So thank you very much for that and welcoming us this morning.

My name is Lewis Karesh; I am the Acting Secretary of the U. S. National Administrative Office, and I'll be conducting the hearing this morning. I am assisted by Peter Accolla from the National Administrative Office, as well as Matt Levin, George Henshel and Steve Paskal from the U. S. Department of Labor's Office of the Solicitor. Also, Tina Faulkner and Silvio Gonzales from the NAO are here this morning and will be assisting us.

As part of this process, we consult with the Mexican National Administrative Office and other Mexican governmental authorities; this is a cooperative process in which we seek a mutually beneficial resolution to the issues that have been raised in the submission.

Before I continue, I'd like to just take one moment to thank Mayor Howard Peak and the City Council of San Antonio for their gracious hospitality and providing this wonderful city council chambers for us to hold this hearing this morning.

For those of you who need them, headsets are available at the rear of the room. Also at the back of the room, you'll find documents pertaining to this hearing. We do ask you to make sure that you do not leave the room with these headsets; these need to be returned at the end of the day.

For those wishing to take pictures or to videotape the hearing, we ask that you please respect the privacy of the witnesses and only do so from behind.

This hearing is being conducted in accordance with the procedural guidelines pursuant to Article 16 of the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation; these guidelines were duly published in The Federal Register in 1994. Notice of today's hearing was timely published in The Federal Register on November 8 of this year.

The purpose of this hearing is to gather relevant information that will assist the U. S. NAO in preparing a report with respect to U. S. NAO's Submission 2000-1. Submission 2000-1 was filed with the U. S. NAO on July 3, 2000 by the Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras, current and former workers of Auto Trim and Custom Trim and 22 additional unions and non-governmental organizations. NAO accepted the submission for review on September 1, 2000.

Review of this submission is intended to further the objectives of the NAALC as set out in Article 1, which include improving working conditions and working standards in each party's territory, promoting to the maximum extent possible the labor principles set out in Annex 1 of that agreement, among them the prevention of occupational injuries and illnesses, promoting compliance with and effective enforcement by each party of its labor laws and fostering transparency in the administration of labor law.

This submission raises safety and health issues, including injuries and illnesses related to exposure of toxic substances and muscular and skeletal disorders caused by poor ergonomics. The submission also states that illnesses and injuries are often unreported or under-reported and inadequately treated and compensated.

The submission alleges that the Mexican government has failed to fulfill its obligations with respect to Articles 3, 4, 5 and 7, which pertain to NAALC objectives, governmental enforcement action, private action, procedural guarantees and public information awareness. Also, the submission alleges that the Mexican government is in violation of the Mexican federal labor law, Social Security law and the general health law, as well as several other national regulations and standards and international agreements.

Several parts of the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation are at issue, including: Article 3, which reads in the pertinent section, "Each party shall promote compliance with and effectively enforce its labor law through appropriate government action"; Article 4(1), which commits the parties to ensure that persons with a legally recognized interest under its law in a particular matter have appropriate access to administrative, quasi-judicial or labor tribunals for enforcement of that party's labor law; Article 5(1), which commits the parties to ensure that its administrative, quasi-judicial and labor tribunal proceedings for the enforcement of this labor law are fair, equitable and transparent; Article 7, which commits the parties to promote public awareness of its labor law, including ensuring that public information is available related to its labor law and enforcement of compliance procedures and promoting public education regarding its labor law.

The issue raised in the submission, if substantiated, would indicate practices inconsistent, also, with the preamble of the NAALC, which commits the parties to protection and enforcement of basic worker rights, as well as the degree of labor principles contained in the annex, specifically, the principle committing the parties to the prevention of occupational injuries and illnesses.

U. S. National Administrative Office will issue a public report at the end of its review process. The objective of today's hearing is to gather information to assist the NAO to better understand the public report on the government of Mexico's promotion of and compliance with labor laws and appropriate government action.

The purpose of the hearing is not to adjudicate individual rights and, therefore, is not an adversarial proceeding; as such, the Rules of Evidence are not in effect, and there will be no direct or cross-examination of witnesses. The hearing format is used as a means of providing the public and opportunity to present information relevant to the NAO's review. I will be the only person questioning witnesses here today.

In accordance with procedures established by my Office, witnesses filed timely requests to testify today and provided the NAO with summaries our outlines of their testimony. I will permit 10-minute presentations by each witness unless I deem it appropriate for additional time, and I will note that at the time that the witnesses are going to present.

The oral presentations and written statements will be entered into the record and will be considered by the NAO in the formulation of its public report. These documents, along with the other relevant materials submitted, will be available to the public through our National Administrative Office Information Room in Washington.

I will call recesses when I think it is appropriate, most likely, mid-way through the morning session for a break and at lunch time. I ask that you cooperate with the times that I announce and be back in your seats when the hearing is ready to resume.

Should any of you experience trouble with your interpretation receivers, please see one of the technicians or one of the support staff from the National Administrative Office, and they'll be happy to assist you with that. I also ask, to assist the interpreters and to allow for an accurate transcription, that everyone please speak slowly and speak into the microphone when you're addressing us.

We're now ready to proceed with the first panel. I ask everyone to please identify themselves before they speak.

The first panel this morning is Monica Schurtman, the Supervising Attorney at the University of Idaho Legal Aid Clinic.

MS. SCHURTMAN?

MS. SCHURTMAN: Okay. Great. Let's just adjust this.

(Pause.)

MS. SCHURTMAN: Thank you, very much, for holding these hearings today. And I also want to thank the City of San Antonio for donating the use of this space.

I would also like to thank the Maquiladoras workers and former workers who have spent countless hours on this case despite threats of repression and who have never given up hope that they will one day be able to achieve healthier and safer working conditions for themselves, co-workers and workers throughout Mexico.

Additionally, I thank the expert witnesses, who will testify today, for volunteering so much of their time and knowledge for this effort, and I also want to recognize the many friends in this city who welcomed the workers here and showed their support in myriad ways.

As most of you here know, I worked with several law students to conduct field work and legal research over a period of more than two years in support of the NAO submission, which is the subject of today's hearing. And this case is the first submission to the U. S. NAO which focuses exclusively on work place health and safety.

The submitters believe that the Mexican government, through its labor department, the STPS, it's Social Security institute, the [untranslated Spanish], or IMSS, and the secretary of health have violated the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation, the NAALC, by persistently failing to enforce Mexico's own occupational health and safety laws.

The submitters believe that this failure to enforce at Auto Trim and Custom Trim/Breed Mexicana in particular allowed the persistence of health and safety violations which resulted in the workers suffering illnesses and injuries, sometimes so severe that their ability to support themselves and their families is compromised and their capacity to perform basic tasks becomes impaired.

The basis of the submission is simple: It's about the fundamental right of workers under Mexican law to work place conditions that will not destroy their health and well-being; it is about the need to respect health and safety laws which the Mexican government is legally bound to enforce and which Breed Technologies and other businesses are obligated to follow when they establish operations in Mexico. It is about what happens to human beings when laws meant to protect their health and safety are not respected.

It is important to remember, as MR. KARESH explained in the beginning, that this case is neither a tort action nor an adversarial process nor an action brought directly against private companies. Under the NAALC, the workers and former workers involved in the submission cannot ask for damages for the illnesses and injuries they and their co-workers have suffered, but only for proper enforcement of Mexico's occupational health and safety laws.

The submitters are not anti-business as some critics have charged; they simply asked the NAO for assistance in defending their rights to safe and healthy conditions of work which are guaranteed to them by Mexican law. As the workers in this submission have put it, they, and I quote, "Are for a free-trade agreement that respects their right to health and their right to life."

Similarly, the submitters are not anti-Mexico. My experience with the workers, in fact, is that they are devoted to their country; the submitters respect Mexico's sovereignty and ask only that the Mexican government enforce the laws it has enacted.

Workers at Auto Trim and Custom Trim/Breed Mexicana stretch, sew and glue leather covers onto steering wheels and gear shifts. They will describe to you today the conditions of their work: The close quarters, the high production quotas, repetitive motions in the extreme, the use of toxic glues and solvents, non-existent or highly inadequate ventilation and personal protective equipment and lack of health and safety training.

They will also describe to you the illnesses and injuries that they and their co-workers suffer, which typically fall into two broad categories: Those related to unsafe exposure to toxic substances, including respiratory and nervous system disorders, dizziness, headaches, chronic sore throats and coughs, eye and nasal irritation, nausea and a high incidence of miscarriages, anencephaly and spina bifida and other fatal conditions in children born to workers.

Then there are those related to sub-standard ergonomic practices, including: Ongoing, severe pain in their hands, wrists, arms, shoulders and backs, carpal tunnel syndrome, cuts and gashes and reduced mobility in their limbs.

The witnesses today will describe how their health and well-being were further compromised by the frequent failure of Mexico's IMSS to provide proper treatment and compensation to workers who suffered illnesses and injuries.

They will also tell you that when the injuries and illnesses workers sustained at Auto Trim and Custom Trim/Breed Mexicana rendered them unable to perform work at the pace required by the Maquiladoras, management would often fire them or pressure them into leaving by relegating them to an area known as the junkyard; managers refer to these injured and ill workers as [untranslated Spanish], or "junk."

Prior to filing this submission, the workers at both maquiladoras tried for years to obtain improved health and safety conditions and enforcement of their country's occupational health and safety laws; they asked their supervisors to provide better protective gear and ventilation, to re-design unhealthy production processes and to provide complete information about the materials with which they worked every day.

In 1997, workers at Custom Trim/Breed Mexicana asked both the company and the Confederation of Mexican Workers, the CTM, Mexico's official union, for safety improvements as part of their negotiations for a new contract. The CTM refused to provide support. The company responded by firing workers at the forefront of the negotiation effort.

But the workers didn't give up their struggle for better work conditions. Some of the Custom Trim/Breed Mexicana workers, along with workers at Auto Trim, continued to educate themselves about work place hazards and learned that many of the symptoms that they and their co-workers had experienced for years were consistent with scientific findings.

They attended health and safety workshops organized by member organizations of the Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras. They filed petitions with STPS, with IMSS and with the secretary of health asking for inspections of Auto Trim and Custom Trim/Breed Mexicana.

In those petitions, which are included as appendices to our submission, they asked for inspections and they detailed specific violations of Mexico's occupational health and safety laws.

No improvements resulted, and, despite efforts by the submitters to find out whether inspections had been conducted at all, the agencies did not respond. The workers now turn to the NAO for assistance in making the rights accorded them under Mexican law and under the NAALC a reality.

I briefly want to touch on those specific legal rights which we detail in length in our written submission. In establishing the NAALC, the NAFTA countries resolved to protect, enhance and enforce basic workers' rights, including the right to a safe and health working environment. I won't go into detail into the provisions that the submitters believe have been violated in this case, because MR. KARESH has already summarized that for us.

Thank you.

Suffice it to say, however, that the Mexican government's persistent failure to enforce its occupational health and safety laws at Auto Trim and Custom Trim/Breed Mexicana does violate a number of provisions set out in the NAALC, particularly Articles, 1, 3 and 5.

