Workers at two recently-opened hotels in Los Cabos, Baja California Sur, went on strike Saturday to demand that they comply with new labor laws that allow them to choose their own union representation.
According to a report by the newspaper El Sudcalifoniano, the legal representatives of the Hard Rock and Nobu hotels have refused to respect a decision by the workers who decided through a secret ballot that the Revolutionary Confederation of Laborers and Farmworkers (CROC) would represent them in the signing of collective labor agreements.
The decision leaves the Mexican Workers’ Confederation (CTM), the hotels’ preferred union, out of the talks.
The CROC said the refusal of the hotels to allow the workers to be represented by the union of their choice is a clear violation of the new Federal Work Law, Convention 98 of the International Labor Organization and the new North American trade agreement, a revised version of which was signed by Mexico, the United States and Canada last month.
The union also says that workers at the two hotels, both of which were officially opened by actor Robert De Niro during a recent visit to Los Cabos, have received threats of dismissal if they don’t join the CTM.
In light of the situation, the CROC is calling for the federal Secretariat of Labor and Social Welfare and state authorities to intervene to ensure that the workers’ rights are respected.
I hadn’t heard of or even seen a chayote until I moved to Mexico. Had you? Perhaps if you’re from the southern part of the United States – where they’re called “mirlitons” and are a favorite ingredient in Creole and Louisiana cooking – you might have.
The man I call my greengrocer at the stand I usually go to in the local mercado said they were like squash. OK, I thought: steamed with butter, add to soups, etc.
Little did I know this odd-looking vegetable is actually a fruit – as is a tomato – although it’s usually cooked like a vegetable. Curious, I cut one open and tasted it raw. Crispy, juicy and slightly sweet, it reminded me of an apple or even jicama. Who knew?! Not me. This column is educational for the writer as well as the reader!
Known by many names around the world — vegetable pears, chocho or choko, christophene, sayote, the aforementioned mirliton and others – chayote is a Spanish derivative of the indigenous Mexican Náhuatl word chayohtli. Maybe that explains why the fruit is so common here in Mexico, although the fruit and its tender shoots and leaves are also used extensively in Thai, Chinese and Vietnamese cooking.
Chayotes are a member of the squash family, cousins to cucumbers, and grow on long vines with the pale green bumpy fruits hanging in the same way. They’re an excellent source of vitamin C and antioxidants – which supposedly slows the aging process – and a good source of fiber too.
A member of the squash family, chayote grows on vines.
Some varieties have small, soft spines, and you might find them individually wrapped in a protective foam covering. Supposedly you can eat the peel of younger fruits but, well, how can you tell their age? Beats me. Cut and taste, I guess – the darker green skin will either be easy to chew or not. Inside is a largish flat pit, near the bottom, that should be discarded. Once the chayote is cut, you’ll feel a sticky liquid that’s released from under the skin. Just rinse this off and you’re good to go.
Because the flavor is so mild when cooked, chayote are a versatile ingredient to play around with. Use them like summer squash, stuffed with all sorts of fillings (find some ideas below) or raw in salads, where their sweet crunchiness is a lovely addition.
Shrimp & Crab Stuffed Chayote
This can also be made as a casserole by cubing the steamed chayote and dividing the bread crumbs to put half on top with a little more melted butter, then baking for about 30 minutes.
8 chayote
2 Tbsp. butter
1 small onion, chopped
½ green bell pepper
2 green onions, sliced
1 stalk of celery, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 Tbsp. dried parsley
1 tsp. thyme
½ tsp. Cajun seasoning, if available, or crushed red chili
1 bay leaf
Salt & pepper to taste
1 lb. cooked shrimp, chopped coarse
½ cup bread crumbs
½ lb. crabmeat
¼ to ½ cup of chicken broth, only if needed
2 Tbsp. olive oil or melted butter
Optional: mix 1 cup grated cheese of your choice in mixture.
Preheat oven to 350 F. Slice chayote in half lengthwise. Steam flesh side down for 20 minutes; set aside. Once cool, use a spoon to scoop out most of the pulp, leaving about ¼ inch of shell. Save the pulp and discard the seeds.
