Mexicans Strike

[rkapteyn]

Nothing about this in the US press!

https://dearkitty1.wordpress.com/2019/01/18/big-mexican-workers-strike/

[willys54]

I have little sympathy for US Corporations negatively affected by recent labor strikes in Mexico since it is a byproduct of their own greed by sending millions of good paying US manufacturing jobs overseas and abroad.

For Shame!

[BobWaitz]

Interesting that this hasn't been covered extensively in the US. A search of CNN, Fox News, Democray Now, NPR, and CBS News results in nothing (I searched for "Mexican Strike" and "Matamoros"). I would think that one of those sites (a wide variety of right and left leaning news sources) would have something. The only place I can find stories about it are on Marxist and Socialist websites that I never heard of before. Wish I had a contact at a major news source to confirm the story and ask why they aren't reporting it.

(I sent a question to CNN)

[hausdok]

That squid processor shown in the video is not a US Corporation, it's Hanjin corporation, one of the biggest companies in Korea.

I absolutely believe what those women are saying. We are so naïve here. We think that other governments protect their people the way ours tries to protect us, but we really have no idea how bad it is in some cultures, and most of us have no idea what goes on right here with some foreign-owned firms. I can tell you for a fact that Korean-owned and Korean-run companies, which are from a country that now has a relatively high standard of living these days compared to many, are notoriously hard-nosed and tight with a dollar and will cheat their workers any way that they can.

I have a niece who works for Lotte Group in New Jersey, just outside of Ft. Lee where there is a huge Korean immigrant population. My niece is Korean and is an accountant. Her division is run by a Korean manager there whose husband and kids are in Korea while she's fulfilling her assignment for the company. That woman forces the Korean and Korean-American women under her supervision to work overtime without pay, only allows them extremely short lunch breaks - often forcing them to bring their meals and eat at their desk while they are working - and even refused to give one pregnant woman time off during her pregnancy to do her pre-natal exams, etc. My niece was routinely ordered to work three or four hours extra in the evenings without pay to make deadlines that woman had promised her bosses - who were also here on 'assignment' and don't intend to live here and therefore aren't invested in caring about those they supervise.

My niece says that if they complain the manager tells them she has hundreds of job applications on her desk and they are welcome to leave anytime. She says there are American employees working there, but L-G only hires as many as necessary to prevent it looking like they are hiring on the basis of race. She says that the Americans are treated entirely differently and that the Korean women are told in no uncertain terms not to hang out with or talk to any of the American employees or they’ll be fired. The manager apparently knows that she can't get away with that with the American employees, but she knows that with the way Korean culture is the Korean women will put up with it for fear of losing their jobs.

When my niece got married the reception was held in this huge Korean restaurant banquet hall. The guests each arrived with red envelopes for the bride and groom, handed them to my wife’s sister, who immediately, opened them and made an annotation about the amount next to their name on the guest list. When it was all counted, it was over $18K. I thought, 'Wow, these kids are getting off to a good start." The guests were attended to by a staff of several dozen Korean hostesses. They were scurrying around like someone was pushing them with a broom. I never saw one of them take a break. Near the end of the evening, I tried to tip the lady waiting on our table and she refused the tip and then hurriedly looked around to make sure nobody had seen. I asked my niece what the deal was – was it a cultural taboo to offer a tip? She said it was not and went over to talk to the hostess. A minute later she came back to tell me that the hostesses must turn over all tips to the management who doesn't split them with the hostesses, and if the women get caught keeping a tip they get fired. The lady didn't want my tip because she didn't want it to go to the management. I got pissed and told my niece I was going to have a word with the management. My niece said that was the way it is with Korean culture and, if I made a stink about it, things would only be worse for all of the girls and the one who'd I'd tried to tip would probably lose her job.

During the reception, my wife's sister came over to me with a fat envelope, put it in my hands and asked me to safeguard it for her. I asked my wife what it was about. She said it was the cash she and her husband had saved up to pay for the reception and my sister-in-law was worried that her husband, who was drinking, was liable to go downstairs to some illegal card game taking place elsewhere in the place and lose it. I shoved it into my inside breast pocket and guarded it like a doberman all evening.

