| 201. "Some supervisors" complained Lesley Rodriguez, a
15-year-old Honduran worker, "pat the girls' bottom or feel their breasts.
Some let them do it because they can get more
money each week."
| 201. This behavior is clearly not good for
productivity, and modern managers do not permit it. It is distracting to the
workers and leads to low morale.
|
| 202. But while sexual harassment is frequent, complaints are
rare because they automatically lead to the dismissal of the woman who has
virtually no chance of having her case heard at a tribunal.
| 202. See 200, 201.
|
| Health and safety
|
| 203. The factories in the zones photographed for the publicity
brochures look as if they have come straight out of an architect and office
landscapers' practice. Reality is often far removed from these glossy images,
however. The survey carried out among ICFTU affiliates lists numerous examples
of violations of basic health and safety standards. In almost every case,
safety measures are insufficient, there is a lack of protective equipment,
particularly for handling machines or materials, and there aren't enough
sanitary installations
| 203. In Nogales, Mexico top local architects were hired to
give the industrial park a pleasant look.
|
| 204. In some maquilas, for example in the Betex SA company in
Costa Rica, workers must buy their own first aid kit. In the Dominican
Republic, according to a study by the human and trade union rights project,
workers in the zones work in conditions that fail to meet minimum industrial
health and safety standards. The heat and noise exceed tolerable levels, and no
space has been provided for meals, with the result that workers have to eat on
the pavement.
| 204. It seems safety is important if each worker must have a
first aid kit. That is not a requirement in most developed countries.
|
| 205. The employers also keep a check on how many times workers
go to the toilet by forcing them to ask for tickets. Management also delivers,
reluctantly, authorisations for medical visits during working hours.
| 205. Is this the ICFTU's reluctant admission the employers provide
medical care during working hours?
|
| 206. In Honduras, the daily El Heraldo recently revealed that
some factories gave their workers' amphetamine injections to prevent them from
collapsing after working 48 hours nonstop.
| 206. This may have happened, but it is poor management, not
productive and leads to poor quality control. There is no claim that it was
done in an EPZ.
|
| 207. For the employers in the Costa Rica maquiladoras,
pregnancy is a cause for dismissal.
| 207. Is that the legal practice?
|
| 208. In Guatemala, some maquilas, particularly those of Korean
origin, distribute contraceptive pills to prevent their women employees from
getting pregnant.
| 208. Is this another way of saying that the firms provide
medical benefits, and that some workers are concerned about family
planning?
|
| 209. In January 1994, workers in the Continental Industrial
Park, near La Lima (Honduras), accused management of forcing women workers to
have abortions.
| 209. The management of the Park? I doubt it. In a Catholic
country this seems a little far-fetched.
|
| 210. There are no accurate statistics to show whether
occupational accidents or diseases are more frequent in the maquilas than in
other enterprises. The list of the most common illnesses affecting women
workers is impressive nonetheless: infections of the respiratory passages, eye
irritations, varicose veins from having to remain standing for long periods,
and stress related illnesses such as gastritis. According to an ILO report,
cases of gas and chemical poisoning have been recorded, including
fatalities.
| 210. Despite the claim that the illnesses can not be related
to EPZs, they are listed anyway. We suspect the EPZs have a lower rate of
accidents than other industries in any particular country.
|
| 211. In China, The Times (London) correspondent in Hong Kong
writing at the beginning of 1996 said "it is very common for people to smoke in
the factories, in the middle of inflammable waste, and most of the doors are
locked." The journalist made these comments following a fire in a Christmas
decorations factory in which 19 people died and 37 were injured
| 211. No indication that this was in an EPZ. We have also seen
workers smoking in China in front of "No Smoking Signs" and while pumping
gasoline.
|
#212. The Bonahan Apparel Company in the Bonao export
processing zone in the Dominican Republic is one of the most reluctant to
respect social legislation and trade union rights. The report by the Labour
Ministry's inspector, dated 7 March 1995, demonstrates this contempt for the
law. The following extracts are among the most edifying. Written in
administrative language, they describe the trade union's principal complaints:
"Overtime pay: the supervisors had promised that if workers worked 2, 3 or 4
hours overtime, they would be paid at 100 percent, but management refused to
pay this amount, arguing that the supervisors did not have the authority to
take such an initiative. We think that this is a case of collusion between the
supervisors and management. Physical abuse: on 2 March 1995, the woman worker
Heridania Maria Soto was attacked by her supervisor, Jose Rodriguez, who
twisted her arms and neck. The complaint was made in the presence of the
supervisor, who did not deny the accusation. According to Heridiana, she was
forced to withdraw her complaint against the supervisor. Redundancy payment:
Natividad Quino and Yudelka received only 50 percent of their compensation.
Pregnant women: they cannot take a break at lunch time or during the day, but
they can sit down from time to time. We have also found that
- the enterprise does not have any first aid kits, although it employs 700 people,
- it takes two days for it to authorise an employee to visit the zone's clinic;
- the temperature is very high and the workers can only drink water twice a day.
