| House unions
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| #241. Psychological pressure is exerted on unionised workers
by, for example, assigning them the most dangerous or lowest paid jobs, and
openly favouring the creation of house unions. According to a report by the
Trade Union Congress of the Philippines, the administrator of the Subic Bay
zone, Richard Gordon, set up a Labour Centre to deal with "all industrial
disputes and the welfare of workers in the zone". It soon became clear to the
workers however that the main aim of the centre was to prevent union organising
in the zone. The zone's guards prevent inspectors from the Labour Ministry from
carrying out independent inquiries and holding private interviews with the
workers. The Labour Centre, notes the TUCP, actively promotes the formation of
house unions.
| 241. Again we see it is not just the right to organize, but
the right to organize only with an organization affiliated with the ICFTU that
the ICFTU wants to protect. We have no idea if the first part of the paragraph
is related to the second.
The Labor Center to deal with industrial
disputes seems to be what was requested earlier for Sabinas and Muzquiz, Mexico
(paragraph 233) where the lack thereof was deplored by ICFTU.
|
| 242. In Central America, Solidarismo, a
movement sponsored by the employers and conservative circles and supported by
the official US development aid agency (USAID), is openly favoured in the
zones. This is particularly the case in Costa Rica where workers belonging to
these associations almost outnumber the trade union membership for the whole
country. A document from the US Labour department shows that 90 percent of
workers from US firms operating in Costa Rica are members of solidarist
associations. The associations, favoured by the country's legislation, also
claim to help workers by involving them in a "profit-sharing" scheme and by
granting them extralegal advantages, but their real objective is to break the
trade unions and prevent collective bargaining.
| 242. In Costa Rica evidently ICFTU is seeing its destiny, and
they are even more blatant that it is only the right to organize in their
approved organizations that concern them. Other labor organizations that
workers join are dismissed.
And again we must point out that this is
entirely unrelated to the worth of EPZs.
|
| 243. A survey published in the ICFTU newspaper,
"Free Labour World", in November, 1992, showed that the advantages offered to
workers, such as loans, consumer goods, canteens, etc. were always lower than
those obtained by trade unions through collective bargaining, and that their
sole purpose was to bind the employee to the enterprise and undermine any
possible opposition.
| 243. If ICFTU means that the workers in state owned,
inefficient domestic producers, had over the years negotiated packages that
will eventually destroy their employers, and cost the economy jobs, we will not
argue. We are certainly not sure that such unsustainable economic action is at
all beneficial. If the trade unions were so good, why are they in decline all
over the industrial world?
|
| 244. "According to the legal adviser of several Costa Rican
trade unions", wrote FLW, the solidarist shops, which were supposed to sell
basic commodities at low prices, could be used to encourage workers to buy
expensive articles on credit, creating direct dependency on the
enterprise."
| 244. ICFTU makes it sound as if this is a "company town" as in
the bad old days of sugar mills and coal mines where workers "owed their soul
to the company store" (Tennessee Ernie Ford song). The pressure is off when
ICFTU says it "could" happen. Here a company provides a
benefit, and all the ICFTU sees is a sinister motive. If it did not provide the
benefit we are sure the ICFTU would find something sinister about that also.
Besides, most EPZs are near cities where price competition prevails and the
company store has no monopoly.
|
| 245. The most blatant intrusion by solidarist associations
into trade union activities is without doubt the signing of agreements directly
between the management and the "permanent committees" controlled by the
solidarists. These agreements replace collective bargaining with the trade
unions and are in general far more favourable to the employer. It is therefore
not unusual for an association to be created shortly before the negotiation of
a new collective agreement. The trade unionists are kicked out and an agreement
is signed with the new association."
| 245. ICFTU can't stand competition. It's unfair! It is no
different when the Executive Committee of a Trade Union signs an
agreement.
|
| 246. Enterprises everywhere play on the divisions and the
corruption of pseudotrade union groups. In March, 1994, for example in Tijuana
(Mexico), say AIFLD, Plasticos Bajacal, an American owned enterprise, signed a
secret agreement with the affiliate of the CROM (Regional confederation of
Mexican workers) in order to prevent the formation of an independent trade
union.
| 246. It's terribly unfair, another workers association that
doesn't pay dues to the ICFTU. Once again, this is not in any way a function of
EPZs.
|
| 247. Mexican legislation only allows for one trade union to
exist in an enterprise. The workers asked another organisation, the COR, to
represent them and obliged the management to organise an election. Before the
vote, however, the management called the workers in, in small groups, to tell
them that if they voted for the COR they would lose their jobs. The day of the
elections, by a show of hands, a photographer was present, hired by the
management.
| 247. Irrelevant anecdote, somewhat incomplete.
|
| 248. Enterprises are sometimes prepared to enter into virtual
warfare to prevent unions organising in their company. In the Dominican
Republic, the Hanchang textile company immediately adopted antiunion practices
when it was confronted with the creation on 7 February 1995 of a trade union
committee. Blackmail, attempted corruption, discrimination, isolation of trade
unionists, dismissal of workers who are in favour of the union: the whole
arsenal of union busting tactics was used. On 9 March, exactly seven hours
after the official announcement of the formation of the union, the enterprise
sacked all its founding members.
| 248. Why is this such a revelation? The Unions have been
staging a war against the enterprises for years. Given the rabid language and
tone of this article, and a demonstrated inability to allow fact to influence
opinion, few people would choose to be subjected to such dysfunctional abuse.
