Oct 16, 2012
Women–and the work they do—are central to productivity and economic growth, to breaking the cycle of poverty and to ensuing more inclusive and just societies. Yet too often they face unnecessary barriers and terrible choices when it comes to work. Far from being economically empowered, millions of women around the world, including here Peru, find themselves vulnerable to abuse, exploitation, below-poverty wages and unsafe working conditions. The legal environment either enables their condition or fails to protect them.
More than 200,000 women work in the Peruvian agriculture sector planting harvesting and processing fruits and vegetables—asparagus, avocados and red peppers—that grace American dinner tables. Many are young mothers and migrants from the Peruvian sierra. Vulnerable, uneducated and far from their family, the women work long hours (for which they may or may not be paid) in fields and packing houses where sexual harassment is the norm. They sleep in crowded, improvised housing. And on the work site, they and their children are exposed to toxic fertilizers and pesticides.
Peru’s Agriculture Promotion law, which regulates workers rights in this sector, includes legally mandated employer benefits within the minimum wage, and allows employers to hire workers on short-term contracts that can be renewed as the market need requires.
Additionally, it allows for a cumulative work week, which means that overtime pay is often not paid. The result? A generation of women who are employed in precarious conditions, unable to earn sufficient money to educate themselves or their children.
Peru’s apparel industry, one of the lowest paying sectors in the country, has a majority female workforce. The work is difficult and unstable. Like their sisters in the agriculture sector, workers are hired under short-term contracts, which deny benefits and a reliable income, and guarantee that complaints are rewarded with firing.
However, thanks to U.S.-Peruvian cooperation, some of this country’s most at-risk working women are finding their voice. They are advocating at the workplace for enforcement of labor laws and fair wages. They are fighting for respect and dignity, for economic inclusion and for a fair shot at ensuring that the next generation of workers will be better off than their parents.
USAID and worker-support NGOs like the Solidarity Center have helped Peruvian farmworkers form a new federation of farmworker unions, FENTAGRO, which is working to strengthen labor provisions—currently allowing below-average wages—in the Agricultural Promotion Law. Together with two textile and apparel federations, the FTTP and the FNTTP, Peruvian garment workers are learning their rights and working together with brands, consumer advocacy groups and other public sector stakeholders to improve laws that permit unfair contracting practices.
In Peru as in the rest of the world, the inclusion of women in a country’s economic present and future is vital. This can only occur if their work is valued and fairly compensated and if their rights are respected.
Oct 16, 2012
Electricity workers in Mexico won a big victory when a court last week upheld an earlier ruling finding the termination of their collective bargaining contract was invalid.
In October 2009, the Mexican government liquidated the state-owned electricity supply company, Luz y Fuerza del Centro, and transferred its functions to the Mexican Federal Electricity Commission (CFE). The action left 44,000 workers, members of the Mexican Union of Electricity Workers (Sindicato de Electricistas de México, SME), without jobs.
Nearly a third of the fired workers, 16,599 people, refused severance pay when the union dissolved. According to Mexican law, the workers who did not take severance shall be offered reinstatement and paid back wages.
“We won!” said Carlos de Buen, the lawyer for SME, which brought the case on behalf of the workers. Speaking to a crowd of thousands of workers and their families gathered to celebrate the October 11 victory, which came exactly three years to the day the union was dissolved, De Buen said: “A court has definitely resolved that you have to be reinstated to the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE), and no matter how they try to stall on that, there is no going back. You’ve won the legal battle and now we have to make sure it is upheld.”
In backing SME’s case, the first circuit’s Second Collegiate Labor Court ruled that the termination of electricity workers’ employment contracts was invalid and that the CFE is their new employer. The government had asserted force majeure—circumstances beyond its control—in terminating the union contract, a strategy it also has used to break strikes, such as the one by Mexican mine workers at Cananea copper mine.
“We will celebrate at the general meeting,” said Martín Esparza Flores, SME general secretary. “We carried on this fight to defend trade union organization, to defend the terms of our collective agreement, to continue defending the electricity industry and to recover our jobs.”
Workers who did not accept severance three years ago have made ends meet with the help of retired SME members and other union allies backing their struggle, including strong support from the United Steelworkers and other unions.
SME members, who received global support, occupied Mexico City’s central square, the Zócalo, for much of last year, where they were joined by other independent unions, human rights groups, peace activists and students.
The government likely will appeal the court’s decision, according to Solidarity Center Country Program Director Lorraine Clewer.
Oct 12, 2012
The Solidarity Center and the International Union of Food, Farm, and Hotel Workers (IUF) have launched the Information Center for Migrant Workers (ICMW), in Chisinau, Moldova. This new resource center will advocate on behalf of Moldovan migrant workers, those considering migrating for work and their families. The center opened September 28.
Many of the continent’s migrant workers are Moldovans who seek employment in agriculture and construction across Western Europe, Ukraine and Russia. More than 15 percent of Moldovans worked abroad last year because of the serious economic challenges they face at home. These workers are highly vulnerable to exploitation, and tragically, a major regional target for labor and sex trafficking. The information center will assist in the prevention of human trafficking and identify trafficking victims.
