Before joining the editorial staffs of Perspectiva Mundial and the Militant, Calero worked at Dakota Premium. He was part of an important organizing drive that gained union recognition and a contract.

Local 789 has made its union hall available to host a meeting to get the word out about the case and to raise funds for the defense campaign, reported Miguel Olvera, who works in the boning department, in a telephone interview. Plans for the event are under way.

The campaign to defend Calero received an early boost when Local 789 president Bill Pearson sent a protest message to the INS district director in Houston, calling the arrest and exclusion proceedings "a travesty of justice."

As soon as they heard of Calero’s arrest on December 3, many unionists at the Dakota Premium plant began to gather support for the fight.

"We wrote a message to the INS signed by workers in the plant," said Olvera, one of the leading participants in the union fight. "What happened to Róger happens to a lot of people, and could happen to many of us," he said.

Workers in the boning department began circulating a petition protesting Calero’s arrest and the INS attempt to keep him out of the country. The word spread through the plant. All the shop stewards learned about the case by the next day when they came to the union hall for a meeting.

"We moved right away because we knew they could deport him at any moment, and it was important that the INS knew that he had support," said Olvera, describing the response. "I filled two sheets with signatures myself."
 
Related article:
Defenders of Calero campaign to stop move to deport him
Inside an INS jail: the U.S. ‘justice’ system at work
Houston daily reports on INS detention of ‘Militant’ writer
U.S. private prisons: brutal and profitable
Calero case is latest fight for Political Rights Defense Fund
Young Socialists join fight against the deportation of Róger Calero
Stop deportation of Róger Calero  
 
 
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