"Virtual Fence" an "Actual" Scam

Technical problems caused the Bush administration to scale back plans to complete a fence along the US-Mexico border.

Boeing, one of Bush's favorite sinkholes for taxpayers' money, claims a 28 mile pilot project south of Tucson is a clunker and wants a three year extention to the original contract which is due to end in September 2008.

Boeing has already received $85.6 million for its failed efforts, and its future looks even rosier. Richard M. Stana, the Government Accountability Offices' director of homeland security issues, says the total cost is not yet known because DHS officials do not yet know the type of terrain where the fencing is to be constructed, the materials to be used, or the cost to acquire the land.

What a deal! Who knows how many praire dog holes might have to filled.

It should be clear to all that this is but another plan from the scam that is the Bush administration to keep the money flowing to war-profiteering corporations and others long after the elections in November, regardless of who the next president is.

On a more positive note, Boeing has offered DHS a $2 million credit from the funds it has already received.

Thank you Boeing, for small favors!

American Axle & Manufacturing Workers Strike

By John Rummel

The United Auto Workers struck American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings Inc at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday when no deal was reached on a new labor pact. The largest porportion of American Axle parts are for GM’s pickups and SUVs. Affected are 3,600 workers in plants in Michigan and New York.

At American Axle’s Detroit Manufacturing Complex, sitting on the border of Detroit and Hamtramck, it was not the best weather to be forced to walk out in – smack into the middle of a February snowstorm. But workers do what they have to do, weather be damned. That was evident by the crowded local hall full of people signing up for their picket line duties. UAW Local 235 Vice President Bill Alford said everybody is doing their part and many are signing up for multiple shifts.

Alford said the union is charging the company with “unfair labor practices” because they have not provided the union with any information to back up the cuts they are asking workers to take. The union says the company is demanding wage reductions of up to $14 an hour as well as elimination of future retiree health care and defined benefit pensions for active workers.

“We are hard working, working people said Alford. Nobody here is a millionaire except the guy in the big chair. We will be out as long as it takes and we’ll fight every step of the way.”

While Alford said the townsfolk have been great, bringing things like hot coffee to the picket line, the specialty of Hamtramck is homemade Polish sausage. “We’re still holding out for that” Alford said.

The same hospitality cannot be said of the local police. They’ve forced the workers to put out the “barrel fires” they were using to stay warm. “I now have to go find propane heaters” he said.

Buffenbarger election speech could strip gears of labor unity

By Scott Marshall

Getting carried away with your own rhetoric is rarely a good thing. Tom Buffenbarger, president of the Machinists' union (International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers), did just that in a “warm-up” speech for Hillary Clinton the night of the Wisconsin primary win by Barack Obama. (Necessary disclaimer: I have great respect for the Machinists' union and president Buffenbarger, a tough industrial union that goes up against some of the biggest multinationals. So this incident is all the more worrisome from a seasoned labor leader.)

Ironically Buffenbarger’s main point was to ridicule Obama’s oratory. John McCain made a nasty attack on Obama’s speech-making that same night, but Buffenbarger’s was even more mean-spirited.

In the first place it’s ironic that a labor leader should ridicule good oratory. The history of the labor movement is replete with labor leaders who inspired and moved workers to action with their ability to put into words the hopes, aspirations and demands of those who dream of a better life and a better world for working people.

Eugene Debs spoke eloquently of an industrial union for rail workers. One of his most famous speeches called for an end to workers dying in WWI as cannon fodder for the narrow interests of the industrialists and capitalists. He brought millions into the labor movement and got millions of votes on the Socialist Party ticket with his inspiring speeches.

The soaring street corner oratory of A. Phillip Randolph inspired thousands of African American rail workers to join the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and fight for their dreams. His words inspired millions to fight for civil rights and to link civil and labor rights together in one struggle for all working people.

And then there was John L. Lewis with his fiery call for organizing the Committee of Industrial Organizations, the CIO.

Besides the unfairness and shallowness of this attack on Obama, Buffenbarger’s speech also rudely, and with rightwing stereotypes, attacked Obama’s supporters. Ridiculing supporters as “latte-drinking, Prius-driving, Birkenstock-wearing, trust fund babies” ignores the large number of union members and their families, of all races and nationalities, who are supporting Obama. Not to mention that I know lots of steelworkers who appreciate a good latte now and again, and who would like to drive a hybrid car to save gas and the environment.

