migrant workers and Marx

On Friday there was an article in the New York Times about a tree planting company who was not paying workers their correct wages. They were cheating their workers in wages and they were cheating them in their hours. A tree planting in Arkansas went to Mexico and Central America to hire workers on the worker visa program. These workers would come to the United States and they would work and make the minimum wage. They would use to send it back to their loved ones so that they could buy food and the other necessities for life. The companies would not pay these workers their correct wages so the workers started to complaint and then lawyers got involved and they took the case to court. Before court the company was trying to get in contact with some of the workers so that they could pay the worker off and he would testify against the other workers. But this was not able to be done so the company lost and they awarded the workers 2.75 Million Dollars.

When I read this article it made me remember the Harlan County film. The only difference is that in the Harlan county film they wanted better wages and a union so that they could have benefits and healthcare because the majority of the people were dying due to the harmful pollution. The workers in Arkansas were fighting because they wanted justice they wanted their money because it is the only way they could survive. The majority of these laborers come from very low income families or sometime no income families were the only thing there is to do is go hunt for their food or even steal so that they could provide foods for their family so that they will not watch them die. Marx says that when a person works he gets away from his family he gets to involved in his work that he forgets to eat and dies from starvation. Marx also that a person looses himself in his job that he doesn’t not even know who he is this Marx calls alienation. These workers leave their families in order to find a better life.

The majority of the workers in Mexico do not make the sufficient amount of money to support their families and buy their necessities. That is why they look for other resources they rather cross the border illegally in order to come to the Unites states and work as a laborer under false social security and name or they smuggle drugs or sell drug or even smuggle people. They do this to survive to help their families and to provide food for their families. The United States is filled with workers who are working illegally but if the immigrations laws would change then the migrant worker could work here legally. That will not happen because everyone is scared that the migrant workers will come in and take their jobs that is why the borders have not opened their doors.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/13/us/13brfs-MIGRANTSWIN2_BRF.html

JOHN LOCKE AND DRUG CARTELS

In The April 15th issue of Stratfor global intelligence there was a report on Drug cartels and their affect on territories and lucrative drug trading routes. It tells accounts on how they get the drugs across the border what routes they use and what are their territories. They have various ways of how to move their products and make them reach their destination which is to the consumer. The cartels send things to different states in the U.S. were they have the people who sell it. Usually local street gangs are the distributors in every city. They distribute the drugs to the “tecato” which are known drug abusers. The tecato’s are the ones that make the cartels money. The cartels do not only make their money by selling drugs but they also are extortionist and kidnappers. They do kidnapping and make the families pay a high ransom to get their loved ones back. They also do a type of kidnapping that is called express kidnapping which they kidnap someone for about 2 days and they drain them for every penny that they have in the bank. Drug cartels have many ways of how to make money on poor individuals. The cartels smuggle all their drugs through different trading routes which one would be in Laredo. Laredo is the biggest port that houses millions of commerce a year. They have a good way of bringing their drugs in they send a cargo with three cars of about 60 kilos of drugs and they send a trailer filled with forty tons of drugs. This way the officers are checking out the cars that have all the drugs and there is only one officer looking at the trailers and he mostly lets all of them pass. Another way that they transport drugs is by bribing the officers. They use a method called Plata o plomo which would be you either take my money or take my bullets. Many of the police officers and border patrol agents are being paid off and that why 98 percent of the shipments are getting passed through the border and there is about two percent that get stopped.

The ethical issue here is a fight for territory. This fight for territory is between three cartels the Familia Michocana the gulf cartel that includes the Zetas and the Sinaloa cartel. The cartel of Baja California is also among one of the cartels that joins this fight but is slowly dismantling with the killings of several of its leaders this cartel is falling day by day. John Locke says that land is common because nature is the owner of land. When a person joins forces with the common then the land is theirs. These cartels are putting forth their energy and growing their crops. Does this make them theirs? In Locke’s theory yes it does. Is it ethical no it is not because in turn they are destroying the lives of thousands of people they are destroying families and killing others? They do not care the major thing for them is to hoard away their money and make their lucrative empire bigger then what it already is. These drug smugglers make 109 million dollars on a daily basis. This money goes to their empires and about 50 percent of it goes to paying off their hitmen cops and government officials.

Another ethical issue here pertains to their trading routes among the borders. They enter through either El Paso Laredo Nogales or Mexicali. The Laredo entry port is the biggest port because it is home to much commerce that enters the U.S. The drug cartels fight for these routes because they need these routes to send their drugs through to make money. If one cartel gets a hold of the border patrol agents of one of these entry ports then that agent may or may not let that cartel in or nay other one. But one that is crooked may let only one cartel pass and may catch the rest. The ways in which they know it’s their cartel is because they give these men passwords and these men let them go by their password. Are these routes theirs? John Locke would say yes because they are making the labor to get the trucks their and to pay off the border patrol agents. Is it ethical no because these cartels are making money by killing off innocent people with their drugs.

These cartels are dangerous and will do anything to get their drugs across the border. Mainly they will do anything to get their money and be powerful.


http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20090415_when_mexican_drug_trade_hits_border
Movie-Documentray Drug Wars:Silver or Lead