Open World Conference of Workers
In Defense of Trade Union Independence & Democratic Rights
WHC Report Section 7
Dear Brothers and
Sisters:
Please find below
Part 7 of the report-back on the Western Hemisphere Workers Conference,
which took place in San Francisco on November 14-16, 1997.
Part 7 contains:
-
Letter from the Haitian delegation (sent prior to the conference, protesting the U.S. Consulate's denial of visas)
-
Report from the Liverpool Dockers Victory Defense Committee
-
Conference Declaration Committee report excerpts by Alan Benjamin
-
Final victory at Han Young plant in Tijuana, Mexico.
Note: On November
3, exactly 11 days prior to the Western Hemisphere Workers' Conference,
the Conference Planning Committee received a fax from Haiti recounting the
Haitian labor delegation's meeting that morning at the U.S. Consulate in
Port-au-Prince. As you will read in the letter below, the members of the
delegation were denied visas to travel to the conference. The manner in
which they were treated, and the rationale for denying them visas, was
denounced at the conference itself.
Monday, November 3, 1997
• What is your interest in helping out American
workers?
• Do you believe Haitian workers can really be
trusted when they give guarantees of their intent to return home after
this conference? (They said this even after we showed them -- with all
supporting documents in hand -- that the San Francisco Labor
Council/AFL-CIO had taken all appropriate measures for the return of the
delegation to Haiti after the conference.)
To our Brothers Ed Rosario and Walter Johnson, and
to all the conference participants, to our sister and brothers of the
AFL-CIO, and to the American people, we say:
NO MORE BOUNDARIES!
BY WORKING TOGETHER WE SHALL OVERCOME!
• Bénissoit DUCLOS,
president, Drivers' National Action Committee (ANC)
• Nathan DELASSAINT,
Adjunct adminstrator, General Workers Confederation (CGT)
• Gérard PIERRE,
executive secretary, General Workers Confederation (CGT)
• Fritzner PETIT-HOMME,
president, Union of Workers, Self-Employed, and Temporary Workers of the
Autonomous Metropolitan Drinking Water Union (CAMEP)
• Henry MICHEL,
general secretary, Airport Employees Union (SEDA)
• Casnert OUPETTE,
president, Airport Employees Union (SEDA)
• Ronald ST. JEAN,
coordinator, Workers and Peasants Party (POP)
• Abel CLERVIL,
sociologist and teacher, member of the bureau of the International
Committee Against Repression (CICR) in Haiti
• Féquiere CHERY, 1st
vice president, Federation of Unionized Workers (FOS)
• Joseph Frenzy
SAINT-HUBERT, general secretary, Union of Workers, Self-Employed, and
Temporary Workers of the Autonomous Metropolitan Drinking Water Union (CAMEP)
• Runin JEAN-VERNET,
former administrative secretary, Port-au-Prince Newspaper Workers
Association (ATTP)
• Jacksonne GEORGES,
coordinator, Foundation of Peasant Associations of the Lower Plateau (BAP-BAP)
• Elius REJOUIS,
president, Union of Public Transport Drivers, Metropolitan Zone (SCTPM)
• Urie GEDEUS, Union
of Haitian Granary Workers (SOMA)
• Yves-Andre LOUMANNE,
disputes and claims officer, Haitian Workers Confederation (CTH)
Dear Conference
Organizing Committee
We send our fraternal
greetings to the California Labor Federation (AFL-CIO) and to organizers
of the Western Hemispheric Workers' Conference Against NAFTA and
Privatizations. We are sorry we unable to attend your conference, as our
budget does not allow it.
We understand that your
Conference began as an initiative of the International Conference Against
Privatizations in Mexico City in March 1996. Our union -- the SUTREL,
Union of Electrical Workers of Lima and Callao (Peru) -- was an active
participant in the ELASPE Conference in Bolivia in 1993, whose themes and
goals were parallel to those of the Mexico City Conference.
Unfortunately we were
not able to attend the Mexico City event. Recently we were in Argentina
for meetings with representatives of other national electrical workers'
unions. We see that your initiative can help bring together union
organizations throughout the Americas in struggle against the
privatizations and the free trade agreements which have had disastrous
consequences for the rights of workers and all our peoples.
The effects and
consequences of privatization in our industry, electrical utilities (Electrolima,
S.A), will be extensive. Perhaps it is sufficient to say that of 3200
permanent employees in 1994, 2500 have been retired or laid off. New
employees are discouraged from unionizing, and this situation reflects
what is happening throughout the country. It is a process of destruction
for the working class and its organizations, and it is not occurring in
our country alone. Therefore we see the effort to bring together workers
from all over the Americas in the struggle against this process is a great
step forward for the defense of workers' gains and rights.
Let us break the wall
which has been raised against our unity as workers of the Americas. In
north and south alike we must unite in a common struggle against
privatization and free trade agreements.
Pleas send us more
information about your project and its developments.
In Unity,
Humberto Estrada
Ventura,
General Secretary,
SUTREL,
Union of Electrical
Workers of Lima and Callao
Peru
**********
Mexican railway workers
are struggling to defend our constitutional right to a job and the labor
rights guaranteed in the Collective Bargaining Agreement, threatened by
the privatization of the state-owned Mexican National Railways (FNM) which
is currently underway.
With regard to the right
to a job, more than 40,000 jobs have been lost as railway workers have
been laid off through cutbacks in the FNM labor force.
