Mexican workers demand greater govt respect for union rights
Workers from independent and officially recognized unions marched together through Mexico City Monday, celebrating Labor Day and demanding that the government respect union rights, local media said.

Chanting anti-government slogans, 30,000 people from 130 unions, and members from the umbrella organization, the Workers Congress, called for better jobs, dignified livelihoods and better salaries.

The National Workers Union (UNT) held a separate march in the city to mark Labor Day, attracting 50,000 participants in a march to the city's central square, the Zocalo.

Marchers remembered the 65 mineworkers killed on Feb. 19 in a mine gas explosion, and the deaths of two more mine workers on April 20, when police attacked offices occupied by the union in the Lazaro Cardenas Steelworks in Las Truchas, Michoacan.

The city also saw a third march by sympathizers of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), protesting "the imperialism" of the United States.

Protests were also held in other parts of Latin America on Monday to celebrate Labor Day as well as demand rights for labors.

In Ecuador, around 5,000 protesters gathered in the northern part of Quito, chanting slogans against the government's free trade agreement with the United States, and called for the cancellation of a contract with U.S. oil company Occidental.

In Costa Rica, hundreds of union members, students and public employees marched through the streets of San Jose, protesting the planned free trade agreements within the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) framework.

In Chile, demonstrators chanted for democracy and justice, calling for an end to the so-called "binomial" system which prevents union leaders from being elected to Congress.
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