CLR Newsletter #25

Sept-Oct 1999 -- Web Edition

In this issue:

• Student Activists Plan Fall Escalation
• Nicaragua: Union Leaders Fired
• Guestworker Legislation
• Phillips-Van Heusen Union ends six-month vigil; buyer then steps forward; new worker committee forming
• Dita Sari Released
• Manufacturing a Crisis: The politics of food aid in Indonesia
• Han Young Strike
• Labor Defense Network
• Gap

by Sue Vilbrandt, South Central Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, and Thomas Wheatley, University of Wisconsin - Madison

"The potential here to impact the global economy is simply astounding," reflected University of Wisconsin student Molly McGrath, commenting on the recent upsurge in student labor activism on the nation's college campuses. Today, new alliances are forming in the battle to fight sweatshops and the energy is building on college campuses across the country.

McGrath's remarks came as TV network cameras lined up to film a protest at the Department of Labor which kicked off the national organizing conference held by United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) July 9-11, at the George Meany Center for Labor Studies just outside Washington, DC.

Over 200 students representing 80 colleges and universities and 30 separate organizations in the U.S. and Canada convened to build on a number of successes last spring when students turned the tables on the $3 billion industry that produces clothing bearing school logos.

"The fact of the matter is that we are taking on only the small portion of the apparel industry that we have control over -- the college clothing market. But we've been so successful in changing the terms of the debate that the industry as a whole is quaking in its boots," said Lindsay Norman, a student at the University of Arkansas. "Now we're set to spring-board off our tremendous victories from the spring and take this campaign to a whole new level."

The presence of organized labor, religious and human rights groups at the USAS conference clearly demonstrated high expectations for the potential the new movement brings. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney chatted with students at the 2-day pre-conference. Kate Pfordresher of the People of Faith Network reported that the United Church of Christ, representing its 1.4 million members, recently took a position opposing the FLA. And a number of active NGOs including Campaign for Labor Rights helped train students and teach them about the intricacies of the global sweatshop economy.

Origins of the Upswell

The realization that colleges and universities were profiting from sweatshop labor sparked a wave of sit-ins beginning at Duke and Georgetown universities early this year. There, school administrators conceded to students a demand to require public disclosure of factory locations where school apparel is produced. Student organizers believe that public disclosure will make it possible to learn the truth about overseas factory conditions by working with independent human rights and religious groups based in those countries.

Another victory followed a four day sit-in at the University of Wisconsin - Madison last February and raised the bar, putting the living wage and rights for women into a code of conduct for UW licensees. Administrators buckled when the sit-in peaked at over 100 participants and threats of a hunger strike loomed. Shortly after, similar victories were won at Michigan, North Carolina and Arizona universities.

It wasn't long, however, before students realized that corporations were positioning to regain control from students through the Clinton Administration-supported Fair Labor Association (FLA). The FLA is an apparel factory monitoring organization formed to combat sweatshop abuses that tarnished the images of Kathy Lee Gifford, Wal-Mart, Nike and others. The early stages of the FLA's genesis brought the apparel industry to the table with unions, and religious and human rights groups. But organized labor and the religious groups walked out when an industry-controlled monitoring scheme was released on the eve of the November 1998 election.

Under pressure from students and running for cover, over 100 schools have been lured into the Fair Labor Association over the last few months. But students at the USAS conference redoubled their efforts to win dramatic improvements in the FLA and gathered with unions and NGOs to finish up an alternative monitoring system of their own.

An Evolving Philosophy

Seeking guidance from the workers themselves, USAS, with the help of the National Labor Committee, sent a delegation to meet with the young women who sew clothing in the maquilas (assembly factories producing for export) of Honduras and El Salvador last April. They found universal and "scientific" repression of workers' rights, and factory owners who could easily subvert monitoring by U.S. companies seeking to improve their image. Moreover, the delegation's findings blew wide holes in the validity of the monitoring system being set up within the FLA.