Mexico has also ratified numerous international human rights and labor treaties which require specific measures to protect and promote the health of workers. Under the Mexican constitution, treaties are incorporated into Mexico's domestic law.

I'll just mention a couple of these treaties that are particularly relevant to this case: ILO Treaty 155, under which Mexico agreed to ensure that employers observe practices to make work places as safe as possible, that workers are provided adequate protective gear and health and safety training, as well as information about the use of chemicals in the work place; Article 7 of the International Covenant on Economic and Social Rights requires State parties to recognize the right of everyone to the enjoyment of just and favorable conditions of work which ensure in particular safe and healthy working conditions; the Universal Declaration of Human Rights requires signatory governments, such as Mexico, to agree to promote and respect the right to just and favorable conditions of work.

Mexican law relevant to the submission includes: The federal labor law, the LFT; the law of Social Security, the LSS; the general health law, the LGS, and; the regulations and norms issued pursuant to these laws. Mexico, through the STPS, IMSS and the [untranslated Spanish], is responsible for enforcing these laws.

The laws require the government, in sum, to conduct meaningful and transparent health and safety inspections to determine compliance with Mexican law, investigate reported violations, ensure that the plants provide information about health risks and implement effective training and hazard prevention programs, reconfigure unsafe production processes, provide proper ventilation and personal protective gear, issue corrective orders, impose sanctions for violations and guarantee that employees who suffer work-related injuries and illnesses receive proper medical treatment and compensation.

Our written submission and the witnesses testifying today will demonstrate that the Mexican government has failed to enforce these laws with regard to Auto Trim and Custom Trim/Breed Mexicana.

Although this case focuses specifically on the failure to enforce in these two maquiladoras, the research we did for the submission would indicate that the case of Auto Trim and Custom Trim/Breed Mexicana are illustrative of the Mexican government's general pattern of failure to enforce its occupational health and safety laws.

The ultimate goal of this submission is simple: The participants want the Mexican government to enforce laws designed to protect worker health and safety, at Auto Trim and Custom Trim/Breed Mexicana specifically and Mexican work places generally, and they want companies producing goods in Mexico to respect those laws.

To this end, the submitters ask the NAO to pursue all remedies available under the NAALC to ensure that occupational health and safety laws are properly enforced at Auto Trim and Custom Trim/Breed Mexicana.

These measures include: Assessing the health and safety violations and required fines and penalties at each plant; establishing a meaningful inspection commission to oversee the plant's compliance with health and safety regulation and the plant's assumption of responsibility for work-related accidents and illnesses; developing mechanisms to ensure that workers receive appropriate treatment and compensation from the IMSS; convening ministerial consultations and, if the matter is not successfully resolved, assessing monetary sanctions. Thank you.

MR. KARESH: Thank you, MS. SCHURTMAN. I have just a couple of questions. I think you need to come back up here. We have a microphone that you can use at the table, or whatever you prefer.

(Pause.)

MR. KARESH: I was wondering if maybe you could give me a little more detail. You've talked about the complaints that the workers filed with STPS and IMSS and SSA. Can you give me a little more detail about the chronology of that, the timing for that, and exactly who those were filed with?

And I think you indicated there was no response, but I mean there must have been some acknowledgement that they were filed or some kind of response. If you could give just me a little bit more detail on that, I'd appreciate it.

MS. SCHURTMAN: Yes. I can give you an overview of that. And several of the workers who actually went to file the petitions will also be testifying later. So they can give you some more detail on that.

As I recall, the first petitions that the workers filed were with the STPS. And it was -- they were petitions filed by workers from Auto Trim and from Custom Trim/Breed Mexicana, and those were field, as I recall, in May of 1998. And they were filed with the federal STPS office in Ciudad Victoria in the State of Tamaulipas. And they did receive, I believe, a stamp on the copy of the petition they filed to show that in fact it had been filed.

When they didn't get a response, they began to follow up by telephone. Ciudad Victoria is many hours away from Matomoros and Valle Hermosa, and it was difficult for them to go back on a regular basis to check personally. During the phone calls to the STPS in Ciudad Victoria, they were not given any information.

In, I believe, August of 1998, several of the workers from Auto Trim and Custom Trim/Breed Mexicana accompanied workers from a different maquiladora, where workers were having similar health and safety problems, to the STPS offices again in Ciudad Victoria. And while they were there, they asked about the status of the petition for inspection that they had filed.

And they were told by a gentleman there that there had been possibly some kind of verification conducted. And when the workers asked what verification meant, what was the difference between a verification and an inspection, the person who was in charge of the office that day said that he didn't know. When they asked to see any results or reports, they were told that they were not available.

About a year later, the workers from Auto Trim and Custom Trim/Breed Mexicana filed follow-up petitions with the STPS, again at its offices in Ciudad Victoria. That same day, they also filed petitions with the IMSS office in Ciudad Victoria and with the secretary of health's office in Ciudad Victoria.

Responses were never received by the petitioners from the STPS or the IMSS. There was one letter that was sent by the secretary of health to one of the petitioners stating that an inspection would be conducted on a particular day. And that letter arrived weeks after the designated day for inspection, and it's not clear whether an inspection ever took place. As far as the workers know, no inspection took place.

Alfonso Otero will testify later about his efforts going personally to the STPS offices in Ciudad Victoria to ask for inspection reports; he was told that everything having to do with Auto Trim and Custom Trim/Breed Mexicana was -- had been sent to Mexico City.

So he went to Mexico City, to the STPS offices there, to try to obtain copies of documents or, at least, view the file to see if in fact any inspections had been conducted. And he was not allowed to see anything.

MR. KARESH: Thank you. In the submission and again here today, you've mentioned quite a litany of violations of safety and health regulations and laws. Can you give me a sense of the time period of these allegations, I mean, how far back they go and whether -- you know, from your understanding in talking to the workers or your personal knowledge from seeing any of these things, whether there have been any changes or improvements in that area?

MS. SCHURTMAN: In terms of the time frame, we have interviewed workers complaining of conditions as far back as 1988; there is at least one worker here today who began to work at Auto Trim in either 1988 or possibly '89. The bulk of the violations that we document, I would say, occurred between about 1993 or 1994 and the present time.

And from the research we conducted and the many workers that we spoke to at both plants, it would seem that there were no improvements -- no material improvements. From time to time, there were perhaps cosmetic improvements.

I recall, for example, one of the workers telling me that shortly after some of the petitions were filed, there was a change in the work configuration at Auto Trim specifically and that it had been presented to the workers as something that would make the work place safer possibly. But, in fact, what the workers found was that the new configuration was even worse than the old configuration, and the production quotas were raised.

There were -- I believe, in 1993, at one of the plants, there were no air extractors. Air extractors were then put in, but, as a number of the witnesses will testify later, not all of the workers have them, and the ones who did have them found that they didn't function effectively and didn't do much of anything to dissipate the chemical vapors in the air. So in terms of real, concrete improvements, no, I am not aware of any.

MR. KARESH: Now, on the research you mentioned, can you give me a little more information on who did that or what that involved? And is there any report of that that's available?

MS. SCHURTMAN: Is there a report available? Basically, the bulk of our findings are included in the submission and its appendices. What we began to do -- and by, "We," I mean myself and the students that I was working with. We began to review documentation of violations that had been compiled by the workers themselves at Auto Trim and Custom Trim. And on the basis of that, we began to formulate our own follow-up questions.

And we conducted extensive interviews with workers. With each worker, for example, who has provided an affidavit or other written statement, we've probably interviewed each of those, I would say, five or six times.

There were many workers who we interviewed, as well, who did not want to give a written statement, and we used their information, as well, to try and flesh out the picture of what was -- what is the situation and Auto Trim and Custom Trim/Breed Mexicana.

A number of the workers had been trained in identifying work hazards by the time we began our research. And that, of course, was very helpful to us because they were able to draw us maps, some of which you'll see today, of the various work place hazards, where things were located and how close together they worked.

So, basically, the methodology was one of intensive interviewing --

MR. KARESH: Did you --

MS. SCHURTMAN: -- and --

MR. KARESH: Did you include --

MS. SCHURTMAN: -- explanations --

MR. KARESH: I'm sorry. Did you include workers other than just at Auto Trim and Custom Trim? Were there workers from other facilities, either owned by the same company or other companies?

MS. SCHURTMAN: Our focus was on Auto Trim and Custom Trim simply because we needed to -- because of personnel and time and monetary limitations, we needed to focus on just these two plants. But, certainly, in the course of our work, yes, we did talk to other workers from other plants. We reviewed reports that had been prepared by workers or by worker organizations about violations in other plants.

And one of the things that was very interesting to us was that when the Auto Trim and Custom Trim workers prepared their petitions, they taught workers from other maquiladoras who were suffering from similar problems how to file petitions and what needed to be included in a petition.

And we were able to assist workers from other maquiladoras in preparing petitions that could be filed, as well. And in the course of doing that, we were able to learn about the lack of enforcement in other maquiladoras in Tamaulipas in particular. And I think some of the other witnesses today, particularly the experts, will testify about poor working conditions and lack of enforcement at many other maquiladoras in Tamaulipas.

MR. KARESH: Thank you, very much.

MS. SCHURTMAN: Thank you.

MR. KARESH: Our next witness will be Alfonso Otero.

MR. OTERO (Via interpreter): Good morning. Let me first begin my presentation with some interesting and important remarks to better understand the federal labor law in Mexico and the constitution of Mexico, from where we get the rules and provisions on health and safety in the work place.

The constitution of Mexico of 1917 is a product of the revolution of Mexico that was basically due to differences among classes and workers and businesses and estates. There were captive stores, and workers had to work under probably slavery conditions.

And when we had those captive stores, they weren't -- they didn't have wages. Actually, they were paid with other goods and with coupons to buy their food, and from -- those they would use to buy their food. Instead of getting money, they had some coupons. And they had to use those coupons at the same place where they were working.

So with the success of the Mexican constitution, the constitution tried to provide better protection for workers. And one of the greatest achievements of the working class in 1917 was Article 123 guaranteeing the rights of workers and basic principles in work safety. And one of them was Social Security -- and the protection of women, the stability of work and the protection of minors and minimum wages.

With this brief introduction just to give you some historic background on the idea of Mexican laws regarding labor law, I would like to begin with -- by stating the articles that include workers' rights, and not necessarily referring to health but the protection of health.

Article 4 of the constitution of Mexico states that anyone within Mexico has the right to the protection -- health protection. Article 23, as a triumph of the constitution, states in Paragraph 5 that pregnant women should not carry out work that requires a great amount of physical effort and that may pose her at a risk due to her pregnancy state.

The applicable laws in this case are the Federal Labor Law, the Social Security Law and the Health Law; there are also regulations and provisions for the protection of health, specifically in occupational health. The main obligations from the departments of state in Mexico regarding the application of laws in health and safety -- the ones in charge are the following:

The Department of Health, or STPS; the IMSS and [untranslated Spanish], the health Department. With this framework basic of the constitution of Mexico regarding the labor laws in Mexico, I would like to begin with the powers and the special, specific obligations of each of the departments or secretariats. I will attempt to address them briefly because I would not be able to fully deal with them in the time allotted to me.

