The El Paso Times reports…..Border state authorities have arrested a labor lawyer who led a wave of 2019 walkouts for higher wages at border assembly plants known as maquiladoras.
Detectives arrested Susana Prieto Terrazas on Monday in the border city Matamoros on charges that included inciting riot, threats and coercion. Prieto taped her own detention and posted it on social media, saying she had been expecting the arrest.
Prieto, who is based out of Juárez, claims that officials in the border states of Chihuahua and Tamaulipas, where she was arrested, are persecuting her because she affected the economic interests of maquiladora operators.
“I knew that sooner or later the governor was going to do this,” Prieto said. “You could see this coming.”
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State prosecutors said Prieto is accused of threatening members of a local labor board to get them to sign off on wage increases. She is also accused of having prevented staff from entering or leaving maquiladora plants during the walkouts in 2019 and of having used coercion on maquiladora owners to get them to yield to wage increases.
It is unclear whether Prieto’s status as an independent labor adviser — she holds no union post — may have made her a target of charges. At least some of the tactics described are used routinely in strikes and other protests in Mexico.
