Mexican braceros storm government offices, demanding retirement payments

[struggle4progress]

By Morgan Lee
ASSOCIATED PRESS

1:41 p.m. August 17, 2005

MEXICO CITY – Several protesters representing former "bracero" migrant workers forced their way into government offices and were arrested on Wednesday as tempers flared during a demonstration against delays in the distribution of compensation funds.
Mexico's government has created a US$27 million (euro22 million) fund to partially compensate bracero workers, who toiled in the United States starting in the 1940s, for payroll deductions that the workers never received.

But regulators still are sorting through who is eligible for payment, as surviving bracero workers and relatives fume over delays. <snip>

Deputy Interior Secretary Felipe Gonzalez on Wednesday announced that trustees are scheduled to meet in the final week of August to decide exactly who will be compensated and by how much. <snip>

"They're complaining that a glass door was broken, but they are not complaining of the hunger, the dispossession, the poverty of our companions," said Jose Puente, a spokesman for Braceroproa. <snip>

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/20050817-1341-mexico-bracerosclash.html