by Juliana Birnbaum Fox

Woodfin Suites workers: ­- including advocates, Emeryville residents, and faith leaders – march on April 10 asking their boss not to take away their jobs

In the biggest protest in Emeryville history, over 300 union members, students, musicians, community activists, faith leaders, elected officials and local residents rallied for immigrant and workers’ rights at the City Hall last Tuesday, April 10.

Participants pushed for the Emeryville City Council to support Woodfin Suites workers in their demand that their employer comply with the local living wage law (Measure C). They also asked that the city hold the hotel management accountable for its retaliation against its immigrant workers and for the $200,000 in back wages owed.

The rally was followed by an energetic march down 40th Street to raise awareness about the plight of the Woodfin workers and the boycott of the hotel.

“We might lose our jobs in the next 10 days,” said Luz Domínguez, a Woodfin housekeeper.

“We can’t continue living from day to day without knowing that our future is secure. We are going to keep boycotting the Woodfin until the hotel treats us with respect by guaranteeing our jobs and paying us the wages we are owed.”

Emeryville voters passed Measure C in November 2005, which raised wages and set limits to the amount of work that could be asked of employees within a given period of time.

City council member and lawyer John Fricke supported Measure C. He sees himself as part of Emeryville’s new wave.

“The old guard was very business-friendly, and gave the developers whatever they wanted,” he explains. “But the people who came to live in the new lofts and apartments are young people priced out of San Francisco. They have a pretty supportive attitude towards workers and immigrants.”

The week before Christmas last year, after protests pressuring Woodfin to adhere to Measure C, the hotel gave notice to 21 workers, claiming Social Security number mismatches. The following week, the Alameda County Superior Court granted a temporary restraining order preventing the Woodfin Suites from firing the workers until their claims were investigated.

The employees returned to work after the ruling, but Sarah Noor of the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy said the workers fear the hotel will fire them after the temporary order expires on April 20.

Luz Dominguez: , a mother of three, has been a Woodfin Suites housekeeper for two and a half years.

“I’m just living from one day to the next on what I make,” said Marcela Melquiades, a worker at the hotel. “I don’t know what I’d do if I lost my job. Even though I’m back to work, I’m always worried about the next day. I’m just living with anxiety, all the time.”

Woodfin general manager Hugh MacIntosh said today that the hotel probably will indeed fire the 21 workers, but he said the reason is that they don’t have legitimate Social Security numbers, not retaliation.

“We’ve offered to give them four hours paid time off to sort out the issues with their Social Security numbers,” MacIntosh said. “They haven’t gotten their documentation sorted out.”

However, the workers say the reason is another.

“The reason the hotel was saying this was because we were demanding our rights,” stated Dominguez.

Over the past months, a boycott committee consisting of workers, Emeryville residents, faith leaders and community supporters has visited many locally-based corporations that use the Woodfin to tell them about the workers’ boycott and urge them to stop patronizing the hotel until it meets the workers’ demands. Protests have also been held at the hotel once or twice a week since the issue began.

Norr said she believes Woodfin is conveniently using the documentation issue as a cover, and the real reason for the possible firings is retaliation. Most of the undocumented employees have worked at the hotel for many years, she added, and their Social Security status wasn’t an issue for management until the workers demanded that the hotel comply with the living wage ordinance.

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by the El Reportero staff

Evo Morales

COLOMBIA: The government was delighted by a huge and unprecedented march in Cali on 12 April to protest against terrorism. The government did its best to appear not to have organised the march, though the march was led by the defence minister, Juan Manuel Santos, and the mayor of Cali.

The government needs all the public support it can muster in the face of the snowballing para-political scandal. On 11 April another three federal deputies were indicted by the supreme court for their links with the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC) and the supreme court, which is leading the investigation into the parapolitical scandals, appears to be treating seriously claims by a leftwing senator, Gustavo Petro, that leading politicians in Antioquia had close links with the AUC. President Alvaro Uribe and his ministers dismiss Petro as a “terrorist in a suit.”

