The Multinational Monitor
March 2001
Fox, Inc. Takes Over Mexico
By John Ross
Maria Alonso Fernandez arises before dawn to catch the crowded truck to the gates of the San Cristobal ranch so that she will be first in the fields by 7:00 a.m. With 10 brothers and sisters whose upkeep she contributes to, Maria will spend the next eight hours stooping to pick brussel sprouts and broccoli for the U.S. export market. The day will net her 62 pesos, 372 for a six-day week, about $34.
Maria Alonso should not be working at all. She is 12 years old and barred from picking in the fields by Mexican labor law. Even if she was 14, she would still be restricted to a six-hour day.
But Maria and the 30 other children who have been forced by family circumstances to drop out of school and toil at the San Cristobal ranch will have a hard time finding a sympathetic ear to end such exploitation. Child labor is traditional out in the Guanajuato fields. Even if the kids could get a hearing before Mexico¹s new labor secretary, Carlos Abascal, a former director of the nation¹s most prestigious business council, it is highly unlikely that he would take legal action against his boss, President Vicente Fox the owner of the San Cristobal ranch
[complete article at: http://www.essential.org/monitor/monitor.html]