In a large skillet, melt butter and sauté onion, bell pepper, green onion and celery until tender. Add garlic and sauté an additional minute. Stir in the squash pulp, parsley, thyme, Cajun seasoning and bay leaf; simmer on medium for about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Add shrimp and bread crumbs, stir to mix well. Add the crabmeat and cheese if using, and gently blend. Add chicken broth only if mixture is too dry and needs a bit of moisture; otherwise, leave it out.
Oil a cookie sheet or lasagna pan. Mound mixture generously into the chayote shells and drizzle with olive oil or melted butter. Bake uncovered for 20-25 minutes, or until golden brown. Makes 8 servings.
Chayote Salad
2 Tbsp. fresh lime juice
1 tsp. raw honey
1 tsp. olive oil
Pinch kosher salt
5 radishes, thinly sliced
1 small chayote, pitted & julienned
½ avocado, pitted, peeled & chopped
1 Tbsp. finely diced jalapeño, seeds removed
¼ cup finely chopped fresh cilantro
Optional: ¼ tsp ground cayenne
In large bowl, whisk together lime juice, honey, oil, cayenne and salt. Add radishes, chayote, avocado, jalapeño and cilantro; toss gently. Serve immediately or refrigerate, covered, for up to 2 days.
The chayote is versatile — try it in a ratatouille.
Nancy’s Chayote Ratatouille
¼ cup olive oil
2 medium chayotes, peeled and cut into batons or cubed
1 eggplant, peeled and cut into ½ inch cubes
1 green or yellow bell pepper, cut into batons or chopped
1 medium onion, cut into batons or chopped
2 ½ cups chopped fresh tomatoes
1 small can or box of tomato puree
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp. dried oregano
3 Tbsp. minced fresh parsley
2-4 fresh basil leaves, minced or ½ tsp. dried
Salt & pepper to taste
1 cup grated mozzarella or Chihuahua cheese
Heat oil in a large saucepan. Add oregano, onion and garlic and sauté for a few minutes. Add remaining veggies, tomatoes and tomato puree, fresh herbs and stir to mix. Cover and simmer on low heat 10-15 minutes. Add salt and pepper. Pour into large baking dish, top with cheese and either broil under heat or bake in a moderate oven until cheese melts. Serve with rice or pasta. Makes about 4 servings.
Janet Blaser of Mazatlán, Sinaloa, has been a writer, editor and storyteller her entire life, and feels fortunate to write about great food, amazing places, fascinating people and unique events. Her work has appeared in numerous travel and expat publications as well as newspapers and magazines. Her first book, Why We Left: An Anthology of American Women Expats, is available on Amazon. Contact Janet or read her blog at whyweleftamerica.com.
Demand for all-inclusive vacations may have contributed to the decline in tourist numbers, says one expert.
Hotel revenue, rates and occupancy levels all declined in 2019, while the number of rooms grew much faster than demand, leading one expert to predict that challenging times lie ahead for the Mexican tourism industry.
According to hotel data company STR, revenue per available room (RevPAR) decreased 6.6% to US $69.11 in the first 11 months of last year, the average daily rate (ADR) fell 3.8% to US $112.17 and occupancy levels declined 2.9% to 61.6%.
The number of hotel rooms increased by almost 3.2% in the same period but demand for hotel accommodation in Mexico grew by just 0.1%.
“There is certainly a threat of oversupply in Mexico,” Jennifer Dohrmann-Alpert, vice president for advisory services at global design firm HKS, told the website Travel Weekly.
“We’ve seen tons of developments entering the pipeline, especially in places like Riviera Nayarit and Cabo, and many of these projects are opening between 2020 and 2025. If there’s an economic slowdown, I think we could see definite impact from oversupply in the next three to five years,” she said.
The dissolution of the CPTM has already had an effect on destinations such as Cancún, the Riviera Maya and Cozumel, she said, a claim backed up by STR data.
