Date: 7:13 AM Jun 3, 1995
TO: NLC Contacts
FROM: Charles Kernaghan, Executive Director
National Labor Committee
RE: URGENT ACTION ALERT /
Request for Immediate Solidarity
____________________________________________________
Women maquiladora workers under attack in El Salvador at a plant
producing for J.C. Penney, the GAP, Eddie Bauer and Dayton-Hudson.
At Mandarin International, a Taiwanese-owned plant in El
Salvador where goods are being assembled for export to the U.S.
under contract with major U.S. companies, 850 mostly-women
maquiladora workers are under attack.
Mandarin is located in the San Marcos Free Trade Zone,
which is owned by former Salvadoran Army Colonel Mario Guerrero.
Colonel Guerrero recently explained to foreign visitors that
during the Bush Administration, the U.S. Agency for International
Development (USAID) provided the money to build his zone.
In late January 1995, the women at Mandarin organized a
union--the first union ever established in a free trade zone in El
Salvador. At the time, the Salvadoran government and the
Maquiladora Association pointed to Mandarin as living proof that
workers rights and unions are respected in El Salvador. Reality
proved otherwise.
Mandarin International immediately lashed out at the new
union, at first locking out the workers and then illegally firing
over 150 union members. The company hired two dozen ex-military
plain-clothed, armed "security guards." The women workers were
told their union will have to disappear one way or another, or
"blood will flow."
Groups of five workers at a time are now being brought
before their supervisors and told to renounce the union or be
fired. Union leaders are followed around the plant by company
security guards. At work, the women are forbidden to speak to one
another. Colonel Guerrero himself has told workers at the San
Marcos zone, "I have no problem, but perhaps you do; ...either the
union will behave, leave, or people may die."
These women want their union and they are struggling to
keep it alive, but they are afraid. Along with the threats, the
company is now systematically firing--a few each week--every union
member and sympathizer. They cannot hold out much longer. They
are appealing for solidarity.
The Salvadoran Ministry of Labor, which could be fining
Mandarin $5,700 a day for violating the Labor Code, has done
nothing to reinstate the fired workers or demilitarize the plant.
Mandarin produces clothing for J.C. Penney, GAP, Eddie
Bauer and Dayton-Hudson. These companies have codes of conduct,
which are supposed to govern their offshore operations, but the
workers at Mandarin had never heard of or seen any of these codes.
No codes of conduct are posted in the San Marcos free trade zone.
# # # # # # # # #
Conditions at Mandarin/Why the Workers Are Struggling for a Union:
For eight hours of work at Mandarin, an employee earns
$4.51 for the day, or 56 cents an hour. This comes to $24.79 for
the regular 44-hour work week. However, overtime at Mandarin is
obligatory, and if you do not stay for extra shifts whenever they
demand it, even if it is at the last minute, you are fired the
next day. A typical week includes at least eight hours of
obligatory overtime.
Conveniently for itself, Mandarin pays the workers in cash
in envelopes which do not list regular hours worked or overtime
hours, or at what premium it was paid. This makes it almost
impossible for the young workers to keep track of whether they are
receiving proper pay.
The Mandarin plant is hot and the workers complain of
constant respiratory problems caused by dust and lint. There is
no purified drinking water, and what comes out of the tap is
contaminated and has caused illnesses. The bathrooms are locked
and you have to ask permission to use them--limited to twice a
day--or you are "written up" and fired after three such
sanctions.
Talking is prohibited during working hours. The women say
the piece-rate quota for the day is very high, making the work
pace relentless. The supervisors scream at the workers to go
faster. The women told us of being hit, pushed, shoved or having
had the garment they were working on thrown in their face by angry
supervisors.
The workers say that if you are sick, the company still
refuses to grant permission for you to visit the Social Security
health clinic during working hours. Nor does Mandarin pay sick
days. There is no child care center, which is a critical issue
for the women, most of whom are mothers.