USAS has strong criticisms of what it calls the "FLA-W," the "Fair Labor Association Whitewash," saying the FLA monitoring system does nothing to empower workers, notifies factories in advance of site visits, provides no sanctions for "bad actors" and keeps its reporting secret. Overall, the FLA serves the interests of the apparel industry -- not the workers, they say. "We really need to concentrate our efforts on opening up a space for workers to organize unions and advocate on their own behalf," remarked University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill student, Marion Traub-Werner. [ Marion Traub-Werner is a member of the Campaign for Labor Rights steering committee. ] "The so-called Fair Labor Association will only stifle the efforts of workers to improve conditions by putting a public stamp of approval on the very system that fosters sweatshops."

By the end of the 5-day conference, students agreed on an action plan designed to take their efforts to a new level and turn up the heat on college campuses in the fall. Students plan to carry through with their emphasis on the key principles for codes of conduct governing the relationship between their universities and the apparel corporations making college clothing. Chief among these is what students call the "full public disclosure" of the names and locations of factories producing university-logo apparel.

As long as corporations like Nike and Reebok are allowed to keep factory locations hidden, sweatshops will fester and proliferate, stated Jeremy Blasi of the University of California - Berkeley. Other essential Code provisions include a living wage, women's rights and the right to organize. Students will press their universities to verify that college apparel is produced under conditions that adhere to the provisions of the code of conduct.

In the event that schools within the FLA cannot win these provisions as well as substantial improvements to the monitoring system, USAS plans to advance its own alternative monitoring system and pressure schools to pull away. The alternative plan under development with other human rights groups and labor unions would back up basic worker rights with a transparent verification system free of influence by the apparel industry. Moreover, given that conditions vary from country to country, students and their allies in the labor and religious communities are advocating a system that does not impose a one-size-fits-all monitoring scheme.

Armed with new ideas for direct action tactics, media savvy, coalition building skills and a new organization structure that emphasizes building a diverse grassroots movement, USAS is well on its way. The next year should give a good indication whether USAS has sewn the seeds for an historic beginning for a new internationalized student / labor movement ready to take on a position of power.

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[ This report was prepared the Nicaragua Network: nicanet@afgj.org, (202) 544-9355 and includes information provided by Witness for Peace: witness@w4peace.org, (202) 544-1187 and the National Labor Committee: nlc@nlcnet.org, (212) 242-3002. NOTE: At press time, events were in flux at Chih Hsing. Contact the Nicaragua Network for an update. ]

Campaign for Labor Rights, the Labor Defense Network and other solidarity organizations mobilized in response to a request from workers at the Taiwanese-owned Chih Hsing factory in Nicaragua's Las Mercedes Free Trade Zone, who have organized a union in the factory.

The workers demand the reinstatement of fired union officers and recognition of their freedom to organize. The 800 workers at the factory carried out a four-day strike in late July after twelve union leaders were fired by management. Over 1400 workers at the Chentex factory, owned by the same company which owns Chih Hsing, held a brief sympathy strike last week as well. [ As a result of an earlier struggle supported by Campaign for Labor Rights, the union at Chentex has a bargained contract. ]

The Nicaraguan Ministry of Labor issued a ministerial resolution ordering the company to reinstate the first four fired workers but the company has appealed the resolution. On July 28, the company and all 12 fired workers agreed on a truce until the Labor Ministry decides on the company's appeal.

The new union at the Chih Hsing factory was formally organized under the auspices of the CST (Sandinista Workers' Central) on July 16. Sixty workers signed up as members, substantially more than the 20 members required by law to form a union. Ten union officers were elected.

On July 20, the petition for legal recognition of the union was filed with the Ministry of Labor and the union was recognized that day. That same day, the company fired the first workers. In protest, the other workers turned off their machines in a peaceful work stoppage.

On the morning of July 21, the workers came to work and continued the strike, staying at their work stations with their machines turned off. That afternoon the Labor Ministry declared the strike illegal because the workers had not submitted a petition to the Ministry explaining why they were on strike and what their demands were. According to Nicaraguan law, if a strike is declared illegal, workers have 48 hours to return to work before they can be fired.

On Thursday morning workers arrived to find the names of more fired workers tacked to the door of the factory. The total had risen to twelve. Factory management distributed the list of fired workers to all the other factories in the Las Mercedes Free Trade Zone. The workers would be blacklisted and prevented from ever working again in any of the 16 factories in the zone. The workers say that the firing is illegal because, under Nicaraguan law, if a union is legally recognized by the Ministry of Labor, its members cannot be fired for 90 days afterward.

