Unionising the maquilas

Some of the most exploited workers in the world are starting to take on the multinationals -- and win. Mike Phipps reports.

Free trade and globalisation initiatives are routinely promoted in the West with unbridled optimism about their capacity to promote growth and jobs. Yet although they control 70% of the world's trade, multinationals account for only 5% of employment globally.

The erosion of borders envisaged by treaties such as the proposed Multilateral Agreement on Investment systematically erodes labour rights and environmental standards. This is despite the OECD's own evidence that reducing basic workplace rights brings companies no long-term competitive advantages. The social consequences are well-documented: familiar brand names such as Disney paying workers as little as six cents an hour to make T-shirts in Burma in a factory part-owned by the military government.

Some of the worst abuses take place in the burgeoning maquila sector -- cheap labour assembly plants, many just over the Mexican border, set up to dodge US environmental and labour standards. 2,000 such plants, including companies such as General Motors and General Electric, now operate in northern Mexico. Only one-third comply with Mexico's toxic waste laws, preferring to discharge heavy metals into open ground. The resultant birth defects in one area alone are thirty times the national average.

The maquila phenomenon has now spread to Honduras (70,000 workers), Nicaragua, whose free trade zone is expected to treble in size in the next two years, and elsewhere in Central America. Typical pay is $2 a day, shifts are often ten hours long and workers are frequently short-changed, physically abused or sexually harassed. In one recent case in El Salvador, 125 workers from the Dindex textile factory were rushed to hospital suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning due to bad ventilation.

There are, however, signs of a fightback. After a five-year battle to organise, workers finally won recognition last year in a Taiwanese-owned plant in Nicaragua's free trade zone. After a joint campaign by an independent union in Costa Rica and the World Development Movement here, Del Monte has been forced to allow union recognition on its plantations. Prior to this all union rights were suppressed and organisers faced sudden pay cuts and blacklisting. Birth defects and illnesses among workers are common due to the intensive use of pesticides without protective clothing. Last year, the first ever collective agreement was signed in Guatemala's maquila sector.

In November, 30 women from unions and other groups in Central America, the Caribbean and the Philippines met in Guatemala to develop a wider strategy to improve working conditions. In Nicaragua's free trade zone 80% of the workers are women and 60% are under 25. Women's organisations are playing an active role in the maquila sector, working to train and empower women in the fight to organise. The male-dominated unions in many countries have tended to be content with signing up members and pushing for collective agreements over their heads.

On February 1st 1998, a Code of Ethics developed by maquila workers was adopted by the Guatemalan government after a successful lobbying campaign. It covers pay, health and safety, non-discrimination on grounds of pregnancy and the right to organise. It's the first such Code to be endorsed by any government in Central America and marks an important step in a region where 95% of the maquilas still lack legally established trades unions.

For more information, contact the Central American Women's Network, c/o OWA, Bradley Close, 74-77 White Lion Street, London N1 9PF, tel: 0171-833 4075, email cawn@gn.apc.org

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