URGENT ALERT!! URGENT ALERT!! URGENT ALERT!!

800 Maquiladora Duro Workers Ask for your Support

Duro is a maquiladora located in the city of Rio Bravo, Tamaulipas bordering Pharr, Texas, and about 15 minutes from Reynosa (bordering McAllen, TX). Duro assembles gift bags for different corporations, such as, Expressions from Hallmark, Caribbean Packaging, CLEO, Crystal Creative Products, Cindus Corporation and Stephen Lawrence. Duro is a private company owned by the Shor family with Charles Shor as its CEO, and the company's headquarters are based in Ludlow, Kentucky.

The Rio Bravo workers are earning 320.00 pesos for a 48 hour-work-week (less than US$4.00 per day-around US$35.00 per week) and a food coupon of 1.00 peso per day or 30.00 pesos per month (US$3.33). The workers have been facing mistreatment, abuse and insults, as well as, serious health problems as a result of the glues they handle because they do not receive any safety equipment.

The national paper-workers union of the CTM is the one with whom the company has signed its collective bargaining agreement, and when contract negotiations started, an executive committee was elected by the workers to represent them in these negotiations. Some of the workers demands were as follows:

• a wage increase from 320.00 to 450.00 pesos (around US$50.00 dollars a week),
• an increase in the food coupons to 29.00 pesos per week instead of a month,
• safety equipment, a health and safety commission in the plant according to the Mexican Federal Labor Law, medical attention in the plant,
• fans or air conditioning,
• chairs in good condition,
• fumigation of the building which was infested with mosquitoes and other rodents burrowing in the wooden pallets of the plant,
• better food service in the cafeteria, etc.

However, the CTM national union signed the new collective bargaining agreement without taking into consideration any of the workers demands. The following Friday, April 14, 9 workers were fired and a female workers is beaten by the human resources manager.

They also received death threats, with warnings that they had better think about their families because they are the ones who will pay the consequences. In response to this situation, 400 workers of the second shift decided not to go to work. The company then files a US$50,000 lawsuit against the workers leaders claiming a loss in production.

The national union of the CTM dismissed and fired the executive committee that had been elected by the workers to represent them. On Saturday, April 15, the 800 workers from the first shift join in the work stoppage, and the national CTM union announces that it will send representatives to the border to appoint its own executive committee.

On Sunday, April 16, every worker from the Duro maquiladora demonstrated all over town asking for the community's support, and raising the interest of the national and international media by denouncing the violation of their rights.

On Monday, April 17, the local CTM union offers them to affiliate to the local maquiladora union, but the workers want to create their own democratic and independent union.

Please send your letters supporting the workers and demanding that:

• The rights of the workers be respected to elect their own representatives
• The fired workers be reinstated
• That the Duro maquiladora renegotiates the collective bargaining agreement with the true representatives of the workers
• To stop the threats and repression, and stop firing the workers·

Duro Bag Manufacturing
Charles Shor, CEO
Headquarters in Ludlow Kentucky
Phone: (606) 581-8200, 1800-879-3876
Fax: (606) 581-8327
e-mail: info@durobag.com

Please send copies of your letters to CJM at:
fax (210) 732-8324,
e-mail: cjm@igc.org and/or to the workers themselves at:
fax: 01152 (89) 57-11-21

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