On Monday, July 26, the workers returned to work, thus complying with the 48-hour limit given by the Ministry of Labor. On July 28, Lucas Wei Huang, manager of the factory, promised the Ministry that the company would respect its decision on the case.

Workers at the Chih Hsing factory make only about 11 cents for every $14.99 pair of Arizona Jeans they sew for JC Penney, averaging between 24 and 27 cents per hour. They often are required to work 70 hours a week and are cheated on their overtime pay. Workers are routinely denied permission to use the Social Security health clinic, though money is deducted from their wages for this service. Pregnant women are fired in an effort to avoid paying maternity benefits.

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[ Information provided by PCUN (Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste -- Northwest Treeplanters and Farmworkers United): farmworkerunion@pcun.org, (503) 982-0243. ]

In recent years, Senators friendly to agribusiness interests have been pushing for "guestworker" legislation which would re-enact the discredited and discontinued "bracero" program. Farmworker unions and their allies oppose guestworker legislation on the grounds that it would flood the farmworker labor market with highly vulnerable, exploited Mexican workers brought here under stipulations making it virtually impossible to join a union.

Agribusiness has fabricated a farmworker labor shortage as an excuse to bust farmworker unions. All of the gains made so far by farmworker unions in the U.S. were won AFTER the discontinuation of the old bracero program. [ See accompanying analysis by Jonathan Brier. ]

Farmworker advocates had been expecting agribusiness allies in the Senate to attach a guestworker rider to an appropriations bill (avoiding public commentary and debate). However, an old Senate rule -- prohibiting such riders to appropriations bills -- was revived. At press time, most major funding bills had already left committee and appeared to be out of reach of the agribusiness lobby.

As a result, the Farm Bureau, the National Council of Agricultural Employers, Senators Gordon Smith (R-OR), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Slade Gorton (R-WA), Larry Craig (R-ID) and others are expected to search out allies in the House of Representatives to push guestworker legislation there.

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Guestworkers: An analysis

by Jonathan Brier

[ Jonathan Brier jkbrier@yahoo.com is research coordinator and field organizer for CAUSA, an Oregon-based coalition for immigrants' rights. NOTE: This article was edited by Campaign for Labor Rights. For the original, complete version, contact the author. ]

Contract labor historically has been used by U.S. agribusiness to oversupply growers' labor needs in order to maintain depressed wage rates for agricultural workers. The Bracero Program, from 1942 to 1964, established a framework in which corporate farm interests could import temporary contract laborers from Mexico under severely exploitative conditions based on fraudulent claims of domestic labor shortages. Founded in response to a field labor shortage brought on by World War II, the program mandated that growers were to calculate how many workers they were lacking, receive certification from the Department of Labor and then abide by standards governing employer participation. Legally, growers could not displace domestic workers through use of the program.

However, in practice, growers got together in associations and decided at what level the prevailing wage would be set for a particular harvest, ran domestic workers off the job site through paltry wages (and often outright intimidation) and then wildly overestimated their "labor shortages" for the coming season. While domestic workers were being replaced, braceros were facing underemployment, bad earnings, deductions from wages, bad food, overcharges, improper records, dangerous work conditions and sometimes violence from employers.

Despite periods of intense work stoppages and strikes among braceros, division between braceros and domestic workers (combined with the transience and vulnerability of the bracero to dismissal) rendered these efforts ineffectual. The program (and its abuses) continued unabated until a broad social movement generated enough political pressure to end it. Ultimately, growers turned to other sources of temporary immigrant labor, including the H-2 program, whose provisions were similar to the easily-circumvented bracero regulations -- until strengthened in 1986.

As part of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, the H-2 program became the H-2A program, and labor standards required for certification were further strengthened. Regardless of their strength on paper, these protective standards are regularly and easily circumvented by guestworker employers.

Recently, Western growers and politicians launched a campaign to expand the H-2A guestworker program (mostly with Mexican workers), predicated on false assumptions about potential widespread labor shortages. Congressional attempts to expand the use -- and roll back the protective provisions -- of the H-2A guestworker program seek to guarantee growers a vulnerable, artificially cheap and unorganized workforce.

