CLR Newsletter #5

In this issue:

• Mexican Community Resists Hyundai
• Nike Campaign
• Trouble in Academia
• 50 Years Forms Labor Caucus
• Stop Sweatshops Act
• Maquiladora Health & Safety News
• Ohio City Opposes Sweatshops
• Bangor Clean Clothes Campaign
• UFW Strawberry Campaign
• Case Farm Campaign
• The President's Task Force
• Phillips-VanHeusen Campaign
• Campaign for Labor Rights Upsizes
• El Salvador
• Labor News From Nicaragua
• Guess Skips The Country
• Disney Campaign

Mexican Community Resists Hyundai

The 5,000 residents of Maclovio Rojas, near Tijuana, live between two sections of a truckparts factory operated by Hyundai Precision America. Hyundai has its eye on Maclovio Rojas, as the company looks to expand operations. Hyundai has gotten a neighboring community to file claims of ownership of the Maclovio Rojas land. Hyundai plans to "purchase" the land from the neighboring community. The land issue, though, is not the primary reason why the company seeks to obliterate this community. There are other, readily available lands nearby onto which Hyundai could expand. At the heart of the dispute is the community's strong support for the rights of maquiladora workers.

In July, Hyundai went into speed-up mode. Managers insisted that safety switches be turned off on machines that make chassis for trucks. Normally, sensors would detect when the switches are off. But managers disconnected the sensors. After a worker lost most of his hand, two workers went to management demanding that they keep the switches on. Those workers were fired. Two more workers lost parts of hands. Two more workers went to management and were fired. Another worker lost fingers. Two more workers went to management and were fired. At that point, 90% of the workforce walked off the job for three hours. Many Maclovio Rojas residents work at Hyundai and other nearby maquilas. When the workers walked out, the community joined their protest march. The next day, community leaders were thrown into jail. Undaunted, the community marched several days across the desert to the district capital where its leaders were being held. A number of people had to be hospitalized for heat prostration. One died. The community won the release of its leaders but not the end of its troubles. Crisis: On February 12, the West Coast edition of the Wall Street Journal carried a front-page story on Maclovio Rojas. Even by standards of the mainstream press, this story was scurrilous. The author stated as a matter of fact that "Subcomandante Hortensia," as he called one leader, is "a key figure in the political wing of Mexico's Zapatista revolutionary army." (The WSJ later was forced to retract that claim.) The article quoted Ted Chung, president of San Diego-based Hyundai Precision America: We want to expand our factory if there's a reasonable timeline and cost. But we always see other opportunities. If the local people or local government can't let us do that, we can very easily change our plans and avoid the hardships. We could leave San Diego and Tijuana.

Simultaneously, rumors circulated that the neighboring community was about to attack. Mary Tong, of the Support Committee for Maquiladora Workers (SCMW, based in San Diego), brought in human rights observers. They let it be known that any attack on this community would generate international shockwaves. A number of unions also support the community.

A sistering of community struggles: An additional group of friends is to be found in Eugene, Oregon, where community activists for more than a year have resisted a $1.3 billion Hyundai plant being constructed by the computer chip division of the Korean conglomerate. When Eugene residents learned that Hyundai was to receive tens of millions in tax write-offs without any public hearings process, they formed Citizens for Public Accountability (CPA). Their concerns grew to include environmental issues and Hyundai's history of repressive tactics against its Korean workers. In January, Mary Tong of SCMW met in Eugene with CPA and other organizations. The Eugene groups hope to convince local Hyundai officials that the company would gain PR points if San Diego Hyundai officials respect the rights of Maclovio Rojas. To find out more about the work of the Support Committee for Maquiladora Workers and to receive their newsletter, contact: (619) 542-0826, SCMW, Craftsmen Hall, 3909 Centre Street, #210, San Diego, CA 92103.

Please sign the following letter and return it to Campaign for Labor Rights. We will bundle your responses together and send them to Hyundai.

