Freedom of Association and Collective Bargaining Rights in Mexico’s Agro-Export Industry: The Case of San Quintín, Baja California, Mexico

San Quintín, Baja California, is one of Mexico’s foremost producers of fresh fruits and vegetables for national and international markets (Zlolniski, 2019). Since the 1980s, the region has grown due to neoliberal economic policies that spurred integration with North American and international markets as part of a worldwide neoliberal food regime (^{Pechlaner & Otero, 2010}). As a global agricultural enclave, production in San Quintín is export-oriented. It employs technological innovation, high productivity, and an intensified use of labor that tends toward seasonal discontinuity, extreme flexibility, and increased responsiveness to market changes (^{Moraes et al., 2012}). In San Quintín, this model is an expansion of the California model of agriculture into northwestern Mexico and is dominated by U.S.-based transnational corporations and their global commodity chains (^{Garrapa, 2019}). Despite high capital investments and rapid technological modernization, agro-export enclaves rely on the ready availability of cheap labor in weak regulatory contexts. Agricultural workers in these zones suffer rampant exploitation and widespread precarity. This paradox can only be understood as a business strategy to lower labor costs and increase global market competitiveness (^{Moraes et al., 2012}).

There are over ninety thousand inhabitants in San Quintín, most of whom are seasonal or settled farmworkers from the states of Oaxaca, Chiapas, and Guerrero and speak an Indigenous language (Zlolniski, 2019). An expanding labor market in agro-export industries creates incentives for rural-to-rural migration from southern to northern Mexico as neoliberal deregulation exacerbates the preexisting asymmetry between highly technological agro-exporting industries and the rural sector based on traditional technologies for subsistence (^{Rojas Rangel, 2009}). Migrant settlement and community construction in the region have been widely studied, drawing direct ties between the economic production imposed on the valley and the ways of social reproduction among the farmworker community (^{Velasco Ortiz et al., 2014}). Local production practices are organized around repressive forms of labor control (including employer protection unions) and the near inexistence of public infrastructure and social services (^{Velasco Ortiz et al., 2014}; Zlolniski, 2019). Despite this exploitation, San Quintín’s agricultural workers have been active agents of change over their labor conditions. The region’s farmworkers went on strike in 2015, halting agrarian production. After months of negotiations, the federal government facilitated an agreement to raise wages and grant the federal registration of the National Independent Democratic Union of Agricultural Workers (Sindicato Independiente Nacional Democrático de Jornaleros Agrícolas, or SINDJA) union (^{Lóyzaga Mendoza, 2022}).

In her analysis of the California strawberry industry, ^{Wells (1996)} analyzed the local organization of production to understand how regional power structures create the political influences that determine workplace conflicts. Here distinctive classes, production relations, labor markets, and state policies facilitate or constrain worker organizing at the point of production to defend their class interests. Studies on labor movements in the border maquila zone also demonstrate that production is localized despite the internationalization of trade relations and labor standards. Thus, labor conditions and the political opportunities of independent union movements are subordinated to regional political configurations (^{Quintero Ramírez, 2006}). As in rural agro-export zones, the alliance between protection unions, employers, and politicians in the maquila sector is the main structural impediment to labor democracy (^{Hathaway, 2002}).

