Two former employees of a Duro Bag Manufacturing Co. plant in Mexico were in Ludlow, Ky., Monday to press the company to allow a union representation election there.
The two women, Margarita Rincon Jimenez and Maria Francisca Orozco, say they were fired by Ludlow-based Duro in June for participating in a strike against the company's plant in Rio Bravo, Mexico, where they are leading an effort to organize an independent labor union.
Workers at the plant, which assembles gift bags used by companies like Hallmark and Neiman-Marcus, are represented by the National Paperworkers Union (CTM), a group aligned with the Institutional Revolutionary Party.
Ms. Jimenez, speaking through an interpreter, said officials from Duro and CTM have told workers at Rio Bravo that they will be fired if they vote in favor of the independent union. A vote has been scheduled for Friday but is to be held on company property and won't be secret. Workers want a secret ballot, she said.
Duro has hired ''goons and hooligans'' who threaten workers and prevent supporters of the union from passing out leaflets, said Ms. Jimenez. She said she has been beaten and held at gunpoint by police because of her organizing activities.
''We want to put pressure on Duro Bag Co. so they will let us have a free and fair election,'' Ms. Jimenez said at a press conference organized by the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical & Energy Workers International Union, which represents Duro workers at plants in Northern Kentucky.
A person answering the phone at Duro's headquarters Monday said the company would have no comment.
After the press conference, a group of about 50 PACE members, local labor leaders, college students and others marched to Duro's headquarters and confronted workers exiting the building. A company official refused comment to the group.
Dan LaBotz, a visiting professor at the University of Cincinnati, said there are 3,500 plants like Duro's in the maquiladora region of Mexico, an area named for tax laws in place to attract foreign investment there.
http://www.cincypost.com/2001/feb/27/duro022701.html Publication date: 02-27-01