The employer has promised to paint over the two-way mirror in the toilets."
| 212. What is not reported here is that in November the Bonahan
Apparel Company signed a collective bargaining contract with its union, and
agreed to establish a grievance committee with its workers. The details of this
can be found in the ICFTU annual report. It seems that bad management can lead
to unions forming even in a Free Zone in the Dominican Republic.
This firm is described as "most reluctant" so
that the "victory" can seem more important than it was.
|
| 5. Anti-union repression
|
| 213. "For Rosa Maria Mendoza, 1995 was a year of struggle. For
the first eight months she struggled to meet her quota: sewing 4,800 buttons
per day on designer shirts. Employed by the Formosa Textiles factory in an
industrial park in the East of San Salvador.
| 213. For a good worker on the right machine a rate of ten
buttons per minute is not difficult to achieve.
|
| 214. She struggled to survive on a salary of 60 pounds per
month... She fought against the diseases caused by absorbing, at the factory,
water from a cockroach infested tank... in August, Rosa Maria Mendoza, who is 24
years old, entered into a new sort of struggle. With 86 of her colleagues, she
joined a trade union. In October, they were all dismissed..." -- Juanita
Darling, The Guardian 5 January 1996
| 214. Name the EPZ.
|
| 215. The enterprises go to these zones because they can take
advantage not only of adequate infrastructure, exemptions from tax and customs
duties, and low wages but also from the "anti-union" climate which enables them
to reduce production costs and multiply their value added.
| 215. Is the ICFTU telling us that creating a union causes an
increase in production costs and a reduction in value added? We thought having
a union improved productivity!
|
| #216. Speaking in November 1994 from the Santa Cruz zone in
the north of Bombay (India), the magazine Business India wrote: "Fortunately
for the employers, most of the workers are not organised, a factor which
according to the employers has helped them stay competitive at the
international level."
| 216. Agreed.
|
| 217. Violations of trade union rights and the labour code
effectively form part of the zones' "comparative advantages". In the sixties
and seventies, the US textile and clothing industry deserted the North East of
the United States to emigrate to the deep South, where there was an anti-union
climate, and where the industrialists who moved to the zones sought to
restrict, if not eliminate, any organisation of the workforce. Union busting
became the general rule.
| 217. What zones?? In India or just 40 years ago??
|
| 218. Widespread poverty in the zones' host countries, and the
high levels of unemployment and underemployment are all major obstacles to
union organising. Employers can use unemployment as a form of blackmail, and
have an almost inexhaustible reserve to choose from, particularly given that
the tasks performed in the factories require very little training. Thousands of
workers are concentrated in clearly demarcated zones subjected to the close and
often brutal surveillance of private guards preventing the entry of any trade
union officials. The dispersion of workers in family workshops, in the
"submaquilas" (subsubcontracting), also weakens trade union action. The
employers often consider themselves omnipotent and untouchable. Even in a
country such as Dominican Republic, where the labour authorities are fairly
active and where they have the "fuero sindical" (protection for trade union
representatives), all the 114 trade unions in the zones were the victims of
serious harassment and their leaderships were declared null and void in
February 1995.
| 218. It is not the fault of EPZs that there is poverty in the
host country. EPZs are part of the solution to poverty. The next few lines are
wild generalizations without naming country, zone or company; they do not merit
response.
In the Dominican Republic, what did 114 trade
unions do to deserve being declared "null and void" in February 1995? It is
also odd that by the end of 1995 some of these "null and void" unions had
signed collective agreements with employers.
If both concentration and dispersion weaken
unions, as do poverty or wealth, perhaps there is a problem within the trade
unions.
|
| 219. Hence the export processing zones are very
often anti-union zones as well. Governments are fully aware of this and boast
in their publicity brochures of the union-free environment, thereby recognising
that they are violating the international conventions of the ILO that many of
them have ratified.
| 219. The ICFTU has not mentioned "export processing zones" for
many paragraphs, but suddenly arrives at this completely unsupported
conclusion. Their argument is evidently with the governments concerned.
|
| #220. During the second international conference on export
processing zones, held in Miami in October 1991, the representative of Panama
distributed brochures which highlighted the limitations imposed on trade union
activities in the zones. Panama hosts the second largest zone in the world, the
Colon zone at the Atlantic end of the canal. Governments bear much of the
responsibility for this antiunion repression. They do not only exonerate
enterprises from paying taxes and customs duties; they also exempt them from
applying the host country's labour legislation.
| 220. Since the 1950s Colon Free Zone, Panama, has been very
successful at warehousing and retailing. Only in the 1980s did it attract a
small number of manufacturing plants -- almost all pioneer industries, some
with imported labor from China.
That Miami, USA, conference was sponsored and
hosted by the Dominican Republic Chamber of Commerce. WEPZA, incidentally, was
hosting its eleventh international conference on export processing zones in
1991 in Cadiz, Spain on Free Zones in the New Europe.
We have already seen that exemption from local
labor regulations is not fundamental to EPZs. Mauritius for example in
paragraph 103.
|