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February 24, 2008

Rent

By law, a landlord can raise the rent on a property here each year by up to 10%.

Our landlord is very considerate of the tenants. When we first inquired about the apartment, he asked what we did. I said that I was a student, because at the time, that was the most recent thing that I had been: a student of Spanish at a college in Denver. He was concerned to hear this, he said, because we were asking to live in a building with many families, some with small children, and he didn't want there to be any loud, late night parties. I assured him that he didn't have to worry about that. If a need for a loud all-night party arose, we would have it elsewhere. I really liked the apartment, and would have promised a lot to get it.

The first year we lived here, there was no raise in rent. Our neighbors across the hall, Alberto and Roxana, who moved in a year before we did, had just had their rent raised for the first time. It seems the landlord doesn't raise the rent after the first year, so all tenants have the same rate for their first two years. That is a nice gesture on his part; it is not the typical practice here in Mexico. Yet at the beginning of this, our third year, we were notified that the rent would be raised.

Our rent is due at the first of the month, and the procedure is the same every time. I walk it down to the landlord's house, which is a block away, and I ring the doorbell. The landlord and his wife are an older couple, but they are successful enough to have a very lovely house and two servants. The servants are two women that seem to have been with the family for a considerable time. As far as anyone living here knows, they have always been with them. One of them usually shouts out a window at me - "¡Oye!" - and I answer back, "¡Buenos tardes! Tengo un pago de renta..." They come out, we exchange brief pleasantries, and the cash is traded for the reciept.

This past year, it became relatively frequent that the lady taking the cash and handing over the receipt would inform me of some caveat, such as the fact that the receipt had not been signed, or the printed receipts were not yet ready, so I could either wait to pay or accept a "provisional," hand-written receipt. The reason for this was always that el señor was away being treated for cancer. When he returned home, he would fill out the receipts or sign them; it was our choice as to what we wanted to do.

We always paid right then, accepting either the receipt that had not been signed or the hand-written receipt. We were a bit overly cautious for the first few months we were here, but it soon became obvious that the landlord, his wife and the two servants were not out to swindle us. In fact, in a couple of occasions, they were outright generous in their offers. When we were going to be gone for a month to Buenos Aires and would return two weeks after the regular date on which we turned in the money, I was trying to explain that I wanted to come by the week before we left to drop off the money in advance. I made it only to the point in my brief speech explaining that we were leaving the country and would not be home for a month before the woman I was talking to presumed that I was asking if it was okay to pay after we got back, nearly three weeks late. She said that would be fine. I was shocked and explained that I was actually giving them notice of an intention to pay in advance, knowing that they liked to prepare the receipts ahead of time. She said that would be fine too.

When we took our payment over in January, one of the ladies answered the doorbell and explained that the receipts were not signed, because el señor was in the hospital again, and we said that was not a problem. She told us that there would be a rent increase this year for us, but they did not know how much it would be, because el señor had not yet decided. They said they would come by and notify us when they found out, but the month went by and we had no notice. We took some extra bills over when we went to pay in February, but they still did not know what the increase would be because el señor was still in the hospital and had not been able to decide on the rent.

On Thursday night, one of the servants stopped by and notified us that the rent increase would be 10%, the full amount allowed by law. Shawn commented that he was a bit surprised about that, but I noted that they might well have a lot of hospital bills to pay, since the landlord had been in the hospital a lot. It had been two years with no increase for us, so it woked out to be about 5% a year.

About five minutes Alberto knocked on the door and came in to talk to us. He told us that the servant had come by to tell them that their rent would be 10% higher this year, and apparently it would be 10% higher for everyone in the building. Since inflation this past year was only about 3.5% and wage increases have been 4%, everyone was upset about this and felt it was unfounded. They also received an increase last year too. I commented to Alberto my suspicion about hospital bills and he said that he did not think that was the problem. The general opinion of the residents is, that with el señor in the hospital, his children were advising their mother on all his business dealings, and are very avaricious. Unlike their parents, they are not interested in maintaining good relations with the people who are both their neighbors and tenants.