Claims of an impending labor shortage were forcefully debunked in a December 1997 General Accounting Office (GAO) study, which concluded that there is no present nor foreseeable future shortage of agricultural workers, and that there is in fact, according to the Department of Labor, a substantial farm labor surplus. Unions contend that growers' predictions of possible worker shortages come at a time when organized farm labor has been winning contracts in California, Oregon, Washington and other major agricultural states, and that such efforts are intended to halt these victories.

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[ Information provided by the U.S./Labor Education in the Americas Project: (773) 262-6502, usglep@igc.org. ]

Since the closing of the Camisas Modernas factory by Philips-Van Heusen (PVH) on December 17 of last year, Campaign for Labor Rights, the Labor Defense Network and other solidarity organizations have mobilized on several occasions in support of the workers.

After maintaining a 24-hour vigil outside the shuttered Phillips-Van Heusen factory in Guatemala for nearly seven months, PVH workers ended their vigil and de facto blockade of the factory on July 8, 1999.

A day later, a prominent Guatemalan representing a set of investors stepped forward to discuss taking over the factory, with the union [ ie, the re-opened factory would have the union ]. At press time, PVH was discussing with the potential buyer the possibility of a resolution in which PVH would maintain a certain level of production and provide other incentives in return for the buyer agreeing to rehire union members and negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement, but there are serious questions whether PVH is sincere in negotiating such a resolution.

Union leaders ending their vigil took their severance pay and in return signed a statement clearly drafted by PVH which represented a full capitulation. Since then, however, other PVH workers met to constitute a new steering committee for the union and to keep alive their drive to reopen the factory. It should become clear soon whether negotiations to reopen the factory under a new buyer / contractor are serious or not.

Previous action suggestions [ leafleting at PVH outlets, sending letters to PVH CEO Bruce Klatsky ] remain valid.

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from the Jakarta [ Indonesia ] Post, July 6

[ Note from Campaign for Labor Rights: In conjunction with last year's decision by the Indonesian government to legalize independent unions, the recent release of this prominent labor rights advocate is a sign of progress in Indonesia. However, there is little evidence that Nike intends to undertake any proactive steps to support the right of freedom of association in its factories in Indonesia or elsewhere. In recent months, Nike representatives refused repeated requests to call publicly for Dita Sari's release. ]

TANGERANG: Jailed labor activist Dita Indah Sari of the Democratic People's Party (PRD) left the women's penitentiary here on Monday after spending two years in prison. The release of Dita, 25, who was sentenced in July 1997 to five years imprisonment under the controversial 1963 Subversion Law, was part of an amnesty granted by President B.J. Habibie in presidential decree number 68 issued on July 2, 1999.

A few steps outside the prison, Dita announced: "My freedom is not [ due to ] the mercy of the government, but a pure political measure." According to her, Habibie's administration was facing mounting criticism from the public, and her release was simply part of the government's efforts to increase its popularity.

Dita, also chairwoman of the Center for Indonesian Workers Struggle, was arrested along with other labor activists in July 1996 for organizing two rallies involving some 10,000 workers from 10 factories in the Tandes industrial estate in southern Surabaya, East Java. The rallies, which called for the minimum wage in Surabaya to be raised from Rp 5,200 to Rp 7,000 per day, ended violently after the military moved in to disperse protesters.

Dita was given a five-year sentence by the Surabaya District Court in 1997 and was soon transferred to the capital. She was found guilty of attempting to subvert the state and topple the government through her activities in Jakarta, Surabaya and other cities.

Dita left the penitentiary on Monday at 12:30 p.m., accompanied by her father Adjidar Ascha and colleagues from local and international non- governmental organizations.

The fifth of six children, Dita is the only member of her family who became involved in politics. Her mother passed away in Jakarta while Dita was being held in prison in Surabaya, and she was not allowed to attend her mother's funeral. "I want to go to my mother's grave," she said about her plans.

She said she would then concentrate her energies on the labor struggle, adding that she had already established a national labor front which was the seed for an Indonesian labor organization. "This (national labor front) is a transitional organization prior to the establishment of a national labor organization," she said. Leaving the penitentiary in a Honda Civic sedan, Dita headed to Menteng Pulo cemetery in Central Jakarta.

