Scaling Migrant Worker Rights

Front matter

SCALING MIGRANT WORKER RIGHTS

HOW ADVOCATES COLLABORATE AND CONTEST STATE POWER

XOCHITL BADA AND SHANNON GLEESON

Contents

List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Abbreviations Used in Text

1. Introduction: Constructing Portable Rights for Migrant Workers

2. The Mexican Consular Network as an Advocacy Institution

Index

183 213 voe w wi de c

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FIGURES

Mexican consulates in the United States

Percentage of foreign-born population that is Mexican born Percentage of Latino population identifying as Mexican Percentage of Mexican immigrant population that is noncitizen

2016 presidential election: Democratic percentage of vote for cities included in project

TABLES

Time line of key events in bilateral collaboration (1994-2017)

Labor Rights Week outreach summary

Labor cases intake at the Mexican consular network in the United States Yearly themes for the Semana de Derechos Laborales (2009-20)

Key institutions, instruments, and actors in transnational labor regulation and consular affairs

11 11 12

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book is the culmination of over a decade of research with Mexican immigrant workers and the legions of civil society groups who advocate on their behalf. We first and foremost thank Jonathan Fox for bringing us together to realize this joint interest when he introduced us during a conference on Latino immigrant civic engagement at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in the summer of 2010. Jonathan' pioneering work on accountability politics in Mexico and immigrant civil society was formative to us both, as was his dedication to mentoring us as junior scholars.

We came together to understand the role of the Mexican consulate in labor standards enforcement after participating in the workshop "Mexico and Its Diaspora in the United States: Past and Present Emigration Policies,” convened by Ale Délano during the 3oth Latin American Studies Association Annual Conference in San Francisco in 2012. After a transformative conversation that continued after all workshop participants were long gone, we left the room with the goal of launching the first national survey to assess the Mexican consular networks role in the Labor Rights Week that had long intrigued us both.

Over two hundred interviews across the United States and Mexico were completed with the help of many amazing graduate students, undergraduates, and colleagues, including Manlio Correa, Tania Cruz Salazar, Rubén Espinoza, Jackie Estrada, Nick Ghezavat, Vanesa Guridy, Claudia López, Gloria Marvic, Patricia Nicolás Flores, David Rocha Romero, Heidy Sarabia, and Guillermo Yrizar-Barbosa.

We also thank our research assistants at Cornell (Hannah Cho, Clady Corona, Amy Saz, Albaro Tutasig, and Zakiya Williams Wells) and the University of Illinois-Chicago (UIC) (Michaela Byrd, Jackie Estrada, Nick Ghezavat, Vanessa x1 xii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Guridy, Debbie Patifio, Ashwini Reddy, and Agnieszka Wieczorek) for their many hours transcribing and coding interviews, managing bibliographies, and conducting many other aspects of the research. Florio Arguillas at Cornell University provided expert research training and software support with Atlas.ti.

Early analysis of book themes were workshopped during annual meetings of the American Sociological Association, the Law and Society Association, the Latin American Studies Association, and the United Association for Labor Education, as well as other convenings hosted by generous colleagues at the University of Colorado Law School, Texas A&M Law School, Rutgers University, the Ruhr-Universitat Bochum, the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Queen's University, Berlins Institute for Advanced Study, El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, and Bielefeld University.

Generous funding has been provided by each of our home institutions, including, at UIC, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (LAS), the Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy, the Chancellors Undergraduate Research Award, and the LAS Undergraduate Research Initiative; the University of California-Santa Cruz Committee on Research; UC MEXUS-CONACYT (University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States- Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología); and, at Cornell, the Cornell Institute for the Social Sciences, the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies, the Qualitative and Interpretive Research Institute, and the Center for Social Sciences. Open Access was funded through Cornell’s Hull Fund and a grant from the American Sociological Association’s Fund for the Advancement of the Discipline.

The Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (WIKO) provided invaluable support to Xóchitl during her academic fellowship, which she spent writing and navigating the first few months of the pandemic. At the WIKO, we received important feedback on our book proposal from Nicolas Dodier, Bénédicte Zimmermann, and Norbert Cyrus in the winter of 2019 during one of the last business trips that Shannon made prior to the pandemic.

With support from the Cornell University ILR School Pierce Memorial Fund, we hosted a workshop in 2016 where many of our generous colleagues provided feedback on our previous edited volume Accountability across Borders (University of Texas Press, 2019), which provided much of the intellectual stimulus for this monograph.

With support from the National Science Foundation and the Law and Society Association International Research Collaborative, we also hosted two roundtables in 2017 and 2019, “Enforcing Rights across Borders: The Case of Mexican Migrants,’ and “The Future of Immigrant and Worker Rights after NAFTA” These convenings offered invaluable feedback from colleagues and advocates from across North America.

