Workers’ Day is a memorial date that directly involves men and women who have been forced to migrate from their lands. Every migrant carries the desire to find shelter, work, and land.
When I spoke with Carlos, a Venezuelan migrant who arrived in Panama crossing the Darien Gap, I gave him the nickname “manager” because in our conversation what he highlighted the most and expressed with his bright eyes was the work he did in Venezuela as a “talen recruiter,” finding young baseball players for United States universities. Carlos was forced to migrate, leaving behind his job, his land, and the roof over his head. Today what he longs for is to have a decent job in the United States, where his new dream lies.
This essay intends to show the importance of decent work for migrants, something that is not happening in our region.
Br. Rene Flores, OFM*
Salvadoran OFM, Franciscan Friar, lay option. Member of the Franciscan province, “Our Lady of Guadalupe” of Central America, and foundation in Haiti. Animator and head of JPIC-OFM in Panama, Member of the RFM in Panama, Experience in management and administration of educational centers (19 years), animator and facilitator of JPIC teams (16 years), Coordinator and facilitator of training processes with agents of pastoral (35 years)
Conditions of labor and migrants
Today is May 1, which is celebrated internationally as “worker’s day.” This date commemorates the workers’ strike in Chicago in 1886, when the current eight hours for a working day were established and paid. This achievement of humanity was gained through community organization, the effort to reclaim the dignity of labor, and protest as a civil instrument of democracy.
This year, like the previous ones, May 1 is a day of protest in Latin America, where inequality and impoverishment have pushed humans to perform temporary jobs without social benefits that protect them as citizens. On the other hand, this reality has been one of the main causes of forced migration in the region, as highlighted by UNICEF, considering that the injustice of unemployment is part of a chain of more injustices that affect the most vulnerable, that is, children:
“Extreme violence, poverty and lack of opportunities are not only important causes of irregular migration and the forced displacement of children from the north of Central America (El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras). The organization also urged governments to work together in scaling up solutions that help alleviate the root causes of irregular and forced migration, and to safeguard the well-being and rights of refugee and migrant children throughout the journey”
In human history, governments marked by the ambition of the accumulation of wealth and the management of dictatorial power produced social victims. Currently, among the main victims of the system are those forced to migrate, causing disintegrated families due to the uprooting of separation, consequently affecting the social fabric of a nation.
Work and migrants in the Bible
It is important to highlight that in the people of the Bible and in the context of the Middle East, the excluded social groups were orphans, widows, and foreigners. That is why God’s mandate is to care for, protect, and do justice for the foreigner. The reason is because “God loves the migrant,” as God loves the “orphan and the widow” (Dt 10:18-19).
In this context, the foreigner was considered an enemy because of being from another cultural group, also, because the people considered as brothers only those of their same profession of faith and ethnic tradition. Instead, it is important to highlight that the people of Israel have in their religious legislation to facilitate food and shelter to foreigners, considering them as equal to the people where the migrant arrives, valuing their rights and dignity, even more, treating them with love as if they were his brother: “he shows his love to the foreigner by giving him bread and clothing. So show love to the foreigner.
The core of Israel’s faith focuses on liberation from slavery, that is, only a free people can love God, and experience the God who walks in their history (Ex.3:15). From this ethical and religious sense, the people of Israel must treat the migrant who arrives through their lands with human and social dignity (Dt 26:5–7). Israel’s faith is concretized in social practice, therefore, “A foreigner who lives with you will be regarded as one of you and you will love him as yourself, since you were also foreigners in Egypt: I am Yahweh, your God!” (Lev 19:34).
Pope Francis: work and migration
Pope Francis gave a message through a video to the International Labor Conference in 2021, entitled “Let’s face the crisis looking for the common good.” In that message, he highlighted that the pandemic has left peoples devastated. In addition, Pope Francis emphasized in his message that among those excluded from decent work are migrants and refugees in different countries:
“Low-skilled workers, day laborers, from the informal sector, migrant workers and refugees, those who do what is often called the work of the three dimensions: dangerous, dirty and degrading. Many vulnerable migrants and workers, along with their families, are routinely excluded from access to national programs for health promotion, disease prevention, treatment and care, as well as from financial protection schemes and psychosocial services.”
Pope Francis, as a disciple of Jesus, invites us to care for and protect those excluded by society and the system. This implies the practice of justice that recovers human and social dignity, especially with “young people, migrants, indigenous communities, the poor.”
The pope coins a practical concept that he called, “political charity,” describing it this way: “an equally indispensable act of charity is the effort directed at organizing and structuring society so that others do not have to suffer misery.” This affirmation inspires us Christians to favor policies where migrants in transit or residing in a country have working conditions that are worthy of their human and civil condition, favoring their social integration. If there is decent work, heaven and a new earth will come for the migrant.
*Bachelor’s degree in Theology. UCA, El Salvador
Diploma in educational administration. URL, Guatemala
Master’s degree in educational research. UCA, El Salvador
Diploma in political advocacy in human rights. UCA, El Salvador
Studies at the Superior School of Franciscanism, ESEF. Madrid, Spain.
Residence in Panama, La Pintada.