Working people sorely need to defeat John McCain in November. That can only be done with the full support and unity of all the labor movement. No matter who wins the Democratic nomination, there will be millions of labor households who were once supporting the other candidate.

Contrast Buffenbarger’s speech to what the AFL-CIO is saying about the elections. The AFL-CIO plans to spend $54 million, $6 million more than in the 2004 election, in support of the Democratic candidate for president, no matter who wins the nomination, and in dozens of congressional races. In the meantime, the AFL-CIO, the Change to Win federation, and most of labor are busy exposing the anti-labor, anti-working people record of John McCain. They are building an army of labor activists for the general election.

Most of those in the labor movement, both AFL-CIO and Change to Win unions, who have endorsed a candidate for the Democratic nomination are campaigning positively on the strengths of their chosen candidate. Most recognize that all of both Clinton's and Obama's supporters in labor are vital sections of the democratic coalition that it will take to end corporate, rightwing domination of our political life.

Buffenbarger should wonder why his speech got picked up far and wide in the media.

Update on the Cananea Copper Mine situation

Author: Emile Schepers

People's Weekly World Newspaper, 02/19/08 08:06

As labor and management continue to face off over the struck Cananea Copper Mine in Sonora, Mexico, U.S. labor solidarity activists are increasing their activity also.

More than 1,000 members of the Mexican National Mine and Metal Workers’ Union went on strike at the Cananea Copper Mine owned by the Grupo Mexico transnational, with links to the Arizona-based ASARCO Company, on July 30, 2007, mostly over safety issues but also over a 10 percent raise demand.

Union representatives claim that management had let conditions run down to the point that workers’ lives are endangered by carcinogenic dusts and a very high accident rate. They point to a disaster at another Grupo Mexico mine in Pasta de Conchos in Coahuila, Mexico in which 65 coal miners were killed by an explosion in February 2006 as an indication of management’s negligent attitude. Investigators have attributed the Pasta de Conchos disaster to failure of the management to follow elementary safety rules.

Story continues here.

Battling the ‘right to work’ scam

Author: John Rummel

This past Labor Day, trade unionists were outraged to wake up and read an editorial in The Detroit News arguing for a “right-to-work” law in Michigan.

Right-to-work bills failed to garner majority support in the Michigan Legislature last year, but the editorial in the state’s leading business newspaper signaled that the anti-labor crowd is not giving up. Now it is putting its energies into collecting what will have to be almost 500,000 signatures to place a right-to-work initiative on the ballot this November. In response, the state AFL-CIO has started a campaign to educate union members and the public to speak out against what, in every sense of the word, is an attack on the state’s working families.

Story continues here.

U.S. labor leaders to Bush: No trade deal with murderers

Author: John Wojcik

Originally posted here.

Top labor leaders ended a trip to Colombia Feb. 13 by telling that country’s president, Alvaro Uribe, that American unions will not support the U.S. – Colombia Free Trade Agreement until the killing of union members by right-wing death squads there is put to a stop.

The American labor leaders found, during their two day trip to Colombia, that trade unionists operate in a climate of fear in that country where 38 of them were murdered in 2007 and eight more, almost one per week, have been murdered since Jan. 1, 2008. President Bush demanded in his recent State of the Union speech that Congress approve the trade agreement with Colombia.

AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Emerita Linda Chavez Thompson, Communication Workers of America President Larry Cohen and United Steelworkers counsel Dan Kovalik met for two days with Colombian labor leaders, International Labor Organization representatives in Colombia and elected leaders including President Uribe.

They found the Colombian government has systematically undermined union members’ rights while exerting little efforts to address the murders of Colombian trade unionists.

One of the most recent of these murders was the killing of Yebrain Suarez, 32, a leader in Colombia’s corrections officers union. He was shot to death Jan. 28 in the doorway of his home as he returned from a day at work

Dan Kovalik told the Peoples Weekly World: “Even without the killings this trade agreement is a disaster for U.S. workers and for the people in Colombia. In America it will speed up the exporting of jobs and it will hurt Colombians because they will be flooded with cheap food sent in by powerful multinational corporations. This will destroy their main crop, rice, and impoverish and dislocate millions, exactly what happened with the so called free trade agreement in Mexico.