Please also see paragraph 265 and
266 for the union use of such words as
"battle fought" and "victory" in describing how the union acts.
|
| 249. Some enterprises use violence to get their way. Death
threats against trade union activists are not unusual and the employers have no
scruples about using security guards who act as a veritable militia. In August
1994, in Honduras, during a dispute at the King Star company in the Buffalo
Park, fifty guards with batons and tear gas attacked workers protesting
peacefully against the management. "Hit them. Kill them if you can," yelled the
head of the security guards. Shots were fired in the air and close to the
workers' feet. Pregnant women were brutally attacked. According to the El
Tiempo newspaper, one of the guards tried to rape one of the women workers
after making her get into a lorry.
| 249. Is Buffalo Park a real EPZ? And, if it is, what did it
have to do with the controversy at the King Star Company?
We are reminded of the efforts of the US
Electrical Workers Union to shut down an entire industrial park of many
industries in Puerto Rico years ago in its controversy with Westinghouse
Company. (See editorial).
|
| We're closing
|
| 250. The enterprises based in the export processing zones are
sometimes nicknamed "companies on wheels" or "swallow" companies, because they
are quick to close down and fly towards more clement skies when they see their
advantages wearing thin, which usually means when it gets harder for them to
exploit their workers. The history of the maquiladoras is strewn with the empty
shells of factories abandoned by their former owners when the workers succeeded
in organising, such as the South Sea Textile factory in the Philippines which
closed after a trade union was formed there or the textile firm Confecciones
Transcontinentales in Guatemala which packed its bags as soon as the creation
of a trade union was announced.
| 250. Which EPZ is ICFTU referring to? See our paragraphs 4 and
100. Pioneer industries leave when rising wages make them
unprofitable. They are usually quickly replaced by more advanced companies in viable EPZs.
The reason is that the workers are usually ready to be trained to higher skills and
productivity to merit the higher pay.
The trade unions obviously had a different agenda than protecting the jobs of their
members. Perhaps their political agenda is also what makes it hard for them to organize.
|
| 251. The ICFTU's survey among its affiliates
shows that this threat is permanent and that workers feel intimidated by it. In
1994, the Dominican Republic daily, Hoy, reported that the director of the
Kunja Knitting Mill, when faced with attempts at organising a union, threatened
to transfer his factory to Mexico, where the company thought it would find more
sympathetic unions.
| 251. (Laughter!) Earlier in this article it was established
that the Mexican wages were twice as high as those in the Dominican Republic.
We suspect an unbiased survey would show that ICFTU union members feel less
secure about their jobs, because it is in the interest of the Union to make
them feel insecure about work and thus dependent on the union.
|
| #252. In 1991, according to an AIFLD document, a
representative of the Westinghouse company said they would rather leave the
Dominican Republic than accept a trade union in their factory. The result of all
this pressure is obvious: the rate of unionisation in the EPZs is extremely
low. In Honduras, in May 1995, of the 45,000 workers employed in the 103
factories in the EPZs, there were only seven trade unions in a position to sign
collective agreements. They were all based in the Puerto Cortes zone,
controlled by the government. In private enterprises, all fledgling unions have
been broken by the management, despite legislation which theoretically protects
trade union leaders from management reprisals.
| 252. The government-owned Puerto Cortes Zone located about 50
kilometers from the major city of San Pedro Sula, Honduras, is the original EPZ
of the country. It has a history that is now over 20 years, compared to less
than five at most of the newer private EPZs.
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| Punishment
|
| 253. "The workers are forced to hold a chair over their head
for half an hour or an hour. If they lower it before the time is up, they are
suspended from their job. Another punishment consists of forcing them to stand
still like a statue, with their eyes fixed on a point on the wall. When they
are accused of not respecting production quotas, they are punished by being
forced to stay out in the full glare of the sun. Those who chew gum get it in
the face.
| 253. What pointless action. Certainly does not lead to a
productive workforce. A company that engages in such practices will shortly be
out of business. Of course, the ICFTU will then comment about its "footloose"
behavior and lament the loss of jobs.
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| 254. Those who do not work fast enough are hit in the head
with a ruler. The supervisors, armed with big sticks, prowl menacingly through
the workshops. They speak rudely and crudely. The women are humiliated by
managers and trainers and are subjected to constant sexual harassment...