However, I can mention that the powers to apply and to enforce work laws -- and, specifically, on occupational health -- are from Article 40 from the Federal Administrative Law. This articles states that the Department of Labor of Mexico will observe all of the relative provisions contained in Article 123 of the Constitution, in the Federal Labor Law and its corresponding regulations.

Article 40, Section 6, of the same law states that the Ministry of Labor shall promote the development of training and education in the work place, as well as to carry out audits and research and provide training courses to its personnel. Section 11 states that STPS should study and review all the measures required for industrial safety and health to protect the workers and to oversee its enforcement.

There's also a set of regulations that do not fall under the normal hierarchy of the Federal Labor Law, but it is a requirement that is used as an instrument for methods and standards to try to protect health and safety of workers, and it's Section 71. It states that the STPS will enforce all the work provisions on health and safety in the work place.

The inspection functions are carried out through verifications and inspections in the work places. Such inspections at work places have to fulfill the following: First of all, to oversee that work standards are being kept, and, also, provide assessment and advice to workers and companies as to how to better meet all of these standards. And Article 31 speaks about the obligations and attributes of the inspectors carrying out such inspections.

The inspectors are public servants working under the same STPS and are the ones in charge of carrying out verifications and inspections in the work places and the different businesses. Their main powers and special attributes is, basically, to oversee work standards, especially those on workers' rights, and determining, also, health hazards and setting standards for the companies, visiting the companies and interviewing workers or interviewing companies or employers regarding any issue regarding the application of labor laws, and to also examine the substances and materials used in the companies and businesses when hazards are involved.

By the kind of witnesses and the exhibits and the research carried out throughout these years, from -- and from the analyses of the statements made and all the exhibits regarding this report, the people in charge of verification, inspection and enforcement of labor laws, do have the powers to do that.

And at no time do we see during the investigation that there has been any kind of investigation conducted; we don't know from what we've been able to gather that such inspectors even arrived at the work place, at the plants. And that's one of the duties and obligations of such inspectors, and by STPS.

One of the most important the way I see it is to inspect substances and materials used within the companies when there's a hazard-related activity, for example, those that are a health hazard or that may pose a danger to human beings, but there are some other obligations that inspectors have to carry out under Article 32 of the Federal Labor Law, and, basically, it's: To carry out periodic inspections on businesses, perform special inspections when they receive a report or a submission regarding violations of the Federal Labor Law.

Article 11 also states that inspectors should also cooperate with the workers in spreading and applying regulations to reduce hazards relating to health and safety and to suggest methods and ways of correcting and reducing hazards. In this sense, once again, I would like to discuss what we have been able to gather from all of the information throughout so many years and from many witnesses or people that we interviewed.

And we do not recognize that such inspections were ever carried out at any day or at any time. Furthermore, they have the obligation to perform special investigations when they receive a report regarding possible violations of labor law.

And in the appendix, as Monica mentioned just awhile ago, there are some petitions made before STPS very specifically to carry out an inspection of the plant and to assess the health hazards and the many violations that were carried out at those -- at such plants. But the inspection never took place, and the workers never received any information about what was done with their petition.

The inspectors should also cooperate with workers in telling them about all the different information and health hazards in the work place, and, from the witnesses, we don't get such information. Personally, I had the opportunity of interviewing many people in Valle Hermosa and in Matomoros, and I never learned from workers that such advice was ever given, nor were any measures taken to reduce work hazards.

I don't know if they would suggest that. I don't think so, due to the same exhibits that have been included here and from experience.

From my personal experience when I traveled to gather information to the border region of Mexico, one of the important items and, I think, one of the core items in how the Mexican government did not enforce and did not meet its commitments as it should have is the obligation of levying sanctions because, if it is true that we -- well, that the only thing we have is our own research and the witnesses' reports.

If we would have carried out an inspection -- we know that the conditions at that plant do not fall within the parameters as set forth by the law. The obligation of levying sanctions by STPS are based on Article 512(d). Basically, it states that there will be sanctions for employers who do not meet the requirements set forth by the STPS to correct work hazards. Such sanctions may include total closure or partial closure of the business.

The businesses -- due to all of the information that we have received and, I repeat, in all the interviews that we carried out, such businesses were never closed down. And, also, in Articles 164 and 168 of the regulations on health and safety are monetary sanctions in case of lack of compliance with the federal labor laws. And we are not aware that such sanctions were ever levied.

Articles 171 and 174 refer to sanctions to employers who do not meet the labor laws, and it's important to mention the lack of some sanctions. And this is what we've been able to gather from all the testimonies and the exhibits and from the research and from the investigation reflected in the submission: There is no proof -- there is no element of proof that such sanctions were ever levied.

And, furthermore, STPS, through the Federal Labor Law, has the obligation of coordinating the coordinating offices in the State and in the Federal bodies with IMSS to implement and enforce programs to avoid and prevent work-related accidents. And it establishes these national councils to adopt preventive measures to reduce work hazards. And these commissions will be made up by members of the STPS, IMSS and Ministry of Health.

Furthermore, Article 512(b) sets forth the commission mix or combined joint commissions to try to reduce work hazards, and they will work together with STPS, the SSA, the IMSS and State authorities and the representative from the STPS, who will be the secretary of such commission.

I had the chance, as mentioned by Monica, of trying to get some report or some kind of document regarding the verifications on the plants. No such report. Well, there is no law saying that those documents are private; those documents should be made available to the public, as well.

And in that sense, when I went to Ciudad Victoria, the person in charge, Mr. Oscar Martinez, of that office informed me that he could not disclose anything because I had nothing to do with those companies, that those were matters that had become too political, that there were some people from the Senate of the Republic that were also involved in this matter and that there had been a lot of noise made about workers and that the IMSS was also in some deep mess because of that and that it was just not possible to get any information.

His reply after I insisted on trying to get these documents was that I should go to Mexico City and get those documents from the head offices in Mexico. When I traveled to Mexico City, I went to the floor where they have the inspection office. As soon as I mentioned the name of the plant, Auto Trim and Custom Trim, the people in charge -- and one of them actually took me by the arm and took me to a separate office.

I was quite surprised at that attitude, and I asked why that had happened. And I asked them if any inspections had been carried out. And the reply was, No; I cannot disclose anything.

Well, I insisted on getting more information, and the person somehow accepted being the person that had carried out such inspections. I insisted again that he should provide me with more information. I requested to speak with him. I asked to have a meeting with him. And during the meeting, the only thing he said was that he could not say anything at all.

I said, Listen; The only thing I need to know -- the only thing we need to know is: Have inspections been carried out on a regular basis, as set forth by the law; And if such inspections were carried out or some verification was carried out, a recording to submission to the petition submitted by the workers, are you implying it was the same? He was unwilling to say anything.

He stated that he could not say anything and that he was not going to disclose anything and that he was not going to show any documents and that I had to state my legal representation there; otherwise, he would not give me anything. So I was unable to get anything from there.

I went to the Department of Health, SSA, and didn't find anybody. I went to IMSS, and I didn't find anybody there, either. So that's basically what we've seen.

From what I've already said, we can conclude from the Federal Labor Law and the investigation and the exhibits that have been submitted that the Ministry of Labor, the STPS, did not meet their obligation as set forth by the law. It never carried out an inspection. It did not carry out any testing on the materials and did not levy any information and did not provide any training to the workers or information on the workers, nor did it provide any information on ergonomic conditions.

The plants have violated the labor laws regarding the protection of labor rights, specifically rights for the protection of fault. Such rights include: Protective gear and ventilation within the plants specifically when hazardous materials are being used; accident reporting; training and education specifically relating to the handling of chemicals and, also, information regarding the hazardousness of chemicals as set forth in the Federal Labor Law in Norms 001, 005, 010 and 017, 018, 019 and 021.

In a given moment, Dr. Mercado will discuss the specific content of those standards. Now, regarding the STPS --

MR. KARESH: Alfonso, Let me interrupt you for a second. I just want to ask you a couple of things before we move too far along.

MR. OTERO: Sure.

MR. KARESH: When -- you said you visited STPS. What office was that in Mexico City?

MR. OTERO: The General Office of Inspections. The General --

MR. KARESH: And --

MR. OTERO: -- Office or Bureau of Inspections.

MR. KARESH: Okay. And the local -- you went to the local labor department authorities, and they told you to go to Mexico City? Is that -- did I understand that correctly?

MR. OTERO: Well, there are two kinds of methods and relationships with the State and the Federation regarding work standards and the enforcement of the same. The STPS, the Ministry of Labor and Social Provision, mandates the application of the standards.

The companies like Auto Trim and Custom Trim that perform manufacturing of auto parts fall under the Federal regime according to Article 123, Section 31, Paragraph 2, that includes the auto industry, auto parts and electrical parts. The way they work -- the way these ministries or departments work is that they have different offices or branches in each State.

There is a central office, or the headquarters office, like STPS, that is located in Mexico City. But it will have a branch office in each State. I went to both offices. First I went to the State office in Ciudad Victoria, and then I went to the offices in Mexico City.

MR. KARESH: Thank you.

MR. OTERO: Thank you.

MR. KARESH: Let me ask you this. We've heard a lot of information this morning about these complaints that were filed. In your view, what should have been the response of STPS, IMSS and SSA when they received those worker complaints; under the law, what would they be required to do?

MR. OTERO: According to the laws in Mexico, there are two different principles. And depending on the department that you address regarding the STPS, they should have performed an -- a special inspection.

Special inspections are set forth in Article 541, where they state -- excuse me -- 542, where it outlines the duties to be performed by inspectors. And one of them is to carry out special inspections when they receive a report regarding alleged violations of the work laws.

The logical reaction -- when they received a petition or report that there were violations to the work laws, their reply should have been to carry out an inspection on the plant.

Now, regarding the Ministry of Health, SSA, there is also a constitutional right under Article 8 of the Constitution -- and this is the article that we call the right to petition -- the right to petition states that the authorities should reply to all petitions submitted by citizens when done in writing and in a respectful manner. Thus SSA, Ministry of Health, should have performed an inspection of the plants when it received the petition from the workers.

MR. KARESH: Okay. So you're saying that under they law, they're required to do a special inspection. Is that every time they get a complaint from a worker, or is there some preliminary review of a complaint to determine credibility or the issues raised before they make a determination about whether to inspect or not?

MR. OTERO: Well, the law is very clear in that sense. It does not state that no time -- no prior procedure when there's a report made or a petition submitted. The only states that all you need is just a report on a violation of the work laws to carry out an inspection. And the only thing that you need is to put it in writing and do it before the proper office.

MR. KARESH: Let me ask you something about inspection reports. You said that you tried to get information as to whether there had even been inspections, and then you had asked for information about or copies of inspection reports.

What does the law say about inspection reports, whether those are public, whether they need to be shared with workers or with the union representatives? Or is there any specificity in the law about the nature of those reports?