“Massive dislocation of people like that then contributes to huge numbers of people being forced to migrate out of their countries,” Kovalik indicated.

He took issue with claims by the Bush administration that it was time to pass the trade agreement because the number of murders of trade unionists is smaller now than in previous years when hundreds were killed each year.

“This is only because there are fewer left to kill,” Kovalik declared. “The death squads go after the unionists who operate among the one percent of the workers who have collective bargaining rights and that number is going down. The total unionized work force is four percent but only that one percent have collective bargaining rights.”

Kovalik was optimistic about labor’s fight to keep the trade agreement with Colombia from becoming law. He said the unions have commitments from the Democratic House leadership to keep the measure from coming up for a vote and that labor intends to hold them to that commitment. He said both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, Democratic presidential candidates, oppose the measure and that John McCain, the Republican candidate supports the measure.

Chavez-Thompson said, “The meeting with President Uribe was important to send a strong message of solidarity with the Colombian unions. Our job here is to support them in their struggle to rebuild the union movement after decades of violence and the steady erosion of legal rights.”

The American labor leaders met with leaders of the major Colombian labor federations who told them they were opposed to the trade agreement because of both the attacks on trade unionists and the harmful effects the deal would have on Colombian workers.

The Colombian government has a consistent policy of union busting. Colombian courts have ordered the Uribe government to reinstate with back pay oil workers who struck recently. The government refuses to obey the court order.

CWA’s Cohen commented on the small percentage (one percent) of Colombian workers who have union contracts: “It is the lowest rate in the hemisphere, and among the worst in the world. They are killing the unions, not just the union leaders.”

After Colombia, the Philippines had the next highest rate of murdered trade unionists, with 33 murdered last year. There also were 201 death threats against trade unionists in 2007.

Kovalik, who had travelled to Colombia previously, said the lack of union rights in Colombia is one of a number of reasons that everyone should be concerned about the large amount of military aid that the United States regularly gives to that country.

The U.S. labor leaders participated in a vigil organized by the Colombian unions.

Chavez-Thompson, said at the event, “We are here to pay homage to the thousands of Colombian trade unionists who sacrificed their lives for what they believed in. And we are here to celebrate their lives, because they died to better the lives of their sisters and brothers, in Colombia and throughout the world.”

A people’s surge that could reshape our country

Author: Sam Webb

People's Weekly World Newspaper, 02/14/08 17:10

A people’s surge is heaving its way across the country with unexpected force. And in doing so, it is confounding pundits, challenging conventional wisdom and reconfiguring our nation’s politics. Only one thing is for certain: it could well prefigure a triumphant victory for peace, economic security and equality in November.

This surge has no counterpart that I can recall. Its breadth and depth are remarkable. Its politics are progressive. It is driving the nation’s political conversation. It rejects the old racist and sexist stereotypes that have stained our history, divided our people and compromised our moral sensibilities. It is a mass rebellion against the policies of the Bush administration and the whole era of right-wing domination and division. And it is seeking a political leader — one who gives priority to “lunch pail” issues, appeals to our better angels and envisions a country that is decent, just, united and at peace with the rest of the world — a country that measures up to the full meaning of its creed, to borrow a phrase from the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. Story continues here.

GM, eager to cut wages, tries buyout of all workers

Author: John Wojcik

People's Weekly World Newspaper, 02/12/08 15:04

General Motors Corp. announced Feb. 12 that it wants to buy out all of its 74,000 U.S. hourly employees who are represented by the United Auto Workers. If the plan works it will trigger one of the largest reductions in the unionized auto work force in living memory and eventually require the union to start rebuilding itself all over again.

Communities that depend on auto production see this permanent elimination of auto jobs as an increased threat to their economies. In Michigan and Ohio, particularly, cities and town are already being crushed by the mortgage foreclosure crisis.

Workers will get the details over the next several weeks but the company has already said that it expects all those who accept the buyouts to be out the door by July 1. Under its new contract with the UAW, GM will be able to replace up to 16,000 workers with new employees who will be paid half the old wage of $28 per hour.

Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC already have announced similar buyout offers.

Ford announced last month it will offer buyouts to all of its 54,000 UAW represented employees who it wants out the door by April.

