| 181. However, the EPZ ordinance adopted in 1980 totally
suspends national labour legislation in the zones, including the right to form
or belong to a trade union. Workers cannot take part in strike action to defend
their rights. While this situation within the EPZs is viewed positively by
certain trade unionists, what it really shows is just how bad the situation
regarding workers' rights is in normal enterprises.
| 181. This is interesting. With the negatives mentioned, why do
some trade unionists view the situation within the EPZs "positively"? It is
likely because some trade unionists recognize that EPZs are not the
problem.
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| Assembly lines
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| 182. In most EPZ factories, Taylorism is the rule.
| 182. The time and motion study man of the late 1800s was
Frederick Winslow Taylor, a favorite target of union leaders stuck in the 19th
century. We have not seen the term "Taylorism" used elsewhere in decades.
|
| 183. Breaking down production into individual operations makes
it possible to set very precise production targets. Workers are working against
the clock, and are often paid on a performance-related basis, measured in terms
of units of time or by quantity. Production targets are often set excessively
high in order to reduce the wages actually paid. Workers find themselves
obliged to take work home to avoid losing money.
| 183. In the government EPZ at Port au Prince, Haiti in the
1980s the best garment producer was a man of Haiti in a German-owned factory
who out-sewed the next best worker on piece rates by 4 to 1. Also, he was that
much better than any German worker in the company's experience. He was raising
a family of five children and wanted them to go to university. He was rewarded
for all of his productivity - four times as much pay as the next person. They
were all proud of him.
|
| 184. Very little attention is given to workers' training. Few
enterprises have internal training programmes and the possibilities for
promotion within the enterprise are very limited.
| 184. ICFTU seems to concentrate on the garment industry where,
for the most part, a worker can learn all there is to know in a relatively
short time. In this limited value-added field the opportunities for promotion
are low. However there is not much to be learned and even more limited career
opportunity by being unemployed.
|
| 185. "Income levels" notes the ILO (Central America) are
linked to manual dexterity not to the knowledge or vocational training of the
workers".
| 185. Manual dexterity is the key to sewing. At this level
formal vocational training schools may indeed be less effective that on-the-job
training.
|
| 186. Instability and precarious employment are the rule. It is
common practice in the maquilas of Central America to dismiss workers at the
end of the year to avoid seniority payments and related rights. The same
workers will be rehired a few weeks later.
| 186. Electronics may offer better opportunities for promotion
and training than sewing. Avoiding seniority payments is widespread throughout
the developing world in all work including domestic and agriculture. This is
because productivity is not improved by length of service. This practice is
related to poor labor law, not EPZs.
|
| 187. Workers are subjected, more than elsewhere, to
fluctuations in demand. When demand is high, they have to work overtime and
production rates are set excessively high. When demand falls, workers lose
their jobs. The "horizontal" mobility of workers is particularly high: the
turnover of staff averages 15 percent per month, and can be as high as 35 to
40 percent.
| 187. If productivity cannot be improved by seniority payments,
then why should unions or government insist on seniority payments? Workers
should get out to another industry if they want to get ahead. And other
industries come to EPZs following on success in garments -- whereupon the
pioneer garment producers must move on. Horizontal mobility is high when
workers leave work for personal reasons because they are certain they can be
reemployed at a similar rate of pay. It is more a function of places with labor
shortages than of places with surplus labor, and can be seen as a worker
benefit.
|
| Working hours
|
| 188. Enterprises rarely respect working hours. While the law
in the Dominican Republic stipulates that the working week is 44 hours, for a
five or six day week, and that overtime must be paid at a higher rate, most
employees work 10 to 15 hours per day and are only paid the normal rate for
overtime. Sometimes, workers are locked in the plant and forced to work all
night to meet production quotas. When giving evidence to a subcommission of the
US senate in September 1994, a 15-year-old girl, Lesley Rodriguez, explained
that in a Korean maquila based in Honduras, Galaxy Industry, the workers, often
adolescent girls, began work at 7.30 in the morning and ended at 7.00 at night.
On some days they had to stay until 21.30 or even 22.00.
| 188. Name the EPZ. Incidentally, please note that, according
to the ILO, 15 is a legal age for this type of work and for overtime work, and
thus the attempt to make this sound like illegal exploitation of children would
not be supported by labor leaders. She also did not claim here that they were
not paid overtime or that such work is illegal in Honduras. The implication is
drawn only by the positioning of two unrelated statements in the same
paragraph.
|
| 189. "We only have a half-hour break for lunch, and sometimes
we work 80 hours per week."
| 189. Name the EPZ. Given the disjointed nature of the previous
paragraph we have no idea where this statement comes from.
|
| 190. "The employers," continued Lesley Rodriguez, "set
productivity quotas at such a high level they were impossible to reach. If we
managed to reach them even so, they increased the quota the next day, so that
we were always under the level and always under pressure. Many workers are
forced to take home to finish their quota. Sometimes they work until one in the
morning and they are not paid anything for those extra hours. To go to work,
they must get up at 5:30am. I earn about 21.50 dollars per week... I was
told that a Liz Claiborne sweater sells in the United States for about 90
dollars. I earn 38 cents an hour for making one."
| 190. Name the EPZ. See also the "Dream-Sellers" in our opening
statement. A union autoworker in Detroit earns only about $8 dollars on a
$30,000 car. Fortunately, we can recognize that as a meaningless number
also.