Her release caught many off guard because the government had given no prior signals of a possible amnesty for her. Minister of Manpower Fahmi Idris visited Dita last Monday and held a closed-door meeting with her, but did not say anything about the possibility of her being released. Dita quoted Fahmi as saying at the time that the idea of releasing her sparked arguments among government officials.

Dita said it was most likely the Indonesian Military which did not want to see her freed. "If I'm released, they fear fresh labor rallies which, they think, would threaten national stability," she said last week. Dita said her freedom was a gift from God. She also thanked the endless support of her fellow labor activists.

Dita also urged Habibie to release imprisoned activist Budiman Sudjatmiko and East Timorese pro-independence leader Alexander "Xanana" Gusmao.

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Manufacturing a Crisis:

The politics of food aid in Indonesia

[ Note by Campaign for Labor Rights: We are printing this article because it gives important insights into the economic policies which underlie the global sweatshop. Sweatshops, rather than being a means to develop, as claimed by corporate boosters, instead depend upon the prior destruction of what is viable in countries' economies. With one hand, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund mandate that impoverished countries establish free trade sweatshop zones while, with the other hand, the policies and practices of these institutions drive small farmers off the land and drive small businesses into bankruptcy -- thus creating a desperate, hungry mass of unemployed workers willing to take sweatshop jobs, no matter how low the pay or how miserable the conditions. ]

To order the report described in this summary, send a check or money order for $9.00 ($6.00 + $3.00 s/h) to The Institute for Food and Development Policy (Food First), 398 60th Street, Oakland, CA. 94618. California residents add 8.25% sales tax. International orders must be prepaid in U.S. dollars and require an additional $1.00 for shipping. Credit card orders can be made by phone at (510) 654-4400 Or order on the web: www.foodfirst.org/pubsorder.htm#IDR13.

News of food shortages and hunger in Indonesia, reported to be caused by drought, alarmed the world in 1998 and 1999. According to the Minister of Food Affairs and Horticulture, Indonesia was the world's biggest recipient of food aid in 1998. But in recent months news has filtered out that many agricultural communities are prospering in the midst of the crisis. In view of these conflicting reports, South East Asia Food Security and Fair Trade Council organized a fact-finding mission to Indonesia in January 1999.

"Indonesia is not suffering a critical food shortage in the traditional sense. We found a surreal juxtaposition of bounty and misery, caused by the well-publicized economic collapse of the world's fourth most populous nation," said Anuradha Mittal, who led one of four teams of a fact-finding mission to Indonesia.

Over 100 million Indonesians, half the country's population, are now living below the poverty line, up from thirty million in 1997. In 1998 average Indonesians saw ten years of family savings wiped out by six months of currency devaluation. By July the value of the rupiah had fallen fifty percent against the U.S. dollar, pushing up prices and squeezing earnings, hitting those who could least afford it the hardest. "This crisis was caused by massive outflows of speculative capital," said Mittal, "brought on by more than a decade of pressure from the U.S., World Bank and International Monetary Fund to open Indonesia's financial markets to foreign investors."

Today many Indonesian banks and companies are on the brink of bankruptcy, with more than a third of Indonesia's key electronics, machinery, chemical and metal-based industries forced to close. Every day in Jakarta an estimated 15,000 workers lose their jobs. People have begun migrating from cities back to the countryside. A bleak report from the International Labor Organization states, "Without any improvements in household income, further price increases in 1999 will push some 140 million people, or 66 percent of the population, below the poverty line." But is there a food shortage?

"Abundant food is available for those who can afford it, but few can due to the economic collapse," said Mittal. "Yet the image of a food shortage that can only be remedied with food aid continues to dominate. Western donors have been rushing in wheat products, undercutting rice-based food self-sufficiency and creating a long-term market for exports. The Indonesian government has used this aid to pacify the new urban poor and consolidate support for the June 1999 elections. This has been done with the total approval of foreign governments and multilateral organizations." As a World Food Program official put it, "Hungry people are angry people."