Although the U.S.-based distributors and retailers dominate transnational agricultural networks in Mexico’s northwest, local growers and their associations control regional politics. The Unión Agrícola de Baja California is the largest grower association in the region, covering Maneadero and San Quintín. The Consejo Agrícola of San Quintín is relatively recent and comprises export-oriented local growers. While each group has its political persuasions and connections, the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) in the case of the former and the Partido de Acción Nacional (PAN) in the latter, most local growers belong to both associations and impose protection contracts to their workers (^{Zlolniski, 2010}). The largest company-controlled union in San Quintín is the Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores, Obreros de Industria y Asalariados del Campo (SINTOIAC), of the Confederación de Trabajadores de México (CTM), associated with the corporatist structures of Mexico’s long-ruling PRI, with monopoly rights over collective bargaining agreements with the Unión Agrícola. The second most powerful is the Sindicato de Obreros y Campesinos, Cargadores, Operadores de Maquinaria en General, Similares y Conexos del Valle de San Quintín of the Confederación Regional de Obreros Mexicanos (CROM), which holds contracts with Berrymex and others. The Reiter family owns Berrymex, and they also partially own Driscolls. Although less critical, the Sindicato Mexico-Moderno de Trabajadores de la Baja California of the Confederación Revolucionaria de Obreros y Campesinos (CROC) holds protective agreements with a few local growers with meaningful transnational connections, for example, Andrew & Williamson Fresh Produce’s leading associate Milagro de Baja (^{Bensusán Areous & Jaloma Cruz, 2019}; ^{Zlolniski, 2010}).

Despite globalization, the state has an overwhelming influence on the balance of forces between workers, growers, and protection unions. ^{Zlolniski (2010)} argues that the state’s role in global agricultural production has not necessarily diminished. On the contrary, the state structures the particular political and economic dynamics in an agro-export regime such as San Quintín. The López Obrador administration has a mixed record concerning farmworkers. The administration ended the Agricultural Workers Assistance Program (PAJA) and increased monetary transfers without changing the structural conditions that generate rural poverty (^{Barrón, 2019}). At the state level, the political transition has meant the continuity of class power for growers. Marina del Pilar Ávila Olmeda, the current governor of Baja California of MORENA, is a close ally of the Consejo Agrícola. Secretary of Labor Alejandro Arregui Ibarra is a political “chapulín” (grasshopper) as he jumped from the PRI to MORENA. Understaffed and underfunded, state and local labor departments fail to intervene in workplace struggles, eradicate systemic labor rights violations, or monitor contract legitimation elections. Despite potentially transformative labor reforms at the federal level and the changing electoral landscape, the economic and political structures that shape class conflict between growers and workers in San Quintín remain remarkably unchanged.

The main reason for this is profitability. Agro-export products such as berries are extremely labor intensive, and labor is the most significant production cost, especially during the harvest and when paid by piece rate. To facilitate the stability of capital accumulation, control over labor is necessary to reduce labor costs (^{Wells, 1996}). Protection unions ensure low wages, limited labor rights, and high profits, as grower control over labor is unchallenged. Mexico’s new labor model promised to disrupt the unequal relationship between labor and capital by creating more significant space for worker organization through an authentic collective bargaining process. The Mexican state’s failure to intervene on behalf of the legitimate demands of farmworkers for more workplace democracy signals support for the preservation of capital accumulation by the dominant economic class in the agro-export industry. In San Quintín, regional power structures thwart most possibilities of real reform.

This does not mean workplace struggle is nonexistent, as the general strike in 2015 demonstrates. An analysis of farmworker resistance highlights the excellent capacity for mobilization and opposition (Zlolniski, 2019). Given workplace organization and the isolation of agro-export enclaves in rural areas, however, farmworker demands are most often contained and relegated to the point of production. Farmworkers’ power to demand higher wages and fulfillment of Mexican labor law is weakened, given the labor surplus due to migration from southern to northern Mexico. Employer protection unions in agro-export enclaves are arguably the primary mechanism to prevent the formation of independent labor unions among farmworkers. Their success in securing a “labor peace” in the valley is evident in the case of the Central Independiente de Obreros Agrícolas y Campesinos (CIOAC) that unsuccessfully sought to organize farmworkers in San Quintín for decades (^{Zlolniski, 2010}). After the 2015 farmworker strike, the SINDJA union challenged the monopoly of control over collective bargaining agreements exercised by employer protection unions. However, it has not succeeded in establishing a collective bargaining agreement.