Chile’s big push to solve Bolivia’s demand for ocean outlet hinges on Peru’s agreement

Chile has been working hard to solve neighbouring Bolivia’s longstanding demand for restitution of access to the sea. Sovereign access was wrested from Bolivia by the Chileans during the War of the Pacific of 1879-84. Bolivia, under the strongly nationalistic rule of Evo Morales, seems willing to accept a less-than-perfect solution. The problem is whether Peru, inevitable third party in this matter, will acquiesce as long as Chile remains apparently determined not to cede on territorial issues with its southern neighbour.

Institutional meltdown as referendum approaches

Ecuador’s chronically weak state institutions buckled in March, as a debate over constitutional authority spilled over into the streets. It has yet to be satisfactorily resolved; as this edition went to press 57 deputies fired by the supreme electoral court (TSE) were still determined to return to congress, despite their alternates having now taken their place in the legislature. Meanwhile, the referendum on a constituent assembly, the trigger for the latest bout between the government and the opposition, is due to take place on 15 April, and President Rafael Correa has started to fret that blank or void votes could thwart his plans.

Chávez says Castro taking back good part of govt duties

According to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Cuban leader Fidel Castro has almost completely recovered from surgery he had last year. He said he has taken back a “good part” of duties governing the country, unofficially.

President Hugo Chavez, Cuban leader Fidel Castro has almost completely recovered from surgery he had last year. He said he has taken back a “good part” of duties governing the country, unofficially.

Castro has not been seen in public since he underwent emergency intestinal surgery that forced him to hand over power temporarily to his brother, Raul Castro, on July 31 last year.

Officials on the communist-run island insist Mr. Castro, in power since 1959, is recovering and will resume his duties.

Still apparently too weak to give one of his legendary speeches, Mr. Castro, 80, has in recent weeks taken to writing editorial columns in the state-run media denouncing his long-time ideological foe, the United States.

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by Rebecca Aman

John Trasviña

Latino and immigrant advocates generally agreed that President Bush’s call for comprehensive immigration reform April 9 in Yuma, Ariz., was an important step  to move the debate forward, but remained largely critical of some of his proposals.

“The words were correct, but the meaning was unclear,’’ John Trasviña, president and General Counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, (MALDEF), told Weekly Report in reaction to the president’s speech.

Bush urged Congress to pass a comprehensive bill this year His speech came a few days after a controversial White House draft to overhaul the immigration system which had circulated in the U.S. Congress leaked to the media.

“The President’s speech…was a positive, hopeful sign that he continues to believe that immigration reform has to be comprehensive,” stated National Council of La Raza president Janet Murguía. But she urged the president to “move beyond just selling this message and start delivering to make it happen.”

Bush touted the administration’s border security efforts, stating a goal to increase the number of Border Patrol agents from 13,000 to 18,000 by the end of next year.

In addition, he called for a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants and a temporary worker program, but fell short of going into the specifics laid out in the White House draft.

According to the White House proposal, undocumented immigrants would have to pay more than $10,000 to attain citizenship. In his speech, Bush did not specify costs, but stated, “Illegal immigrants who have roots in our country and want to stay should have to pay a meaningful penalty for breaking the law.”

He further called for allowing foreign workers to come in “for a temporary period of time.” Under the proposal, guest workers would be required to return to their countries of origin after six years.

Latino advocates oppose that idea, as well as another one that would not allow families to come in with the workers.

George W. Bush

“Unfortunately, the president’s proposal falls short of his commitment to providing a realistic pathway for hard-working immigrants to have a shot at the American Dream,” stated Rosa Rosales, president of the League of United Latin American Citizens.

The organization stressed that visa categories for family members would be eliminated.

