­by Jackie Guzman

The Mexican government estimates thousands of its citizens will return by the end of the year. The U.S. economic crisis and raids are pushing migrants back, according to El Diario de Mexico. Authorities in the Mexican state of Puebla say around 20,000 migrants will be returning. Government expects in Querétaro the number around 50,000 for their state and Oaxaca state officials estimate about 25,000 nationals returning.

­In Puebla, Carlos Olamendi Torres, commissioner of Atention Del Migrante Poblano, says the majority of returning migrants are construction workers who have previously contributed close to $600 million in remittances to the state.

Some state governments, admitting they are unprepared to receive thousands of returning nationals, are working with communities to create new jobs and encourage new forms of investment for migrant opportunities.

“We do not have any specifi c support for this,” said Alfredo Botello Mon­tes, secretary of the state government in Querétaro, “however, we are working to generate the specific conditions to keep Querétaro as a state that invests to offer a good quality of life.” Querétaro awaits the federal government to come up with its own program.

In the state of Mexico the legislature approved measures to create a group to provide support to the returning emigrants and a legislative commission to encourage citizenship participation. Hispanic Link.

by Juliana Birnbaum Fox

Docens of workers sympatizers and advocates march in front of Woofin Hotel

Over 300 protesters, including hotel workers, union organizers, and community leaders, gathered last Monday outside the Woodfin Suites Hotel in Emeryville. The rally then marched on to City Hall, where councilmembers held their second hearing on the nearly three-year-old dispute that has pitted immigrant workers against a luxury hotel chain.

The foundations of the battle were laid in 2005 when Emeryville voters approved Measure C, a living wage law for hotel workers. Woodfin argues it has complied with Measure C, although the hotel fought the living wage ordinance before it became law and continues to call it unconstitutional.

For about a year, Woodfin refused to pay housekeepers the wage rates required under the law and eventually fired 12 worker leaders, claiming to have issues with validating their social security numbers. East Bay Alliance for Sustainable Economy (EBASE) has taken on a pivotal role in supporting the workers, calling on employers not to use immigration laws as a pretext to deny workers their right to uphold labor standards.

Housekeeper Maria Martinez said she is angry and fighting for the desperately needed money she says she’s already earned. “I want to see justice,” she said in Spanish. “I want to see us paid what we’re owed.”

Tim Rosales, spokesman for the hotel, said that the Woodfin dispute has more to do with labor leaders trying to unionize the hotel than unjustly treated workers.

“I think that you are seeing some outside pressure groups come in and try to make an example of non-union hotels here in Emeryville,” he said.

City Manager Patrick O’Keefe said Measure C is all about fair wages, not unions, and reaffirmed the city’s position that Woodfin Suites needs to pay the approximately $200,000 in back wages.

Woodfin owner Sam Hardage has reportedly spent about twice the sum they owe on largely unsuccessful litigation ­trying to overturn the city’s living wage ordinance and the 2007 court order to pay the wages. The hotel’s general manager, Hugh MacIntosh, said that Emeryville moved far beyond its regulatory limits in trying to micromanage the hotel’s business.

“This dispute goes way back and is tied to undocumented workers,” MacIntosh said. “EBASE used their vulnerability to encourage them to file complaints, saying we’d treated them unfairly and owed them back wages. All of this is unfounded.”

Last Thursday Judge Steven A. Brick of the Alameda Superior Court denied the Woodfin Hotel’s request for an injunction against the Emeryville City Council. The council voted Monday to continue the hearing on Woodfin’s appeal of the back wage order on December 1 at 7:00 pm.

“With half of the hearing done, workers are one step closer to getting the back wages they deserve… Especially in this time of economic crisis, we call on Sam Hardage to act swiftly and put checks into workers hands in time for the holidays,” said Brooke Anderson, EBASE’s Organizing Director. “Then the hotel will be able to re-join the community.”

by the El Reportero’s news services

MANAGUA, Nicaragua – Nicaragua’s ruling Sandinista party claimed victory in nationwide municipal elections, but rival parties say the early returns were misleading, and according to news accounts in Nicaragua, exguerrilla fighters are threatening to take back their arms.

After a caravan of members of the opposition Liberal Constitutionalist Party heading to the City of Leon on Sunday’s rally to protest what they called a shameless electoral fraud, were rejected by forces loyal to President Daniel Ortega.

“In effect, yesterday pro-Ortega forces threw massively their supporters with all sorts of weapons, so that no caravan would go on from Managua to the march in León, and also it prevented with a ring of organized violence, the same march from taking place in Managua,” read an unsigned news published in El Nuevo Diario, the second largest daily in Nicaragua.