MR. OTERO: There is no such thing that I'm aware of in the Federal Labor Law, in the Mexican Constitution or other similar laws, and this is one of the issues that I mentioned to the person of STPS in Mexico City. And the response that I got was that it was a policy of STPS.

And I asked him to please tell me if there was any norm or any regulation that mentioned if these were public documents or if they were private documents, and he didn't know. He said that it was a policy of his office.

MR. KARESH: Let me ask you a couple of questions about once inspections are done and if safety and health violations are found at a facility. And what I'm wondering is in -- with regard to, example, first instance: What the requirements under Mexican law are about issuing citations or fines in the first instance and what the law says about subsequent instances.

MR. OTERO: In the violations section, I guess, it would -- can happen when an inspection in a work place. The inspectors must write in their record what the violations are and suggest corrective measures, besides mentioning a term for these measures to be corrected or applied.

And once the plants have been inspected and -- if these measures have not been corrected, if the violations have not been corrected, then they can put some fines or some sanctions. This is the way it works, and, also, it is based on the history of each company.

MR. KARESH: Okay. And once there is a sanction or a fine, are you aware as to whether there's anything in the law about whether that kind of information is public or not?

MR. OTERO: I am not aware of anything in the Mexican law that establishes that this is private information. It should be public, and I do not believe there's any privileges that exclude this from being public information.

MR. KARESH: Is this information that would normally be shared with the Commission Mixia that might exist at the facility normally? Do you know?

MR. OTERO: It should be. This is one of the functions of the Commissiones Mixia: To share a commission with STPS to write reports, write diagnoses and recommendations and present these to the STPS. This information must be shared with the Commission Mixia or any employee.

MR. KARESH: With regard to the inspection process itself, we understand that there has been some recent regulations and some activities in Mexico, as, I think, there has been in the United States and some other countries, about the notion of monitoring and inspecting facilities and whether there are enough inspectors in any government to inspect every facility out there.

So there's questions about self-monitoring by employers or third-party monitoring of employers. I was wondering if you could provide any information on what Mexican law says about an employer self-monitoring or third parties being hired to do monitoring.

MR. OTERO: We have the self-management programs. These programs, which are included in the legal issue -- it should be important to talk about it at a given time. These self-management programs hired this management to survey the company, to inspect the plant and to fulfill the labor laws. And this commission is in charge of writing a report and presenting it to STPS. This includes the STPS to inspect the plant or -- make inspections to the plant.

However, STPS has the obligation to verify these inspections. And when these verifications are done, they have to verify that the procedures of self-management must be done in the proper way.

What I mean when I say that there is a controversy that maybe will reach to a conclusion soon is that there are some allegations that -- Article 4 of the Constitution guarantees the protection of health, but the protection of health, obviously, by the State, and not private companies.

When there is a self-management program and you are the employer self-inspecting your plant, being in charge of fulfilling or complying with the laws -- of course, the right to protect the law is granted by the constitution -- it has been found that it has not support and it's not sound because, instead of the State verifying that the norms and regulations are being met, the State is delegating this responsibility to the same plant where there can be many things like an employer and employee relationship -- this is not a fair relationship.

This means that the employer, of course, pays the salaries and wages. And he's the one opening the doors, and he's to state with what will be done. And when the federal labor law grants the right to a person or an individual that works in this company and that dominates this economical system, it's denying the right to the health of the employees. And that's why we'll see some of these cases right now and in the future.

MR. KARESH: When -- you mentioned the notion that it's the responsibility of STPS to verify the self-monitoring or the third-party monitoring. How does STPS do that?

MR. OTERO: The STPS must and can request the books and the records. The Commissiones Mixia or the people in charge of the self-management programs are responsible for writing reports and present them to STPS.

The STPS has to make sure that the procedures of these programs are being met; however, there are some contradictions, of course, and I must talk about it. If there is a self-management program and there's a claim or a complaint of some violations in the system, some violations of the labor law and the health laws, the inspection must be done. Am I making myself clear?

MR. KARESH: Yes.

MR. OTERO: The inspection must be performed because there have been certain violations, and the inspectors aren't responsible for doing these inspections; although we have this self-management program, when there is a complaint, the inspection has to be done. And the inspections have to continue to make sure that the self-management programs are working properly.

MR. KARESH: Is that based on complaints, or is there like some kind of periodic certification that happens every year or every three years or something? Or --

MR. OTERO: The inspections must be done periodically, and the verifications must be done periodically, as well. And this is the way they are carried out. However, these are different procedures.

When there is no self-management program in a company or in a business, the STPS is responsible for the inspections in this place; when there is a self-management program, the STPS has to do verifications and has make sure that the self-management program is working properly. However, if there is a violation -- if there is a complaint of a violation to the laws, the STPS has to carry out an inspection.

MR. KARESH: If verification reports have yielded basically a clean bill of health or safe levels of use of chemicals, is there still a responsibility to inspect the facility by STPS, or, once those verification levels come in, is there no need to do periodic inspections by STPS?

MR. OTERO: When there is a self-management program, this is a program that -- the same company will do self-diagnoses and self-inspections, but the STPS is in charge of making sure that these self-inspections are done properly. However -- I'm repeating myself.

But when there is a complaint about certain risks and hazards and some violations -- of course, it depends on the degree, not necessarily the degree of the violation of the hazard, which is another important issue, but it is important to have the verifications or inspections, and it is not required to cause a harm and it is not required to have a cause between the hazard or the risk; the only thing required is that there is a complaint that there is a violation to the security, safety and health laws.

MR. KARESH: Thank you, very much.

MR. OTERO: I need to finish about the --

MR. KARESH: Okay. Well --

MR. OTERO: -- health department.

MR. KARESH: -- are you going to be testifying on a later panel, as well? You were supposed to have ten minutes, and you were at about 20 minutes, which was why I started to ask you some questions. But if you have just a couple more minutes, you can finish up.

MR. OTERO: I would just take five more minutes. It's important in Article 39 of the Organic Law of Public and Federal Management. And its responsibilities are the following: To apply the laws to conservation of health of the employees and industrial health. This Article 39, in Section 21, must comply with the healthy laws.

Article 3, Section 14 of this law sets forth that this law is applicable in cases of occupational health. Article 1 of the general regulation of this department sets forth that this department has the power and obligation to supervise that these laws are complied with -- and the Mexican laws set forth.

And there's a place -- Articles 130 and 131 of this law set forth that this department must, in coordination with the Federal agencies, promote and develop research -- multi-disciplinary research to avoid and control some diseases. They need to -- Article 131 makes this department carry out some programs to prevent accidents, subject to Section 120 -- Section (a) of Article 123 of the Constitution, dictates the norms to control diseases and accidents.

Article 128, Sections 1 and 2, set forth that industrial activities of any type will be subject to the general laws of health and that the health department must establish the maximum limits of exposure of -- from the employees to certain contaminant substances and, together with the Federal and State laws, establish good control and -- other occupational activities.

Maximum limits of exposure must be surveyed by the health department, and the department must be in charge of -- have control of sanctions and chemical substances.

And, very briefly, one of the things that I consider the most important in this case and maybe has had more consequences and has hurt the lives of the employees in a significant way is the lack of monitoring, the lack of making sure that the maximum limits of exposure to these chemical substances that Dr. Mercado will be talking about in his testimony, is the lack of compliance of these norms and regulations.

To the best of our knowledge and -- after the research we did and the information you have in your files and of the interviews that we performed along the border zones, the border area -- in these two plants, we had an emissions test. And we determined certain levels in blood and urine which didn't find anything, and this is the reason why they were hired. After the first medical analyses, these were never performed again, and they were -- never requested another urine sample or blood sample.

And, of course, the issue is that the health department did not comply with the law, trying to make sure that these exposure limits to chemical substances were observed.

MR. KARESH: Thank you, very much, MR. OTERO.

The next panel should be Linda Delp, along with a group of workers: Matias Pecero, Pedro Lopez, Isabel Morales and Veronica Lopez.

MR. PECERO: Good morning. My name is Matias. And at this moment, I will tell you the date I started working with Auto Trim. I started May 19, 1989, through March 30, 1999. I worked there for ten years at this company, and, later on, I will describe to you the -- my functions, my duties and responsibilities.

And also, I will show you a general map of the company. Here you can see that the largest area is the production area. This is where the workers work eight hours a day. And on the upper part, you can see the chemical area -- chemicals area. Each square means a production line. Each circle -- each small circle on the sides is a station, a work station, where we were working. The two lines here is the aisles.

And, also, I will show you -- this line represents only one of the 30 production lines in the production area. The red circles represent the work station where we used to work -- do our work -- the red circles with large numbers.

The small, red circles show the yellow glue that we used to glue the leather to the steering wheel. The green symbols is where the solvents are found, the solvents that we used, like Varsol, for the production. And the light blue is where the glue was found -- white glue.

Next to the green figure, there's a small rectangle. And this shows where a solvent was found -- trichloroethane. In between Numbers 9 and 8 next to these two, we have two symbols that represent the vents.

The next chart. This chart right here goes from one to six on both sides and shows the sewing area. This is where I used to work, in the sewing area. In this area here, we did manual operations using thread, nails -- needles. And the movements we used to do were about 4,000 repetitive movements throughout our shift. Later on, I will show you a chart for a small study that we carried out.

The description of the operations here: We used to take the steering wheel and we would put it in a metallic base that the company had manufactured. In this space, we would hold the steering wheel. We started sewing. We did these movements, stitching.

Each steering wheel had approximately a hundred stitches. So it was 100 movements done with our hands and with our shoulders. This type of movement was causing serious harm in our muscles in our wrists, our fingers. And, also, due to this type of movement, we were hurting our shoulders, our backs and our necks.

And as you can see, the work stations were very, very close to one another. So sometimes we had accidents due to this proximity. And due to the -- by doing these movements, we had to open our arms to be able to perform our duties.

In this work station, we also used the yellow glue, which is a solvent; this is found in different places of the plant. The production quota in this area was 20 pieces per worker. In our eight-hour shift, we had to do these 20 units.

In this other slide, our production quota was 20 pieces, or 20 units, per worker. The steering wheel needed a hundred stitches, and we had needed to make a hundred movements. But besides these hundred stitches, we had to readjust the stitches so they were completely tight and that the leather was completely done. So if we multiply our movements, we have a total of 4,000 repetitive movements that we had to perform throughout the day with our arms.

In the following slide, the two shady, yellow sections mean the assembly area; this is where the leather is glued to the steering wheel. In this operation, we used this yellow glue, and the way of applying the glue was with a brush, using an open container, eight hours a day. And that helped us facilitate and speed up our production.

And in this area, we also used the Varsol and trichloroethane, which are the solvents that helped us for the production. We also used tweezers and pliers so that the leather was completely glued to the steering wheel, and then our other co-workers would stitch along the process.

The next section. In this chart, we can -- I want to show you the section we did the final. It was the finish line of the operation. And in this area, we received the steering wheels that were already stitched or sewn. And in this area, we did the finished touch. And here we used a white glue which is a solvent that glues instantly.

