Thread by @adriennepine

New 🧵re: striking @BLHarbert construction workers building the new @usembassyhn. Remember knife threat gringo from my previous 🧵? The embassy whisked him out of the country hours later to avoid Honduran jail. Great job modeling #RuleOfLaw, @StateDept!

https://twitter.com/adriennepine/status/1554125954183827458

Since last week, @BLHarbert & @usembassyhn have doubled down on their illegal practices & harassment in an effort to wear down striking workers—who like most Hondurans are poor & have gone a month w/o pay—so they'll accept unsafe, immoral & unlawful working conditions.

For example, the attorneys workers had hired, Obed Alejandro Rivera Lopez & Emerson Eduardo Oreilly Lagos, suddenly turned on them & insisted they accept the original illegal contract they'd hired them to challenge, which workers cite as clear evidence @BLHarbert bought them off.

And though workers refuse to recognize the contract, @BLHarbert is telling them that the thumbs up from the lawyers they bought off means that everything is fixed. Workers protested this morning as the company demanded they return to the @usembassyhn construction site.

Another video of this morning's standoff. The flag has heightened meaning in this labor struggle, as not only are workers fighting for a foreign company, @BLHarbert, to respect Honduran law; they're demanding that @StateDept and @State_OBO also stop breaking it. #Sovereignty

3rd video from this AM: workers argue w/police, who came to take the tires they brought (tires are part of any Honduran protest). They pointed out to me the irony that cops did nothing when a @BLHarbert boss drew a knife in a crowd of workers & say cops are also on their payroll.

Workers have repeatedly tried to get a meeting w/@State_OBO but their bosses (unsurprisingly) refuse to pass along their messages. Instead, @BLHarbert has used criminalizing language against their own workers, accusing them of terrorism for fighting for fair working conditions.

But @BLHarbert workers aren't giving up & are starting to get more support from Honduran social movements & the intl solidarity community. On Monday we're having a forum in Tegucigalpa w/worker leader Adolfo Álvarez, longtime union leader Carlos H. Reyes & Prof. Divina Alvarenga.

@threadreaderapp unroll