The rest of our neighbors had already come up with a plan. Each of the tenants would go over to the landlord's house one at a time to protest the raise in the rent. The neighbors right below us would go that night, and then Roxana was going to go talk to her on Saturday. Alberto would let us know if it ended up being necessary that we would have to go over there; being that Spanish is not our first language, it would make sense for us to go last. Maybe she would be reasonable and change her mind before all eight of the apartments sent delegates over.

Last night Alberto came over at around midnight, and he told us that he had some unfortunate news. His wife was going over to have her talk with the landlord's wife, and while she was waiting, they received a phone call. One of the servants answered and then broke down into a fit of crying. Roxana excused herself and returned home. This morning, we have yet to hear anything official, but the general thinking among the neighbors is that our landlord died yesterday.

We are very sad about it. As far as landlords go, he was very fair and understanding, but beyond that, he was a very nice gentleman. We will miss him.

Posted by crispy at 09:48 AM | Comments (4)

February 20, 2008

Know Your Rights! Part One

The refusal of Shawn's former employer to abide by the law in providing him the proper severance package has forced us to educate ourselves on the rights foreign workers have here in Mexico. The bottom line is, as long as they are legally employed, foreign workers have exactly the same rights as citizens regarding employment and employment benefits in Mexico. They are not at a disadvantage (at least by law), as long as they are informed about employment law.

Before I go any further, I should provide a disclaimer. I cannot guarantee that everything written herein about Shawn's case is applicable to everyone working in Mexico. There are some rules that are universal, like the one above about foreigners having the same rights as Mexican citizens when it comes to labor law. After that, exceptions and variables start to creep in.

For example, if you have signed a contract with your employer, it might limit or completely negate any claims to the laws you might have as outlined below. In general, if you signed a contract, all bets are off. Similarly, if your employer can demonstrate that you failed to live up to your obligations as outlined in the law, you may have no case. This entry is not a substitute for a consultation with a lawyer, but rather an article to give you a glimpse into how Mexican labor law (Ley Federal del Trabajo) works.

Employee Obligations

There are both rights and obligations on the part of the employee in Mexico, and the obligations are more or less what one would expect. According to the 2008 "Ley federal del trabajo," a copy of which is published by Berbera Editores S.A. de C.V., Mexico City (http://www.berbera.com.mx/), employees must:

   - Title 4, Chapter 2, Article 134, Sections 1-13

It also states that, employees must not:

   - Title 4, Chapter 2, Article 135, Sections 1-10

Termination for Just Cause

This is the basic set of "employee dos and don'ts" in the law, but these are not the specific rules that allow an employer to fire an employee without cause.

When someone is let go from their job in Mexico, it is only considered justified if it is because of one of the following reasons:

   - Title 2, Chapter 4, Article 47, Sections 1-15

The employer must provide the fired employee with written notice including the date of and reason for his being fired. If the employee refuses to receive this notice, the employer must file the notice with the Conciliación y Arbitraje office within five days of the firing date. Failure to notify either the worker or the Conciliación y Arbitraje office is sufficient for the firing to be considered unjustified.

   - Title 2, Chapter 4, Article 47, Section 15

Severance Payment

When a firing is not considered to be justified, a severance payment is required of the employer. This payment consists of three different elements. Bear with me. It gets a little complicated.

If the employer dismisses the employee without just cause and fails to pay them this severance package, they can be taken to court and sued for it. If the case is decided in favor of the former employee, the employer is responsible for a full day's pay for every day between the date of the firing and the date the decision is handed down. This is known as salarios caidos. Since the court system is bogged down and an employment case can easily take a year or more to be decided, this places the employer at a definite disadvantage if they are taken to court over disputed severance.

The prospects look even more grim for the employer when one considers that employees win 90% of such cases in Mexican courts.

Due to the heavy caseload in the courts and because employees are often in a position where they need the money after being fired, a special office of Conciliaje y Arbitraje has been established as a speedier alternative to a court hearing. Yet unlike court decisions made by judges, arbitration proceedings run by lawyers are not binding and employers are not even required by law to show up for arbitration meetings.

We will discuss arbitration in our next article on this topic.


