Ask them to make changes to provide safety for their workers, inside and outside the factory!

Most of the murdered and missing girls and women are maquiladora (foreign owned factory) employees. They often disappear or are abducted and killed on their way to or from work. Workers often arrive and leave work while it is dark, and most companies have little or no lighting or security outside their doors. Some girls have been found dead across the street from their workplaces. Wages are so low that most workers can only afford to live in shantytowns with few basic services such as water, electricity and telephone services, often 2 hours from their place of work. Many young women have to walk a mile or more too or from a busy through stretches of desert and through neighborhoods full of gangs and drug trafficking. Inside the factory, young women are often subjected to sexual harassment. They are sometimes required to take pregnancy tests or show menstrual pads to prove they are not pregnant before being hired or while working.

Maquiladoras are benefiting from a class of poor, easily exploitable women….
Minimum wage is 40.25 pesos, about $4.25 a day. One gas cylinder, which families need to cook, takes up 75% of an average worker’s wages. Milk is 17.5 pesos. Workers need to work almost half a day for a gallon of milk.

We ask that you write the maquiladoras to increase the safety and protect the lives of the girls and young women of Juarez . Ask them to:
*      Provide security outside their doors, especially at night
*    Have sufficient lighting outside their companies and create safe transportation for their
      workers.
*     Stop sexual harassment and pregnancy testing in the workplace
*     Pay wages that will give workers options for safer lives!!

Here are a few companies to start with……
Lear Corporation - Lear sent 17 year old Claudia Gonzalez home in the dark hours of the morning for being 3 min late for work, her body was found with either others in November of 2001. Lear’s only response: “Adding security is not a question that relates to Lear. Gonzalez death did not happen on Lear property.” Lear makes automotive parts for General Motors, and received an award from GM for a special Buick Design.
Lear Headquarters   General Motors-Buick Division
21557 Telegraph Rd.    2860 Clark St .
POB 5008    Detroit , MI 48232
Southfield , MI 48086    (800) 458-8006
(248) 447-1500
CEO Robert Rossiter

Zenith Corporation- admitted to subjecting women to pregnancy tests before hiring. In a statement to Human Rights Watch Zenith said , “It is common practice among Mexican employers…to inquire about pregnancy status as a pre-existing medical condition.” Zenith makes many things we use: TVs, CD/DVD and MP3 Players.
Zenith Headquarters
CEO-T. J. Lee
1000 Milwaukee Ave.
Glenview , IL 60025-2493

Sony Corporation - Sony fired 18 workers (most of them women) for trying to form a union. Workers stopped work and blocked the road into the factory. Sony brought in police and paid thugs, ,who b eat the workers.
Sony Corporation
CEO-Nobuyuki Idei
550 Madison Ave.   NY , NY 10022