Pregnant women are dismissed without compensation. Holidays are granted at the
will of the employer, children below the legal working age are employed and
contracts are renewed every year to avoid redundancy payments." -- El
Heraldo, 25 February 1994, Honduras.
| 254. Is this El Heraldo original research? Does it
involve an EPZ? We have already seen that most of these statements are
irresponsible, and have found facts from the author himself, which confirm our
view.
|
| C. Part two: A Trade Union
Strategy
|
| 255. "Today we are experiencing a new stage in the long
history of the growth of capitalism. There is no going back. But the future
isn't written down. Capitalism is not a machine running out of control. It
creates its own counter balances that can limit its negative effects: wage
demands that call for greater justice in both the North and the South,
citizens' demands for better economic, social and ecological regulations. Faced
with the logistics of the economic war and the temptation for countries to turn
inwards upon themselves, the real challenge is to give globalisation a positive
meaning". ----- Philippe Fremeaux, editor-in-chief of "Alternatives
Economiques" (Paris)
| 255. What do alleged citizens' demands for social and
ecological regulation have to do with trade unions?
Maybe the mere statement buys Sierra Club
support.
Citizen's demands for jobs might be more to
the point. There is plenty of positive meaning in providing jobs for people all
around the world. And there are more people in the world that need meaningful
jobs than need social and ecological regulation by government.
EPZs are making a tangible contribution today
to job creation. What are unions doing?
|
| 1. At the national level
|
| 256. The trade union movement has not been put off by the
enormous difficulties it must face in order to protect workers in the export
processing zones. The long list of trade union rights violations shows just how
much trade unions are needed. Some economists believe the trade unions have a
decisive role to play in ensuring that the zones do not simply repeat the
pattern of exploitation and dependence of other third world economies. By
organising the workers and demanding decent working conditions, the trade
unions are forcing enterprises to develop their productivity. In this way they
are contributing to the improvement of workers' training programmes and
therefore to the integration of the zones into the national economy.
| 256. ICFTU has missed the target. It has not linked worker
troubles and union troubles to EPZs in 255 paragraphs. It has not proven it can
justify a future role in having anything to say about EPZs that is meaningful
-- after allowing itself to be tied to this sophomoric diatribe. How can it
expect to fool the public about its role in training workers for the future --
and integrating EPZs into the national economy? What national economy? IT'S THE
GLOBAL ECONOMY, STUPID!
This is fun. The ICFTU has spent 255
paragraphs on the subject of why EPZs are bad, and now want to take credit for
their contributions to national development. It may have missed their notice
that in places the EPZs have had the most positive impact the traditional trade
unions have been the weakest.
|
| 257. The situation so far is not encouraging.
Failures have been due not only to employer pressure but also to the weaknesses
of the trade union movement. Training for activists and the elaboration of a
strategy to unite the different organisations should be made priorities. In many
countries, however, the unions are trying to adapt their means of action. The
TUCP of the Philippines, for example, has opened an office at the exit of a
zone to help workers who need assistance. District offices have also been
opened in some zones, such as Bataan and Baguio.
| 257. Aha! It is not workers that ICFTU wishes to train; it is
union activists! Opening district offices at Philippine EPZs costs money --
what good does it do workers? How does the union help workers? Or is it just
trying to help itself?
|
| 258. In Guatemala, trade unionists are organising in the areas
where maquila workers live. The "workers' neighbourhood committees" help create
a greater sense of solidarity, and link workers in the formal and informal
sectors, a crucial aspect for most countries in the third world where the
underground economy often "employs" most of the working population.
| 258. In what EPZs does this occur? EPZs are part of the formal
GLOBAL economy -- not the underground economy that exists because government
fails to cope with poverty.
|
| 259. The case of the Bonahan Apparel company in the Dominican
Republic speaks volumes. In February, 1993, it dismissed all the workers
involved in trade union activities. In May company guards physically beat the
general secretary of the union Fabia Rosario off the premises when she tried to
help a colleague who was feeling ill. In January 1995, the enterprise resumed
one of its favourite anti-union measures, separating the union officials from
the other workers to prevent any communication between them, and changed the
machines to make it difficult to increase productivity in order to avoid having
to increase wages. It dismissed the trade union officials protected by the
"fuero sindical" and refused to answer the summonses from the Labour
Minister.
| 259. This is where we hear "the rest of the story" begun in
paragraph 212. Note how history has been
rewritten to make the struggle seem heroic. First all the Union people are
dismissed, but they are still working two years later.
Changing machines to reduce productivity is a
self-defeating tactic. Any management would be delighted to have workers
produce more with the same equipment.
|
| 260. At the end of October 1995, after renewed
attempts at forming a union, the workers decided to stop production. Despite
tear gas attacks by the police and the imprisonment of 18 strike leaders, the
movement grew stronger and on 6 November the management said it was ready to
negotiate in good faith. The workers resumed production. Two weeks later, the
company agreed to sign a contract and to reinstate the trade union leaders it
had dismissed and pay their wage arrears. The new contract set up an
unemployment fund, provided for the payment of overtime, rest periods, meals
and transport.
| 260. Ah - victory! We guess it wasn't the most
reluctant, there are still hundreds of other firms that have not signed
agreements.
|