Posted by crispy at 04:31 PM | Comments (1)

February 16, 2008

The T-H Transposition Error

As students of Spanish, English-speakers have a few shared errors that are so common that they get names, like yoísmo, the tendency to overuse the first person singular pronoun when it is not necessary. Spanish tends to omit pronouns because they are made redundant by the conjugated forms of verbs, but they are rarely omitted in English.

From a Spanish-speaker's perspective, English has a lot of funky ways to write various phonological units. That is, to make the sound like the "oo" in "tool," they use the letter U and only the letter U. In English, this sound appears in written contexts like "oo," "u," or even "ue." At the same time, these are not consistent, as the "oo" in "look" is not pronounced like the "oo" in "tool." The whole English pronunciation thing can be very, very difficult for people who learn it as a second language.

Vowels are hard enough. Silent letters are completely stupid, at least from a learner's point of view. Native speakers do not think twice about them because they grew up using them, but for a student of the language, they can cause lots of problems. In Spanish, the letter H is silent, like it is in many (but not all) cases in English. Native Spanish-speakers can grasp the idea that in words like "height" and "rhapsody," but they often get it confused with the TH digraph, which has four possible different sounds: the voiced dental fricative, as in "this," the voiceless dental fricative, as in "thing," with a silent H resulting in just a T sound, as in "Thailand," and a consonant cluster where both the T and the H are their own independent sounds, as in "lighthouse."

As a student of a foreign language myself, it isn't nice of me to laugh at mistakes others make with a language I lucked out in learning by growing up with it. Yet it's hard not to chuckle when it happens, no matter who you are. I'm sure even the most well-meaning and encouraging Spanish speakers have to laugh when a student of their language gets pregnant simply saying something incorrectly or making a social faux pas. Nobody thinks the person making that mistake is stupid, merely human and showing their native language bias in the interpretation of the secondary language. It is just being human to see the humor when someone else evidences their humanity. It shows us we're all in the same boat.

It is especially funny when someone is so human on a grand scale, like when there are mistakes on product packaging or on billboards or banners out in front of restaurants. Because English is seen as classy here for some reason that I have yet to fully grasp, businesses use it to give their establishment an air of refinement or something. I guess the same is done in the United States, where you see a roadside stand in Nebraska calling itself a "shoppe" of some sort, even though nobody in the midwest would normally write it that way. At least I hope they wouldn't.

One sees a lot of signs and labels here that are printed with some English, and it is particularly odd when they are half in Spanish and half in English. I don't mean they are bilingual and have the same information in Spanish and English both. I mean they will have the name of the product or store in English, and maybe slogan too. But then the descriptor of what the thing or place is (a carbonated beverage or a convenience store) is written in Spanish. Shawn tells me this is also done a lot in Japan, resulting in great hilarity.

Here in Mexico, Shawn and I never cease to be amused by the signs which reflect the Spanish-speaker's confusion with the TH digraph. Most recently, we got a chuckle out of:

Monday Nigth Football

Yet we are always amused by the appearance of:

yogurth

on a menu, although this seems to be a widely-accepted spelling for what I always learned was yogur.

One sees a lot of things that are advertised as 'ligth' (having fewer calories than the regular style), and I've even seen a sign advertising a dentist that works on 'teet.'

Unfortunately, I have not had my camera with me when I've seen a lot of these things; hopefully in the future, I can snap a few examples to share with you here.

Posted by crispy at 03:00 PM | Comments (2)

February 10, 2008

A Not-So-Quick but Definitely Dirty Guide To Customs

A recent experience with FedEx, wherein packages were being shipped express mail to us from the United States at a cost of several hundred dollars and for which we are still waiting after thirteen days, has inspired me to write about international shipments and customs.

Yes, that office invariably staffed by sunny, cheery and professional folk whose job it is to monitor and control the flow of goods in and out of the country, and to collect taxes on various imported and exported goods called "duties." That is how their job description reads on paper. I suspect that there is a secret book somewhere that details it more like it is:

to do whatever they can to keep people from entering the country with any interesting items whenever possible, and when not possible, to charge the offending party exorbitant taxes for their impertinence, at all times performing this duty with discourtesy, obscurity, uninteligibility and incompetence, so as to provide the maximum amount of inconvenience possible.