Jennifer Allen, director of the Arizona-based Border Action Network, stated, “President Bush’s announcement is misleading. He says his approach is ‘comprehensive’ but he’s actually creating more ways for immigrant communities to be deported…and treated like an exploitable, permanent underclass.”

Proponents of stricter immigration reform criticized Bush’s plan, claiming it offers “amnesty. “

The proposal is an alternative to immigration legislation introduced last month by Reps. Luis Gutiérrez (D-Ill.) and Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.).

Their bill offers a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants for $2,000 and would allow 400,000 guest workers annually who would also be eligible for citizenship.

“The (Gutierrez-Flake bill) is the first step but not the end result,” Trasviña said. “The President’s proposal is a step in the opposite direction.”

Others were more critical of the Gutierrez-Flake bill. Javier Rodríguez, a spokesperson of the March 25th Coalition, told Weekly Report that the bill would “keep immigrant groups vulnerable.”

Hispanic Link.

by the El Reportero news services

Felipe Calderón

President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa celebrated his first 100 days in office on March 10, just before President George W Bush arrived. Bush’s visit did not, as we argue inside, settle whether Mexico’s foreign policy will be aimed at appeasing the US or championing Latin America. The attractions of a Latin Americanist policy are clear from the enthusiasm in Mexico for the Chilean president Michelle Bachelet.

Domestically, Calderón’s big initiative in the first 100 days has been the offensives against the drug trade, now running, with little apparent success, in nine of the country’s 32 states. Economically, Calderón has got both his budget through congress and an important pension reform. He has also started to explain why a fiscal reform is essential now that oil production, and reserves, are falling.

Kirchner picks fight with U.S. and Argentine judiciary

It was an eventful week for President Néstor Kirchner and one that could potentially have a defining influence on October’s presidential elections. Firstly, his government was involved in a diplomatic spat with the US for granting Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez permission to address a rally attacking George W Bush while the US President was in Uruguay. Kirchner’s wife, Senator Cristina Fernández, meanwhile, was boosting her profile and cementing the government’s foreign-policy priorities by visiting Ecuador and Venezuela. Secondly, Roberto Lavagna, the main threat to either Kirchner or Fernández winning the elections, at last sealed his alliance with one faction of the Unión Cívica Radical (UCR) and is now trying to unite dissident Peronists. Finally, Kirchner became embroiled in a power clash with the judiciary which, for once, stood its ground.

Brazil wins the race to US$1 trillion

Brazil became the region’s first US$1trillion economy at the end of March when the official statistics agency, Ibge, revised its calculations for the country’s GDP. The revision, which was further flattered by the strength of the Real against the dollar, means that the Brazilian economy is now about 20 percent bigger than the Mexican economy. As Brazil’s population is nearing 180m, while Mexico’s is about 105m, GDP per capita figures still favour Mexico. Both economies are still lagging the US, whose output is 12 times Brazil’s and whose GDP per capita is almost seven times that of Brazil.

REGION: Cracks starting to show in Alba?

The US ambassador to Bolivia, Philip Greenberg, praised President Evo Morales on 29 March for his efforts to reduce coca cultivation and judged Morales’s call for more eradication in the Yungas region to be a “good sign”. Morales’s departure from his usual criticism of coca eradication signals a newly conciliatory approach to the US, and suggests that Bolivia is pulling away from the unyielding hostility to the US that President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela advocates. Last week Morales told coca growers in the Yungas region to “honour international commitments” to coca crop reduction, despite previous announcements that he wanted to increase the area permitted for legal coca cultivation from 12,000 to 20,000 hectares.

U.S. intelligence chiefs see no major security threat from Latin Am

Latin America poses no major threats to the national security of the US – at least according to the latest annual threat assessments presented to the US Congress by the director of national intelligence and the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Indeed the only clearly defined threats are the possibility that Colombia’s Farc guerrillas may continue to target US interests and nationals, and that Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez will persist in his effort to ‘neutralise’ US influence in the region.