Mexican consulate initiative aims to raise awareness about worker rights

The Mexican consulate in Atlanta is unveiling a week-long initiative to raise awareness about worker rights among the state’s Mexican and Spanish-speaking immigrant populations – an important source of labor for key Georgia industries including agriculture, meatpacking, and manufacturing.

The consulate’s Worker Rights Week, which kicked off on Monday and is set to last through Friday, will also cement partnerships between Mexican consular authorities in Georgia and local offices of U.S. government agencies active in the space of worksite enforcement.

“We know there’s an enormous quantity of Mexican workers in this country, and specifically here in Georgia, and to us it seems that many of them don’t know about their rights,” said consul general Javier Díaz de León. “They assume that because they’re immigrant workers, their rights aren’t real. But that’s not the case. Regardless of whether you speak English or not, or whether you have legal status or not, you have rights, and you can’t be subject to abuse.”

Díaz de León says that among the most recurring problems faced by Mexican workers are wage theft, and confusion over their rights when hired through a labor recruiter or a contractor – middlemen-type figures who have allegedly played roles in recent accounts of abuse in Georgia farms and Georgia factories. Díaz de León also cited the pandemic-induced U.S. labor shortage as a phenomenon that is creating “distortions” in the workforce and can “generate conditions conducive to abuse.”

Throughout the week, legal experts and community advocates will hold information sessions – both in person at the consulate and via Facebook Live for those unable to make the trip. Among the speakers will be representatives from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and local nonprofits such as Tapestri, which helps trafficking victims find shelter and counseling, and the Georgia Legal Services Program.

Steven Salazar, the Atlanta district director of the Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division, an agency responsible for enforcing fair labor laws, will be on hand at the consulate on Tuesday to sign an agreement with Díaz de León’s team.

“We’re establishing a local mechanism through which we will connect people who approach us and whose right have been violated … with the Wage and Hour [Division],” Díaz de León said.

Scheduled for a livestreamed info session on Thursday is civil rights litigator Daniel Werner, who will give a presentation about the Trade NAFTA —or TN — visa, which is meant to fill high-skilled jobs in the U.S. with Mexican (and Canadian) professionals.

The TN visa has been at the heart of multiple allegations of bait-and-switch schemes earlier this year, with Mexican engineers saying white-collar job offers turned out to be lures for assembly line work.

Since the consulate began organizing Worker Rights Week starting in 2009, “we have made great strides raising awareness of the rights people have,” Díaz de León said. “Unfortunately, we believe that we still have a ways to go in this matter. By nature, many of these communities of workers are often marginalized and isolated. They don’t know their rights.”

All Worker Rights Week events are free. The Mexican consulate is located on 1700 Chantilly Dr NE, Atlanta, GA 30324. Livestreamed information sessions will be available on the consulate’s Facebook page.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Report for America are partnering to add more journalists to cover topics important to our community. Please help us fund this important work at ajc.com/give