Just like finding out the truth about Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the policeman being your friend, the realization of the real nature of customs can be shocking. The experience of dealing with customs has reduced me to tears even when things go perfectly well, just from the amount of paperwork to be filled out, the time spent waiting, and the fistful of pesos extracted from my wallet without even the courtesy of a quick cuddle afterwards.

In hopes of easing the pain of that first time, I have decided to share the benefit of my experience with the world here on the blog. My experience is by no means expansive; I am no Art Vandelay. Before embarking on any international shipping program, you should always consult your local parcel professional for guidance in your particular case. Yet it is my hope that this article will give you some idea of what to expect when sending things to someone in a foreign country.

Know Your Enemy

Bureaucrats do not like to do their jobs. They will do anything they can to keep from doing their jobs, and any mistake on your part gives them the excuse to not do their jobs.

If the rule is that you need to have three copies of a form and you only have two when you arrive at their window, they'll shut you down right there because you did not follow instructions. Because you need their help and they don't need you, you are entirely at their mercy and must do things exactly as they dictate, even if their requirements are ridiculous and completely non-sensical.

It's a lot like dealing with the Soup Nazi. You must know the rules before your number comes up and you must follow them exactly, or no soup for you! If there is an exception or a problem with how you have completed your paperwork, or if you have included any forbidden, restricted or even questionable items, customs and shipping companies dealing with your international shipment can hold your package for days, or they might even send it back undelivered.

When sending an international package, make sure:

Failure to do any of these things can cause huge delays and possible rejection of your package. Allow me to give you a personal example of the chain of errors that have kept our current package in a near two-week limbo.

First, the FedEx employee serving my mother when she went to send the package instructed her to write simply "Christmas and birthday presents" on the list of the box's contents. As I mentioned before, this is a big no-no. You must always list everything as well as a stated value for it. Yes, one would think that a FedEx employee would know this, but apparently she did not.

Still, it made it from southern Illinois to Guadalajara in one day, where it was turned over to an in-house customs broker. A customs broker is an expert in customs processing that prepares a shipment and all its paperwork before the package goes to customs. Large shipping companies with international service tend to have their own in-house people that do this, but you can hire independent customs brokers. Our customs broker immediately saw that the list was not acceptable for customs, so the package was held for days until a full, itemized list, complete with prices and country of origin for each item was provided to him. If the full list had been sent in the paperwork with the package, this delay would have been avoided.

Unfortunately, the recipient's phone number (my phone number) listed in the paperwork was incorrect. It was not incorrect like it had wrong numbers in it; it was wrong because it was written as it would be dialed from the United States, not written as someone would dial it within Mexico. Because of this, FedEx did nothing with my package for two days, claiming that they could not get in touch with me to request necessary paperwork, because the number on the form was incorrect.

It is simple for anyone living in Mexico (unless they've never dialed phone numbers before) to look at a number written to be dialed from the US and determine how it should be dialed from within Mexico, but having it not exactly as it should have been on the form gave them the excuse to not do their jobs and delay the package for days while they got the 'right' number.

Once customs got the package, they found that there were ceramics from Asia in the box. These are restricted items and only allowed into Mexico with the proper clearance from the Mexican Department of Health. Because getting the proper clearance through that other bureaucratic nightmare would take a month, and because the deadline had already passed for the package to be submitted to customs after arriving via FedEx in the country, the only two options were to surrender the items to customs to have them sent back at my mother's own expense or 'destroyed' (customs claims they destroy such restricted items, but the rumor is that customs agents just take them home themselves because no documentation that they actually have been destroyed is ever provided).

Federal Express has a book, called the "Fedex Global SRG" that details what items are forbidden and restricted in the different countries to which they ship packages. Every international shipping company should have something similar, and confirming that that everything you want to ship is actually allowed into the country with such a book will let you avoid unnecessary delays and the destruction or return of any forbidden or restricted items in your shipment. If you print out your own shipping labels at home, generated through a shipping company's web site, they will usually present you with the necessary information in the process.