At the end of the reception, the young couple and their best friends piled into a couple of limousines and left for an all-night round of club-hopping. The newlyweds were leaving on their honeymoon the following afternoon. My brother-in-law and I went back to the office, I handed him the envelope and he handed it to the manager. The manager counted it – it was $35K. Then he shoved a bill into my brother-in-law's hand for an additional $15,000 above the $35K agreed-to-cost, stating in English for my benefit, since I guess I was supposed to be my brother-in-law’s bodyguard or something, that my brother-in-law had brought in more guests than agreed to and they had consumed more food and drink than agreed to (He hadn't – they hadn’t). The light came on in my head right about then – the club was owned by some filthy-rich Korean gampae – a gangster.

They wanted cash on the barrelhead, right there, that night. My brother-in-law didn’t have an extra $15K for them. Unlike the groom’s parents who were very well off, my brother-in-law and his wife barely got by – they both worked as waiters in a huge Korean buffet in another part of town. When my brother-in-law couldn't come up with the cash immediately, the manager made a call and said in Korean to my brother-in-law, "Kamanisibba" - Wait for a moment. The "ba" at the end of the word meant it as an order more than a request. My brother-in-law and I sat there in silence for a minute or two before the ex-cop in me started simmering and I demanded in English, using my best cop’s voice, to know what the hell we were all waiting for. My brother-in-law put his hand on my arm, looked me in the eyes with a pleading expression, shook his head and asked me in broken English, “Please no make bad time, everything be OK.” Meanwhile, the manager and a couple of thug-looking minions standing off to either side of his desk, looked me over like they were sizing me up for cement overshoes. I shut up and sat down but kept my eyes on the thugs’ hands. If they reached for weapons, I was going to smash that manager’s big glass ashtray over the head of the guy nearest if I had to. I didn’t have a chance to think it past that point, because right about then another Korean walked in carrying a briefcase. The manager and his thugs greeted the guy like he was their long-lost uncle, bowing over and over to him and shaking his one hand with their two, while my brother-in-law’s expression went from concerned and nervous to **** scared. The new guy spoke briefly with my brother-in-law in a hushed tone, put his briefcase down on the desk and opened it (It was full of cash), counted out $15K, handed it to my brother-in-law and walked out. No smile, no handshake. No paperwork involved. My brother-in-law handed over the $15K to the manager and we walked out.

My wife and her sister were waiting in the lobby. When my brother-in-law's wife asked what had taken so long and he’d explained it to her, the same ****-scared look washed over my sister-in-law’s face. When I tried to learn a little more about the details of the deal he’d made with briefcase guy, my wife, who looked like she was about to lose her temper and go off on someone, told me that her brother-in-law and her sister had been unable to save the $35K needed for the reception, so, instead of postponing the wedding and reception until they had saved the entire amount, they’d borrowed $10K from a Korean loan shark – the same guy that had just handed over that additional $15K to my brother-in-law. Now the loan shark knew that my brother-in-law’s assertions that he’d be able to pay back the loan quickly were questionable at best and they were rightly afraid of what the loan shark might have done to them if they didn't at least come up with some money to give him quickly. My wife told me very curtly to stay out of it, that it was none of our business and, in the morning when we flew home to Washington, it was going to be their business and their’s alone, because we weren’t going to be involved in it.

