Over the past 3 years or so, I have explored with Alan Pogue, the Austin, Tx photographer specializing in social justice, a problem that I would rate "Stump the Experts." You will see why. Maybe you have an idea for how to make a breakthrough.
This problem, for me, has come to define the difference between conventional media and its stereotypical narrative about the world, versus "new media" which I feel has limitations that we are yet to understand how to overcome.
This problem exists on several levels. How do you tell a story that is about the plight of people living in the shadow of NAFTA, right on the US border in Mexico? How do you tell the story of people who are living in a world that Charles Dickens would find deplorable when so many really don't want to know about that kind of reality? How do you tell the story of labor conditions under NAFTA when people in the US are more interested in what butters their own bread? How do you tell a story involving major injury without causing people to just turn away?
Part of the problem is how to get media attention. This is a story that apparently, not even Democracy Now! wants, let alone Good Morning America. Or is it?
I wonder if there is anyone here who has any contacts that might be useful, especially in national media, or who could also help with the other main problem: fundraising?
Here's the top line:
An agreement was just struck that will give Rosa Moreno, a former maquiladora worker, a new pair of hands, providing an amazing Christmas miracle for someone who lost them in a particularly cruel circumstance almost four years ago.
I built a website to showcase the work of a friend, Alan Pogue, who has been visiting along the Mexico/US border since shortly after he returned from Vietnam, in 1968. He became a familiar name to many in Texas as his work among the migrant farmworkers of the Rio Grande Valley brought the people of those fields into focus. His works were powerfully evocative of the dignity of workers who could easily have been anyone's mother or father, brother, sister, grandparents, etc. This produced a subtle change in Texas that made it possible for some legislation to alleviate working condition issues.
Thus, Alan has longstanding contacts among Catholic relief workers and other activists. A former priest, Ed Krueger, now in his eighties, bicycles back and forth nearly every day between McAllen on the Texas side of the Rio Grande and Reynosa, on the Mexican side. He organizes an effort to teach maquiladora workers to read and to know about the law as it might help them to know it. He helped organize a group of women to aid in this effort called the Comite de Apoyo, or Committee of Help.
Alan was asked to come down and witness the plight of a maquiladora worker who is literally a poster child for the way things are under NAFTA.
At around 2am in the morning Feb. 20, 2011 Rosa, who was being paid 1.50 an hour, was operating a huge, two-story tall stamping press that could punch down with a force of some 200 tons to stamp a piece of steel into the back of an LG flat panel TV screen. The process is to position the plate in the machine, step back several paces and put ones arms out wide, to hit two start buttons simultaneously. One is well away from the machine when the weight comes down. Then, when it has gone back up, take the finished TV back out and put in a fresh plate.
But the factory where Rosa works does not spend any money they don't have to on maintenance or equipment inspections. Rosa complained that the machine was making noises. She was told to keep on working.
Rosa was positioning a plate when the machine suddenly activated itself and came down. It wouldn't go back up. It took something like ten minutes for other machine operators to figure out how to pry it back up. Rosa had to stand there with her hands and wrists caught in the machine and not pass out. She had to be clear headed because the company nurse and others urged her to not go to the hospital where the accident would have to be reported. Instead, they suggest she go to the company dispensary, or to a hospital known for not reporting. Rosa insisted on going to the hospital she knew she needed. The company nurse refused to call an ambulance. Rosa walked out of the factory with her hands mashed flat as tortillas and enmeshed in the steel back of the TV set, which she had to carry to the emergency room in the car of a co-worker.
After her hands were amputated, she was cared for by the Comte de Apoyo women and Ed Krueger, who in his eighties, still pays nearly daily visits. Ed set up a bank account in McAllen to accept funds for Rosa.
I helped Alan Pogue set up a website that displays his photos of Rosa and a summary of the story. It also has a PayPal link
Maquiladora Madonna
Since then the problem has been to obtain press attention for this story. Mostly the responses are silence. Even from people who do PR for unions and from progressive publications.
There have been a few successes. Notably, Alan was able, after almost two years of persistence, to find a freelance writer working with the Texas Observer who was willing to visit Rosa in Reynosa. The Observer published a pretty fine feature article about the disposable workers of the maquiladoras and Rosa.
Disposable Workers
One quote stood out for me. A Mexican official, discussing Rosa's options offered the opinion that Rosa would do well, considering her injuries, with a tin cup.
An Austin attorney filed a lawsuit and pursued the personal injury angle. The process was pretty much exhausted and went into what NAFTA was apparently designed to be: a permanent inbox with no action.
Thus, the only possible way that Rosa could be helped to gain a useful prosthetic and to be able to work to feed herself and help her children, is to get help from people in the US who can look past the US/Mexico border and past the stereotypes and just help because they are humans who relate to other humans.
The good news is that, because of the Texas Observer piece, and because it got picked up on AlterNet, donations have been made from a variety of places around the internet. Amsterdam. London. Albuquerque. Seattle. Madison. Columbus.
So we can say for sure that what drives online eyeballs the most is conventional print or electronic media coverage.
Because of the Observer piece, a mother and daughter in Columbus, Ohio, Chris and Victoria Ruddy, started up a non-profit to help Rosa and to promote consciousness about the workers on the US/Mexican border. They were able to contact the University of Texas School of Prosthetics and Orthotics in Dallas, where the center's director, Susan L. Kapp, MEd, CPO, LPO, offered to fit Rosa with a pair of prosthetic hands at a somewhat discounted rate.
Thus far, a little under 10,000 dollars has been raised. This almost gets Rosa one hand. The two hands combined can be done for as little as 22,000.
Since this is the Christmas season it seems logical to assume that this is a story that could have some appeal somewhere. It also would seem that to find the other half of the funding, would seem doable. In the scheme of things, that isn't that much money.
But there are issues beyond Rosa herself that remain which should concern us. How can we improve our ability to use the internet to network for the purpose of telling stories that the conventional media does not see and we aren't aware of for that very reason? How can we ourselves gain better understanding of how these individual stories when they come along, help shed a light on larger issues like international trade agreements?
Rosa would not be working for 1.50 an hour as an American machinist. She would probably start at around 30.00. After some years, she could do better than that.
Here, laws govern proper maintenance of dangerous machinery. So, in the US, this accident would be pretty rare.
If such an accident occured in the US, there would be Workman's Comp. If there was serious malfeasance on the part of the company, a personal injury lawsuit would probably get a jury trial and the jury would probably be pissed. This is the sort of thing that judgements in the tens of millions are awarded for.
Obviously, LG, the product manufacturer which is headquartered in Korea, is well aware of this, as are all of the manufacturers who sell electronic and other products for the US consumer market, but who locate plants just across the legal line from US courts and US labor laws.
There are various questions here about how NAFTA regulations make it impossible for workers to address circumstances like this, and how these might still be a serious problem under new trade agreements.
These cases are not really effectively argued in the abstract. You have to see what you may not want to see and put yourself in the shoes of people you may think you have no connection with.
Except you do. Rosa could be any one of us, giving slightly different history and circumstances. If we do not see the connection then it is our future that is lost.
So where can this story be told? Any thoughts?