The lady at the FedEx office should have gone over each item with my mother to make sure that it is allowed into the Mexico, but since she thought it was okay to ship an international shipment with only "Christmas and birthday presents" written on the packing list, it doesn't surprise me that she didn't think to look in the SRG to see if any of the items in the shipment were forbidden or restricted.

Duty Now for the Future

Customs offices charge indirect taxes called "duties" on things brought into the country. If you send something to someone in a foreign country, chances are high that either you or the recipient will have to pay duties on it. It does not matter that you paid taxes on the item when you bought it. You did not pay those taxes to the government of the country into which you want to send the item, and they want their taste. Customs agents are the goons they send to collect.

I have yet to see any place that does this easily, like charging a set percentage of the value on everything, or a flat-rate for everything. Instead, different items are charged differently, with some things being charged by assessable value and others by volume, and the rate and form of duty varies from country to country.

To make it easier for someone in one country to fill out the paperwork for the entry of goods into another country, a universal set of numbers for different product classes has been developed, called the Harmonized Systems Code (or H.S. Code). It divides everything shipped between countries into around 5 thousand different classes of commodities, identifying each by a six-digit code. With these uniform descriptors, the need to translate "watch" to "reloj" or "montre" is eliminated, as it is "910211," no matter what country it comes from or goes into. These are also used for comparison of trade statistics, so that analysists can be sure they're comparing apples to oranges.

If you look up the Harmonized Systems Code number for each of your products before taking the list to the shipping company, they should be able to provide you with a book showing the duty rates for each item, so you know how much duty must be paid on your shipment.

It is probably a good idea to look up how much duty will have to be paid before sending something to another country, or ordering something from a foreign country. I made the mistake of ordering some stuff to be delivered from the United States before checking with the duty rates for those items once, and I'll never make the mistake again.

Because I'm much bigger along every axis than your average Mexican, it is very difficult for me to find clothes in stores here. For a long time, I didn't know where to buy any fat-person clothes in Guadalajara, and my clothes were getting ripped and stained at a rate that I figured I'd soon look like a bum if I didn't get some new ample duds. I was delighted to learn that a company I'd used in the United States, one which specialized in clothes for the huge and enormous, delivered worldwide. I understood that the shipping would be considerably more expensive than I was used to from ordering from them online, but I was ignorant about the fact that duty rates can be obscene.

When the shipment arrived, the FedEx guy told me that I owed something like MXN $550 (around USD $50) for the two t-shirts that I'd ordered, which only cost USD $25 each. I could not believe my ears. Since Spanish is not my lengua materna, I asked him to repeat the amount. Sure enough I heard him right. I asked him what that was for. Did I somehow mistakenly have it shipped C.O.D. or something? I thought I had already paid for the shipping on my credit card when I placed the order. He explained that it was for import duties, but could not tell me why the duties were 100% of the cost of what I'd ordered. Usually, import duties are not that high, but your average Mexican doesn't have the need to order clothes through the mail from the United States, and being an average Mexican, the FedEx delivery guy didn't have any idea why the rate would be that high.

I found out later that the clothing union in Mexico City is incredibly powerful, and therefore, they have been able to get a ridiculous duty rate enacted for the import of any new clothing to the country. Therefore, people only get clothes from America when they go there and can bring them back in a suitcase. That is the only way people in Mexico get clothes from America. Thanks to the import duties, clothes sent in the mail cost double, and on top of that, the shipping rates are ridiculous.

A side note: The only shipping 'speed' available for private shipping companies like UPS and FedEx between Mexico and the United States and within Mexico are only express for some reason. This seems funny to me, since they have slower service available in the United States and in Canada, and having been in both those places, Mexico seems far more laid back and slower in general pace of life than either of those two countries. No representatives of the shipping services know why their companies do not provide regular, standard 'ground' service here either. I've asked, and I always get the same blank stare and shrug of the shoulders. I even wrote to UPS and asked why they don't provide their 'Standard' (ground) Service in Mexico like they do within and between Canada and the United States. I was told that such information is "not in the system."

Your Wallet or Mine?

If you are sending someone in a foreign country a gift, it is considerate to pay any duties yourself. Otherwise, you are putting the recipient in a position where they have to pay to get the gift. At a minimum, you should warn them that they should have cash on hand to pay the delivery person when the package arrives.