Nike Campaign

Nike producing in Haiti:

The GR Press story, written by Mary Ann Sabo, details what has happened since Cutler moved its operations from Michigan to Haiti in recent years. The move created misery for the Michigan workers who lost their jobs. The Haitian workers who now have those jobs also are suffering. Sabo quotes one worker who, after working at Cutler's Haitian operation for five years, makes only 30 cents an hour: ...it's not enough to get by on. It's not enough to eat or send my children to school. Everything I'm trying to do doesn't seem to bring me further in my life.

Recent Nike Actions:

Eugene, Oregon. Activists turned out for a leafleting organized by the Eugene-Springfield Solidarity Network.

Vancouver, British Columbia. East Timor Action Network (ETAN) handed out leaflets emphasizing "Nike's labor practices in the third world while relating this devaluation of human lives to the situation in East Timor, where Suharto is relentlessly pursuing his genocide of the Timorese."

San Francisco. Global Exchange organized actions around the opening of a new Nike Town store. During a Global Exchange press conference two days before the demonstration at the Nike Town opening, San Francisco Labor Council Secretary Walter Johnson called for the AFL-CIO to initiate a national boycott against Nike products until the company begins paying its workers a living wage and treating them according to international labor standards. Medea Benjamin, of Global Exchange, said, "Nike sweatshop workers in Indonesia make $2.20 a day -- well below the livable wage, yet Nike continues to pour money into bloated megastores, into its CEO's $5.2 billion hoard, and on multi-million dollar promotional contracts with rich sports stars."

Happening As We Write:

Andrew Young to review Nike code:

Coming Up:

Trouble in Academia

Editor's note: Whether in the U.S., Canada or El Salvador -- the public sector workforce faces vilification, downsizing and privatization. Attacks on this sector tell us a lot about where the global economy is heading.

When we think about the domestic effects of trade agreements such as NAFTA and GATT, we tend to focus on exportable jobs. The shoe and apparel industry is a classic case. The global economy plays workers off against one another in a race to the bottom. When workers in one place try to stand up for their rights, corporations threaten to relocate to places where wages are lower and governments more repressive.

Public sector jobs are not generally exportable. Public sector workers enjoy better wages and benefits than some of their counterparts in the private sector. They ought to be seen as a positive example of what unions can win for their members. Instead, psuedopopulist "taxpayer revolts," funded by business interests, portray the public sector as a privileged class. Taxpayers are told that shrinking tax bases can no longer support a "bloated bureaucracy." What they are not told is that the tax base was eroded by the departure of industry to the third world and by tax concessions given to the remaining industries. Taxpayers who fall for this propaganda find out too late that the windfall tax cuts resulting from these revolts go only to big business.

It has been 20 months now that United University Professions (UUP) members have continued to work without a new contract. UUP represents the 21,000 faculty and staff who work on the 33 State University of New York (SUNY) campuses. Negotiations are stalled, with the workers united against the state's demands. The Taylor Law prohibits employees of New York State from striking. UUP members continue to work in good faith, obeying the law. On the plus side, the Triborough Act protects public employees when new contract agreements are not reached. It keeps in place the terms and conditions of existing contracts as long as those do not increase salary costs.

In violation of this law, the Governor of New York has withdrawn dental and vision benefits from UUP members and their families and increased the cost of prescription coverage. This was done to pressure UUP into accepting what amount to outsourcing clauses which would effectively do away with tenure and union employees. UUP has filed legal actions against the State of New York concerning the Governor's decision to stop payments to UUP's Benefit Trust Fund. The Governor's actions have been declared illegal by the Albany District Supreme Court and by an Administrative Law Judge following a formal hearing. Despite these rulings, the State continues to appeal. As a result, union members and their dependents continue to be without benefits.

This contract struggle is about busting the union and destroying the public University. UUP will continue to fight budget cuts in order to ensure quality, accessible education for all -- not just the wealthy. UUP will pursue any and all legal actions to get our members' benefits back.