Back at the house, I was dead tired, so I went to bed while my wife stayed up to talk to her sister late into the night. The next morning, I woke up to the sound of distressed voices and went downstairs. My wife's sister and my niece were standing in the kitchen arguing with each other – shrieking at each other would be a better way to describe it. Both were in tears. My niece had stopped by to get some of her things and to pick up the wedding loot – she and her new husband were leaving for their honeymoon in three hours. The cause of the commotion? My wife’s sister was begging my niece for $15K of their wedding loot, telling her it was her responsibility to help her father out of the jamb he was in with the loan shark. My niece was upset that her parents had gotten themselves into that kind of jamb, and I guess she and her husband were counting on that cash for their honeymoon. When I realized what all the shrieking was about, I got pissed. I couldn’t believe that a mother would actually expect her daughter to bail her father out of his own mess by giving over her wedding gifts to a gangster (And I really didn’t like the idea of that gangster getting the $1K my wife had talked me into giving the couple instead of signing them up for linens or some crap.). “Hey,” I said, “It's not her responsibility to dig you guys out of your hole - she wasn't the one foolish enough to make a deal with gangsters. You guys need to handle this and keep the kids out of it." Again, my wife cut in, told me it was none of our business and said we needed to go pack and get to the airport. I know that tone of voice well, I wasn't going to get any answers and if I didn't leave it be she and I were going to have a worse problem. So, we packed, a taxi arrived, and we left for the airport. To this day, my wife won’t talk about it and my niece changes the subject every time I’ve asked. I have no idea what happened, but they are still alive and un-injured, so I guess they found a way to clear their debt with the loan shark. A couple of years ago, my wife wanted us to fly to New Jersey to be there for my niece’s son’s first birthday. I said no way in hell was I going anywhere near Ft. Lee, NJ again if I could help it and we stayed home. I mailed the kid a Teddy bear.

I guess what I'm saying is, other countries have other cultures and ways of doing things, ways we won’t understand or agree with, and when immigrants come here and blend with larger immigrant populations of their own, some of those cultural ideas are brought here and to the other countries they settle in. When companies from those other countries also set up overseas, they bring their own work practices with them and give lip service to our employment rules. Practices which we might find abhorrent that go on right under the noses of regulators, as I’m sure it went on uninterrupted in Mexico where a little cash handed to a local official can ensure that a little short changing of the employees can continue to go on unabated. The reason that it doesn't receive broad coverage here is easy to explain, to CNN and other news outfits who know it goes on, it just isn't new news.

[wittsend]

...The reason that it doesn't receive broad coverage here is easy to explain ...

Wait, I just spent 15 minutes reading the longest post in SDC history (that I recall) and it ends with, "The reason that it doesn't receive broad coverage here is easy to explain..."

[hausdok]

LOL, nobody forced you to read it.

[wittsend]

Actually it is a rather sad story that would make a decent movie. And the plot outline is already written!

[Son O Lark]

I will never book a Korean restaurant for a banquet. Thanks for the heads up.;>

[christophe]

Actually it is a rather sad story that would make a decent movie. And the plot outline is already written!

I bet Robert De Niro would be a very decent Mike. Very interesting and very well written.
Nice day to all.

[tim333]

Wittsend, I guess you never read JClary’s posts.

[8E45E]

The reason that it doesn't receive broad coverage here is easy to explain, to CNN and other news outfits who know it goes on, it just isn't new news.

Or they don't want to find their CEO's dead the next morning after reporting/exposing it.

Craig

[wittsend]

Wittsend, I guess you never read JClary’s posts.

Actually I have. But I don't count emogi's so J. Clary comes a close second. Ironically it was the length that got me started to reading this. Surely I had to find out why so much would have been written. And, yes, well written.

I hope my rye humor about, ""Wait, I just spent 15 minutes reading the longest post in SDC history (that I recall) and it ends with, "The reason that it doesn't receive broad coverage here is easy to explain..." ," was taken in the spirit meant. I mean Hausdok is connected to some pretty scary people.

[hausdok]

No Worries,

Not a single feather ruffled.

[8E45E]

I mean Hausdok is connected to some pretty scary people.

I'll say!! http://forum.studebakerdriversclub.c...-weird-morning

Craig

[Hallabutt]

Mike,

That's quite a story, and while I don't doubt your veracity, I have to say that I know dozens of Koreans and none of this comports with what I have come to expect from them. Koreans have their own ways, but I've found them to be genuinely honest and trustworthy. If I were you I would really try to stay clear of that bunch.