SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS April 13, 2007 Union rep's slaying called revenge
MONTERREY, Mexico — The slaying of a representative of a U.S.-based union for migrant workers was a politically motivated crime, union leaders charged Thursday. Santiago Rafael Cruz, 29, was found Monday bound and beaten to death in the Monterrey offices of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee. The union represents hundreds of temporary agriculture workers who travel to the eastern United States with H2A, or agricultural, visas issued in Monterrey. In recent years, the union has locked horns with growers over fees their recruiting agencies charged workers for processing agricultural visas and transportation to work sites, union representatives said. The group's Monterrey offices had been broken into a number of times and union representatives had faced threats and intimidation, said Baldemar Velásquez, the union's founder. Cruz, originally from the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca but who had worked with the organization in Toledo, Ohio, lived at the office. "It was a pure political attack," Velásquez said. A federal court ruled last year that companies in the North Carolina Growers Association, that employ a large number of union-represented migrants, would have to pay for visa and transportation fees for workers, said Robert Willis, a union attorney. The ruling came into effect last year and saved workers some $2 million dollars last year, Velásquez said. Previously, workers would have to pay recruiters nonrefundable fees of upwards of $1,000, Velásquez said, adding that the total cost per visa and transportation was less than $350. "We think the motivation was the fact that we are making a lot of these ... recruiters (and) assistants to the recruiters pretty miserable down here," he said. A spokesperson for the Nuevo León state police responsible for the investigation said Cruz's killing was the result of either "a fight between unions" or "an internal fight" in the union. Investigators have ruled out drug cartel violence, which has claimed the lives of almost 50 people in the state this year, including 18 law enforcement officers.
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