Labor migration is in the spotlight. On Monday, Mexican President AMLO urged President Biden to offer temporary work visas to deter asylum seekers from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador from arriving at the U.S. border. Similarly, government officials from Mexico and the US discussed the issue at the recently relaunched High-Level Economic Dialogue. At the…
It’s CDM’s anniversary month and there’s so much to celebrate. Today, it’s all about Maribel and Reyna! By now, I’m sure you know Maribel and Reyna’s story by heart. When they worked at a crawfish plant in Louisiana on H-2B visas, their employer fired them after they sought medical attention for COVID-19. A hundred people…
On this Labor Day, we’re celebrating CDM’s 16th anniversary. And I’m thrilled to kick off our month-long celebrations with one of the powerful migrant leaders with whom we started our journey: Juan Antonio Maldonado. While working as a legal services attorney in Florida, I represented migrant workers in employment and civil rights cases. Determined to…
On July 23, 2021, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued dozens of citations, including six willful violations, and proposed $998,637 in penalties against four companies associated with the deadly nitrogen leak that took place earlier this year at Foundation Food Group (FFG), a poultry-processing plant in Georgia. In part, the citations allege that…
Today, a year after the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) came into effect, we’re feeling optimistic. On June 29, the USMCA Labor Council held its first meeting to discuss the implementation of the agreement’s labor chapter, Chapter 23. Our main takeaway: protecting migrant workers is a priority for all interested parties. During the last few weeks,…
On January 21, 2021, President Biden instructed the U.S. Occupational and Health Administration (OSHA) to analyze the need for Emergency Temporary Standards (ETS) to protect workers during the COVID-19 pandemic and give its recommendations by March 15th, 2021. On June 10th, almost three months later than expected — and after more than a year since…
We’re kicking off a momentous week in the fight for migrant justice. U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris will be arriving in Mexico this evening to meet Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and discuss migration, labor and trade. For months, both leaders have floated the idea of expanding guestworker programs as a “quick fix” to…
Today, 59 leading human rights scholars across Mexico, the United States and Canada filed a supplement under the US-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement (USMCA) demanding that the US government end discrimination in its temporary guestworker visa programs. The supplement supports the first petition against the U.S. government under the agreement, in which migrant workers Maritza Pérez and…
Please join us in welcoming Liliana Giffen to CDM’s Board of Directors! For more than 15 years Liliana has worked with international organizations furthering their missions to advance social change. To CDM, she brings an exciting combination of experience, skills, and energy relevant to our work. Currently, Liliana is the Director of Communications at Humanity…
This Workers’ Memorial Day, in honor of workers who have been killed or injured on the job, we’re announcing CDM’s Protein Processing Worker Project. Through a cooperative agreement with the CDC, this project seeks to prevent infectious diseases among workers in protein (seafood, meat and poultry) processing industries in the Delmarva region. As part of…