UUP is Local 2190 of NYSUT (New York State United Teachers), AFT, AFL-CIO. UUP is the largest higher education union in the nation, representing 21,000 faculty and staff. UUP has a strong commitment to solidarity work and support of broader labor issues, such as: the Labor Party, Teamsters for a Democratic Union, United Farmworker campaigns, the United Electrical Workers work with the independent FAT union in Mexico, Latin American Solidarity Committee, U.S./Guatemala Labor Education Project, the Staley Workers and the Detroit Newspaper Strike.

For more information and to find out how to support UUP in their struggle, contact Ed Quinn at EQUINN@CCMAIL.SUNYSB.EDU, phone: 516-632-6570, fax: 516-632-6571, 104 Chemistry Building, SUNY Stony Brook, Stony Brook, New York 11794-3475.

50 Years Is Enough Campaign Forms Labor Caucus

Stop Sweatshops Act of 1997

The bill:
A repeat of the 1996 Stop Sweatshops Act, this legislation would make apparel manufacturers and retailers responsible for their contractors' sweatshops. Violations covered by the action would include: nonpayment of wages and paying below the minimum wage.

New Resource

Ohio City Opposes Sweatshops

Whereas the City of North Olmsted has, in an effort to support human rights throughout the world, established a policy of not purchasing, leasing, renting or taking on consignment goods for use or for resale at city-owned enterprises which were produced under sweatshop conditions and Whereas it is the desire of this council to support the right of citizens around the world to work in a safe and healthy workplace at reasonable compensation,

Now therefore be it resolved that the city is prohibited, to the extent possible, from purchasing, leasing, renting or taking on consignment goods for use or for resale at city-owned enterprises which were produced under sweatshop conditions. The administration shall maintain a policy of evaluating suppliers' products concerning the working conditions under which the products are manufactured; and

That the administration is directed to notify the city's suppliers of this policy in writing and to inquire about the working conditions under which their goods are produced. To the extent possible, goods from suppliers who will not state that their products are not made under sweatshop conditions will not be purchased.

Bangor Clean Clothes Campaign (update)

The petition drive got a jumpstart on election day in November, with tabling at each of Bangor's eight polling sites as well as 12 others in adjoining towns. At this point we have about 5,000 signatures. On April 5, we will organize a Stop Sweatshop Stains Day to enlist the energies of the approximately 150 people who have expressed an interest in working with the Clean Clothes Campaign. Meanwhile, we are making presentations to community groups -- to convey the truth behind storeshelf labels and an understanding of our power as united community of consumers. Phase one of the campaign will conclude when we present the petition to the Bangor City Council in May or early June.

There is intrinsic value in a community organizing effort which says that community values outweigh transnational corporate prerogatives. But we hope to use a successful first phase of the campaign to a more practical end as well. We have been working hard to develop a Clean Clothes Pledge which we will invite retailers to honor. Acknowledging that at present neither consumers nor retailers can be sure that merchandise has not been made in sweatshops, the Pledge identifies two first steps that stores can take with the support of the Clean Clothes Campaign to change the situation.

We will ask local vendors to begin developing an inventory section of verified Clean Clothes that can be identified by their customers. This can include clothes from a Fair Trade Federation supplier, clothes with a union label, or clothes verified as Clean by an independent monitor. In addition, we will ask participating stores to respect selected national consumer campaigns, such as those highlighted by the Campaign for Labor Rights.

In return, the Clean Clothes Campaign will work with retailers to identify potential sources of Clean Clothes, provide information about specific items that violate Clean Clothes criteria, and develop means for consumers to pressure their suppliers for ethically produced items. Most important, from a retailer point of view, will be our commitment to commend participating stores to the community at large and to interested consumers in particular. Our ability to induce retailers to view the Clean Clothes Campaign as partners rather than as adversaries will rest on the development and mobilization of a Clean Clothes Consumer Network. Following the petitioning and City Council resolution, it will be collective, focused consumer action which will persuade retailers that taking the Clean Clothes Pledge can afford stores not just moral comfort but also competitive advantage.