We give immense gratitude to our colleagues at Cornell University, the University of California-Santa Cruz, UIC, and the University of Houston for all their

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xiii support and feedback throughout the development of this manuscript. Special thanks go to Adam Goodman, Alejandro Madrid, and Pamela Anne Quiroz.

Our incredible support staff at Cornell (Claire Concepcion) and UIC (Bruce Tyler) spent hours shepherding us through the university bureaucracies.

Four anonymous reviewers provided valuable feedback to the manuscript at different stages.

The maps in chapter 1 were created by award-winning cartographer Mike Boruta. Yoselinda Mendoza assisted with tabulations for the population maps.

Matt Seidel and Elisabeth Magnus provided vital editing throughout the many versions of the manuscript. We thank Lisa Rivero for compiling the index. All errors are our own.

The cover art was photographed with the help of Claudio Ugalde.

University of California Press staff Maura Roessner, Madison Wetzell, Cindy Fulton, and Teresa Iafolla, as well as Paige MacKay helped shepherd the book to publication.

Earlier analyses of this research can be found in our previous publications in the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, the International Journal of Comparative Labour Law and Industrial Relations, and the Labor Studies Journal, and in the volumes Diaspora Organizations in International Affairs (Global Institutions Series, Routledge), Activismos transnacionales desde México (Instituto de Investigaciones Dr. José María Luis Mora), the Labor Employment Relations Association Research Volume Series, and chapter 5 of Shannon’s 2009 book Conflicting Commitments: The Politics of Enforcing Immigrant Worker Rights in San Jose and Houston (Cornell University Press). With thanks also to our coauthor, friend, and colleague Els de Graauw.

AEU ANEC

CCIME CDM CIAM

CIBAC

CMW

COMPA

CORPS DACA DGPME

DOL EEOC EMPLEO FAT

ICE

ILO

IME

ABBREVIATIONS USED IN TEXT arrangement establishing understanding

Asociación Nacional de Empresas Comercializadoras de Productores del Campo / National Association of Marketing Companies of Rural Producers

Consejo Consultivo del IME / Advisory Board of the IME

Centro de los Derechos del Migrante / Migrant Rights Center Centro de Información y Asistencia a Mexicanos / Center for Assistance and Information to Mexicans

Carpeta Informativa Básica Consular / Basic Consular Information Binder

UN International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of AII Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families

Colectivo Migraciones para las Américas / Migration Collective for the Americas

Community Outreach and Resource Planning Specialists

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals

Dirección General de Protección a Mexicanos en el Exterior / General Directorate for the Protection of Mexicans Abroad

Department of Labor

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

Employment, Education and Outreach

Frente Auténtico del Trabajo / Authentic Workers' Front Immigration and Customs Enforcement

International Labour Organization

Instituto de los Mexicanos en el Exterior / Institute of Mexicans Abroad

XV xvi ABBREVIATIONS USED IN TEXT

INAI

INILAB LOA MOU NAALC NAFTA NLRB OSHA PALE

PCME

PRECADEM PRI

ProDESC

RMALC

SEIU

SEM SHCP SITRAJOR

SRE STPS TPS UE UFCW WHO

Instituto Nacional de Transparencia, Acceso a la Informacion y Protección de Datos Personales / National Institute of Transparency, Information Access and Private Data Protection

Regional Initiative on Labor Mobility

letter of agreement

memorandum of understanding

North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation

North American Free Trade Agreement

National Labor Relations Board

Occupational Safety and Health Administration

Programa de Asistencia Jurídica a Personas Mexicanas a través de Asesorías Legales Externas en los Estados Unidos de América / Legal Assistance Program to Mexicans by Attorneys in the United States Programa para las Comunidades Mexicanas en el Extranjero / Program for Mexican Communities Abroad

Prevención, Capacitación y Defensa del Migrante

Partido Revolucionario Institucional / Institutional

Revolutionary Party

Proyecto de Derechos Económicos, Sociales y Culturales / Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights Project

Red Mexicana de Acción Frente al Libre Comercio / Mexican Action Network Confronting Free Trade

Service Employees International Union

Servicio Exterior Mexicano / Diplomatic Civil Service

Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Publico / Finance Ministry Sindicato Independiente de Trabajadores de La Jornada / Independent Trade Union of Workers of "La Jornada"

Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores / Ministry of Foreign Affairs Secretaría del Trabajo y Previsión Social / Ministry of Labor Temporary Protected Status

United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America

United Food and Commercial Workers International Union

World Health Organization