Victory for maquiladora workers: court applies U.S. law to firms in Mexico

National Catholic Reporter, July 29, 1994 by Demetria Martinez

SAN ANTONIO, Texas - For Sr. Susan Mika, it was like news faxed from heaven: An El Paso County judge had ruled that Texas law applies in a suit filed by the family of a Mexican worker who was killed while working at a U.S.-owned factory in Mexico.

"It's a precedent-setting case," said Mika, president of the Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras. The judge's June 15 decision, a pretrial ruling, may mean that U.S. companies with plants in Mexico or other countries are liable for employee injuries resulting from a company's negligence.

"It's exciting," said Mika, who received news of the ruling at the Benedictine Resource Center here, where the coalition is headquartered. Sam Legate, an attorney for the family that filed the suit, and other legal experts here say the ruling is important because El Paso County judges have almost the same jurisdiction as state district courts, giving. them significantly more power than similar courts in other areas of the state. Since 1989, Mika has been in the forefront of efforts to make working conditions safer along the border between the United States and Mexico. As a result, companies have agreed to concessions ranging from reform in handling toxic materials to increased training for industrial workers.

The maquiladoras, or U.S.-owned assembly plants, employ some 500,000 Mexican workers along the 2,000-mile border.

The El Paso case centers on the 1990 death of Elia Mendoza, a bookkeeper at a Juarez firm owned by Continental Sprayers in St. Louis. Bandits killed Mendoza and another employee as the two delivered a $2,000 cash payroll to the firm's plant in Palomas, Mexico, just across the border from New Mexico.

The suit alleges that the company was negligent in allowing Mendoza to transfer the payroll without security guards. No trial date has been set.

John McChristian, attorney for Contico Manufacturing Co., downplayed the significance of the case, calling it "one preliminary decision on a long road."

The ruling may be appealed following a trial, he said, or the judge, upon hearing evidence, could reverse himself and decide that Mexican law applies to the case.

Legate, however, thinks the ruling could have an effect on the conduct of other corporations that fear health and safety lawsuits.

"Mexico has offered up its labor force for low wages but it didn't offer up its health," he said.

Mika counts the judge's decision as a victory for the coalition's 99 religious, environmental, labor, Latino and women's groups that span the U.S.-Mexico border and include some Canadian groups.

The coalition has drawn up its own maquiladora standards of conduct, based on Mexican and U.S. laws, as well as labor standards outlined by the United Nations. The standards encompass environmental contamination, fair employment practices, standards of living, community impact and health and safety practices.

Mika began laying the groundwork for the coalition in 1989. As executive director of the Texas Coalition for Responsible Investment, she had monitored conditions along the border as they related to investments by some 21 religious and other groups.

The first meetings were held in Matamoros, Mexico, and its twin city, Brownsville, Texas.

"We had hoped for 25 people," Mika said. Instead, some 125 church, labor and environmental activists showed up for the "Problems Without Borders" meetings. "It seemed the time was right to begin working together."

Among the coalition's high-profile projects has been its Chemical Row campaign. Chemical Row in Matamoros was home to five major chemical plants clustered in residential areas.

Focusing on the Stepan Corp., based in Northfield, Ill., the coalition produced a documentary video about the company's toxic-waste-dumping practices in Matamoros. It met with Stepan officials and alerted Chicago political leaders to Matamoros' problems. The Stepan family is prominent in Chicago politics.

As a result, Stepan, among other things, has been forced to redesign its pollution control practices, to further train its employees in the appropriate handling of toxic wastes and to discontinue the production of some of the more dangerous chemicals manufactured at the plant.

Last year in the wake of the coalition's research and activism, two companies shut down their operations entirely, significantly reducing pollution, Mika said.

The coalition has also taken on the Chicago-based Zenith Corp.

Last year, publicity and pressure forced Zenith, which produces electronic parts for televisions, to end the practice of having workers wash parts in methyline chloride, a hazardous chemical.

The company also discontinued its "castiga," which required workers to sit in a punishment area if they had displeased a supervisor, Mika said.

Another campaign, initiated last February, urges maquiladoras to mark toxic chemical containers with warning labels in Spanish.

"The workers tell us what to do," Mika said. Maquiladora workers' contacts with the coalition often must be kept secret, due to possible retaliation, she explained.