Most shipping services allow you to indicate whether or not the duties are to be paid by the sender or the recipient. For example, on a FedEx International Waybill form, there is a checkbox (line 7-B) that can be checked so that the sender, not the recipient, gets billed for import duties. If one uses Federal Express and does not check this package, when the delivery person shows up at the recipient's door, they will insist on cash for the payment of duties before handing over the shipment. If you don't have the cash, you won't get your package.

Do Used

While the process of paying ridiculous duties to customs is unpleasant for everyone, it is worse for some than others. If you are a commercial importer, bringing products into the country to be resold, you usually have to pay higher duty rates than someone having stuff shipped to them for personal use. Customs agents are especially suspcious of anything that is brand-spanking new and still in the original wrapper, because they think it is going to be resold. Sure, it is completely understandable that Aunt Tillie from Cleveland might go out and buy you a Nintendo Wii for Christmas because you cannot get one in Peru, shipping it to you in the sealed, pristine box it came in from the store. Why wouldn't she? After all, it's a present. However, this would raise all kinds of red flags to customs agents, and it might cause her shipment to be rejected by customs or to be charged higher duty rates.

When sending things to someone in a foreign country that are intended for their personal use, it is best to take all the items out of new wrapping and have them in a condition that would make it difficult to command full price if sold. This does not mean that you have to tie things you are going to send to a foreign country to the back of your truck and drive around the block several times. It just means that you should take things out of their boxes and original packaging, and remove any non-essential stickers or twist ties as well. This will also cut down on the space and weight demands of the package, so it is a good idea for making the shipment more economical anyway.

Sending used things is also helpful. Many countries charge less for the importation of used items than they do for their brand new counterparts. Mexico used to charge a lower rate of duty for used books than they did for new books, although I think that has now changed. This varies from country to country and from item to item, so be sure to check with your shipping professional if you are not sure.

Live globally. Buy locally.

I hope this entry has given those of you who have never had the delight of dealing with international shipping and customs some idea of what they do and how they work (not very well). It can be a real treat when living abroad to get a care package from back home, but it truly does exact a high toll, both from your wallet and from your mental well-being.

If you have to send a gift to someone outside your home country, you might want to consider buying gifts that can be purchased, delivered and redeemed over the Internet. iTunes credit has become a very popular gift in our household, and with it, we can even get a taste of the home country, buying a season or two of American television shows.

Alternatively, if your loved ones live in more economically developed countries, you can probably find online stores for businesses in their country that can ship domestically, thereby cutting down on shipping costs and completely eliminating the need to put anything through customs.

Posted by crispy at 09:56 AM | Comments (2)

February 07, 2008

No More DEN-GDL on Frontier

I was daydreaming about a return visit to Denver, to visit some friends, revisit some dearly-missed old haunts and best of all, take in some much-needed Ellyn Rucker.

In the hopes that that a shockingly low fare might be available that would make me an idiot to not do it, I looked up random round-trip dates online at a site that draws results from several different sources. The lowest fare was through American Airlines, but after a terrible experience we had with American Airlines returning from the United States last May, I avoid them at all costs. Besides, it required a stop in Dallas, and I knew that Frontier had a nonstop between Guadalajara and Denver.

"Was" is the operative word here. The site I use includes Frontier, but none of their flights were in the results. I went to their site and did a search, looked at their route map, and finally wrote in to their customer service asking if they had discontinued that flight.

Their response arrived this morning:

   John,
 
   Good to hear from you. We’re happy to help. Frontier 
   Airlines has discontinued service to Guadalajara . This 
   decision was due to high fuel prices and lack of 
   consumer demands. I will pass your comments to the 
   appropriate manager to take into consideration when 
   reviewing our schedules.
 
   Thank you for visiting Frontier Airlines.com.
 
   Natacha Hager
   Customer Relations Specialist
   Frontier Airlines

I hate airlines.

Posted by crispy at 02:41 PM | Comments (2)

February 05, 2008

El Santo contra los burocratas

Yeah, it's entirely in Spanish, but it's got universal appeal.

Posted by crispy at 12:54 AM | Comments (1)