GUATEMALA:
Labour Rights Mean
Little in Maquila
Factories
By Inés Benítez
GUATEMALA CITY, (IPS)
- "We had no set punch
out time. Sometimes we
would work through the
night until dawn," said
Everilda Yanis, who
worked at an export
garment factory in
Guatemala that closed
down in December 2006,
leaving her and hundreds
of co-workers in the
street with no severance
pay.
Trade unionists, workers
and activists described
to IPS the constant
violations of labour
rights and precarious
working conditions in
the textile factories in
tax-free industrial
zones in Guatemala,
known as maquiladoras or
maquilas.
There are currently 184
textile maquilas in this
Central American
country, 66 of which
belong to South Korean
investors. They employ a
combined total of 70,000
people, 80 percent of
whom are young women,
according to a source
with the Guatemalan
Exporters Association’s
(Agexport) Apparel and
Textile Industry
Commission (Vestex).
Yanis, a petite
33-year-old who had her
two children -- now nine
months and two years old
-- during the three
years she worked at the
SIB S.A. company, said
her employers did not
respect her legal right
to breastfeeding breaks.
And "the work was very
heavy," she added.
Guatemala’s labour code
grants nursing mothers
the right to
breastfeeding breaks and
prohibits physical
exertion for pregnant
women.
Maquiladoras enjoy
tax-free status for 10
years under a law
designed to foment the
export assembly
industry. The system
enables corporations to
cut their costs,
including the costs of
labour.
Since the plants do not
require heavy investment
in infrastructure, if a
problem arises, or when
the 10-year tax-free
period is coming to an
end, they can merely
shut down and reopen in
another industrial park
with a new name, at no
cost whatsoever.
The main complaints
against the factories
are the long (12 to 14
hour) working days,
without breaks;
non-payment of wages;
the illegal practice of
requiring applicants to
take a pregnancy test;
and violations of social
security laws. (The
companies deduct
employees’ contributions
without actually making
the mandatory payments
into the system).
There are also
complaints of
maltreatment of workers.
"They shout at them, hit
them, and pressure them
to meet quotas and
deadlines and not to
claim their rights," Ana
María Monzón, with the
Centre for Human Rights
Legal Action’s (CALDH)
women’s rights programme,
told IPS.
Monzón, who took part in
a study of maquilas
carried out in several
different industrial
parks, said many of the
workers, packed into
poorly lit and
ventilated factories,
complained that they
were not given water, to
keep them from asking
for permission to go to
the bathroom and thus
briefly stop working.
"They kept the bathrooms
locked, and we could
only go once in the
morning and once in the
afternoon. They
reprimanded us, shouted
at us, and demanded that
we work harder and
faster," Hilda López
told IPS.
The 30-year-old worked
for four years in CIT
Internacional until the
factory closed down in
August 2006. The company
still owes back pay and
severance pay to nearly
500 workers.
When she applied for the
job, López was forced to
take a pregnancy test.
Although the practice is
illegal under Guatemalan
law, the maquilas
routinely screen
applicants, refusing to
hire pregnant women on
the assumption that it
would affect production.
López also said her
employers "discriminated
against and humiliated"
workers who dared to
form a union.
"There is a long list of
trade unions that have
been crushed in the
maquilas. The right to
organise is severely
compromised in the
sector," Marco Vinicio
Hernández, defender of
workers’ rights in the
Procuraduría de los
Derechos Humanos
(Guatemala’s ombudsman’s
office), told IPS.
A source at the Labour
Ministry commented to
IPS that the ministry
has "a special unit for
the maquilas, made up of
10 inspectors dedicated
solely to that economic
activity, who carry out
visits periodically or
when a conflict or
problem arises."
But Hernández said the
inspectors’ mandate was
weak and that they did
not act on complaints in
a timely fashion,
"because they are more
on the side of the
employers than the
workers."
According to official
statistics, 56 percent
of Guatemala's
population of 12.7
million lives below the
poverty line, although
non-governmental
organisations (NGOs) put
the proportion closer to
80 percent.
Unemployment and
illiteracy rates are
high across the board,
but are highest among
native women.
(Officially, 40 percent
of the population is
indigenous, although
NGOs say the proportion
is around 65 percent.)
The maquiladora industry
has enabled many
indigenous women to get
away from domestic
labour. In the
factories, they earn the
national minimum wage of
183 dollars a month,
plus a 33 dollar bonus,
which according to trade
unionists, however, is
not always paid.
"Maquilas are important
for this country, given
the lack of public
policies aimed at
generating jobs. That
explains the tolerance
of abuses," said
Hernández, who
complained about the
lack of "adequate
enforcement of labour
rights."
A CALDH report says
labour inspectors
usually persuade women
not to seek payment of
the back pay that they
are owed by their former
employers, telling them
it would require a
lengthy, slow process
and complicated
paperwork.
The inspectors also warn
them that their names
will be added to "black
lists" that circulate
among the companies,
which will keep them
from being hired again
by any maquila.
The obstacles to union
organising and black
lists are not exclusive
to Guatemala, as was
made clear by
representatives of NGOs
from El Salvador,
Nicaragua and Honduras
in a Jul. 18 hearing on
the issue in Washington,
during the 128th session
of the Inter-American
Commission on Human
Rights (IACHR).
The activists addressing
the hearing said
inspectors draw up their
reports based on
interviews with the
company owners, and that
because the fines are
not proportional to the
violations of labour
rights, the companies
prefer simply to pay
them rather than make
reparations for the
damages caused.
Because of the lack of
adequate health and
sanitary conditions, the
women working in the
maquilas often suffer
from swelling of the
feet and legs, hair
loss, skin rashes,
constant cold and flu
symptoms, urinary
infections and
gastritis.
But employers often deny
the women permission to
go to the doctor,
threatening to dock
their wages, in order to
meet production targets,
several workers told IPS.
One frequent health risk
is needles breaking off
and poking through the
workers’ fingers, said
Monzón, who also said
there have been cases of
stimulants being given
to workers, to keep them
awake in order to meet
production goals.
Some 20 textile
factories closed their
doors last year,
"leaving the workers on
the street without an
income or right to
unemployment coverage,"
Victoriano Zacarías,
secretary-general of the
National Workers
Federation, told IPS.
And 10 have already
closed so far this year,
he added.
The Labour Ministry
source who spoke with
IPS said that when a
labour rights violation
is reported, the
complaint is referred to
the labour or social
security courts, which
must determine whether a
violation was committed
and determine the
penalty, if any.
But Zacarías argued that
"in the courts, the
cards are stacked
against the workers, and
employers are at an
advantage."
In some cases, the
factory owners leave the
country and the workers
are forced to accept
lower severance pay or
back pay than they are
actually owed -- if they
are paid at all.
"The workers are not
machines, they are
people," said Hernández,
with the ombudsman’s
office, who is familiar
with the dire poverty
suffered by so many of
the country’s indigenous
people.
Every day at noon, the
doors of the maquilas,
which have been locked
and closely guarded
since 7:15 AM, open up
and spew out hundreds of
workers.
The street turns into a
sea of humanity as the
women try to find a spot
in the shade to eat
their lunches. They eat
quickly, sitting on the
ground. Many take
advantage of the short
lunch periods to visit
the bathroom before
returning to a long
afternoon in front of
their machines, which
will end whenever their
bosses let them go. |