The Information Center staff of three includes a labor attorney who will provide free consultations to Moldovans concerned about their rights at work. The ICMW also cooperates with trade unions in destination countries to offer resources, emergency contacts and support for Moldovan workers abroad. In addition, ICMW coordinates with Moldovan national trade unions and human rights activists to provide training and public awareness outreach to workers across the country.
“People are used to getting information from family, friends and the Internet, but these are not always the most reliable sources,” says ICMW Communication Specialist Tatiana Corai. “After Moldovan workers arrive abroad, they are faced with different challenges. We want our citizens going abroad to work to have all the necessary information.”
As part of the ICMW’s launch, the Solidarity Center conducted a workshop for Moldovan journalists who cover social issues. The workshop provided members of the media with new insights into the struggles of migrant workers and gave journalists the tools and information needed to raise the profile of this important issue in local media.
The Solidarity Center also unveiled a worker rights resource website for Moldovans: muncitorimigranti.md (in Romanian).
The ICMW is supported by the Solidarity Center, the IUF and the U.S. Department of State’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons.
Oct 11, 2012
When Emeterio Nach suffered a shoulder injury at his job, he asked his supervisor at the Ternium aluminum processing plant in Villa Nueva, Guatemala, for time off to see his doctor. After the supervisor denied his request, Nach asked again. The supervisor continued to refuse, finally telling Nach he would be fired if he kept asking—and would be fired if he were sick because the factory needed healthy workers.
The 250 workers at the Villa Nueva plant frequently experienced such treatment, leading Hernández, along with his co-workers, to create a union, SITRATERNIUM (Ternium International Guatemala Worker’s Union). They filed for registration of organization in March with the Ministry of Labor.
As a result, the company immediately fired dozens of workers, including Nach. The firings violate Guatemalan labor code (Article 209) as well as international labor standards relating to freedom of association and the right to unionize.
“Management used to tell us they can do whatever they want with the workers,” said Nach, speaking through a translator. “They didn’t care about the Ministry of Labor or inspections or anything. I could never take a day off.” Nach worked more than four years at the factory, helping produce metal beams, and said if the workers do not put in 12 hours a day, seven days a week on the job, Ternium fires them.
Workers and management met in six mediation sessions in April and May, but the company refused to negotiate. Ternium reinstated 10 of the 27 workers in July, but workers say they have been threatened against speaking of the union to others. One says he was suspended for eight days for speaking to a colleague about the union during his lunch break. Others have been ostracized, isolated and harassed at work.
The Guatemalan Ministry of Labor registered the union in August, granting it legal recognition and enabling the fired workers to seek reinstatement and require Ternium to abide by Guatemala’s labor code. Ternium has asked the court to dismiss the workers’ petition. The case now is tied up in court.
Meanwhile, Nach and other fired workers, like Enrique Arana and Vicente Carias, are taking odd jobs to scrape by—Carias sells ice cream on the street, Arana makes a little money as a barber. All are having trouble paying rent, water and electricity. But it’s the children who are suffering the most, the men say. Children cannot take final exams until their families pay school fees and often cannot finish the school year. They describe with sadness how Walter Ignacio Rodríguez Gómez, who had more than three years on the job at Ternium before he was fired for his union support, had to pull his 8-year-old son out of school. They believe the company has blacklisted them because similar factories will not hire them.
The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) recently described Guatemala as among the worst violators of worker rights in the world today. Not only are workers routinely fired for asserting their rights at work, increasingly, they are threatened, tortured or murdered. Six banana workers active in their union were killed over the past year and a half.
As a result of decades of repression, fewer than 2 percent of workers are union members. In June, workers from around the world filed a complaint with the International Labor Organization (ILO) urging Guatemala to respect the right of freedom of association.
Nach says he and his co-workers are “eager and willing to continue with the fight.”
But they need the help of the global union community. Take action now: Write to Paolo Rocca, chairman of Ternium S.A., and demand that his company comply with the Guatemalan Labor Code and international labor practices.
And make sure the workers know you support them—Like SITRATERNIUM at its Facebook page.
The Solidarity Center spoke by telephone with Emeterio Nach, Enrique Arana and Vicente Carias.
Oct 10, 2012
The offices of the Tunisian Labor Federation (Union Générale Tunisienne du Travail, UGTT) in Tunis, Tunisia, were attacked at 8:45 a.m. today by up to 200 people wielding rocks and bottles. Union supporters, including a Solidarity Center staff member, rushed to the scene and barricaded entry to the offices. Ever since last year’s elections, the UGTT has been repeatedly targeted with vicious attacks from groups hostile to the union. Firebomb attacks during the night of June 11-12 damaged three UGTT offices in Bousalam, Bengarden and Jendouba.
As the attackers “tried to force their way into the building, they threw rocks and bottles,” said Mohamed Najjari, a member of the UGTT’s tourism workers federation. “I’m glad no one was hurt.”
After being pushed back from the union office, the attackers rallied in a nearby square, periodically sending someone to harangue the assembled UGTT activists. By then, the riot police had arrived and no further violence erupted.
The UGTT was recently honored by the AFL-CIO and received the George Meany-Lane Kirkland Human Rights Award for its fundamental role in supporting and sustaining the democratic uprising that took place in Tunisia in 2011.
Watch a Youtube video covering this morning’s violence.
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