Working under these conditions you earn $107.45 a month,
$1,397 for the entire year, if you are paid your Christmas bonus.
These wages provide only 18.1 percent of the cost of living for
the average family of four.
The women say that even by scrimping and eating very
cheaply just to stay alive, meaning going without meat, fish and
often milk, food for a small family of two or three people still
costs over 1,000 colones a month, or $114.29, which is more than
they earn. Rent for three small basic rooms costs around $57 a
month, which they cannot afford. There are other basic expenses
as well. Round-trip bus transportation to and from work can cost
over $6.00 a week. Tuition for primary school costs $8.00 a
month. For a maquiladora worker to eat a simple breakfast and
lunch at work costs approximately $2.50 a day. The wages of the
maquila workers cannot possibly meet their expenses. Many of the
Mandarin workers are forced to live in tin shacks, without water
and often lacking electricity in marginal communities on vacant
land, along roadsides or polluted river banks. Asked if they had
a T.V., a radio, or a refrigerator, the workers laughed. They
could not afford those things, we were told. All the Mandarin
workers can afford to purchase is used clothes shipped in from the
U.S.
It is a myth on the part of the multinationals and their
maquiladora contractors that the cost of living in El Salvador is
so much less than in the United States, that 56 cents an hour is
really not a bad wage. In El Salvador a "Whirlpool" washer costs
$422.26, which is equal to 17 weeks worth of wages for a
maquiladora worker. A refrigerator costs $467.35, or 19 weeks
worth of wages. A queen-sized bed costs $177.85 on sale, or more
than seven weeks of wages. A maquiladora worker would have to work
three and a quarter hours to afford a quarter-pound cheeseburger,
which costs $1.82. A two pound box of Pilsbury pancake mix costs
$2.67, or nearly five hours of wages.
We asked mothers, now that they are working in the
maquiladoras, if their children were better off. They told us no,
that with their wages they simply could not afford the right food
for their children. In Honduras and the Dominican Republic there
is growing evidence that malnutrition is rising among the children
of maquiladora workers.
How the Maquiladora System Works:
Mandarin sews women's 3/4 sleeve T-shirts for the GAP,
which had $3.6 billion in sales last year and made over $300
million in profits. The GAP T-shirts made at Mandarin sell for
$20 each in the U.S.
A production line of 40 workers at Mandarin produces 1,500
GAP T-shirts a day. These T-shirts sell for $30,000 in the
U.S. ($20 x 1,500). The 40 Mandarin workers who make these
1,500 T-shirts earn, collectively, $180.23 for the day (40 x
$4.50/day wages). This means that the Mandarin workers earn .6
percent, or just a little more than one-half of one percent of the
sales price of the GAP shirt they make. What happens to the other
99.4 percent?
Under the U.S. government's Caribbean Basin Initiative
trade and aid benefits, maquiladora exports from El Salvador to
the U.S. grew by an amazing 3800 percent between 1985 and 1994,
increasing from $10.2 million to $398 million. The number of
maquiladora workers producing for the U.S. market increased
14-fold, from 3,500 to 50,000. At the same time, the real wages
of the maquiladora workers were slashed 53 percent--to the current
56 cents an hour or $4.50 a day, which provides only 18 percent of
a family's basic needs.
This is what trade benefits look like from the perspective
of the maquiladora worker on the ground. This is what happens
when worker rights are divorced from trade and denied in reality.
>From the perspective of the GAP however, it means the system is
working fine.
Mandarin and Its Young Workers:
What kind of a company is Mandarin? Child labor came into
focus as an issue toward the end of 1994, following the release of
a U.S. Labor Department study and a Senate Hearing, where the
National Labor Committee showed a short film documenting child
labor in Honduran maquiladoras producing for the U.S. In
February 1995, afraid it might get caught, Mandarin summarily
fired at least 100 minors between 14 and 17 years old who had been
illegally hired. In El Salvador, minors can work only with
special authorization from the Labor Ministry, and even then they
cannot work more than seven hours a day. Mandarin, of course,
worked the minors like everyone else, including forcing them to
work overtime. Given that the average work week was
52 hours at Mandarin, this means that the minors were illegally
forced to work 17 hours a week more than they should have by law.