Chrysler, which is trying to cut up to 21,000 of its 45,000 UAW employees, is giving workers on temporary or indefinite layoff up to $100,000 to sever ties with the company. Chrysler says it also wants everybody out by April.

Immediately after the cuts were announced Tuesday by GM shares rose 75 cents, or 2.8 percent, to $27.87 in stock market trading.

GM conducted a round of buyouts in 2006, when 34,410 workers left the company.

The buyouts, which amount to a new round of unprecedented jobs cuts by all three Detroit auto makers, come just months after promises of job security convinced a majority of union members at the Big Three companies to ratify four year contracts many feel would otherwise have been rejected. The contracts, which were opposed by many union local leaders and by many workers, were the most concessionary of any in the auto industry’s history.

The latest strategy of mass buyouts allows the auto giants to permanently shrink the work force while it lessens worker anger by bringing back some of those who have been laid off. Workers with less seniority, in turn, are frightened or lured into taking one time cash payments of $100,000 - $140,000 and give up their good paying union jobs forever.

GM is giving workers just 45 days to make the life changing decision it is asking them to make. Rick Wagoner, the company’s CEO, has made it clear that if enough workers don’t rush their life altering decision the company will respond with more forced layoffs and perhaps additional plant closings.

Communities that depend on auto production see this permanent elimination of auto jobs as an increased threat to their economies. In Michigan and Ohio, particularly, cities and town are already being crushed by the mortgage foreclosure crisis.

For GM, however, things are looking up. With the new contract and the additional cuts the company expects, in four years, to cut labor costs in half. Add in Ford and Chrysler and the companies have a combined labor cost savings of something like $6.5 million per hour, according to the Detroit News.

Observers also note that the companies would not be beyond using the immediate cost of the buyouts as a “net loss,” requiring new concessions in the middle of the contract. The current contract allows the company to do this.

GM has already made clear what it intends to do with all the extra money it makes as a result of the buyouts. “Within a decade, up to 75 percent of GM sales could be in foreign markets,” Wagoner told the Detroit News on Jan. 18.

The companies are also transferring production from union plants in America to non-union operations in Latin America and Asia.

Workers' perspective on saving auto in the U.S.

Author: Dave Mortimer

People's Weekly World Newspaper, 02/12/08 14:58

DETROIT – Last month my wife and I went to the North American International Auto Show. For Detroiters, this is an annual pilgrimage. Where else can you sit behind the wheel of a $110,000 Maserati when you can’t even afford to buy a Chevy Aveo?

When we walked in, we were greeted by a line of UAW members passing out plastic shopping bags with the names Ford, Visteon and UAW on them.

“Buy American” is a losing strategy because it lays the responsibility and blame on individual American consumers rather than on the real heavy decision-makers — those who have power over investment, namely, U.S. corporations and the federal government.

In red, white and blue with an American flag, the message on the bags read: “Buy American.” I asked one of the distributors what plant he was from. “Wixom,” he said. “I thought that plant was supposed to be closed down,” I said. “Well, basically it is,” he said.

I wished him well, and we moved on. I turned to my wife, took another gander at the at the bag, and muttered, “Hey, what’s wrong with this picture?”

Wixom was one of Ford’s most profitable assembly plants for years. They built Lincolns there. You know, the big cars that bring big profits. Now Ford is building Lincolns in Mexico where we were told they were only going to build small cars they can’t afford to build here in Union Land.

“Quality means job security,” union leaders told us. Wixom workers gave Ford everything they had. So much for quality, productivity and loyalty. Corporations are like junkies who can never get enough dope.

The Lincoln MKZ isn’t the only good selling vehicle the Detroit Three are building in Mexico. There’s also the Ford Fusion and Mercury Milan and, coming soon, the Ford Verve. Chrysler has been building its PT Cruiser there and the 2009 Dodge Journey is next. GM is making Chevy HHRs, Saturn Vues, and Chevy 2s south of the border, too. Like the old cartoon character Pogo might have said, “We have met the foreign competition and he is us.”

You would think maybe it would be time to say bye-bye to “Buy American.”

But the UAW and other labor unions seem committed to this losing slogan. “Buy American” has been as successful a strategy as: “Hey kids, eat your carrots. They taste like crap but you’ll see a lot better.”