Contact the Bangor Clean Clothes Campaign at 128 Main Street, Bangor, ME 04401. (207) 947-4203 e-mail: pica1@hamtel.tds.net

United Farm Workers (UFW) Strawberry Campaign National Mobilization

The workers earn $8,500 a season for sunrise-to-sunset workdays. For just 5 cents more per pint of strawberries, worker payrates could increase by at least 50 percent. Twenty thousand workers pick strawberries in Southern California's growing fields. According to the National Strawberry Commission for Workers' Rights: "These workers labor daily for 10 to 12 hours in slippery, muddy ditches, with chronic back pain and injuries. Over the years, cases have been documented which support claims of sexual harassment, inadequate bathroom facilities, violations of wage and child-labor laws, polluted drinking water for the workers, exposure to pesticides and employer mistreatment toward workers who demonstrate support for the UFW." Since so many of the workers are undocumented immigrants, the bosses have relied on threats and intimidation to keep the union out.

For more information contact the United Farm Workers of America: P.O. Box 62 La Paz, Keene, CA 93531, phone (408) 763-4820, fax (408) 7238-4590.

Case Farms Campaign

Poultry companies should treat workers with respect, pay a living wage, provide fair benefits, ensure safety on the job, guarantee workers' right to organize without fear and negotiate in good faith with workers' elected representatives. Companies that recruit immigrant workers should assist those immigrants with their transition into a new community and country.

Editor's note: For background information, read "The Heartland's Raw Deal: How Meatpacking Is Creating a New Immigrant Underclass" by Marc Cooper in the February 3, 1997 issue of The Nation.

President's Task Force Deadlocked?

The apparel companies in the task force...say factories, whether in New York or New Delhi, should not be considered sweatshops if they pay the local minimum or prevailing wage. The unions and the human rights groups, on the other hand, maintain that such a wage is often too meager to support a family. They say factories should be considered sweatshops unless they pay wages high enough to meet basic needs. If you are wondering how anyone could argue against paying a wage that meets basic needs, you obviously don't have what it takes to be an apparel company representative:

"When you cross the line into what is a living wage, you get into this incredibly murky area," said Robin Lanier, senior vice president for government affairs at the International Mass Retail Association. "You don't have a concrete standard, and you wind up having to fend off charges that you're not supplying a basic wage."

Labor and human rights groups argue that minimum wages, as established by law in many countries, bear little relation to true needs:

"Many third-world countries set minimum wages below subsistence because they are trapped in a competition with each other to attract jobs," said Charles Kernaghan, executive director of the National Labor Committee. "We've unleashed a race to the bottom as countries offer cheap, compliant labor. The basic-needs proposal seeks to set a floor high enough for people to live on."

Supposing that the task force does come out with the basis for a "no sweat" label, what changes can we hope such a label to bring? The strength of all policy work ultimately rests with grassroots activism. A strong policy gives grassroots activists the leverage to embarrass reluctant government officials into doing the right thing. This has been amply demonstrated by the U.S./Guatemala Labor Education Project, which has mobilized grassroots support time and again to keep Guatemala under GSP review and then has used the review status to leverage concessions from Guatemalan government and industry.

It is unfortunate -- shameful, actually -- that Clinton and Reich allowed Nike to participate in the task force when that company has been widely accused of labor rights violations. And Nike has been shamelessly touting its presence on the task force as evidence that it is compassionate, even while Nike's representative on the panel consistently argues for weakening the "no sweat" standards. Let's hope that the standards -- if they ever do emerge -- will give grassroots activists an opportunity to turn the tables on Nike.

Phillips-Van Heusen Campaign

Background: The largely female STECAMOSA union has been seeking contract negotiations with the P-VH factory in Guatemala City since 1992. They launched a new drive for a contract on September 1, l996. Union members have accused P-VH of discrimination and intimidation toward union-affiliated workers.