One essential means for urban industrial worker movements to defend their rights is cross-border solidarity with unions and civil society organizations (^{De la O & Zlolniski, 2020}; ^{Domínguez & Quintero Ramírez, 2008}; ^{Rubio Campos, 2017}). The few cases in which the recent labor reforms have tilted power to workers through overturning protection unions developed in the context of cross-border labor solidarity utilizing the mechanisms of the USMCA’s labor chapters. Indeed, research points to the possibilities of cross-border, rank-and-file, social movement unionism to strengthen workers’ capacity to organize and defend their rights supposedly guaranteed under Mexican law (^{Daria, 2019}; Zlolniski, 2010). This was demonstrated in the “Pacific Coast Farmworker Rebellion” of 2015, connecting Indigenous migrant farmworkers from Baja California, Mexico, to Washington, United States (^{Bacon, 2015}). Instead of broader solidarity, however, mainstream farmworker organizations in the United States like the United Farm Workers (UFW) have joined forces with transnational grower-shipper companies like Driscoll’s and Andrew & Williamson Fresh Produce to promote private labor regulatory initiatives Fair Trade USA (FTUSA) and the Equitable Food Initiative (EFI). These certification schemes function as another company union-like structure designed to repress independent unionism and market their products as “fair” and “equitable”—a process elsewhere described as fairwashing and union busting— (^{Daria, 2022}).

Rigged Elections: Challenging Employer Protection Unions in San Quintín’s Agro-Export Industry

Rancho Nuevo Produce is a local grower in Vicente Guerrero, San Quintín. Founded in 1997 by Sabino Becerra Rivera, originally from Michoacán, Rancho Nuevo Produce is a family-run business operating as an affiliate grower for Andrew & Williamson Fresh Produce of San Diego, California, United States. Originally growing chilies and tomatoes, the company now dedicates most of its 170 hectares to strawberries and raspberries, although it maintains a small production of saladette and cherry tomatoes. Rancho Nuevo produces for the Good Farms and Limited Edition labels certified by the Equitable Food Initiative (EFI) and Fair Trade USA. In peak harvest time, Rancho Nuevo Produce employs roughly six hundred workers (^{Rojas, 2017}). Unbeknownst to most workers, Rancho Nuevo Produce uses the SINTIOAC as its protection union.

Lucinda (a pseudonym) is a female farmworker who migrated from Oaxaca decades ago and has been employed at Rancho Nuevo Produce most of the time. Lucinda asked for little to be said about her, as she fears retaliation from her employer and blacklisting throughout the region due to denouncing abuses. Lucinda describes how at Rancho Nuevo, “no union defends us. There is a union that is the CTM, but we have always known it is on the boss’s side” (Lucinda, personal communication, May 3, 2022). Lucinda relates how, given the presence of the repressive union on the ranch and the ineffectiveness of the EFI program, the workers must risk their jobs to bring about justice by demanding a raise or getting off work at a decent hour, for example.

They [the company protection union representatives] never come to work. They never show up to defend our rights or ask how we are treated. They are never around. We have to talk with the boss ourselves, therefore [given worker efforts at organizing alone] sometimes they increase wages by two pesos, and sometimes they don’t. Like right now, they always take us out of the fields at five thirty or six, but before we spoke up, they always took us out when it got dark. They kept telling us: “While there is light, while there is sun, you have to work” (Lucinda, personal communication, May 3, 2022).

Here Lucinda highlights wage and hour violations, including forced overtime that the employer protection union leaves unchallenged.

Ñuu Saví farmworker (a pseudonym), is a Mixteco jornalero at Rancho Nuevo Produce who migrated from Oaxaca approximately ten years ago. Fearing retaliation, he also asked to be represented by the pseudonym Ñuu Saví as this is the name for the Mixteco people, literally meaning “the people of the rain.” Many of Rancho Nuevo’s fieldworkers are Indigenous migrants from southern Mexican states like Oaxaca, Guerrero, and Chiapas who have settled permanently or semi- permanently in San Quintín or are the children of those who settled in the valley. Ñuu Saví rejects the forced representation of the company protection union and argues that it is complicit in this repression. “Because the CTM union is unknown on the ranch. We’ve just seen them, who they are, but we don’t know their name,” he argued (Ñuu Saví, personal communication, May 2, 2022). This farmworker described the role of the SINTOIAC union of the CTM as follows.