We used the heat-gun to eliminate any wrinkles and to give a better presentation to the steering wheel. And we also used Varsol to eliminate the excessive glue that, in -- the prior operations, our co-workers had put too much. So in this section, we were responsible for the finished touch and to have the steering wheels ready to ship and put them in boxes to ship them out.

In these two operations that I just mentioned, we could see that the impact was stronger with the chemicals because you would have more different kinds of chemicals and, during eight hours, we were in direct contact with the glue in our hands or the Varsol in our hands and with the vapors that the heat-gun produced by having contact with the solvents. This is what we had in our work station eight ours a day.

And I also want to mention that throughout the plant, there were containers of glue -- about 440 containers of glue in all in the production area. We had 90 containers of a solvent that was also helping for this production. We had 180 containers of Varsol that helped us eliminate the excessive glue, plus others that were in some other places -- because there was not a good control on this type of solvent. We also had about 90 containers of trichloroethane in the production area.

After being in contact with these substances, we started having throat problems due to the vapors, some other lung programs that maybe later we'll mention when we'll hear some testimonies about it. Here we also had problems in our noses, eyes and skin due to the direct contact and very rare cases and very alarming cases of some children that were born that died. And this was an impact of -- in the reproductive lives of the workers.

In the next chart, we can see -- as I mentioned, in the first chart, this is the chemicals room. Each circle represents a drum -- a solvent drum. The six drums in the lower section is the -- where they were located. These remained in this room.

They were -- it was outside of the company, but the access was through the same facility. We had to go through this room to get some glue to supply our production area to be able to carry out the production. This type of -- the drums were totally open.

In this next slide, you can see a container that helped us receive the vapors directly through the aisles because they were totally open, emanating vapors throughout the production area. And the people who were closer to these types of containers did not use any type of protection.

The next slide shows another container with Varsol. This is the most common solvent we had in the plant. This is how we received it in our work station. Sometimes, we needed two or three containers a day -- we needed to fill them up in our work stations -- because the use of the solvent was high. And with -- just one container was not enough.

What we're seeing here is a lay-out of the air extractors. At the top part, the rectangle, we see the central drive for the air extraction system. The red lines that you see there are the vents that are along the ceiling in the plant. And the connection to the work line was through a pipe -- a hanging pipe that connected the vents under the tables.

So at each work station or at each line station, we only had four chances of performing the air extraction. There was only four air extractors.

And as you can see from this lay-out, perhaps the first two or three at the beginning, where you have the drive, we could assume that there might be some air extraction, but, at the last parts, at the end, there was no air extraction or it was inadequate because the power of the drive is lost because it's too much of a system. So we didn't have an adequate air extraction system.

In this part, in the air extractors, we performed a study. And we were able to determine that there was only 120 air extractors for all the personnel, for 540 workers. And percentage wise, we're saying that only 28 percent of these -- of the air extraction system is present in our work area, and 72 percent of workers were totally without the benefits of the system. And thinking that the distribution of the vapors was throughout the company, that was totally inadequate.

So this is where I end my discussion. Thank you.

MR. KARESH: Thank you.

Ms. Lopez, are you next?

MS. LOPEZ: Good morning. I am Veronica Lopez. During the time that I worked for this maquiladora was for six months, from February through August, of 1999. My tasks that I had to perform at the maquiladora were to work at the finishing station for the steering wheels. And on several occasions, I also worked in the sewing area.

I'd like to show you -- as my friend was telling you -- he spoke to you about 1997. I'd like to discuss during the period that I worked, from -- during 1999 to the current year, 2000. We're going to see one of the current charts at the plant.

As you see here, things are basically the same. The lay-out is the same within the plant, but the only change that was performed was in the assembling and sewing area. Before, they had lines with 18 people; right now, they're handling lines or groups of eight people, and each of these units is called a cell.

On the next chart, we're going to see specifically one of the cells or work groups. Here we see that we have eight people. Beginning with Number 1, that's the person that starts with the initial assembling; he's the one that starts to put the steering wheel. From Two to Seven, we have people in charge of sewing the steering wheel. Now, Number 8, that's the person doing the finishing part on the steering wheel.

Before, three people were used for assembly and -- three people for final assembly, and six people were doing sewing. Now there's only one for assembly and one at the finishing goods part or station. And in this lay-out, we can also see, as my friend was saying, that everyone was using the glue at each work station. Currently, that is still being performed in the same manner.

And in each of these eight work stations, all of them use glue. In the finishing goods, in Number 8, they still use Loctite, the white glue and the blue glue. And we can also see that the same six people are still working, performing sewing duties.

And one of the differences that we currently see is that before, with 18 people on the line, they would work 20 steering wheels per person. In carrying out a study on repetitive movements, that's 4,000 repetitive movements on an eight-hour shift.

And now 152 steering wheels are performed per day. And sometimes, in some positions, in this case in the Number 3 work station, some 10,000 repetitive movements are carried out; that is twice as many more movements. So this leads to problems, the same kinds of problems that were mentioned by my colleague, and that is: Problems in your wrists and your hands and your shoulders and your back.

But now it's in a shorter period of time. If before, let's say, it took one year to develop these kinds of problems, now problems are beginning to appear after a month or two months.

We also see on the next chart the manner in which the air extractors are laid out. We still have the same distribution system or -- air distribution system, but here we also have air extractors -- Position 1 and Position 8 are the only ones. That is the assembly and the finishing goods parts. That is one air extractor that -- unfortunately for us, they're either broken down, they're not working, malfunctional, or they just don't want to turn them on.

Air extraction for the plant -- well, the extractors -- the large extractors or air handlers would not be turned on. And, of course, during our shift or our mid-shift, we would feel dizzy, drowsiness and irritation in our eyes, allergies, nausea, vomiting and dizziness spells.

Another thing is that at the end of our shift -- our work shift, an eight-hour work shift, before concluding, we were so pressed to carry out our work at that time that our hands just could not withstand any more continuous movement, and it would just fall -- the steering wheel -- sometimes. Just the weight of the steering wheel was two to three kilos or, sometimes, maybe up to five kilos. We would have to hold them, and they would fall off unwillingly from us.

Our materials were -- our tools were scissors, blades, needles, a spatula and, to start spreading the leather on the steering wheel -- this was something that I did -- a heat-gun. And if we didn't have the air extractors, all of that heat would be conveyed to my body. So unfortunately, all of this has led to now all of the problems are surfacing earlier than before.

This is just what I wanted to say. Thank you, very much.

MR. KARESH: MR. LOPEZ?

MR. LOPEZ: Good morning. My name is Pedro Lopez Morales. I began to work for Custom Trim at Valle Hermosa on April 4, 1995, when I was 16 years old. The Custom Trim is devoted to applying the leather to steering wheels for cars.

When I began to work, my work station was made up just like at Auto Trim. There was a work table with some 14 people around it -- 14 workers. And my operation consisted of assembly, and we had 12 assemblers. And we would apply the leather to these stick-shifts, and the same yellow glue was used just like in Auto Trim; it was the same glue process.

We would use a brush to apply the glue. We would put the leather on with some pliers. And, basically, as assemblers, we had to carry out -- perform 288 of these stick-shifts per day. And this work table was also made up with eight persons in charge of sewing, who used the same thread and the same needles and carried out the same movements as at Auto Trim, and that is the pulling movements like this.

And each person sewing had to meet a quota of 172 stick-shifts per day. And in order to just perform one, you have to perform 44 repetitive movements. Here were saying that in order to meet their quota, that's 3,568 repetitive movements per shift.

Perhaps a bit different from Auto Trim, we had two people that were using Sicomet. Sicomet is a white type of glue that had immediate bonding characteristics, but it does affect your respiratory tract. And this operation of those two workers was to put the adhesive to the leather and onto the stick-shift.

And in the next process, we had two people from finishing goods. These two people were also using the same solvents as Auto Trim workers. They carried out the same operation and the same finishing.

Perhaps a bit different from Auto Trim, here each worker had his own air extractor, but it was the same thing with the air handlers or extractors; they were not functional or they did not have enough power to dissipate the vapors and the contaminated air, with so many solvents and chemicals that we had at the plant.

And that's why we have the same consequences to our health just like with Auto Trim, with headaches, nausea and our hands and wrists hurting -- and shoulders. And as workers, we began to complain to the supervisors, the manager and with the person in charge of human resources. We told them about our headaches frequently, that we were hurting from our muscles, and their reply basically was, Well, yours is just psychological; You're -- there's nothing wrong with you; These are just general illnesses, and you're okay. But they never wanted to acknowledge that it was because of the amount of the chemicals, the repetitive movements, the poor ergonomic positions and the amount of chemical substances used.

And we're also saying that back in April of 1997, there was a collective negotiation process where we wanted to include one of the clauses on information on toxic substances and consequences in the short and long term. And another item we wanted to include in the negotiating process was protective gear -- adequate protective gear so that we would be able to handle those toxic substances.

And this is what we tried to negotiate with the company, but such negotiation never took place. That's why, on May 19 of 1997, we had a walk-out strike with 150 workers to demand that we have these clauses included in our collective bargaining. But there were no -- never any negotiations took place. They were not included in the collective bargaining process.

We had to resume our work on May 23 of 1997. We had to resume our work -- on May 23 of '97, we began to work under the same working conditions. Everything was the same; nothing had changed. And on July 2 of 1997, some 28 workers were discharged, and those were the 28 workers who were trying to include those clauses in the bargaining process. We were discharged.

And, of course, we submitted our report before the office of arbitration and conciliation for unjustified discharge, and we asked to be reinstated. So we set up a committee made up of workers and former workers to carry out, follow up and see what was happening to our other workers and find out more information about chemicals and the kinds of consequences, health consequences.

And on May 19 of 1998, we submitted an inspection petition -- in coordination with the workers of Auto Trim of Matomoros, we submitted an inspection request to STPS. And such inspection never was performed. We never got a reply from that office, as already stated by my other friends and the lawyers. And we're still gathering more information.

And on April 14 of 1999, we again submitted a petition before STPS and IMSS and SSA for an inspection. And such inspections never were performed. We never got a reply from any of these offices. And that is why the company's still working under the same working conditions, and nothing has changed. And every time, there's more people that are suffering from all of this, and that's why we are here. Thank you.

MR. KARESH: Thank you.

MS. MORALES?

MS. MORALES: Good morning. I am Isabel Morales; I am a nurse. I've been working for the last two years in general medicine and labor medicine. I began to work at Custom Trim in February of '95, and then I was fired in June of '97 for confronting the employers for the lack of healthy conditions and safe conditions at the work place.

As a nurse, one of my duties included to perform medical exams for first-entry workers in order to select the personnel. And we did have some CPR training. And we had a little records where we had to write down the name, the time that the worker would arrive at the nursing unit and the kind of complaints he had; we kept a daily record of all of this.

And as a nurse, the workers would come to me complaining about wrist problems and soreness in their shoulders, neck and back. And they also complained about muscle weakness, and even the minimal or smallest things they could not pick up in their family duties, nor could they pick up any heavy items. And they said that all this had to do with the repetitive movements that they performed at their work stations.

