 MEXICAN GOVERNMENT REPORT DISPUTES CLAIMS OF BRACERO WORKERS
A report from the Mexican government contradicts the claims of many Mexican citizens and advocates that people who worked in the US under the bracero program from the 1940s to 1960s were not paid their full wage. Under the program, which was initially designed to employ Mexican workers to replace US citizens who had gone to combat during World War II, a portion of the workers’ pay was withheld with promises that it would be used as a retirement fund. A number of workers have filed lawsuits, claiming that they never received this money.
The report from the Mexican government claims that the bulk of the withheld money was in fact repaid, and may put an end to the growing movement to provide reparations to the survivors of the more than 300,000 bracero workers. Some advocates claim that they are owed as much as $ 1 billion, but documents from both the US and Mexico indicate that the amount is much lower.
Many workers say that they were never told about the deductions from their pay, and therefore never sought the money. Last month, attorneys filed a class action suit on behalf of bracero workers seeking to recover the amounts withheld. They say that the documentation from the Mexican government will not deter their efforts, and that they want a full accounting of the distribution of all of the withheld funds.
A 1946 report from the Mexican secretary of labor shows that through that point, only a few years into the program, $ 34 million in withheld wages had been deposited in Mexican banks. The report also indicates that the systematic withholding of wages ended in 1946. Other records, however, show that the deductions continued until 1949.
In addition to the report, the Mexican government is beginning a thorough investigation of the program in an effort to determine exactly how much money was paid to the workers and how much was never distributed. Mexican President Vicente Fox has announced his support for the investigation.
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