Josué
El Paraje, Texcatepec, Veracruz
Josué was another of the assembly participants, upon hearing the information he shared that: “I’m happy with the talk about how we travel to the contracts. I go to Jalisco, San Luis Potosí and Tamaulipas on my own and it is good that we discuss it.” He has been an agricultural worker and has migrated to multiple state under poor labor and living conditions, because of this he thinks it’s important for workers to be organized: ‘We have to organize ourselves and demand to the municipal agent and contractors that we receive complete papers and insurance.”
Within the information shared there are elements that can help to generate change in the community.
In this sense, Josué proposes that “the municipal agent becomes more demanding when the contractors arrive, this would make it safer for us to migrate. The best would be that all of us organize to form a sort of center of jornaleros and to travel together so that no one gets lost.”
The dialogue and information sharing generated during the community assembly allowed people to understand the difficulties internal agricultural migrants face when it comes to access of information, particularly information surrounding labor rights and dignified living conditions. Josué spoke to this when he mentioned that: “nobody has come before to discuss this and it’s important because 14 years ago my father-in-law went to Sinaloa and until now, we haven’t found him. He went to stay there, and other migrants didn’t go to find him. I wish we had contact in Sinaloa to find out if he is still alive or not.”