RevPAR on the Yucatán peninsula declined 12.9% to US $111.94 in the first 11 months of last year, ADR fell 10.6% to US $163.28 and occupancy levels decreased 2.5%.
Dohrmann-Alpert said that another reason for the declines could be that “Mexico has banked much of its tourism expansion in the broader Yucatán on all-inclusive properties” whereas “millennials, in particular, may not be as keen on all-inclusive resorts.”
As a result, “that segment may be starting to trend downward a little bit as the travel market [shifts to preferring] more of an experiential travel product,” she said.
Other factors identified as causing a decline in hotel bookings and revenue in the Yucatán peninsula last year are the massive arrival of sargassum on Caribbean coast beaches and the increasing popularity of cruise-ship vacations.
“There has been a significant push toward cruise tourism in the last five years,” Dohrmann-Alpert said.
“With five million-plus visitors coming to the Mexican Caribbean [in 2019] via cruise ship, this could have a negative long-term impact on RevPAR as hotels have to drive prices down to attract visitors back.”
Given the downturns seen in 2019 and the uncertain outlook, the analyst predicted that hotel developers may be more reluctant to go ahead with new projects in the near future. Dohrmann-Alpert cited the decision last month by Apple Leisure Group to put investments worth between US $500 and $600 million on hold as one example of a developer getting cold feet.
“Some institutional investors are off-loading projects,” she said, and “savvy developers like AMResorts have started to scale back on their ambitious expansion plans for the region as they assess the future demand for luxury all-inclusive resorts.”
Some of the 6,000 toys collected by the museum's founder, Uncle Temo.
He was just five years old when he started his toy collection. Sixty-eight years later, Uncle Temo as Artemio Ábrego Treviño is known, has more than 6,000.
They come from 15 countries representing over 20 cultures and regions of the world — and the collection is still growing.
About 800 pieces from that collection now form the the first stage of the Museo Interactivo del Juguete, the Interactive Toy Museum, in San Pedro Garza García, Nuevo León. It was a 25-year-old dream which came to fruition with the opening of the museum in early December.
Ábrego spent many of those years approaching various people and institutions about the idea of opening a toy museum in the Monterrey area. While a number said it was a good idea, no one followed through to help him create it. That is until 2 1/2 years ago when a former general manager of chemical company Grupo AIEn, Alfonso García Hernández, became enthusiastic about the project and worked with Ábrego to make it happen.
The idea behind the museum is that “toys are the tools to enjoy life.” They allow children to imagine life beyond their current boundaries, seeing themselves as pilots, firefighters, scientists, artists, doctors and even superheroes.
The museum in San Pedro Garza García has 800 toys on display.
The museum joins a growing list of toy museums in Mexico, including the Museo de Juguete Antiguo in Mexico City and the Museo La Esquina in San Miguel de Allende in Guanajuato.
The museum has 850 square meters of exhibition space divided into six rooms on two floors. García states that that the museum is unique because it is organized by theme rather than by historical period. For example, the collection of Star Wars toys include those from the past and present, with those coming out in the future represented by news stories of the current and upcoming movies and shows. Toy vehicles are arranged similarly, grouped by cars, firetrucks, ambulances, etc.
The museum’s founders state that toys change over time along with the culture and the society they come from because of both demand and technology. For example, toy cars have been made with pull strings or to move “by themselves” via batteries or winding mechanisms. The robot collection includes those made over the past 50-60 years, allowing a visitor to compare those which are very simple to those which are quite sophisticated.
García believes that “toys will never go away. Systems and controls change, but the enjoyment is always there.”
The museum has a wide variety of toys from traditional handcrafted ones to modern, computerized ones. Some toys are one-of-a-kind. Ábrigo has collected toys on travels to Italy, Germany, the United States and China, but he has not forgotten traditional Mexican toys such as the wood top and ball-in-cup game.
The collection features commercial toy series such as Hot Wheels. One of the oldest pieces is a “magic lantern” from the end of the 19th century. The newest is a robot with “artificial intelligence” which Ábrego recently purchased.
