This story is interesting for all sorts of reasons as it falls at the confluence of Mexican migrant labor exploitation, state corruption, the pig trough of U.S. torts, and perhaps, just perhaps, actually some bit of justice for workers robbed of their pay.


Mexican workers in US during WWII can get back pay

"CHICAGO (AP) -- Ramon Ibarra remembers his backbreaking days repairing railroads in the Southwest, a contract job for which he left Mexico in 1942 as part of a guest worker program. More than 60 years later, he's looking forward to the rest of his paycheck.

Now 86, Ibarra was one of the hundreds of thousands of Mexican laborers, or braceros, who helped the U.S. meet its labor demands during World War II. A judge recently decided they can now apply for money that was withheld from their paychecks in the 1940s and sent to the Mexican government as an incentive for them to return home.

Many of them never saw the money again.

Ibarra, of Chicago, and others like him are entitled to approximately $3,500 each after the preliminary approval of a multimillion-dollar lawsuit settlement in San Francisco last week.

The terms of the settlement, which does not admit fault, call for the Mexican government to pay braceros or their descendants a total of about $14.5 million. In addition, U.S. lawyers will receive about $2.8 million.

But the total payout could change if more braceros step forward before the Dec. 23 deadline to file a claim. The deal is subject to final approval in February.

Chicago attorney Matthew Piers filed the lawsuit against the Mexican government and three Mexican banks seeking class-action status on behalf of several former braceros, mostly in California, who claim they were unfairly denied wages between 1942 and 1946.

"These are the founding fathers of the Mexican community in the U.S. They were treated abysmally," Piers said Wednesday. "We are very hopeful that finally the braceros are going to get their compensation in the United States.""

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