Courts and banks reach back half a century to rob migrant
workers
By Adrian Garcia
Los Angeles
In an Aug. 23 court ruling that exposes the U.S. ruling
establishment's disregard and utter contempt for migrant
workers, a federal judge in San Francisco dismissed a class
action lawsuit filed last year by Mexican laborers--to obtain
savings that had been withheld from their wages back in the
1940s.
Judge Charles R. Breyer of federal district court admitted
there was "no doubt that many braceros never received Savings
Fund withholdings to which they were entitled" and claimed,
"The court is sympathetic to the braceros' situation." (New
York Times, Aug. 30)
But his ruling cleared Mexico and the United States of any
legal culpability. He cited "sovereign immunity" and ruled that
the statute of limitations had expired.
The lawsuit implicated the governments of Mexico and the
United States, three Mexican banks and a Wells Fargo bank in
squandering the migrant workers' salaries.
Under the Bracero Program, Mexico agreed to provide the
United States with workers as a gesture of good faith to help
alleviate labor shortages caused by World War II. Between 1942
and 1949, the years considered in the lawsuit, about 400,000
Mexicans worked on farms and railroads in the United
States.
Unbeknownst to many of the Mexican migrant workers, or
braceros, their wages were subject to a 10-percent deduction
for the purpose of establishing savings accounts in Mexico. The
money was to be transferred from U.S. banks to Mexican
banks.
The workers were expected to collect their savings upon
returning to Mexico. To this day, many of them have not
received their due wages. And now a U.S. court has ruled that
these workers have no right to their money because of legal
technicalities.
The New York Times reported that "United States records at
the time indicate that at least $32 million was withheld from
the workers' wages." No accounting has been made of how much of
that money was given back to the braceros.
A 1946 Mexican report claimed that most of the money, minus
$6 million, was returned to the workers. Advocates for the
braceros and their families view both the U.S. and Mexican
reports with great suspicion. They say the braceros may have
been cheated of as much as $500 million, including
interest.
Breyer's ruling cleared Mexico and its banks of any
responsibility on the grounds of sovereign immunity because the
banks were state-owned. Wells Fargo, the bank entrusted with
transferring the funds into Mexican banks, was cleared on the
grounds that the workers' lawyers neglected to state a claim
against the bank.
Claims against the United States were discarded on the
grounds that the statute of limitations had expired. This begs
the question: If some of the braceros were unaware of the
deductions made to their salaries, how could they possibly make
a claim before the statute of limitations ran out?
Breyer, in his ruling, stipulated that the lawsuit could be
reopened on condition that proof be presented that the workers
didn't know about the deductions.
Jonathan Rothstein, a lawyer for the braceros, told the New
York Times that an appeal is possible.
Considering the attacks that immigrants are enduring in the
United States today, it should not come as a great surprise
that a court, while acknowledging that workers who came to this
country legally were wronged and exploited, should then simply
dismiss their legitimate claims. All the more reason why
progressive people must not rely on the courts but must stand
up and defend the migrant workers of today as well as those of
yesterday.
Reprinted from the Sept. 19, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyrighted
under a Creative
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