October 27, 2005

Mexico Sets Payment for Ex-Guest Workers
By MARK STEVENSON
 
MEXICO CITY — After decades of waiting and years of protests, former "bracero" guest workers who labored in the United States between the 1942 and 1964 will get a one-time payment of about $3,500, the Mexican government announced Thursday.

The payment was described as "insulting" by activists who have mounted a years-long campaign on behalf of the aging former workers, some of whom had pension funds deducted from their paychecks but never saw the money.

"This is very little, it's insulting that they are offering so little," said Rafael Garcia, a member of Braceroproa, a group that has pressed the workers' demands. He said the payment should not be less than $9,175.

Assistant Interior Secretary Felipe Gonzalez brushed off those criticisms, and suggested that some activists were angry because they could no longer profit from representing the demands of the former braceros.

"They're going to get angry because their little business deal is going to end, for those that making a living off these organizations," Gonzalez said.

The leaders of Braceroproa -- one of the more radical ex-bracero groups -- pledged to challenge the payment plans in court.

Earlier this year, Mexico's Congress approved a $27 million fund to partially compensate the bracero workers; while it was viewed as a step forward, activists also complained the rules governing the fund will block payments to many who should receive them.

Activists and the increasingly elderly former workers have held marches, protests and even briefly seized the ranch of President Vicente Fox's family in the central state of Guanajuato to demand compensation.

On Thursday, the Interior Ministry announced the ground rules and amount of the payments. Offices will be set up in many of Mexico's 31 states to process claims.

Each former worker will have up to four months to claim the one-time payment, by submitting pay stubs, work visas, labor contracts or other supporting documents.

Surviving spouses or children can collect the payment for former workers who have already died, by presenting the same documents.

About 10 percent of the Bracero's paychecks were withheld for savings and pension funds that were supposed to be paid in Mexico, as an incentive for migrants to return home. The money disappeared, and a government investigation found no trace of it.

The Bracero program brought Mexicans to the United States as temporary workers -- largely in agriculture _to fill a labor shortage originally created by World War II.