| 301. Employment practices.
We will only deal with partners where workers
work of their own free well, are not subject to physical risks, receive decent
compensation, have the right to associate freely, and are not exploited in any
way.
| 301.
|
| 302. Moreover, these partners must abide by the following code
of conduct:
| 302.
|
| 303. Wages and benefits
We will only deal with partners who provide
wages and benefits in line with all current legislation or equal to local
practices in the manufacturing or finishing industry. We favour partners who
share our desire to contribute to the improvement of conditions in their
community.
| 303.
|
| 304. Working time
While allowing for flexible working time, we
will identify the local situation in terms of working hours and seek partners
who do not exceed these except by paying for overtime in an appropriate
manner.
| 304.
|
| 305. Child labour
The use of child labour is not acceptable. By
"child" we mean a person under 14 years or below the school leaving age. We
will not use partners who use child labour in any of their plants. We support
the development of legitimate apprenticeship programmes to help train young
people.
| 305.
|
| 306. Disciplinary practices
We will not employ partners who use corporal
punishment or any other form of mental or physical coercion."
| 306. All statements in ICFTU paragraphs 297-306
show that the multinational is a responsible employer, not at all the type of
company portrayed by most of this article. If the ICFTU really cared about the
workers in developing countries they should be extolling the virtues of EPZs
and multinationals, and the benefits they bring.
|
| D. Glossary
|
| 307. Swallow company:
Empresa golondrina, the nickname given to
enterprises situated in the export processing zones because of the ease with
which they can "fly" away from the country to set up their operations elsewhere
or reappear under a different name.
| 307. Nobody in Mexico ever used this term; it
must be an invention of Central America (under Union auspices?).
|
| 308. Maquiladora:
An assembly factory set up within the
framework of the border industrialisation programme introduced by the Mexican
government in 1965. This programme allows for the importation of products
assembled outside the EPZ, with customs tariffs being levied only on the value
added during assembly and not on the total value of the product. This word is
now applied to all assembly enterprises in the EPZs in the Caribbean region and
elsewhere in Latin America.
| 308. Again the confusion between EPZs and
Maquila is evident. The definition is not correct. The customs regulations are
part of the US tariff code not the Mexican customs code, and date back to at
least the mid 1930s. The regulations encourage the use of US workers by
allowing parts produced in the US to be temporarily exported for assembly or
processing into a product in a foreign country and be returned to the US
without being considered of foreign origin. Since they are of US origin it is a
sound customs provision. The value added to the product in the foreign country
is charged duty at the normal rate.
|
| 309. APRO:
Asian and Pacific Regional Organisation
| 309.
|
| 310. ORIT:
InterAmerican Regional Organisation of Workers
| 310.
|
| 311. Relocation: moving to a low wage country the production
of goods destined for export to a country with a high level of purchasing
power
| 311. It means to change location. No overtones implied. But
since ICFTU has given it overtones, how about trying these: "It means to change
to areas within the same country with more skills, a more pleasant life style,
lower taxes or where more appropriate facilities exist."
|
| 312. Newly Industrialised Country (NIC): Those
countries which have recently succeeded in developing their economies or which
are involved in a development strategy usually based on the export of
industrial goods. The list of these countries is fairly disparate and can cover
many different situations. These include the four Asian "dragons" (South Korea,
Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan) and the "tigers" (China, Malaysia, Philippines,
Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Thailand). There are also NICs in Latin America (Chile,
Brazil, Mexico, Dominican Republic) and Africa (Mauritius, Morocco,
Tunisia).
| 312. It is not a coincidence that each of the NIC
countries listed has EPZs, and in all but Brazil they are quite extensive.
Brazil has had a domestic-related free zone at Manaus for some time, but only
recently has it planned to create a large number of EPZs. The improvements in
the lives of people in all these countries are well documented, and show the
fallacy of the ICFTU arguments.
|
THE CORRECT CONCLUSION IS: IF A COUNTRY
WANTS TO BE IN THE NEXT WAVE OF NEWLY INDUSTRIALIZED COUNTRIES, IT SHOULD START
ITS EPZ NOW!
|