Jailed: Mexican Defended Workers Making Clothes For Canada, U.S.A.

Coincidentally, Barrios had been pursuing legal channels to obtain severance pay for 163 employees recently fired from one of the factories, after demanding that working conditions comply with the law. Secluded behind high walls and guarded gates, the factories each hire up to 10,000 workers to sew brand name clothes on contract for companies like Levi's, Guess, the Gap and Tommy Hilfiger. So many of the clothes are made of denim, stonewashed with chemicals and feather-light abrasive rocks from the nearby Popocatépetl volcano, that Tehuacán has become known as Mexico's "denim capital". Barrios, a Nahua Indian, was clearly a prominent figure to others as well; in 1999 his sharp mind and tenacity had already earned him, at the age of 27, his position as president of the Human and Labour Rights Commission of the Tehuacán Valley. He wore his hair long, a bright knitted cap on his head and his heart on his sleeve. On one arm, he sported a tattoo of Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent god of the Aztecs and the Toltecs. "Human rights are being violated on a daily basis," Barrios told me. "There is political [physical] torture, everything…It's a question of investigating and denouncing." Full story: http://thetyee.ca/News/2006/01/09/SweatShopJailed/

Note: http://thetyee.ca/News/...