The Issues
Workers should not have to decide between going home and justice.
CDM recognises that Mexico-based migrant workers who work in the U.S. face many obstacles to achieving justice.
Because of employer control and immigration issues, transnational workers are often unable to discuss their employment situations with advocates in the U.S.
Many injured and/or unpaid workers return to Mexico without connecting to services in the United States either because they are unaware of their rights and the services available to them, or because they are too scared to assert those rights.
CDM is the missing link between U.S. groups and workers in Mexico.
Workplace health and safety
"In the mid-1990s, Mexicans working in the United States were about 30 percent more likely to die than U.S.-born workers; in 2002, they were about 80 percent more likely."
The above quote is from an award winning Associated Press study in 2004, that, based on an analysis of years of federal statistics, found that the death rate among Mexican-born workers in the U.S. is far higher than that of U.S.-born workers.
Here is a Department of Labor Fact Sheet on Field Sanitation Standards under the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970.
Immigration
The population of the United States reached 300 million in 2006; a growth of 100 million since 1966. An analysis of Census Bureau data by the Pew Hispanic Center shows that Latinos accounted for 36% of that last 100 million, the most of any racial group.
Another Pew Hispanic Center report shows that the stereotype of undocumented migrants: single males with little education who perform manual labor in agriculture or construction, is unjustified. The report shows that most of the unauthorized population lives in families, a quarter has at least some college education and undocumented workers can be found in many sectors of the U.S. economy.
Wages
Here is an Employment Law Guide issued by the Department of Labor (DoL) covering wage information.
A DoL Fact Sheet on the responsibilities of "joint employers and independent contractors" under the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act of 1983.
A DoL Fact Sheet on H-2A workers. The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 authorizes the lawful admission of temporary, nonimmigrant workers (H-2A workers) to perform agricultural labor or services of a temporary or seasonal nature.