Well, I think that the CTM, instead of being a union that protects the interests of the farmworkers, is more a union that protects the boss and not the farmworkers. If it belonged to the farmworkers, we ourselves would pay our union representatives. In this case, in our envelope, on our check stub, it doesn’t say we are paying the union. And I can say that the union belongs to the boss, not the workers, because the payroll doesn’t show us paying them. So, who pays the CTM union? It is the boss (Ñuu Saví, personal communication, May 2, 2022).

Discontent at Rancho Nuevo erupted into an outright revolt on Friday, April 8, 2022. Due to national labor law reforms, the company-imposed union was obligated to legitimize the collective bargaining agreement with the SINTOIAC of the CTM at Rancho Nuevo Produce through consultation with the workers. The National Labor Department established legal precedents to regulate the union legitimation process (^{Protocol of 2019}). Under these regulations, a union with a CBA that predates the new labor reform must notify the STPS that it will undergo the legitimation process. This legitimation process is undertaken through a majority approval of the current CBA through free elections with a secret ballot vote. If most workers disapprove, the contract is terminated, although the benefits remain in place until it is renegotiated. If two or more unions dispute the CBA by applying for the certificate after rejection, an election establishes the majority right to negotiate a new CBA. If the legitimation is never held, the contract is annulled invalid, and the CBA is eliminated from the federal registry (^{Nolan García et al., 2021}).

To ensure transparency and legality, the legitimation process must be observed. In the legitimation process, the incumbent union submits documents and obtains the necessary forms, procedures, and official ballots for the election. The union can decide whether a public notary or labor authority, such as a federal labor inspector, verifies the election. While this process is free, the association may employ a public notary whose employer covers the cost. One of the main weaknesses of the labor reform and legitimation process is allowing union representatives (many of whom are employer protection unions) the freedom to choose between federal labor inspectors and public notary, a private individual paid for by the employer. The Maquila Solidarity Network questions whether the lack of government oversight and the employment of a public notary create a conflict of interest and whether any real oversight with sufficient legal knowledge is possible (^{Nolan García et al., 2021}). Given the remoteness of many agro-export enclaves, the state is almost non-existent, and local and federal labor representatives are often overworked and underfunded if present. Farmworkers routinely accuse local and state labor departments of complicity with growers, company unions, and transnational corporations, as most labor violations go unpunished.

The employer is responsible for notifying employees of the date, time, and place of the legitimation at least 10 days before the elections. Employers must also provide a printed copy of the current CBA at least three days before. The incumbent union is responsible for guaranteeing that the polling place is accessible to most workers and free of coercion. While holding the vote at the workplace facilitates worker participation, it is also a possible violation of neutrality (^{Nolan García et al., 2021}). According to regulations, all employees under a current CBA are eligible to vote—except for “trusted employees” (management, for example) and those hired after the notification date. To ensure that only qualified workers vote, the current union must create a list of employees covered under the contract. Workers must also present official identification to appear on the list to emit their vote during the election process. Regulations encourage this list to be signed by workers upon reception of necessary documents, and this, in turn, is supplied to the corresponding labor authorities to document strict adherence to the legitimation process.

However, a few days before the legitimation, the workers at Rancho Nuevo Produce found out about a list of eligible voters circulating at the workplace. Most workers were unaware of the legalities surrounding the legitimation process, nor were they aware that a union existed on the ranch. Nor did the employer or employer protection union notify workers of the vote. Workers began to mobilize against the possibilities of an illegitimate legitimation process. At Rancho Nuevo, there is a small but strong base of SINDJA members, and they contacted SINDJA organizers and explained that, for a reason they did not understand, the SINTOIAC convoked an election, and they were not on the list. The SINDJA union organized a clandestine meeting with their members at Rancho Nuevo Produce. It explained the legitimation process underway at the federal level and distributed pamphlets developed by the National Labor Department about the legalities of the legitimation process. They also hatched a plan. The days before the vote, the independent SINDJA union and worker members undertook an informational campaign surrounding the vote. Spreading word undercover in the fields and on social media platforms like Facebook, the union members informed workers and the general public about the legitimation process and the rights of the workers to vote their conscience.