American unions’ foresight, unfortunately, isn’t much better than its hindsight. Where has “Buy American” gotten them and their members? Ask the guys from Wixom or several dozen other shut-down plants. Ironically, Americans did exactly what we told them to do. They bought American-made Toyotas, American-made Hondas and American-made Nissans. So as The Man said, “Mission Accomplished.”

Meanwhile, the entire UAW-represented Detroit Three workforce has shrunk to less than what GM’s workforce alone was in 1979.

So what does “Buy American” mean anyway? What’s more American: a Toyota Camry made in America or a Ford Fusion made in Mexico? Several Toyota models made in America have higher U.S. domestic content than some Detroit Three American-made products. The Camry, for example, has 80 percent U.S. content while the Ford Mustang is only 65 percent American-made.

“Buy American” is a losing strategy because it lays the responsibility and blame on individual American consumers rather than on the real heavy decision-makers — those who have power over investment, namely, U.S. corporations and the federal government.

It’s about time American unions bag this “Buy American” campaign once and for all.

The future of the UAW and the rest of organized labor depends on their ability to organize workers at the Japanese, German and South Korean transplants that have popped up on the American landscape since the 1980s. Do you think handing out “Buy American” bags is going to win over those American workers? To the typical Toyota worker in Kentucky, “Buy American” suggests a union that identifies more with its own current employers than its does with fellow auto workers who happen to be building cars with foreign-name plates?

UAW members and other good unionists need to get over the notion that GM, Ford, Chrysler, Delphi and others are American companies. They may still have their world headquarters here, but they are multi-national corporations in fact with many more workers and greater sales overseas.

A campaign, led by unions, to save America’s industrial base is long overdue. It’s goals might include (1) ending the occupation in Iraq and shifting half the money saved to convert empty factories that once produced automobiles or toys into productive factories making solar cells, wind turbines, plug-in hybrids and fuel cell vehicles, (2) renegotiating so-called “free” trade treaties like NAFTA to stop the importation of goods made under sweatshop conditions and bad environmental standards, (3) pressuring the Detroit Big Three to do what Toyota has said it will do. “Our goal is to produce all the cars we sell in the U.S. within the U.S.,” said Jim Lentz, Toyota Sales Executive, and (4) fighting to raise the living standards of workers around the world.

Hopefully, next year’s auto show will feature UAW plastic bags that read: “Build American. Buy Union.” Then maybe the year after that, the bags will read, “Workers of the World, Unite!”

--Dave Mortimer is a labor activist in Detroit.

A tale of two debates – some thoughts

By Scott Marshall

The Democratic Debate

When John Edwards announced that he was suspending his bid for president, he said that he was proud of his campaign’s contribution to the presidential debates and its influence on the other Democratic party candidates. But, he said, it was time to get out of the way of history.

A turning point on history’s path took place in the Los Angeles debate last Thursday at the Kodak Theater between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Even before the debate began the voltage was high. The auditorium was packed with a great cross section of the vast democratic coalition that wants to defeat and roll back eight years of Bush and rightwing Republican domination. And yes they were equally divided between those who held up Hillary signs and those who held up Obama signs.

Even before either candidate walked on the stage the air was pregnant with hope, enthusiasm, energy and optimism. And though the TV cameras tended to focus on celebrities, the crowd was labor, all races and nationalities, women and men, gay and straight, and pumped for change. The crowd resembled those in the historic high voter turnout in the Democratic party primaries so far. They were union activists, peace activists, environmental activists, civil rights and immigrant rights activists, women’s right activists and health care activists. They were plain folks alarmed at the economic crisis and they were anti-poverty activists. And, again, they held up both Obama and Clinton signs.

Both candidates opened the debate noting the road of history that Edwards mentioned. Both beamed with pride and celebrated the fact that no matter who won the Democratic nomination, history would be made – that no matter who won, a great barrier to democracy is being broken – the first African American man or the first women will be the Democratic nominee for President of the United States.

And as they say, the crowd went wild. And the atmosphere stayed like that throughout the debate. The greatest applause, the greatest enthusiasm and energy, exploded when either candidate mentioned the historic nature of the moment or slammed the Bush administration and the Republican rightwing. The debate was substantive, positive, change oriented and unifying.