They also complained greatly about irritation in their noses and in their throats, irritated eyes and that with their hands, they had something wrong with them -- allergies, dryness. And all of this -- they thought it was related to the solvents that they were using during their work shifts.

Another symptom -- in August of '95, there was five women that became pregnant, and they had problems of -- a miscarriage -- miscarriages at the plant. They were just not allowed to go to the doctor because they were still on their work shift. And the company would just say, Well, just try to use what we have here; For example, we have some aspirin that will help reduce the pain; And go back to work.

And then, sometimes, when there were some work accidents or work illnesses and they would go to the IMSS, the IMSS would not consider it as an occupational health hazard. And there's an MT-1 sheet that must be filled out and be recorded as a health-related work issue.

So when the worker would go to the IMSS, what they would be told is, Well, that's just a general disease; Maybe you did something last night or it's an illness; I mean it's nothing, really; Go back to work; It's just psychological. The company -- you had to seek the appointments to go to the IMSS or the hospital.

And there are some 18 companies at Valle Hermosa, and IMSS gave us one hour for our appointments for our workers. Within that hour, we had to call all of the personnel from the 18 maquiladora plants, we had to call from 1:00 to 2:00 to request an appointment for the workers. Of course, that was just not enough time, because we would call and be calling and calling, and the company would be on-line.

And a lot of workers simply could not get an appointment to go to the hospital or see a doctor at IMSS. During the time I worked there, the Ministry of Health or STPS and the IMSS never went to the company to carry out an inspection or anything like that because they never saw that there were ever any accidents that were work related.

And we did have accidents that were work related, but they were tended to there or sent -- they would be sent to a private doctor so they wouldn't go to the IMSS. This way, the company could get this title of "No accidents" or "Accident-free" certificate. This is -- my boss would say, No, because this year, we're not going to have any accidents; Otherwise, we won't get a "No accidents" or "Accident-free" certificate.

So that's what would happen with the workers. Thank you.

MR. KARESH: Thank you.

I think what I -- there's a number of questions that I'd like to ask the four of you, but I think what I'd like to do is give the interpreters a break. Maybe we could take a ten-minute break, and then I could come back and ask some questions of the workers.

And then, MS. DELP, if you could, you can provide some testimony. And we can ask you some questions, as well.

So maybe we could come back at 11:20. Thank you.

(Whereupon, a short recess was taken.)

MR. KARESH: Okay. Thank you. I think we'll try to get started again.

I'm going to ask some general questions. And, obviously, any of you, you know, answer as you see fit; there's not necessarily a need for all of you to respond to all of the questions. So just however you see fit, and, if you have something you want to add, that's fine.

Let me just ask first whether any of you received training and what kind of training you received when you were at the facilities.

MS. LOPEZ: When I first started to work for Auto Trim, I received what is called one month of training before that. We received just general information about the plant lay-out, but they never told us where the chemicals were stored and they never told us what kind of chemicals we were going to be using. They did say that it was heavy work, but we were never told the kind of risks involved by working there.

So the training basically consisted of showing us how to work, and that was it, but no specific training on protecting ourselves. The only safety items that we had were the goggles so we wouldn't poke ourselves with the needles, and those were mandatory -- and where we -- the stretchers were and where the nurse's office was. And that's it.

MR. LOPEZ: At Custom Trim, when you start to work there, they take you to your work station and they tell you, Watch how that worker is doing things; That's how you are going to do it. There's no formal training.

You have to learn from the person who's working next to you, and you have to care -- you have to be able to meet your quota within a month. And the safety equipment that you get are just some goggles and sometimes maybe an apron to identify or show that you work for that maquiladora plant.

MR. PECERO: I'd like to add something else regarding this question on training. There's a training curve, as they call it. When the worker starts to work for the company, every day he must meet a certain production quota subject to that learning curve or training curve.

So this learning curve period is for 29 days, and the worker must show that he is capable of meeting the production requirements. But there is no other kind of training regarding chemicals, as I had mentioned; just this training curve process.

MR. KARESH: What about the chemicals that you were using? Were they labeled, making you aware of what they were and whether any of them were hazardous?

(Pause.)

MR. KARESH: You need to turn on the microphone.

(Pause.)

MR. LOPEZ: The chemical substances -- the yellow glue -- there is no labeling. Some of the solvents did have labels, but the information was labeled in English. So none of the workers knew what it said. Nor was any information disclosed by supervisors, managers or human resources about the content of the solvents or the consequences of using those solvents or any kind of information regarding those toxins or the solvents.

They would just tell you, Here it is; Start to work. And some did have labels, but, as I say, in English, not in our language.

MS. LOPEZ: In my case, Loctite -- we all knew that it said, "Loctite," but, in truth, we didn't know what it meant. There were instructions -- use instructions, but we didn't know because they appeared in English. And the white glue that we were using came in small containers that they emptied out themselves. So they didn't have any labeling, nor did the green glue have any kind of labeling that was used there that we could understand.

MR. KARESH: You -- now, yourselves and some other workers have expressed concerns about the chemicals that you're using. Where did you get the information -- how did you gather the information that gave you concerns about the chemicals that you were using?

MR. PECERO: During the work process and during trying to find a solution to our problem, we began to look for alternatives since we were not getting them through our authorities and we were not getting them from within the company. And I think they were the ones responsible for relaying the information regarding the kinds of chemicals that we were using.

We began to get in touch with the Coalition; they provided their support with information as to the chemicals. And we understand that here in the U. S., the chemical substances used in the work places are published. And all of that information we were able to get because -- we learned that some of the solvents here are banned from use in the U. S. And we were using them over there.

So that's how we began to access all of this information, but it was through a third party, the Coalition in this case.

MR. KARESH: Did any of the three of you have any injuries or illnesses that you believe were related to work?

MS. LOPEZ: Well, later on, you will hear about specific cases of people that are affected because of the work place. Personally, in the six months that I worked, I had a swelling of the respiratory tract and then dryness in my nose and bleeding sometimes. And my arm -- in my right arm from the wrist up to my neck, I suffer some severe muscular pain, and I have to be on medication sometimes.

I haven't had to resort to blockage, but the pain is very strong. And I have to use medication.

MR. KARESH: Did you report that to your supervisor or the medical personnel? And what happened with the history of that? Did you see an IMSS doctor, or, you know, what particularly happened in your case?

MS. LOPEZ: Well, I would report my arm pain to the nurse's office. At the nurse's office, they would just apply an ointment on the skin to get rid of the muscle pain, and that was it. That's all they would say, that it was just muscle pain. And that was all. I never went to a doctor because the doctor was maybe only one hour a day at the company, so we really couldn't rely on him for anything.

MR. PECERO: I'd like to add regarding chemicals' consequences. I did suffer a tragedy in my family, and I think it's due to the use of chemicals during the time that I was working. We -- well, that is, my wife and I -- had a baby. It only lived two days.

I think that if I had not known about the substances that I was using, perhaps I wouldn't correlate it to this or these substances. But due to the kind of information that we were able to gather and due to the information on a more specific basis, I can now relate this tragedy to my work place and to the use of the chemicals, which was an exposure to chemicals for a period of eight hours. I think that, later on, we will hear more statements about these issues, as well.

MR. KARESH: Did any of you go to the union at the work place? And what was the response from the union officials?

MR. LOPEZ: Yes. We -- at Custom Trim, we did go before the workers' union because we did see the kind of consequences on our health. We were noticing many miscarriages and some people that had eye irritations.

So we went to the union. And we told the union that we had already talked to the managers and the supervisors and that we had already talked to the person in human resources and that they told us it was psychological and that it was just a general disease or a general illness.

And the representative -- the union representative didn't really provide his support. He just ignored all of our requests, our statements and everything that we were requesting -- petitions.

And that's why when we -- at Custom Trim, as I said, from May of 1997, that's when we decided to carry out a strike -- a general strike to exert pressure on the company so that they would give us the adequate protective gear and more information regarding the consequences of using chemical substances in the short and long term and for the frequent use of all these substances.

MR. PECERO: As my colleague was stating, I think our union was like the first resource where we went to report these kinds of abnormalities. As he stated, they didn't really pay attention to our needs or our petitions, and that's why we are here before this hearing.

MR. KARESH: The federal agencies that exist -- [untranslated Spanish] -- for the defense of workers -- did any of you or any of your organizations speak to the lawyers at that agency? And if so, did -- what kind of response did you get from that agency?

MR. PECERO: The co-worker already mentioned in his statement that we prepared the inspection petition before the Ministry of Labor and the Ministry of Health, which are the agencies in charge of enforcing work standards. But this was just a process where we didn't get any kind of positive response.

Things would take too long, and they were just having us beating around the bush in circles, going around in circles. And we never got a positive result back.

MR. KARESH: Let me ask you folks one more general question. And I think all of you indicated that you worked for either Custom Trim or Auto Trim and you've worked for other facilities. Do you have a sense or a view as to how Custom Trim and Auto Trim may compare with the other facilities that you've worked at and the response of government agencies with regard to safety and health issues at the other facilities?

MR. PECERO: Within this frame work, we feel that perhaps we cannot say specifically how other plants operate, but we do know that the working conditions at -- in Matomoros in the maquiladora industry are very poor.

We also know that all of this is set within an economic frame work and that it's basically geared for production. And we as workers are subject to exploitation; we're only there to produce and make products to enrich others, and there's no true concern for our rights. There's no true concern for our health. It seems that the only motivating factor they see in us are our hands, which are the tools for production.

MR. KARESH: Okay. MS. MORALES, I'd like to ask you a couple of questions if I may. You testified --

MS. DELP: Excuse me. There was a translation question that was -- we had just a minute ago. When you asked the question about, "Did you ever go to government agencies or speak to them," there was a question about which government agencies.

MR. KARESH: Right. The agency that I was talking about -- the acronym is PROFADET [phonetic]. It's [untranslated Spanish], I think. It's a federal agency for the defense of workers. They're supposed to provide legal advice to the workers.

MR. OTERO, did you have some information on that?

MR. OTERO: Yes, sir. In my personal experience with the attorneys' offices for the protection of workers' rights, PROFADET, I litigated in labor issues for several years; I never worked with them, but I did work against them. And my personal experience is that they don't do anything. They go to the hearings without any preparation.

And some -- and there is a conciliation process at the beginning. And this conciliation process, the company is summoned or the party is summoned. The summoned party goes to a meeting to try to conciliate or reconciliate the differences between the workers and the employers. In most cases and through -- my personal experience is that things never went beyond that conciliation meeting, and conciliation results were not really favor to the worker.

At many times, their needs are not met, and they have a lot of work. But at the same time, with all of the work that they have, they really don't do anything at all.

MR. KARESH: Okay. But I'm wondering if in this particular instance, did any of the workers or any of the submitting organizations speak to that agency about the particular problems that are raised in this submission.

MR. PECERO: Well, personally, I don't think any of us participated in that. But maybe later on, from other statements, we might be able to hear about that, about some friends and colleagues that were discharged and that did find themselves under such circumstances.

