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The Mexican Consulate in Salt Lake City participated Monday in the national kick-off of labor rights awareness for workers in the nation's visa program.
Its goal: address issues of harassment, fair wages and safe workplaces.
The small ceremony came hours before three ambassadors from El Salvador, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic signed agreements with the U.S. Dept. of Labor to streamline the process for immigrant workers to file complaints against unscrupulous employers.
Mexico and several other Latin American countries signed similar agreements last year to use local consulates as information and reporting hubs for immigrant workers who are victims of unfair treatment in the workplace.
Socorro Rovirosa, the Mexican consul, said providing information for Mexican workers in the United States is a primary responsibility for the office.
"For the government of Mexico to protect the basic rights and human dignity of the Mexicans abroad is a priority," Rovirosa said. "For this reason, we welcome the cooperation of the institutions in Utah and the federal government of the United States, which will be present at the Consulate of Mexico to participate in educational conferences in the framework of this week of labor rights."
The agreements signed Monday by the three nations in Washington were part of a continued outreach by the Obama administration to improve reporting of the mistreatment of workers in the United States that are here on H2A or H2B visas. The first category is primarily agricultural and is designated for nonskilled workers. The second is designated for skilled workers.
Arturo Sarukhan, Mexican ambassador to the United States, said there have been 9,601 processed cases of reported violations, and 5,962 have been found in favor of Mexican workers since the agreement was signed between the two countries.
Sarukhan said, for example, a complaint filed through a Mexican Consulate in Kansas resulted in $178,000 in unpaid wages being delivered to workers.
He said the proper treatment of workers on visas is of vital importance to the economy because when employers underpay, it depresses wages for everyone.
"Migrants are not a threat to the prosperity of the United States," he said. "They are important actors in the fabric of what makes a great nation."
Kevin Hunt, a wage-hour investigator for the Department of Labor, said employers in violation of contracts to employ migrant workers in the country on visas can be in jeopardy of losing their ability to hire workers in the future.
He also said employers "can't rely on the excuse of saying [workers] still have it better than where they're from" as a reason to underpay.
"If they're here working, they are entitled to a proper wage," Hunt said. "That's how we do things here in the United States."
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