Update: On February 14, 1997, P-VH backtracked from its November 19, 1996 statement that it would negotiate if it was determined that the union represented 25% of the workforce "pursuant to Guatemalan law." P-VH now says that they will negotiate only if ordered to do so by the Guatemalan Government. The union has been waiting for almost six months for the government to act and could well have to wait much, much longer. A soon-to-be- released report by Human Rights Watch will address the question of whether the union has met the threshold of membership which legally requires the company to negotiate. P-VH already has announced that it refuses to abide by the findings of Human Rights Watch, even though P-VH CEO Bruce Klatsky sits on that organization's board.

To receive an organizing kit (or to update the materials in your current kit), contact the U.S./Guatemala Labor Education Project: 773-262-6502, usglep@igc.apc.org or P.O. Box 268-290, Chicago, IL 60626. ($5 donation for the materials requested if possible)

El Salvador: privatization and public sector struggles

El Salvador Government Hopes to Privatize Phone Company

Privatization is one of the big issues in the El Salvador legislative assembly elections slated for March 16. If the government of Calderon Sol goes through with its plans, workers in privatized state industries will face busting of their unions and downsizing.

Those hoping to cash in big on privatization are eyeing the phone and electric utilities and the state pension funds. Proposals for privatizing the latter are like the most extreme Social Security privatization proposals in the U.S. The pension proposal would triple the cost to workers and employers in the private sector while fund managers would make out like bandits. To find out how you can work with CISPES to promote worker rights in El Salvador, call the CISPES national office at 212-229-1290.

Treasury Workers Fired Illegally

The LDN mobilized in January on an alert from the International Solidarity Center (CIS) in San Salvador regarding the unlawful dismissal of 39 workers from the Salvadoran Treasury Department. Eighteen of the 39 fired workers are women, one of them pregnant, and another the legal representative of the Civil Service Commission.

CIS informs us that the dismissals were a direct violation of an agreement reached between the Treasury Department Administration and the Association of Treasury Department Workers in September which guaranteed their positions for six months. The Department's administration has thus far refused to talk with the union. Union president Salomon Cullar Chavez reports that for the last year the administration has been systematically attacking divisions of the ministry in which the union is most active.

To join LDN and have faxes and other actions sent out in your name, write to Labor Defense Network, 1470 Irving Street, NW, Washington, DC 20010. Send $25 to prepay for 6 messages, $50 for 12 messages or ask to be post-billed $6 for each message.

Campaign for Labor Rights Upsizes

Labor News from Nicaragua

Fortex Union Recognition Slips Away

On December 18, in response to an alert from Witness for Peace, the Labor Defense Network mobilized its membership to demand that the Nicaraguan Labor Ministry recognize the Fortex workers' union, a step which would make it the first plant in the Las Mercedes Free Trade Zone near Managua to have official union representation. As negotiations stalled over the New Year's holiday, the LDN again faxed the Minister of Labor on January 2. On January 3, word came from Pedro Ortega, of the Federation of Textile, Shoe and Garment Workers of the Sandinista Workers Central (CST), that the Minister had granted the union the formal recognition it had petitioned for. The official signing of Las Merecedes's fist union contract was scheduled for February 17.

President Alemán's new Labor Minister, Wilfredo Navarro, has unexpectedly reneged on the understanding reached with the Fortex workers and is insisting, at the behest of the factory's Taiwanese owners, that they consent to having their organization designated as a "technical labor commission" rather than a union. The free trade zone management says it wants the designation changed because foreign -- primarily U.S. --investors and contractors are unwilling to work with any zones where unions are present and that in fact some of the contracts won by Nicaraguan maquilas have been shifted from El Salvador precisely because of increasing unionization there.

The 250 Fortex workers know, however, that the change in designation is not just a harmless matter of semantics. Only official unions are granted full rights and protections under Nicaragua's Labor Code. A "technical labor commission" would have no more guarantee of serving as an effective voice for Fortex's workers than the clandestine commission that initially petitioned the Labor Ministry for formal recognition.

In cooperation with Witness for Peace and the Nicaragua Network, LDN continues to mobilize in support of the Fortex workers.