MR. KARESH: MS. MORALES, I just want to ask you a couple of quick questions if I may. As a nurse, as medical assistance, at the facility, did you tell the employees to let you know if they had an injury or an illness? And if so, when they came to you, what did you do? What happened in that process?

MS. MORALES: What would happen is: When one of the workers would come to the nurse's office and he had some problem, either an illness -- well, I would have to advise my boss, which was the doctor, which was only -- who would only go one hour a day to the plant, and then, also, inform human resources.

At that time, it was Mr. Argeta [phonetic] heading the office, and he was the one in charge. He would be, I think, the best person to explain what would happen to you. He would say, Well, don't make an appointment to go to the hospital, to the IMSS, and just give them some aspirin and tell them to go back to work.

Basically, this is what human resources did in that sense. The nurse's office is a requirement that a company's meeting because, when you have more than a hundred workers, you do have to have a nurse on staff.

MR. KARESH: And I believe there also was some testimony today and, also, in the submission itself about workers who did see IMSS doctors and that the doctors either indicated that there wasn't an injury or that there was no work-relatedness of that injury. And in your view, what was preventing or what was keeping the doctors from saying that these injuries were work related?

MS. MORALES: Well, what -- well, the doctors at IMSS when they would see the workers -- they would tell them, You know, what's truly happening is that it's not only the work from your company; You have a lot of work outside; And that's why you have some pain in your wrist and your arms and your shoulders.

The people who were working at home, for example, women -- they would tell them. And I mean who does all the household chores? I mean besides -- all the work here plus your household chores? That's a lot.

So they didn't really want to relate it to the work being performed. And the pain -- the muscle pain -- they wanted to refer it to something personal so it wouldn't be declared as a work-related health problem.

MR. MONDRAGON: I am Manuel Mondragon from one of the organizations that has been providing support from Auto Trim and Custom Trim. I would like to go back to the frame work of Mexico, specifically, Tamaulipas on this issue of why workers do not go to PROFADET or any of the higher authorities to defend their rights.

Tamaulipas has been one of the pioneers in going into a project -- this started back in '92 -- to increase productivity. And this is with the new work culture, as it's termed.

And in this new work culture has been a commitment, a very strong commitment, among the different productive sectors of Tamaulipas at the head -- starting from the government and the union sectors and the employers or industrial workers. And the basis for all of this new culture is based on conciliation or reconciliation and solving everything without getting into the tribunals.

What does this mean? That there's a commitment to not have any kinds of strikes, that there's a commitment to not have any kind of reporting and that who negotiates are the people at the top. And the workers never even get a chance to negotiate at that level because everything has to be solved through dialogue and conciliation.

And I don't have the stats at this time, but we can get specific figures where we've seen the reduction of cases, the reduction of accidents and the reduction of strikes -- statistics on everything, because all of this is not reaching the courts and all of these things are going unrecorded.

MR. KARESH: Okay. Thank you, very much.

I think I'd like to move on to MS. DELP now if we can. Okay?

MS. DELP: I'm very happy to be here testifying on behalf of the University of California, Los Angeles, the Labor Occupational Safety and Health Program. I want to speak briefly about hat we do at LOSH, our health and safety training program on the U. S./Mexico border, and my experience with the workers from Auto Trim and Custom Trim.

UCLA LOSH in Los Angeles has done occupational health and safety training since 1978 in English and Spanish on topics such as toxic waste handling, asbestos, lead, solvents, ergonomics, OSHA regulations and workers' rights. And I've been working in the field since the mid-'80s in occupational health education and research.

During that time, I've been in a variety of different work places, from hospitals to furniture manufacturing to large manufacturing places, like aerospace, to meat packing, and have worked with both union and non-union workers to try to resolve health and safety problems in the United States.

And that includes working with unions to try to negotiate health and safety contract language, to establish health and safety committees, how to file OSHA complaints and being a representative on California OSHA advisory boards to develop regulations on chemicals and on infectious diseases.

In about 1993, we initiated a health and safety training program on the U. S./Mexican border by collaborating with [untranslated Spanish]. We offered together a 40-hour health and safety hazardous waste handling course that was attended by workers, by health professionals and by government agency representatives. At that time, it was [untranslated Spanish] instead of [untranslated Spanish].

And after that, I also got with the Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras and served on it as a board member for three years. CJM, the coalition, has a health and safety committee with union, community-based organizations and worker and health professional representatives.

And we started hearing about some of the concerns from workers at Auto Trim and Custom Trim, as well as from workers in other maquiladoras along the border, and decided to develop a series of health and safety training work shops.

The first slide just shows -- the first two slides show some of the work shops that we've done together in collaboration with CJM, with the APHA maquiladora health and safety network, with UC/Berkeley and with the UAW: A coalition of groups that helped to develop these training programs. And we put it in the context of what was happening at Auto Trim and Custom Trim, starting in 1997 with Custom Trim.

I've since learned that there was efforts in '96, even before this, from Auto Trim workers to try to deal with health and safety problems, as well.

So we started in 1998 doing a series of health and safety work shops. The first one was in early May, and I'll talk a little bit more about that in a minute. We followed in June with another one, and that's the one where workers from Auto Trim and Custom Trim were actually helping to do the work shop to train other workers how to file petitions with the STPS.

In November, we did an advanced health and safety work shop, which is a train the trainer kind of work shop, and that was for [untranslated Spanish] so they could actually go out and educate their co-workers since, obviously, not all workers could come to the work shops.

In 1999 -- we had realized in '98 that there were serious problems with chemical exposures and with ergonomic conditions, so we decided that we should do some more specialized work shops focusing in those areas. So we did some on toxicology and ergonomics starting in June of '99, continuing up to this day, actually. There were three earlier this year that the UAW sponsored.

I want to say that at each of these work shops, workers from Auto Trim and Custom Trim did attend and participate actively. And just so you'll have a sense of what we focus on in the health and safety work shops, there are four key areas.

Number 1: We teach people how to identify hazards in their work place by actually doing risk maps, which you saw a demonstration of this morning, the only difference being that in the work shops, we use flip-charts and markers. And they've taken it to the next technological level and put it on Power Point. So we actually learned to do risk maps in the work shops.

The second was how to research the hazards once they're identified. So we would bring sample material safety data sheets in Spanish so people could learn how to read them.

The third was how to document the health problems by doing surveys, by interviewing other people and by collecting information about chemical hazards. And the fourth was using specific work place situations where there were problems -- and Auto Trim/Custom Trim was one of them we used in our work shop -- to determine which regulations of Mexico applied to that situation and which ones were being violated.

Just speaking from my personal experience, I've been involved in several of these work shops, but what I most clearly remember is one that we did in 1998, which was the first one where I was really aware -- in early May of '98 -- of some of the health and safety problems at Auto Trim and Custom Trim. And in 1998, at that work shop, there was a series of health problems that people spoke about and discussed, and you already heard some of them.

What I clearly remember were sort of the classic solvent exposure symptoms: The headaches, the light-headedness and skin and eye irritation. There were also problems that -- people expressed concerns about their reproductive health outcomes. And that was a very serious concern, and particularly given the frequency of miscarriages and birth defects among workers at Auto Trim and Custom Trim.

We talked at that work shop in early May about the frustrations that people had in trying to get changes through the company and through the union and took a look at the option of, you know, them filing a complaint with STPS. And soon after the work shop, they actually did that, as you've already heard, and they submitted a complaint.

A year later -- and there were several work shops in between -- I was also personally involved in the one in June of 1999. And I remember four different things very clearly. Number 1: The same problems were expressed at that work shop as in the one the year before.

Secondly, I was extremely impressed at the amount of information the workers had collected over the time. Personal stories from other people -- they were really documenting the problems and more information about chemicals. They had looked at -- gotten the labels and looked at the safety data sheets that went along with them.

And so their persistence -- and you've heard already about the committee that they established to continue working on these problems over a period of time. So their persistence in trying to gather information about these problems was really outstanding to me.

The next thing that I remember very clearly was the frustration that people had expressed; by this time, they had filed two complaints with STPS and complaints, as well, with IMSS and with the Secretary of Health. And there was considerable frustration, particularly with STPS, that there had not been a response from them.

And that -- at that time, people were starting to discuss already the possibility of a submission to your office because they felt like there really weren't too many alternatives left. And so that sort of brings us to where we are today, with the complaint actually submitted to your Office.

I want to just express my personal concern about the -- in following this whole case over the last couple of years about the -- sort of the lack of attention to the problems by the company, by the union and by the government agencies in Mexico.

And I just feel like -- that we have both a legal obligation, as you've already heard, after NAFTA was passed to make sure that the governments in all three countries are really enforcing our regulations. That's what was predicated with the labor side-agreement of NAFTA, and, presumably, that was designed to protect workers' health and safety.

From my experience, hazards are, unfortunately, common in the United States, as well. In Los Angeles is what I can speak to specifically. But the -- sort of the inequalities and the injustices of U. S.-based companies going to Mexico and allowing and permitting worse conditions in Mexico for Mexican workers than in the U. S. is really unjustified.

Along with my testimony, I've submitted two other things. One is letters that have been signed by occupational health professionals in the United States.

I'm a representative to the occupational safety and health section of the American Public Health Association, which has about 30,000 members and is the largest public health association probably in the world. And so we discussed this at our annual meeting in November, and people expressed considerable concern and wanted to be sure that their voices were reflected here.

There's also signatures from labor and community leaders in Los Angeles. And the second set of letters that I've submitted are personal letters from high school students in Los Angeles. They heard a worker from Custom Trim speak about the conditions, and several of them, about 20 of them, were concerned enough that they wrote their own personal letters and asked me if I would bring them down here to the hearing to represent to you.

And I just want to end with a quote from one of the students, which is a little hard to see, but this is like their very heart-felt expression of their concerns. And I totally agree that we have -- in the words of one of the students, he says it's a moral -- well, I'm sorry. That one's not up there.

But let me just start with -- Vincent says, "It's a moral obligation of United States and Mexican governments to see that all workers are given conditions which are safe and without hazard." And Luce and Vincent and several of the students have relatives that are in Mexico, so they were also speaking on behalf of themselves as young workers, as well as their relatives.

"My purpose in writing this letter is to express my concern for the injured workers in the Auto Trim and Custom Trim maquiladoras, for those who have chosen to seek safety regulations and work place health, as well as for those who are too afraid to speak.

"I urge the U. S. and Mexican governments to support the workers' attempt to improve their working conditions and to ensure that they are not threatened in any way for having the courage to try to improve their well-being. It is they who are putting their lives on the line by being exposed to harmful conditions at their work place in an effort to support themselves and their families. Luce Rodriguez."

Vincent Medina adds, "It is unfortunate that such atrocities can occur in modern times. This is why I ask that my voice be heard and justice be done for those workers who work and live in fear." Thank you.

MR. KARESH: Thank you, MS. DELP. I have just a few questions that I wanted to ask you.

I think you mentioned in the submission and some of the workers talked about certain products being used that they believe are banned in the United States, that certain products are known to cause miscarriages. And I'm wondering if you know where that information was received from and who reported those kinds of facts about the chemicals being used.