The collection also includes toys featured on television shows and movies. One toy belonged to famed Mexican children’s television host Chabelo. The collection also includes a Turbo Man, the toy featured in the movie Jingle All the Way with Arnold Schwartzenegger.
Uncle Temo says that in all of his 68 years he has never stopped looking for interesting pieces to add to the collection.
The museum is 100% privately financed and seeks to be self-sufficient, with no government funding.
Although Ábrego’s collection is big enough to open several museums, the current goal is to consolidate the current museum in San Pedro. The surplus in his collection is slated to rotate in and out of the museum space and is also available for loan to other museums.
But the collection may yet grow larger. It has already received its first offers of donations, one of 800 Barbie dolls and a set of 80 Mr. Potato Heads from the museum’s architect, Roberto Romero.
The Northeast Cartel has been linked to the attack on the US visitors.
An attack on an American family in Tamaulipas left a 13-year-old boy dead and three other family members wounded on Saturday night.
Bound for Oklahoma, the family was returning from spending the holidays in San Luis Potosí when armed men traveling in two vehicles ordered them to stop in the town of Ciudad Mier, near the border with Texas.
The family, which was also traveling in two vehicles, refused to stop for the attackers, who then rammed the victims’ cars to force them to stop. The gunmen opened fire, killing the child and wounding two adults and a 10-year-old boy.
The minor killed in the attack was a U.S. citizen, as is the wounded boy, while the adults have permanent residency in the United States. Authorities reported on Sunday that the wounded were in stable condition at a hospital in Cerralvo, Nuevo León.
Although Mexican authorities have not released information about the motive for the attack or the criminal affiliations of the perpetrators, the newspaper El Diario attributed it to members of the Northeast Cartel due to the recent U.S. State Department travel alert, which advises U.S. citizens not to travel to Tamaulipas due to the gang’s activity in the state.
The cartel’s initials — CDN — were scrawled onto a window of one of vehicles found at the scene.
El Diario reported that another U.S. family recently posted on social media that it had been threatened at gunpoint by presumed members of the Northeast Cartel.
Union members protest against the leadership last September.
Real estate gifted to the Mexican Electrical Workers’ Union (SME) by the federal government is only benefiting the union leadership when it rightfully belongs to all unionized workers, claim dissident members.
Since the 2009 dissolution of the state-owned energy company Luz y Fuerza del Centro (LyFC), the government has given the SME at least 17 properties as “gifts” to use as power generation businesses and thus provide employment to former employees of the defunct LyFC.
However, other kinds of businesses, including parking lots, mechanics’ workshops and storage facilities, are located on some of the properties, the newspaper Milenio confirmed. In the Mexico City borough of Azcapotzalco, the SME last year opened a massive neon sign factory that extends across five lots that the government gave to the union.
But dissident SME members say the rank and file have seen no benefits from the arrangement.
They claim that secretary general Martín Esparza and other leaders have made huge profits from the businesses without passing any financial benefit on to the 44,000 workers.
Union leader Esparza.
They are calling for the removal of Esparza, who has led the union since 2005, and are also considering filing a criminal complaint against him for corruption. Some union members have declared a hunger strike outside the National Palace in Mexico City to protest against his alleged wrongdoings.
“The electrical union has no end of properties and buildings. They were given to the SME because there were corrupt agreements, obviously with [former president] Felipe Calderón and then with [his successor] Enrique Peña Nieto,” said dissident leader Ramón Ramírez.
“All the union’s land and buildings are property of the current 44,000 workers because they were purchased and built with the union dues of all those who worked in Luz y Fuerza del Centro since 1914. [The properties] belong to everyone, not to Martín Esparza nor to [just] the 16,000 workers he says he represents . . .” he added.
Ramírez claimed that Esparza and other union leaders close to him are also the sole beneficiaries of revenue generated by other properties owned by the SME, such as sports centers inherited from the LyFC in Mexico City, México state, Morelos and Puebla.
The operation for their own personal gain of properties collectively worth an estimated 20 billion pesos has allowed union leaders to pocket some 30 million pesos (US $1.6 million) in profits that belong to all union members, dissidents claim.