Maquiladoras Slated as Nicaragua's Growth Industry

Indeed many are so desperate that hundreds of people lined up, some from as early as 4:00 am, outside the offices of the Vice President during inauguration ceremonies for the new Office of Social Communication after the official announcement of a new Government Employment Program. They went away disappointed. Such jobs as might be created will be facilitated by the private sector, not the government, and even then, not for another one to seven months. First, the government will take job applications. Then it will create a data bank of applicants. Businesses in construction, tourism and agriculture will handle the hiring. Why these businesses need a government data bank of people seeking employment, when 60% of all people are looking for work, was not explained.

Guess Skips the Country

Disney Campaign: National Labor Committee keeps up the pressure

Inside, an anti-sweatshop shareholder resolution presented by the United Methodist Church pension fund received 8.5% of the votes, far more than the 3% needed for the resolution to be reintroduced next year.

Disney management announced at the stockholders meeting that they had adopted a code of conduct for contractors. It supposedly includes freedom of association (the right to unionize) but not a living wage or independent monitoring (they will use an auditor). So far, however, the company has refused to release the code (except to select stockholders). The National Labor Committee is asking people to call Disney -- at (818) 560-1000 -- to request a copy of their code of conduct for manufacturers. NLC also asks that activists invite Disney to send a representative to explain their labor practices.

Besides continued leafleting at Disney outlets, activists are requested to: leaflet at the Disney Show on Ice, which is still appearing in some cities, and at showings of 101 Dalmatians and at the new Disney film, Jungle 2 Jungle.

The campaign has posted one victory: Public outcry forced Disney to pull all its production out of Burma.

For a Disney Campaign Action Packet contact the National Labor Committee at 275 7th Avenue, New York,NY 10001, phone 212-232-3002, fax 212-242-3821.

Disney Labor Abusesin Indonesia and China

In Indonesia, Dateline found underage workers making Disney stuffed animals -- 101 Dalmatians, Lion King, Pooh. Some of the workers appeared to be 12 years old. Some were paid only 21 cents an hour. The minimum wage is 25 cents an hour, already below subsistence levels. Dateline filmed teenage girls forced to work 12-hour shifts with "outdated equipment, exposed electrical wires, locked fire exits."

In China's Xiangjiang Province, Dateline reported: "Here, all-night factories churn out one of every two toys sold in America. Here more than a million migrant female workers eat, sleep and work in factory compounds for just over a dollar a day." They found, young women working 12-hour shifts. At 25 years old, the workers are fired, used up.

In a factory producing action figures, like Spiderman, Dateline saw "workers subjected to stifling fumes without protective masks or gloves." They saw young workers whose faces were ravaged with eczema caused by constant exposure to solvents. One woman's hair had fallen out.

Editor's note: For background information, read "Barbie's Betrayal: The Toy Industry's Broken Workers" by Eyal Press in the December 30, 1996 issue of The Nation.

Campaign for Labor Rights Advisory Board:

Laurence Birns, Director Council on Hemispheric Affairs

Noam Chomsky, Professor of Linguistics, MIT

Stephen Coats, Executive Director-U.S./Guatemala Labor Education Project

Gary Cozette, Director-Chicago Religious Leadership Network on Latin America

Maureen Fiedler, S.L., Co-Director-Catholics Speak Out/Quixote Center

Rev. Thomas Gumbleton, Auxiliary Bishop of Detroit

Doug Hellinger, Executive Director-The Development GAP

Dolores C. Huerta, Co-Founder & Sec. Treas.-United Farm Workers of America, AFL-CIO

Pierre LaRame, Executive Director-North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA)

Rt. Rev. Coleman McGehee, Jr., Episcopal Bishop of Michigan (ret.)

Lisa McGowan, Network Coordinator-50 Years Is Enough: U.S. Network for Global Economic Justice

Bob Schwartz, Executive Director-Disarm Education Fund

Mary Tong, Executive Director-Support Committee for Maquiladora Workers

Rev. Lucius Walker, Executive Director-Inter-religious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO)

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