Autoworkers demonstrate at Brownsville bridge in opposition to free trade agreements

BROWNSVILLE — Autoworkers from Michigan stopped traffic for a few minutes Tuesday afternoon at one of Brownsville’s ports of entry in protest of U.S. free trade agreements, which they said were unfair and exploitative.

About 20 members from United Auto Workers Local 174 in Romulus, Mich., began marching back and forth about 3 p.m. in front of Veteran’s International Bridge, waving picket signs and chanting in favor of fair trade.

“We are losing our jobs on this side, and (American corporations) are paying workers low wages on the other,” Local 174 President John Zimmick said. “Why can’t they pay workers what they are worth?”

About 5 p.m. the demonstrators walked in a circle at the end of Expressway 77/83, blocking three lanes of cars and tractor-trailers coming into the country from Mexico. Vehicles began to honk as traffic backed up, but a Brownsville police officer soon escorted the protesters to the side of the road.

“I am not sure what they are shouting about,” truck driver David Uresti said, sitting in an 18-wheeler carrying steering wheels to Michigan. “They are keeping me from delivering my product, but what can I do?”

The same group of protesters marched in front of the Hidalgo-Reynosa International Bridge on Monday afternoon. As they did so, workers also gathered at a street corner on the Mexican side of the bridge to protest what they said were unfair layoffs at a TRW Automotive maquiladora in Reynosa. TRW is a supplier for Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler Group LLC.

“We want trade, but we want it to be just,” said Martha Ojeda, executive director of the Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras, adding that 600 TRW workers dismissed from their jobs did not receive the severance pay or unemployment benefits they would have received in the United States.

TRW declined comment Tuesday.

In South Texas, the autoworkers specifically targeted the North American Free Trade Agreement, which began easing trade regulations between Mexico and the United States in 1994.

The accord has spurred tremendous economic growth in the Valley in the last 15 years.

But it has also caused thousands of U.S. jobs to be shipped south of the border and has kept Mexican workers in dire straits, the protesters said.

Coming from Romulus, virtually a stone’s throw from Detroit, the members of Local 174 have seen the effect of massive job losses, foreclosures and plant downsizing linked to the state’s auto manufacturing crisis.

“People are just walking away from their homes,” said Zimmick, the UAW official. “People are sleeping under bridges.”

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Jazmine Ulloa is a reporter for The Brownsville Herald.