“In each [former LyFC] division, there is at least one sports center where [the SME leadership] is renting out swimming pools [and sports] courts,” he said, adding that the centers are also made available for “gastronomy events, cock fights” and a range of other purposes.
“Esparza is making huge profits by renting out and running these properties that belong to all union members,” Ramírez said.
“The biggest sports center is in [the Mexico City neighborhood of] Villa Coapa. The property is enormous. They’re renting part of it to a bus station; they rent out the courts, the swimming pools, the multi-purpose rooms for parties. They rent out everything, they exploit all the properties and sadly no resources reach the union members,” he said.
Ramírez claimed that Esparza knows that his days as union leader are numbered and is therefore not putting any of his ill-gotten gains back into SME-owned businesses and properties.
“Esparza knows that he’s done for, that at any moment he’ll fall so he hasn’t wanted to re-invest the millions that he’s collected . . .”
Armed civilians in the Sinaloa cities of Mazatlán and Culiacán shot out 40 video surveillance cameras in the early morning hours of New Year’s Day.
Mazatlán Mayor Luis Guillermo Benítez Torres asked state authorities to investigate the vandalism and replace the equipment as soon as possible.
Although he said he knew of only three damaged cameras in the city, state Public Security Secretary Cristóbal Castañeda Camarillo said the number was actually 22. The majority were located along roads connecting with the México City-Nogales highway.
The rest of the damaged cameras were located in Culiacán.
Benítez said his administration will contribute to the state Attorney General’s Office’s investigation to identify the vandals, but that the responsibility to replace the cameras ultimately falls on the state Secretariat of Public Security.
State authorities reported that the destruction of the 18 cameras in Culiacán was carried out by armed men in at least four vehicles. They were recorded shooting at the cameras on Pedro Infante and La Conquista boulevards, among other streets in the city.
Castañeda said replacing and repairing the cameras should take around 30 days and added that both cities saw similar acts of vandalism in September and November of last year.
Epicenter of Saturday night's earthquake in southwestern Mexico.
Fifty homes sustained minor damages after a 6.0-magnitude earthquake struck 38 kilometers southeast of Unión Hidalgo, Oaxaca, Saturday night.
Civil Protection agency chief Wilbert Cabrera reported cracks in walls and broken windows in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec town.
The municipal government building, the health clinic, the market and the old train station were also damaged. Over 100 years old, the government building was already damaged by the 8.2-magnitude quake that struck the region in September 2017.
Saturday’s quake, which occurred at 10:40pm CT, worsened those damages, which had previously been estimated to cost 3 million pesos (US $159,000).
Juchitán Civil Protection coordinator William López Cabrera reported some damages though not as serious as in 2017.
Five people were treated for nervous breakdowns, one of whom was a woman who had just given birth.
A couple of homes in nearby San Blas Atempa and Santo Domingo Tehuantepec sustained damages to their facades and roofs, but no injuries were reported.
Minor damages were also reported in the Cuenca del Papaloapan region, in the north of the state.
Mayor Sheinbaum said the program is for youths identified as high-risk.
A government program in Mexico City will seek to get 3,000 young people off the streets and lead them away from a life of crime, Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said on Friday.
The mayor said that the Jóvenes unen al barrio (Young people join the neighborhood) program will offer educational scholarships to youth identified as being prone to crime and provide them with opportunities to participate in social and environmental schemes such as the Reto Verde (Green Challenge), a tree-planting initiative.
About 3,000 young people are expected to join the Youth Institute program this year, Sheinbaum said.
The program is part of a wider anti-crime initiative called Alto al Fuego (Ceasefire), which has already begun in the borough of Álvaro Obregón and will be extended across Mexico City this year.
The initiative consists of identifying people involved in criminal activity through intelligence work and then sending them messages that warn them that there will be zero tolerance for any high-impact crimes they commit.
The strategy doesn’t seek to negotiate with criminals or enter into agreements with them, said security undersecretary Pablo Vázquez, but rather “send them a clear message” that their crimes will be punished with “the full weight of the law.”