(7 hours x 5 days = 35; 52 - 35 = 17).
Mandarin, J.C. Penney, the Gap, Eddie Bauer and
Dayton-Hudson have the responsibility to pay these fired minors
back wages in the form of overtime payments to compensate them for
the 17 hours a week they were forced to work illegally.
It is also interesting to note the absence of the
Salvadoran Labor Ministry here as well. Even when it comes to
monitoring and protecting child labor, the Ministry is nowhere to
be found. It would be worthwhile to ask to see the Ministry's
records on Mandarin.
There Are No Labor Rights in El Salvador:
Any attempt to organize in the booming maquiladora sector
in El Salvador must be clandestine. The mere mention of a union,
even the suspicion of interest, will get you fired.
Between 1992 and 1994, maquiladora exports from El
Salvador to the U.S. leapt nearly 2.5-fold, growing from
$166 million to $398 million. The number of maquiladora plants
soared 73 percent from 120 in April 1992, employing 30,000, to 208
assembly companies by December 1994, employing 50,000. The most
recent figures show that the surge is continuing. A comparison of
January and February 1994 with the same two months of this year
shows maquiladora exports from El Salvador to the U.S. increasing
60 percent--a growth rate faster than any other country in the
region.
During this same boom period over the last three years,
the International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates that at least
1,000 workers have been illegally fired in El Salvador for trying
to organize in the maquilas. In a devastating report on El
Salvador released at the end of April 1995, the ILO concludes:
"...to speak of union freedoms and the right of unionization in
the maquiladora enterprises is impossible, quite simply because
such rights do not exist..." This comes on top of an April 6 ILO
condemnation of El Salvador for permitting systematic and grave
abuses of worker rights, including assassinations, beatings,
arrests, and illegal firings for union activity.
The history of worker rights violations at Mandarin fits
the above to a "t."
A History of Repression at Mandarin:
In November 1993, the maquiladora workers at Mandarin
formed a local union. The minute the company was notified that
the Ministry of Labor had granted legal status to a union at its
plant, management illegally fired 100 workers, including the
entire leadership of the new union. When the workers fought this,
the Ministry of Labor said it could not help, and that they would
have to turn to the courts (where such a case would drag out for
at least two years). Mandarin then told the fired workers point
blank to accept the firings, take your severance pay and clear
out, or else you will be blacklisted and never again work in the
maquila.
This fits in with what we were told in August 1992, during
a National Labor Committee/60 Minutes investigation in El
Salvador. Posing as potential investors, we met with John
Sullivan, who directed USAID's private sector program in El
Salvador during the Bush Administration. Sullivan told us we
would not have to worry about unions in the free trade zones,
since zone management used a computerized blacklist to prevent the
unions from penetrating the zones.
Sullivan also told us that we could make a lot of money in
El Salvador, where there were world class wages, about 40 cents an
hour. If we put our workers on piece-rate and raised the
production quota we could make even more money. Further, Sullivan
encouraged us to fire our workers every year--keeping them on a
year to year contract--rather than allow severance benefits to
build up. Lastly, the USAID official suggested we form a
Solidarista Association--a phony company union--which would help
increase our security from disturbances. As we shall see,
Mandarin did all these things.
Repression at Mandarin Worsens:
Facing such repression, it was not until January 1995 that
the workers at Mandarin were able to reorganize their union--the
Union of Workers of the Mandarin International Company (SETMI).
The union was organized by the Democratic Workers Central (CTD),
which maintains fraternal relations with the AFL-CIO. When the
Ministry of Labor granted SETMI legal status, it became the first
union ever recognized in a free trade zone in El Salvador.