Only certain workers appeared on the list on the day of the legitimation. Although there are over five hundred workers on the ranch, a selected group of roughly 200 workers were on the list even though regulations state all workers covered by the current CBA are authorized to vote, excluding temporary workers or those recently hired. However, many of the workers on the list were new, having only been on the job for a few months. Some workers with seniority, having worked for two, three, five, or even 20 years, were left off the list. The list produced outrage as workers saw it as an apparent attempt to “acarrear” the workers with the least experience and who know little about the problems that historically have existed on the ranch.² It was evident to the workers that the SINTOIAC union put together a list of workers permitted to vote so the crony union could easily win the voting process. The workers at Rancho Nuevo were incensed. As Ñuu Saví farmworker related:

On April 8, there was an injustice at Rancho Nuevo because there was a vote for the approval of the collective bargaining agreement. But what happened? A couple of days before the vote, they put up lists of around two hundred workers to show up to vote on the ranch. Only the persons listed were to vote. They didn’t call everyone. These people that went to vote, were only people that appeared on the list, they were people that don’t know how to read, that don’t know how to write, there were very few that did know how. And the rest of us were not included. I say we were not permitted because, having worked here for five years, they didn’t include me (Ñuu Saví, personal communication, May 2, 2022).

Other workers described the same experience. Lucinda, for example, related the following:

Now they would make us vote, who knows what for, or in favor of them. And they didn’t even explain anything! They just gave us a collective bargaining agreement that you can’t even read because the letters are so small and fuzzy that you can’t see them. But they didn’t give everyone a copy, just a few people, a few people, and not to the rest (Lucinda, personal communication, May 3, 2022).

Many workers were indifferent to the legitimation vote—their voices were never heard on the farm, so what did it matter if they participated?—. The long histories of injustice meant that workers were generally apathetic and disengaged as they struggled to get by. “Why should I go? Why should I vote? Nothing is going to change anyway,” was the general feeling many workers relayed in interviews. The SINDJA union and its members urged the workers to overcome their apathy and demand the right to vote their conscience.

Interestingly, workers from all levels of the farm labor hierarchy contacted the union—field workers, checkers, foremen, and bus drivers—. Usually, the interests of the supervisors and the fieldworkers are distinct as foremen push workers to their limits, and fieldworkers resent their often abusive treatment. This time, however, the feelings across the ranch changed from apathy and indifference to indignation, and divisions among the workers were temporarily overcome as they united in their rejection of the employer protection union. Foremen told their crewmembers to vote against the bogus SINTOIAC union. Bus drivers told the workers they transported to do the same. The workers at Rancho Nuevo lost their fear.

During the legitimation vote, SINDJA organizers rallied outside the grounds of Rancho Nuevo Produce with bullhorns urging the workers to vote “no.” Inside, Lucinda described how the employer protection SINTIOAC union pressured the workers to vote to legitimate the collective bargaining agreement they had never seen before.

When the bus arrived, we went to vote without any explanation and without knowing. Many people didn’t know how to read and didn’t know the alphabet. A lady said to them:

—I don’t know to sign [my name].

—Let’s say that here it says “no,” and here it says “yes,” a square says “yes,” and a square says “no.”

—I don’t know how I will vote —the lady said.

—No? —then they said— Here, aim here, vote here.

In other words, they [SINTOIAC union delegates] told her to vote where it said ‘yes’ because she didn’t know how to read. So, they told her. It is [supposedly] the decision of the individual. But in other words, they [the employer protection union] voted themselves because they told her ‘here’ (Lucinda, personal communication, May 3, 2022).