The Alto al Fuego initiative is directed at the 1% of the population that is directly involved in violent crime or has links to a criminal group, he said.
“It’s not a conversation, at no time do [the identified criminals] have a voice, it’s one-sided communication,” Vázquez said.
“. . . Alto al Fuego is a strategy . . . known as focused deterrence . . .It’s a strategy that has been implemented in U.S. cities such as Boston, with the so-called Operation Ceasefire in 1996, and in Oakland, California, a city which . . . has similar characteristics as the Mexican capital,” he said.
“We’re not seeking dialogue or negotiation, we’re trying to communicate in a direct way . . . ”
With the implementation of the strategy, the government is aiming to reduce murders and other violent crime in Mexico City, where there were 2,021 homicides and 60 femicides in the first 11 months of last year.
Deb Kraemer with a resident of the new seniors' home.
I believe in miracles, especially at Christmas. Perhaps two of the best miracles I have witnessed are those that have occurred for the residents of the formerly named Casa María de Asilo in Zihuatanejo, now called Asilo DIF.
About a year ago I wrote an article for Mexico News Daily in which I compared the faith-based seniors’ home in Las Pozas, near Zihuatanejo, with the government-run facility in La Noria, an impoverished neighborhood close to Centro Zihua. In it I discussed the differences in quality and care.
Although both provided for seniors who had been neglected and forgotten, or whose families had no support in place, that was where any similarities ended. The faith-based home had all the advantages of seniors’ homes you would hope to find while the one run by the government had little or none.
Until, that is, when Deb Kraemer from the United States and Shirley Cullum from Canada stepped in in 2016 and things began to happen. In a few months the quality of care improved and living quarters became cleaner, bathrooms were retiled and issues that were neglected began to have some semblance of order.
Still, despite their efforts and the immense dedication of a small army of volunteers, the roof still leaked, staff were untrained or in some cases incompetent, and food and basic supplies were in short supply or of poor quality.
The new home for seniors in Zihuatanejo.
And this is where the second miracle begins in the form of one woman, Lizette Tapia Castro, wife of Mayor Jorge Sánchez. In Mexico, the mayor’s wife automatically becomes the figurehead of the DIF family services agency.
In the past, some have taken this position seriously and have made positive changes while some, unfortunately, have not. Luckily for Zihuatanejo, Lizette Tapia is one of the former.
With a degree in social services, Tapia involved the DIF in initiatives to improve the lives of people, particularly women, children and the marginalized (such as seniors) in positive ways.
For example, she took a hands-on and dedicated approach during a horrific fire this time last year that wiped out a whole community, and has been involved in programs such as sewing cloth diapers and holding showers for new expectant mothers.
Perhaps the most impressive of Tapia’s accomplishments has been the incredible transformation in the lives of the seniors from La Noria. Rather than merely fix the roof of a crumbling, desolate seniors’ home, she and her husband undertook to reconstruct an unused portion of an old DIF building a few blocks away.
In a record six months, Casa DIF was transformed into a bright, airy facility. Where before residents were crammed as many as 15 in one room, now they are living in relative luxury at just two to a room with their own bathroom.
Moving day: a resident with DIF president Tapia and her husband the mayor.
The wide-open spaces of the courtyard allow residents to move freely in wheelchairs among plants and ocean breezes to cool down in the sometimes oppressive heat of summer.
Along with a few of the best staff from the old facility, the DIF hired a new and extremely capable manager, Laura Solis, to oversee the nurses, housekeeper and cooks.
Walking into the facility you can see the difference not only in staff attitude, but in the smiles from the residents themselves, who before were often bored and listless. Now many are walking about, playing games and doing crafts, and generally engaged in positive ways with staff and visitors alike.
In short, they are happy, loved and well cared for. Secret Santa celebrations, more school visits and local involvement have all contributed to the changes three women from Mexico, the U.S. and Canada have instigated.
The writer is a Canadian who has lived and worked in Mexico for many years.
