Christina Vasquez
Christina R. Vasquez...
Communist Party's May Day Salute
In 1995 the Communist Party USA newspaper People's Weekly World, published a "May Day salute" to the "heroes in the class war zone". More than 100 unionists/activists endorsed the call, mostly known affiliates, or members of the Communist Party.
Christina R Vasquez, ILGWU Local 44 Los Angeles, was one of those listed[1].
8th U.S./Cuba/Mexico/Latin America Labor Conference
The 8th U.S./Cuba/Mexico Latin American Labor Conference concluded Dec. 4 in Tijuana, Mexico. This meeting, and the three days of classes that preceded it, amplified an Encuentro Sindical Nuestra América initiative to unify the union and working-class social movements throughout the Americas. ESNA coordinators Juan Castillo from Uruguay, João Batista from Brazil, Oliverio Reyes from Mexico and Raymundo Navarro from Cuba guided the discussion throughout the week in Tijuana.[2]
Some 80 participants attended from the U.S., Mexico, Cuba, Brazil and Uruguay.
It was preceded by a three-day Worker's School for some 26 intercontinental labor activists, taught by Heriberto González del Valle, a youthful professor at the Lázaro Peña National School for Union Cadres in Havana, Cuba.
The opening panel featured Dr. Raymundo Navarro Fernández, member of the Secretariat of the Central de Trabajadores de Cuba, who spoke on the effect of the global economic crisis in his country.
With some 8 million affiliated members, the Central dos Trabalhadores e Trabalhadoras do Brasil is but one of six trade union councils in South America's economic powerhouse, Brazil. The Tijuana conference also heard from João Batista, an officer of the CTB and of the Encuentro Sindical Nuestra América.
According to participant Eric Gordon, a Communist Party USA affiliate from of Los Angeles;
- For those of us in the U.S., it was gratifying to hear Batista confirm that the Occupy movement has brilliantly shown the world that "U.S. imperialism" also affects the 99 percent at home. Latin American growth rates in the last decade are directly tied to greater autonomy from U.S. banks and financial institutions.
A UAW member from Detroit, Martha Grevatt, spoke movingly about the U.S. domestic crisis, citing her hometown as "the poster child for a sick capitalist society that puts profit before human needs."
Other presenters, including the Cananea miners' strike in Mexico and the Mexican electricians union, both now under heavy attack, filled out the program. .[3]
Mexican Electrical Workers International Secretary Humberto Montes de Oca and Sergio Tolano, president of the Cananea, Mexico, miners union, participated. International Longshore and Warehouse Union member Clarence Thomas addressed the positive interaction of the Occupy Wall Street movement with port workers. World Federation of Trade Unions-Americas representative, Gilda Chacon Bravo, outlined the organization’s history, revitalization and relation to today’s struggles. Cristina Vasquez, Western representative of Workers United, and Alicia Jrapko, U.S. coordinator of the International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban Five, urged a greater union voice to free the Cuban Five, who have been unjustly held in U.S. prisons for more than 13 years. The final panel debated views of the migrant/immigrant struggle.[4]