local politicians for its critical stance.

The government has been under rising pressure to intervene since Monday night, when masked men armed with ax handles stormed the offices of Noticias, the largest circulation daily newspaper in Oaxaca state.

They destroyed computers and other equipment, and evicted 31 editorial employees who had been barricaded inside producing the paper for the last month despite constant threats and a picket line outside.

The conflict could pit President Vicente Fox, who has vowed to fight rights abuse and promote press freedoms, against a powerful old-style governor from the PRI party that ruled Mexico for 71 years until Fox's 2000 election.

Noticias' staff and many in Mexico say Oaxaca Gov. Ulises Ruiz is using strong-arm tactics to try and shut down the paper for criticizing his government.

"There is no doubt that Gov. Ruiz is behaving like a dictator in a banana republic," columnist Sergio Sarmiento wrote in the daily newspaper Reforma on Wednesday.

Ruiz says it is strictly a labor dispute and a local affair, and he criticized Fox's administration in a full-page newspaper ad on Wednesday for interfering.

Fox's government could use Monday night's eviction to get involved. The attorney general's office said that federal investigators were interviewing employees about possible aggression against journalists, a federal crime, though no formal investigation had been opened.

The 31 employees, ranging from reporters to carriers, had been barricaded inside Noticias since they were surrounded a month ago by members of a local union that called a strike.

Leaders of the CROC union, which represents some newspaper employees and also factory workers and others, said they organized the strike to support a demand by Noticias workers for a 25 percent raise.

But Noticias, noting that the union has close ties to the state governor, says he engineered the strike.

Media groups say Fox has failed to defend press freedoms.

"The assault on Noticias further rarefies the climate of violence against media and journalists under the tenure of Vicente Fox," Mexican press group CEPET said on Wednesday.

International press rights watchdog Reporters Without Borders and rights group Amnesty International say the newspaper is being targeted by PRI party henchmen and have also called on the federal government to intervene.

The staff continued to publish from makeshift offices in the state capital Oaxaca on Wednesday. The Noticias building was surrounded by state police and strikers.

www.guardian.co.uk

Protesters Decry Blockade of Mexican Paper

Thursday July 21, 2005 5:31 AM


MEXICO CITY (AP) - More than 1,000 people marched through the streets of the colonial capital of southern Oaxaca state on Wednesday to demand that picketers disband a blockade that has trapped journalists inside a newspaper building for about a month.

Chanting, waving signs and carrying large banners, the demonstrators blamed Oaxaca state officials for the strike, which they claimed violated freedom of expression.

The marchers later set fire to paper dummies fashioned to look like state officials.

The paper Noticias de Oaxaca has criticized state authorities, and union members loyal to the Oaxaca ruling party responded by blocking the newspaper's building weeks ago. When the paper kept publishing using a press at a different location, police officers and other officials moved to confiscate copies of the newspaper.

In a statement Tuesday, President Vicente Fox's Interior Department said the deputy director for media regulations would open an investigation into the newspaper standoff.

That decision came a day after picketers stormed the newspaper's offices, destroying computers and dragging journalists and others from the building.

Oaxaca's governor and police officials have denied the charges they are behind the strike, but have also failed to respond to repeated requests for comment on the case.

Found one more.

www.latimes.com

Oaxaca Paper Standoff Ends
One of the barricaded reporters says the employees were forcibly removed. A union leader says the encounter was peaceful.
By Reed Johnson
Times Staff Writer

July 20, 2005

MEXICO CITY â€â€