MS. DELP: Actually, let me first clarify that I actually don't think that was in my submission that you saw that, but that's okay -- not about products being banned. But I think that that is probably true.

As I mentioned before, the Coalition has a health and safety committee. And on that committee, we have representatives of occupational health professionals from Canada, from the U. S. and from Mexico, as well as workers and community-based organizations and unions.

So if -- a lot of the information that people obtained about the safety of chemicals and whether they were used in the other countries were from members of that coalition. Was that your question?

MR. KARESH: Yes. And I guess I was also curious about this notion -- I mean in the submission, it talks about dangers to women and miscarriages occurring.

MS. DELP: Oh.

MR. KARESH: And I'm curious as to where data about that information comes from with regard to the chemicals being used.

MS. DELP: Oh, okay. You know, there are actually a lot of toxicological studies, and Francisco Mercado is prepared to actually speak specifically to that.

MR. KARESH: With regard to the training that you do -- you've been doing -- and I'm really happy to hear about it. I mean it sounds just like, you know, a tremendous program that you're putting together with some other folks. I'm wondering, have you had any support or participation from any of the governmental authorities in Mexico, be it at the Federal, State or local levels?

MS. DELP: We've had a couple of people who worked for the government agencies who participated not specifically in their role as working for the government agencies.

MR. KARESH: Well, let me ask you this: Is there anything, and if so, what would it be, that you think the government of Mexico or the government of the United States perhaps in response to this submission would be able to do in that area to assist?

MS. DELP: To do what? I'm sorry. I missed that because of the bell.

MR. KARESH: To do in that area in order to assist this training.

MS. DELP: Oh, okay.

MR. KARESH: I assume there's something that we could do besides just get in the way.

MS. DELP: I think it would be great -- well, first of all, it would be great if the Commissiones Mixia really functioned well. But we've heard not only from Auto Trim and Custom Trim workers but from people at other maquiladoras that they really don't.

This -- in Los Angeles, we've done work shops before where we did have official representation from government agencies, where they came and, you know, participated as part of the work shop and talked about what their agency did, how workers can understand better what the regulations are, how they can use the process -- the government agency complaint process to improve their working conditions.

I mean it would be great if, you know, in Mexico, that kind of service was available, but, of course, first of all, it has to be actually operational and functional for people to be able to use that. So I think that's -- really, the main thrust of the whole submission is to make sure the government agencies really are functioning adequately to make sure that working conditions in the work place are observed.

I think training is really only one piece. And we have done training with the goal of helping workers to understand what their rights are so that they can use their rights under the law.

The second piece is making sure that the government agencies are willing to back up those rights and actually enforce the regulations. So that's the bigger question, and I think that's why we come to you: Because that is something that is -- as I understand it, part of the process of the NAO office is to try to make sure that those regulations are enforced.

MR. KARESH: What about individual employers or employer organizations? Have they participated with you in this training? And the workers who have attended -- have they been sent there by the employers, or are they just doing that on their own time? Are the employers involved in any way?

MS. DELP: The first work shop that I mentioned, in 1993 with the [untranslated Spanish], the university and Tijuana, was something that was done with the university, and we did have some participation from government agencies. The Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras' goal -- and other people can speak to this probably even better than I can, but the goal is to educate workers.

So we did not specifically do outreach to company representatives; we feel like they have, you know, plenty of resources on their own. And our goal is to educate workers so that they know what their rights are.

(Pause.)

MS. DELP: Oh. And to the second part of your question: No, they were not paid by the company to come to the work shops. People did -- a lot of this work has been done on people's own time, and I really am impressed by that.

MR. KARESH: Have you -- I mean I assume the word spreads. Have you received any requests or contacts from the employers or the maquiladora association or anything like that with regard to this training?

MS. DELP: Through UCLA, there have been some other courses that have been done primarily in Tijuana. And when we're -- one of my co-workers, who's an industrial hygienist, did participate in a health and safety conference for the maquiladora association that was on the other side of the border -- I mean on the east/west other side of the border. So yes.

And that has been rare. I mean there haven't been very many requests. I just want to add that.

MR. KARESH: You haven't actually visited Auto Trim or Custom Trim, have you?

MS. DELP: No. I would love to.

MR. KARESH: So --

MS. DELP: I visited the maquiladoras primarily in Tijuana.

MR. KARESH: All right. So the information you have basically has come from workers who have attended the training?

MS. DELP: Yes.

MR. KARESH: And what did the workers who attended that training say about training at the Auto Trim and Custom Trim facilities? 

MS. DELP: Well, they came to the CJM and the coalition work shops because they were desperate for information which they were not receiving in the companies.

MR. KARESH: Let me just ask your opinion on something if you think you can respond to it, and that is: Do you think that it would make sense or be worth your effort to reach out to the maquiladora association and see about working with them for this type of training for workers?

MS. DELP: Do we think that it would make sense to for us, or for you all?

MR. KARESH: No. For you.

MS. DELP: You know, I would actually leave that up to the people that live and work on the Mexican side of the border to respond to that question. I am from Los Angeles, and my goal is to provide technical and education support. And they primarily do the outreach. And I feel like that's a decision that's a judgment call of organizations on the Mexican side of the border about what that strategy would be.

MR. KARESH: In your experience with workers on both sides of the border, do you have -- I mean do workers on the U. S. side give a different impression about training in their facilities and awareness of hazardous materials and protection and things of that sort than you have seen on the Mexican side of the border?

MS. DELP: I think so, I mean, clearly, union places, yes, that I've worked with in California. And they're far better educated.

But I would say even the non-union places -- and in Los Angeles, I've, as I said, done a lot of work with both union and non-union workers, working through unions and community-based organizations. And in English and in Spanish -- there are, unfortunately, lousy working conditions there, too, and I'm not going to pretend there aren't.

I think what -- let me tell you, what really impressed me with hearing these stories here is [untranslated Spanish], and I don't really know how to say that in English. But it's -- the whole idea that workers are basically used up and put aside to do work that is degrading so that they're sort of forced to leave is something that I have not heard of or seen in the United States.

I mean there are occasions like -- more individuals who are injured and feel like they are sort of forced out in the United States. But to this degree that has been happening at Auto Trim and Custom Trim? That, I think, is really quite remarkable in a negative way.

MR. KARESH: Thank you, very much.

I think we'd like to move on to the next panel now. The next panel will speak to chemical hazards: Joaquin Gonzalez, Ezequiel Tinajero and Bruno Noe.

(Pause.)

MR. KARESH: Are you MR. GONZALEZ?

MR. GONZALEZ: Yes, Joaquin Gonzalez.

Well, first of all, I am a former worker of Auto Trim from Matomoros, Mexico. What I'd like to do now is provide a brief demo of the kind of work I performed back then. This is just an idea about the design, because I would like to add something else. There's a variation regarding the design, the model design. So that would also differ regarding the amounts, quantities or amounts of steering wheels. Let me begin.

Here's a steering wheel. And let me show you this. This is a container with the Varsol, a chemical solvent. And I'm going to say that this the yellow glue, and here I'm going to use it to apply to the steering wheel to be able to place the leather. So here's what I do, these kinds of movements.

I begin to place the glue. I turn it around, the same movements -- quick. I turn it one more time. I place it at an angle on the base. Of course, this is not the work base. I place the brush here on the container for the green glue, and then I take the leather, which is the raw material -- that's what we were using before. I take it, and I make sure that the leather is in good condition.

I begin to place glue on the leather. And once again, I place the brush inside the green -- the yellow glue container for this leather. Once I place glue on the leather, I begin to place it on the steering wheel. And depending on the design of the steering wheel, I would place then the leather. Could someone help me with this?

(Pause.)

MR. GONZALEZ: Just to make it more descriptive, I'm going to make use of my friend here. In order to center the leather onto the steering wheel, the wheel has some angles like these, these, these and these -- on some wheels, but not on all of them.

So I begin to center the leather, and I begin to pull the leather on to the wheel so I get the perfect angle from one side, then to the other side, several times until I can angle the leather on to the wheel. All right?

Now, the next step after assembling it -- let's put it that way -- we again return to this operation. The wheel should be totally clean from any yellow glue to be able to go to the next station, so what I do is the following: I stick my hand inside the container, and I put in a piece of rag into the Varsol. I begin to clean off the excess glue where ever I have excess glue.

I turn it around, and I've got something else here. I put glue on the leather. But, basically, due to the accuracy with which I should apply all of this, there's no exact time to be so careful that the leather will not bring about more work in this cleaning process that is getting rid of the excess glue. As I see it, this is just more time added to all of the process.

Okay. The wheel is clean now. I check it, and then I prepare it to be able to turn it over to the next work station, to my co-worker. Now I have to do the following: With a rag, I get rid of all the yellow glue from my hands. So far, just as -- this just shows -- basically shows you what I used to do at Auto Trim.

Now, it's just a theory now, but, in order to go to the next step -- I don't know if I may be allowed to do it from the table or from over here. Or what --

MR. KARESH: Whatever you prefer is fine.

MR. GONZALEZ: The table?

(Pause.)

MR. GONZALEZ: I was exposed to Varsol for some 11 hours, exposed to the yellow glue and trichloroethane. I assembled from 13 to 18 steering wheels per day, and it took me about ten to 15 minutes using the glue and the Varsol to be able to clean a steering wheel from any excess glue. That is -- I was -- all of that was in direct contact with my skin for some three hours per day.

For some three hours per day, I was exposed -- and for some 15 minutes, depending on the substance. Sometimes, I would be -- I would have exposure of over four hours to the products.

That's what I can say regarding the part of assembly as a former assembly line member from Auto Trim in Matomoros, Mexico. Now, I'd like to go around to the following: To the addiction to the yellow glue and to the rest of the chemical substances, Varsol and trichloroethane.

It's difficult to accept, but I think I did suffer an addiction to the chemicals that I used during my work at Auto Trim. I'd like to state what I felt and I feel today: Anxiety, despair, uncertainty, nervousness and the fear of probably having a baby that has no brain, anencephalia.

I would also forget places and the names of persons that were introduced to me that I met. It was very difficult for me to retain names and addresses. I even had sleep disorders. When I would go to sleep, I felt a sort of suffocation that stopped my breathing short. And sometimes, I had to change my posture and use a pillow to be able to recover my breathing at least to what I thought was normal.

I also see and I imagine things that in reality do not exist; that scares me. That scares me. The most critical thing is that I cannot concentrate. Just to recall all of this has been quite an effort; it is not anything short of pleasant.

When I was fired from Auto Trim, I suffered the withdrawal symptoms from the Varsol and the solvents. Even today, it is very difficult for me to accept my addiction to the yellow glue in an involuntary manner. I'm very ashamed of that. Unfortunately, I witnessed the problem in other co-workers.

This refers to the damage caused by Auto Trim. I would look at plastic containers with yellow glue. I would hear a strong breathing from some of my co-workers. For me personally, it seemed like a voluntary addiction.

I'd like to add something else regarding the damage to me: The damage to my forearm. I didn't have this problem before. And with that injury -- I didn't start at work at Auto Trim at Matomoros, Me