The Minister of Labor told union leaders that he would see
to it that the union was accepted without delay by the Mandarin
company. This was a time of considerable pressure on labor
ministries across Central America and the Caribbean to demonstrate
concrete advances in the respect for worker rights. In October
1994, the National Labor Committee was able to delay U.S.
Congressional approval of $160 million a year in increased tariff
benefits to maquila companies across the region until worker
rights conditions improved.
However, despite promises from the Labor Minister, when
the company was notified on February 7 that a legal union had been
established at Mandarin, it responded by locking out all 850
workers the next day.
Mandarin representatives said that they would rather fire
all of the workers than accept a union. The workers refused to
leave the industrial park and spent that day and night camped out
in front of the factory. On the following morning, February 9,
one of the San Marcos Free Trade Zone administrators, Ernesto
Aguilar, and several security guards attacked and beat a number of
the women. Aguilar punched one woman in the face several times
until she was bleeding badly.
An emergency commission was formed to mediate a resolution
to the crisis, made up of National Assembly deputies, United
Nations delegates, representatives of the Human Rights Ombudsman's
Office, several Labor Ministry officials--including Inspector
General Doctor Guillermo Palma Duran--as well as union officials
and Mandarin management. At 6 p.m., February 9, an agreement was
reached, and signed, by all of the participants.
Mandarin committed itself in writing to end the lock-out,
to strictly comply with the Salvadoran Labor Code from this point
forward, to recognize the union, and to continue negotiations to
reach a collective contract. The company also stated that there
would be no reprisals against union members.
Between the day Mandarin signed the agreement, along with
officials from the Labor Ministry, and today, Mandarin has
illegally fired over 150 union members, in a systematic campaign
to destroy the union and spread fear among the workers. The
agreement Mandarin signed was not worth the paper it was written
on.
The Ministry of Labor could be fining Mandarin $5,700 a
day for violating the country's labor code, but for lack of power
or will, nothing has been done.
Colonel Guerrero has responded to the workers' attempt to
organize to defend their basic rights by "militarizing"
his San Marcos Free Trade Zone. Colonel Guerrero hired
ex-military people both as zone administrators and armed security
guards. One of his administrators, Colonel Amaya, told the women
at Mandarin that every single union affiliate at the plant will be
fired until the union disappears, which is exactly what is
happening. As has already been pointed out, over 150 union
members have already been illegally fired, including the entire
union leadership--something which is clearly prohibited by the
Salvadoran Labor Code.
Five at a time, workers are being brought into
management's offices and told to renounce the union or be fired.
Mandarin has brought in nearly two dozen ex-military to
act either as plain-clothed, armed security guards, or to pose as
mechanics so that they can spy on the workers. Armed guards are
posted at all four Mandarin entrances. Whenever union leaders
must move about the plant, armed company security guards follow
them. If workers are seen speaking to a union leader, the guards
immediately intervene. During working hours, the workers are not
allowed to speak to each other.
Colonel Amaya, along with the security guards, have told
the women workers that "blood will run" if the union does not
leave Mandarin and the San Marcos Zone.
The union leaders fear that even their homes are at times
under surveillance. On April 25, Mandarin's Chief of Production,
Liou Shean Jyh, along with his bodyguard and two other company
staff, went to the home of union leader Alonso Gil Moreno. When
he refused to let them enter his home, they pushed the door open.
Their message was simple: renounce the union. They also offered
him a bribe.
Mandarin was worried that despite the systematic
repression and threats, the union continued to grow. Even under
these conditions, 300 workers had signed up to affiliate to the
union. It was clear, that if it were not for the fear of losing
one's job, the overwhelming majority of the 850 workers would side
with the union. The union was asking for a secret ballot to
determine support for their union.
Mandarin's response has been to step up the pace of the
firings, and to demand that workers join Mandarin's Solidarista
Association, or lose their job.
The union was about to be destroyed.
