travel

No, the bus doesn't get into town on time this morning

photos by Eric Jackson

The deaths of four workers on a company union work site where they had to work in a pit whose sides had not been properly shored up brought the on-the-job death toll in the construction industry up to 17 so far this year and aggravated a series of protests by the militant SUNTRACS construction workers' union about job safety issues and company unions that had already been underway. And so it was that bright and early on the morning of July 31 SUNTRACS members from the Vista Mar construction site just east of the town of San Carlos set up their blockade across the Pan-American Highway, blocking traffic both ways for several hours. This reporter wasn't feeling so great that day in the physical sense, but there was nothing to do but get out of the bus, go cover the event and then walk several kilometers into down to get to the morning's intended destination.