According to those interviewed, the workers chosen by the employer to vote were the most trusted workers or workers close to the grower (allegados al patrón). They were on the list to create a positive outcome for the company-imposed union. Workers complained that they were given no information on what to vote for; instead, they were instructed to vote in favor. Nor did they need to present official documentation to vote. Some workers decried that it was a rigged election (una elección amañada).

The workers left off of the list protested. Workers rallied in the fields while organizers with the SINDJA union rallied outside the company’s property to protest the illegitimate legitimization process. Work crew after work crew, sometimes supported by their foreman and sometimes going against their foreman, demanded their right to vote. A few foremen took their workers out of the fields to participate in the election process, and bus drivers drove workers to the election site even if workers did not appear on the official list. As it turned out, hundreds of workers voted in the legitimation process to defy the SINTOIAC and its list of manufactured voters. Overwhelmed, the SINTOIAC could only allow all the workers to vote. According to Ñuu Saví farmworker:

Thanks to the SINDJA union, all of us workers voted, although we didn’t appear on the list. Some coworkers didn’t vote, and a whole work crew in the strawberry fields didn’t show up; they didn’t vote. Why didn’t they vote? Because we don’t know the contents of the collective bargaining agreement (Ñuu Saví, personal communication, May. 2, 2022).

Although the manufactured list of voters was technically illegal as it was not representative of the total workforce under contract, neither was it legal to allow all the workers to vote if ineligible under the legitimation regulations. To make things worse, federal law stipulates that the legitimation process needs to be witnessed by a labor representative or at least a public notary. If a labor official or public notary was present, it was unbeknownst to the workers. Only the workers and the SINTOIAC union were there to witness if the election took place according to the law.

The voting finished around midday. The ranch was abuzz with excitement. SINDJA members received calls from workers and foremen declaring that most workers voted “no” and thus claimed the current CBA as illegitimate. The workers resoundingly voted against legitimizing the SINTOIAC union’s employer protection contract with Rancho Nuevo Produce. Yet, there was a significant problem - no public counting of the votes! The SINTOIAC union closed up the voting booth and left with the ballots. Only SINTOIAC knows how many people voted or who won.³ The workers feel the result was a clear “no,” but there is no evidence to support their claim as there was no transparency. Despite the efforts to revoke the SINTOIAC’s company protection contract, Ñuu Saví farmworker describes how the crony union undertook various illegal actions in legitimation.

I see it as something illegal because the labor secretary wasn’t present during the consultation. Nor was there a public notary present. And even worse, it was a foul that the CTM union didn’t count the votes in front of those that went to vote. They just said, “Vote yes or no,” “Do this; it doesn’t cost you anything.” And that was what they did. And after the voting was over, we went back to our work crews (Ñuu Saví, personal communication, May 2, 2022).

According to Abelina Ramírez Ruiz, Secretary General of the SINDJA union, the legal requirements for the legitimation process were not met:

The law demands that it be a free, individual, direct, and secret vote, that the booths and urns must be installed, and that the Labor Department must be present. In the case of Rancho Nuevo, (…) this did not happen. The Labor Department was absent, and the workers allowed to vote were selected (Abelina Ramírez Ruiz, personal communication, May 5, 2022).

The SINDJA union denounced the legitimation as fraud; they charged that the SINTOIAC union stole the ballots. Lorenzo Rodríguez Jiménez, Secretary of Organization for SINDJA, argued the case:

We asked ourselves how many irregularities occurred because the workers who were not on the list couldn’t vote. In other words, if you have an official list, you must stick to it (…) The obvious solution was to invalidate the whole process and convoke a new election to be genuinely transparent so that the necessary conditions exist. Hence, the workers vote to see whether the union wins. But there were numerous tricks (Lorenzo Rodríguez Jiménez, personal communication, May 9, 2022).