And, most important of all, the debate left the audience feeling confident and ready to go. That no matter who won the nomination, the vast movement that has produced and shaped both of these campaigns, including the campaigns of those who have dropped out, is a movement united and in fighting trim for the November elections.

The Republican Debate

Now contrast the Democratic debate with the Republican debate at the Reagan Library just two days before. Here the Blue Stocking, Republican elite sat in a big hanger-like room with a huge airplane. It had all the atmosphere of the Roman Coliseum in the final decadent days of the empire. The crowd politely waited for the bloodletting. And they got their money’s worth.

McCain and Romney went at each other. Though not like gladiators and lions, but more like teenagers at a rich kids high school fighting over who gets to escort the Prom Queen. And while they bickered and glared over who said what and when, Huckabee and Ron Paul pouted on the sidelines.

The audience was divided. Cheers on one side when Romney scored a gotcha, and shouts when McCain landed a zinger. Who could be the meanest and toughest? Who would be harsher? Who could deliver the most tax cuts for the wealthy and big business? Who would stay in Iraq longer with the biggest military occupation force. Though there was a moment of interesting applause when kooky Ron Paul chastised McCain and Romney for wanting to be the “cops of the world.” Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

The Republican debate showed the Republicans in disarray and decline – a big business, anti-labor, anti-people, ultra right coalition splintering.

November

Nothing can be taken for granted and much can change between now and November. But this “tale of two debates” snapshot is laden with lessons. As of now twenty-eight Republicans in Congress are not running again - rats deserting a sinking ship. A time when the ultra right can be most dangerous. But, also a time when they are in disarray and can be defeated.

Still, unity and the energy and the enthusiasm of all the democratic (small “d”) forces are necessary for change. Many of us see Obama as the candidate with the most potential. In Illinois we have seen him on the front lines for labor and working people many times, like marching on picketlines for health care workers and strongly making the case for the Employee Free Choice Act. Still, the left and labor cannot afford to invest all its capital in a single candidate in any way that closes the door or dampens the ardor of any other part of the movement that is developing for change. Clinton’s campaign also represents vital sectors of the core democratic forces in motion.

No matter who wins the Democratic primary, the people's movements will need the full support of all the other candidates and their backers. No single candidate has a monopoly on the movements and the drive and determination that it will take to win. Most of the other also-ran candidates in the Democratic race, especially Kucinich, Edwards and Richardson, represent a vital section of the coalition that it will take to win.

At this point either remaining candidate has the potential to be a transformative figure in a transformative moment. That depends most on unifying the main movements and forces for change and on how much energy and mass participation can be generated for winning in November. But no single candidate’s movement alone - no matter how dynamic - can win in November on its own. This was the great lead that both Democratic candidates gave their supporters in the Los Angeles debate.

Fight on the issues, build the movements for change, support the candidate you feel best moves things forward. But most of all build the bridges of unity that can defeat the right in November and open the door on a new era of change and progress for labor and the people.

Previous | Next | Back to Messages

Send Messages of Solidarity

Solidarity with the Miners in Cananea

Support the striking mineworkers of Cananea and their union

Urgent message to Mr. Javier Lozano Alarcon, Labor Secretary of Mexico

We are profoundly concerned about the entry of police forces into the historic mine of Cananea, Sonora, Mexico, about the legal proceedings and threats against the members of the Executive Committee of the National Union of Metallurgical Mineworkers and Associates of the Mexican Republic (SNTMMSRM), as about the danger to the right of unionization.

We demand the following:

- Removal of the repressive forces in Cananea, Sonora, Mexico (Branch 65 of the mineworkers union).

- Recovery of the bodies of the 63 mineworkers who are still buried in the Pasta de Conchos mine.

- Immediate negotiations by the Mexico Company with the national leadership of the SNTMMSRM.

- Respect for trade union autonomy.

[Send to Mr. Javier Lozano Alarcon, Labor Secretary of Mexico: javierlozano@stps.gob.mx and a copy to segundoencuentrocontinental@gmail.com

-- (reprinted from ILC International Newsletter No. 270 -- January 22, 2008)

------------------

We also received a message from David Bacon saying, "Support for the Mexican miners should be directed through Manny Armenta at the USWA office in Albuquerque. Manny goes to Cananea frequently, and can take whatever people want to send. His email is marmenta@usw.org."