The Workers Fight Back
The U.S. State Department's latest "Country Reports on
Human Rights Practices for 1994" (released in February 1995)
observes that in El Salvador's maquiladora sector there are both
documented cases of the illegal firing of union organizers and of
physical abuse being used in the maquiladoras. In the face of
these abuses, the State Department concludes: "[Salvadoran]
Government actions against violations have been ineffective, in
part because of an inefficient legal system and in part because of
fear of losing the factories to other countries." Nor can the
workers turn to the Ministry of Labor for protection. According
to the State Department report: "The Ministry [of Labor] has very
limited powers to enforce compliance, and has suffered cutbacks in
resources to carry out certification and inspection duties, which
curb its effectiveness."
The ILO report, mentioned earlier, found the Labor
Ministry to be so underfunded and its staff so poorly paid that,
"this precarious situation in terms of human and financial
resources is the best guarantee that not even legally recognized
labor rights in the area of union freedom are applied in the
companies."
Indeed, the National Labor Committee has obtained a U.S.
government study which concludes that labor ministries, the
systems of labor inspectors and labor courts across Central
America and the Caribbean are so underfunded, poorly equipped,
inadequately trained and with such poorly paid staff that these
structures cannot possibly protect or uphold the fundamental
worker rights of their people.
The report notes that across the region, "with high rates
of unemployment, labor inspection all but absent and without
unions to protest in-plant infractions, other workers rights
dealing with maximum hours, health and safety and women--and child
labor, etc. have little or no chance of effective enforcement
and...are in fact being widely violated."
The multinational corporations and their maquiladora
partners say that El Salvador's new Labor Code is sufficient to
protect the maquiladora workers. They use this as an argument
against the need for attaching worker rights provisions to trade
agreements.
The U.S. government study takes a more realistic view,
concluding, "viewed against this back-drop of minimal enforcement
of labor laws, the question of labor codes in the region...is
almost moot."
As of Monday, May 15, Mandarin had fired around 100 union
members. Every day more unionists were being systematically
dismissed. Mandarin was picking up the pace in its campaign to
wipe out the shrinking union.
On Monday, May 15, at 9:30 A.M., the union called a work
stoppage to protest the mass of illegal firings. As the union
leaders stood up to announce the work stoppage, company goons
moved in and attacked the union leaders. At one point seven
company guards were punching and kicking Dolores Ochoa. They
broke her leg. Marta Rivas and Esmeralda Hernandez were also
beaten. Elisio Castro Perez, General Secretary of the SETMI
union, was beaten and detained for several hours by company
security guards.
Once again, Mandarin responded by locking out all 850
employees, and firing 50 more union members, including the union's
entire leadership. Another commission was formed and another
agreement was reached with the company. At 8 P.M. Monday evening,
Mandarin committed itself to reopen the plant the next morning and
to reinstate all of the fired workers.
As in the past, this agreement turned out to be worthless.
When the fired workers showed up on Tuesday morning, May 16, the
armed guards refused to let them enter the plant. When the union
protested, the guards again roughed up the women.
At this moment, the union workers and their supporters--a
majority of workers--have stopped working and left the plant to
stand in solidarity with their fired sisters and brothers.
The workers are desperate and they are asking for our
solidarity.
The Workers' Demands:
The fired workers want their jobs back and they want their
union and they want their security guaranteed. They specifically
seek:
(1) The immediate reinstatement, with back pay, of all
fired workers;
(2) The demilitarization of the Mandarin plant
and the San Marcos Free Trade Zone, which means removing the armed
security guards;
(3) End completely the firings, the
repression, the threats being directed against union affiliates
and their supporters;
(4) Mandarin's strict compliance with the Labor Code,
including the union's right to organize free of company
reprisals;
(5) That Mandarin negotiate in good faith a collective
contract with the SETMI union.
>From: National Labor Committee
15 Union Square New York, NY 10003 212-242-0700 (ext. 575)
212-255-7230 (fax)
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