By regulations, workers have five days to denounce the legitimation process. The CBA is considered legitimated if federal labor authorities do not undertake any intervention or intermediation within 20 business days. The only way was to make an official complaint with the Centro de Conciliación y Arbitraje, the new labor board instituted by President López Obrador’s reforms. To do so, however, the workers had to give their details to the federal government, which in turn could come to the grower’s attention and possibly lead to reprisals and retaliation. According to Rodríguez Jiménez,

We tried to aid them in making a complaint. There was much public condemnation, but they asked for much data upon making an official complaint that you could do on the Centro page. They ask for your name; they require your CURP; they even ask for your employee number, if I am correct. They ask you for personal information, making the workers avoid complaining. They were afraid that these people would have all of their [the workers’] information and that they [the labor authorities] were colluding with the company or the union, which would bring retaliation upon them (Lorenzo Rodríguez Jiménez, personal communication, May 9, 2022).

The collective euphoria of victory quickly changed to fear once again. Given the lack of anonymity and the workers’ belief that the government, the growers, and the crony unions collude to repress worker rights, why would they trust the process? Rodríguez Jiménez lamented, “We were unable to proceed with the legal complaint” (Lorenzo Rodríguez Jiménez, personal communication, May 9, 2022). Five days passed without a worker willing to denounce the process officially. Fear won once again.

Weeks passed without an official pronouncement of the election results. No results were published, no evidence was brought forth, and no action was taken by the grower, the EFI Leadership Team, the FTUSA Fair Trade Committee, or the federal government to validate the election or declare its illegitimacy. Everything went back to normal at Rancho Nuevo with the SINTOIAC in charge. In other words, the SINTOIAC won the vote through their illegal and illegitimate legitimation process. Ñuu Saví laughed cynically and related the following:

What was heard was disapproval. The disapproval was louder than the approval of the union. Because of such a high level of disapproval, in my perspective, the collective bargaining agreement was not approved in the consultation. So, this was a fraud. It was a fraud because the votes were not counted in front of the farmworkers. As I said, the Labor Department wasn’t there, the Conciliación wasn’t there, and the public notary wasn’t there. Because of this, what the CTM did was a fraud (Ñuu Saví, personal communication, May 2, 2022).

Corruption reigned at Rancho Nuevo Produce, and the employer-protection unions’ power over the farmworkers in San Quintín remained untouched.

Instead of cross-border solidarity, there was only silence. Fair Trade USA and the Equitable Food Initiative standards claim to protect freedom of association and collective bargaining rights. Yet, neither program prevented the fraud or served as a mechanism to remediate the legal violations of farmworker rights. Ñuu Saví farmworker emphasized the commonalities between fair trade programs like EFI and FTUSA and company protection unions like the CTM. “[The growers] have two groups: they have the EFI committee [i.e., the Leadership Team], and they have the CTM committee. Both groups are supposedly there to protect the worker and make sure the law is fulfilled. Neither of them does so” (Ñuu Saví, personal communication, May 2, 2022). The U.S.- based farmworker organizations, backing these “ethical” certifications, fail to offer the solidarity needed to oust the CTM.

If neither private labor standards under “ethical” certification schemes nor the Labor Department could guarantee farmworkers’ rights under Mexican law, Ñuu Saví says this could be an alternative to rectify the problems on the ranch:

The solution to all of the problems, in my perspective, is the union of all the farmworkers and say no to the CTM, to demand the company Rancho Nuevo, or whatever company here in the San Quintín valley, the freedom to elect the union that the farmworkers themselves choose. This would be a solution. And with what we saw that day, it is what my coworkers demand: that we, the workers, elect the union to which we want to belong (Ñuu Saví, personal communication, May 2, 2022).

Ñuu Saví knows that for this to happen, there has to be a fight, but the goal of a union is to benefit both the employer and the worker to create a just workplace where everyone can benefit. He described his version of “labor peace” as a just peace.

If a collective bargaining agreement with SINDJA is established, it would have to be in favor of both the company and the workers; it would be for both. It would not hurt the company, but also not harm the workers. It would be even to work in harmony so that the Federal Labor Law is respected above all because it is owed to us as workers. Why is it owed to us? Because without us farmworkers you would not have food on the table. Without farm labor, without farmworkers, the big cities would be left without food. This is what I believe (Ñuu Saví, personal communication, May 2, 2022).