According to the daily, while all this was happening and clashes were taking place in Nagarote, Mateare and Ciudad Sandino and the frustrated opposition caravan was returning to Managua, war weapons began to surface on both edicts, and in the pro-government radios, and in the only opposition broadcasting station, there was used language that undoubtedly will bring unsuspected conNOTICEsequences.

The mayoral elections were seen as a referendum on leftist President Daniel Ortega, whose government has come under fire for barring two opposition parties from fielding mayoral candidates and for police raids against non-governmental organizations.

Sandinistas and opposition supporters engaged in scattered rock fights in Managua, the capital, and police spokeswoman Vilma Reyes said four people were injured, including two teenagers hit by bullets.

The country’s Supreme Electoral Council said the Sandinistas were leading in 94 of the 146 mayoral races nationwide with a majority of votes counted. No percentage of votes counted was given, and results from six municipalities had not yet been calculated.

With 69 per cent of votes counted in the race for mayor of Managua, former boxing champion and Sandinista candidate Alexis Arguello led with 51 percent while former Finance Minister Eduardo Montealegre had 47 percent for the Liberal Constitutional Party.

Sandinista congressional leader Edwin Castro said the party’s own quick count showed it had won in Managua and in 95 to 100 other municipalities, though he acknowledged apparent losses in provincial cities such as Jinotega and Granada.

Montealegre, who lost the 2006 presidential election to Ortega, said he was winning in the capital, and his party said it had won about 60 mayoral races. Montealegre said horn-honking Sandinista car caravans that appeared on Managua streets Monday were “celebrating their own defeat.”

The nationwide vote was the first major electoral test for Ortega since he returned to power nearly two decades after leading a Marxist government that fought US-backed Contra rebels.

Ortega has regularly criticized Washington’s foreign policy and built strong ties with Cuba, Venezuela, Russia and Iran.

Opposition leaders have criticized the government for failing to invite observers from the Organization of American States and refusing to accredit the local group Ethics and Transparency, which has monitored past elections.

Ortega said he rejected the observers “because they are financed by outside powers” and accused local news media of conducting “an open campaign” against Arguello.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Robert Wood said there were reports of “widespread irregularities taking place at voting stations throughout the country” and said the refusal to permit outside observers has made it tough to “properly assess the conduct of the elections.”

“We also note that political conditions that existed during the campaign were not conducive to free and fair elections,” he said.

­(El Nuevo Diario, AP and AFP contributed to this report.)

­by Jose de la Isla

­Democratic U.S. Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois won the presidential election Nov. 4 over Republican U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona with substantial Hispanic voter help from key states. Edison-Mitofsky exit polls estimate that Hispanics supported Obama nationwide by a margin of 67 percent to 31 percent.

At least 10 million Latinos voted, estimates Janet Murguía, president of the National Council of La Raza NCLR was part of the coalition effort by Hispanic organizations to boost voter registrations. Actual Latino voter turnout is estimated at 9 percent of the national electorate.

The often-mentioned swing-states scenario—involving Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Florida, states with large numbers of Hispanic voters—proved true. The policy analysis group NDN reported the day for lowing the election that Obama’s victory margins in those four states were attributable to the Latino vote.

Obama’s level of support from Hispanics comes as the second major voting-pattern shift in as many elections. In 2004, attention was drawn to the 40%-plus level of support President Bush received during his re-election bid when he faced Democrat John Kerry. The swing back to 2-to-1 in favor of Obama reflects a return to the mostly historical voting pattern.

In key battleground states (see table on p. 2) the results show Latinos made substantial, even unprecedented, contributions in electing the new president. Even in embattled Virginia, for instance, where Hispanics make up only 6 percent of the population (a full third under 16), they provided Obama 28 percent of his victory margin in that state.

In early September, pollster Sergio Bendixen revealed at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute public-policy conference that Hispanic public-opinion surveys already indicated Latinos strongly favoring Obama in these critically important swing states.

Only Florida was stale mated in a virtual tie between the Democratic and Republican candidates. Huge voter-registration and voter-turn out efforts followed, along with unprecedented levels of funding ­for campaign advertising.

On election night, Florida and Virginia were undecided when Ohio swung for Obama. As polls closed in New Mexico and Colorado networks held off calling the race until precincts closed in the West.

Elections analyst and former director of the South-west Voter Registration Education Project Andrew Hernandez had earlier predicted to Weekly Report he envisioned Latinos getting credit for the election only if John McCain were able to win Ohio and Florida, hold on to Virginia, and Obama picked up New Hampshire and lowa.

“Then it’s a Latino narrative,” he said, because the election would hinge on New Mexico, Colorado and Nevada to put him over the top. “That, of course, can’t happen until the sun rises over San Francisco Bay.”

The day following the election, pollsters and analysts were reporting that young voters and “minorities,” alluding to Latinos, had put Obama over the top.

And the sun was reported rising over Golden Gate Bridge. Hispanic Link.