In 1984 Indonesia was awarded the FAO medal in food self sufficiency, while today the food aid pouring in threatens to turn it into a permanent international beggar by bankrupting local agriculture. "Economic conditions in Indonesia do not call for food aid. What is needed are economic policies to provide jobs and income so people can have an adequate diet, and buy goods and services to meet other needs. Agriculture is in trouble in Indonesia, but it is a crisis that is strictly man-made," said Mittal. "A huge dependence on fertilizers and other chemical inputs characteristic of Green Revolution technology resulted in a fragile rural economy that can easily be unraveled by policy decisions, for example, the recent ending of the fertilizer subsidy. Indonesia is not experiencing a classic drought-driven famine. It is experiencing economic collapse."

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[ This report was prepared by the Labor Defense Network: (202) 544-9355, ern@igc.org and was based on information provided by the provided by the October 6th Union in Tijuana, Mexico. The union can be contacted c/o the Support Committee for Maquiladora Workers: fax (619) 283-7713, phone (619) 283-7705. ]

Workers at the Han Young factory in Tijuana, Mexico who produce chassis for Hyundai have been in struggle with the management at the factory for well over two years to win respect their right to organize and to improve their conditions and wages. On April 6, the First Collegial Court of the Fifteenth District, the highest judicial authority in Baja California Norte, issued a ruling which shocked the state's political establishment. The court held that Tijuana authorities had violated the law last June in suppressing a strike at Han Young, the first strike by an independent union in the history of the maquiladoras.

Following the court's ruling, on May 3 the independent October 6 Union for Industry and Commerce once again tied red and black strike flags across the gate into the Han Young factory, bringing production to a halt. In a legal strike in Mexico, when strike flags are put up, the struck establishment must be closed and remain so until the dispute is resolved.

Instead of respecting the high court decision, however, city and state police have continued trying to bring strikebreakers into the facility to resume work, even after the union obtained further court orders protecting its strike. At one point, 100 Mexican Special Forces tore down the strike flags and escorted 70 strikebreakers into the factory, but production could not resume because the new workers did not know how to use the welding equipment. The striking workers continued to be harassed, threatened both on the picket line and in their homes, and physically attacked by police.

On two occasions in recent months, the Labor Defense Network mobilized in solidarity with the October 6 Union and the striking workers, writing to state and national government officials demanding that the government and the police abide by Mexican labor law and the decision of the District court in favor of the workers. In July, officials defied federal protection orders and a truce pending termination of negotiations begun June 28, when they forcibly removed the workers again.

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Labor Defense Network

The Labor Defense Network (LDN) is an emergency response system which mobilizes when workers and labor rights advocates most need our support. The LDN sends faxes in response to labor rights crises in Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean when workers request action. Subscribers receive the monthly Urgent Action newsletter, detailing all recent mobilizaitons.

Make your voice heard. Join the Labor Defense Network:

___ Sign me up to have 6 messages sent during the year. I am enclosing a check for $25. ___ Sign me up to have 12 messages sent. I am enclosing $50.

Write a check today to Labor Defense Network and mail it to 1470 Irving Street, NW, Washington, DC 20010.

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Gap

[ The following information on the Gap campaign was provided by Global Exchange: sweatshops@globalexchange.org, (415) 255-7296. ]

Labor rights advocates in a number of cities have been leafleting at Gap outlets in response to revelations of gross labor rights violations in the Northern Mariana Islands (Saipan). The Gap and other U.S. clothing manufacturers and retailers employ immigrant workers as indentured servants in the U.S. Commonwealth. Apparel companies profit from wages below the level of the mainland minimum wage and yet are allowed to import clothing into the mainland duty-free, with labels declaring that it was "made in the USA."

The campaign continues to target Gap, owner of both Banana Republic and Old Navy, for its sweatshop abuses in Saipan. Global Exchange (GX) is seeking to expand the campaign to include a focus on Gap sweatshops in other countries if information on other Gap operations can be obtained. Several events have been planned for the campaign this summer, including: gathering Gap employee signatures on a letter to the company, continued leafleting and a fax/call-in day.

Executive explains why U.S. workers have a stakein combating the global race to the bottom:

"Until we get real wage levels down much closer to those of the Brazils and Koreas, we cannot pass along productivity gains to workers' wages and still be competitive."

- Stanley J. Mihelick, Executive Vice President, Goodyear, Inc. as quoted in the New York Times, June 4, 1987 (Thanks to the International Affairs Department of the AFL-CIO for sending us this quotation.)

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