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| Child labour
|
| 191. In the pursuit of ever-greater profits, anything goes.
Child labour has become a comparative advantage and it is common to see
children working longer than the permitted hours in the maquila workshops. The
child labour force is particularly appreciated because in a sector that suffers
from sharp fluctuations in demand, it is easier and quicker to hire and fire
children.
| 191. Name the EPZ.
|
| 192. In some countries, the situation has improved slightly
thanks to the campaigns carried out by trade union organisations.
| 192. Name the EPZ.
|
| 193. In the Dominican Republic, there has been a considerable
reduction in the number of children at work. Some enterprises, particularly
those with Korean capital, still pursue this practice however.
| 193. Is there research to show that Koreans are a particular
problem? If there is, then the problem would seem to be Korean management and
not EPZs.
|
| 194. In Guatemala, notes the coordinator of the IUF
(International Union of Foodworkers) human and trade union rights' project,
Jesus Godinez, many children are employed in the maquiladoras. However, a study
shows that 80 percent of the workforce is between 18 and 26 years old.
| 194. And as we noted earlier the ILO convention permits
workers to be 12 or younger. While we don't support the practice of using
12-year-olds, if 80% are between 18 and 26, and some percent are over 26, the
chance that many are younger than 12 is very small.
|
| 195. In the Global Fashions factory, one of the Lesley Fay
subcontractors in Honduras, "children aged 13, 14, 15 and 16" writes Jay
Mazure, president of the ILGWU, are forced to work 10 or more hours per day,
often in unbearable heat, which in the pressing and packing sections can reach
100 degrees Fahrenheit".
| 195. As noted above the ILO convention declares all these
people to be legal workers. If the ICFTU finds this objectionable, they should
be fighting the ILO not the EPZs.
|
| Women's labour
|
| 196. At least two out of three workers in the maquilas,
particularly in the textile, clothing and electronics sectors, are women. In
Panama, for example, 90 to 95 percent of employees in the maquiladoras are
women. Their age varies in general between 18 and 25 years, the age at which
they are considered the most productive for the type of tasks performed in the
maquilas.
| 196. Now the focus is on good jobs for women in a country
where women use to have a hard time finding good work.
|
| 197. The "feminisation" of employment has been accompanied by
a deterioration in pay levels. In South Korea, at the end of the '80s, women
earn on average one half of what their male colleagues in the same sector are
paid.
| 197. This is not deterioration in pay, even in the fantasy
world of the ICFTU. Before the 1970s women were considered unemployable. Also
same sector does mean same type of job. Pay for women in Korea has risen from
about $.30 per hour to about US$ 3.00.
|
| 198. Women are also used to allow for excessive "flexibility"
reminiscent of the manufacturing methods of the second half of the nineteenth
century in European towns: alone at home, women sew for the clothing industry;
others key in data into computers for travel agencies or for the distribution
giants.
| 198. Working at home is, of course, not done within an EPZ, so
the comment is not relevant to the discussion. It does show the fixation of the
author on the nineteenth century, which we have noticed before.
|
| 199. Most women are confined to repetitive tasks in production
while men usually move on fairly quickly to better paid supervisory or
maintenance jobs. The managers are exclusively male. Laws relating to maternity
leave are not respected. At the Global Fashions enterprise in Honduras, women
workers are obliged to stay at work until their labour pains begin. In some
maquiladoras, women are dismissed after birth. In El Salvador, the government
and employers refused to ratify ILO Convention 156 on workers with family
responsibilities or Convention 103 on maternity protection.
| 199. This is perhaps the reason women were paid less in each
sector as we speculated in paragraph 197. Sex discrimination is a problem in
many countries, and might be an appropriate focus of the ICFTU. Unfortunately
they choose to focus on EPZs which did not create the problems they find and
their elimination will not solve the problems.
The United States did not ratify the ILO
Convention either, and it was not because of EPZs.
|
| 200. They believe that any specific protection
for women workers is bound to result in lower productivity and higher
production costs. Sexual harassment is endemic in the maquiladoras.
| 200. This shows a total lack of understanding of production.
Protection for woman normally leads to higher productivity and lower production
costs. Sexual and other forms of harassment are unfortunately endemic in many
developing countries. EPZ are not the focus of it.
|