This drastic reduction
of personnel has been possible because, since 1990, following the dictates
of the World Bank, particular services like the Express, and Partial Car
Service have been eliminated.
These were frequently
utilized by small and medium-sized businesses. There has been a 90%
reduction in passenger service. Eight repair and maintenance stations for
locomotives and freight cars have been contracted out to private companies
-- as well as much of the track repair and maintenance.
It is important to note
that the workers in these private companies get worse salaries and
benefits than the state employees who did these jobs in the past.
With regard to our
contractual rights, this past June 14 our collective bargaining agreement
was revised, by common accord of the FNM and the leadership of our union,
and reduced from more than three thousand articles to only 208. Entire
chapters were converted into "Guidelines" which are certain to
disappear as soon as the privatization is complete.
This represents the most
disastrous loss or perversion of labor rights in the history of the
Mexican working class, and sets a bleak precedent for other important
unions, like those of petroleum or electrical workers.
Worst of all, our union
leadership, which was imposed on us by the government's labor authorities,
has struck down virtually all our former labor rights -- and no general
meetings have been held in our locals.
For all these reasons,
facing an imminent privatization, we request your solidarity with our
struggle, through whatever means you deem appropriate, by informing others
of our plight in your journals, by sending letters to the President of
Mexico, or holding solidarity actions in our U.S. consulates.
Regardless of the course
of action upon which you decide, we ask you to send us information on your
decision.
With warmest greetings,
Hector Galvan
Cobarrubias,
General Representative,
National Association of
Rank-and-File Railworkers of Mexico
Dear Brothers and
Sisters:
The Bolivian Workers
Federation (COB) supports your Call for the Western Hemisphere Workers
Conference in which you amply set forth the anti-worker policies which are
being applied in all of our countries under NAFTA and the privatizations
which have been brutalizing our people.
For this reason we
militantly support the holding of the Western Hemisphere Workers'
Conference Against NAFTA and Privatizations. We will do everything
possible to be there with you. We hope this will be the beginning of an
ongoing dialogue which will allow us to know of the proposals and
initiatives of workers throughout the continent on this subject.
With warmest greetings
from the workers of Bolivia,
Sincerely,
Edgar Ramirez,
General Secretary
Lucio Gonzalez A.,
Secretary of
International Relations,
COB (Central Obrero
Boliviana)
From Mexico City, the
members of the Union of Urban Passenger Transport Workers -- Ruta
(SUTAUR-100) send fraternal greetings and salute your Western
Hemisphere Workers' Conference Against NAFTA and Privatizations.
Above and beyond the
socio-political diversity of our peoples and the geographic distances
between our countries is the urgent necessity of mass organizing against
the anti-worker austerity policies currently being pushed by governments
throughout the world. There is a corresponding need to defend those rights
which have been consecrated in labor laws, seeking improvements and
blocking rollbacks.
The blows that we
Mexican workers have been receiving have made us recognize the importance
of supporting the initiatives undertaken by the International Liaison
Committee on behalf of workers around the world. This is why we
cosponsored with the ILC the International Conference Against
Privatizations, which was held in Mexico City in March 1996. It was at
this gathering that the proposal to convene a Western Hemisphere
Conference was first made.
The fierce repression
against us by the Mexican government has left us with massive layoffs, our
labor organization disrupted and our leaders unjustly imprisoned -- but
the struggle has not ended.
We were dangerously
close to a crushing liquidation; to retain our organization we are setting
up certain enterprises administered by the workers themselves. In spite of
the fact that we are contributing to our country's economic stabilization,
we are being demonized, in an attempt to isolate us from the rest of our
society and prevent acts of solidarity with us.
Even with all of this
against us, we are certain that we will obtain the means of production by
which to benefit our fellow members of the working class.
Greetings and
salutations,
Ricardo Barco Lopez,
Legal Advisor,
SUTAUR-100
Esteemed Conference
Organizing Committee:
We thank you for the
invitation to attend the Western Hemisphere Workers' Conference on Nov
14-16 in San Francisco.
On behalf of the members
of our union, permit me to express our gratitude and good wishes for the
conference's success. We will be represented at your conference by one
delegate.
We see this conference
as a great opportunity to increase solidarity among workers throughout the
continent. We believe that today more than ever, it is important that the
bonds of workers' solidarity are not only made more extensive but also
permanently solid.
In solidarity,
Salvador Duarte,
General Secretary
National Transport
Workers Union
El Salvador
Dear Conference
Organizing Committee:
Fraternal and combative
and working class greetings from the national executive board of SUTEP
(National Education Workers Union of Peru).
We send you our support
for the work of the Western Hemisphere Workers Conference.
Our union, for its part,
has been struggling against the military-civilian Fujimori government's
neoliberal program, enacted under the mandates of the IMF and World Bank,
which has resulted in more poverty, more unemployment, and more corruption
through the authoritarian state apparatus.
We have also been
fighting the privatization of significant state-run services, like health,
social security, culture, city governments--- and the danger of a
generalized privatization of education.
Once again we offer our
support and best wishes for the success of the conference. We are sorry we
will not be in a position to send a delegate to your historic gathering,
as we had hopee.
Long live the unity of
all democratic and anti-imperialist forces.
Sincerely,
Olmedo Auris Melgar,
Secretary of
International Relations
José Ramos Bosmediano,
General Secretary,
SUTEP
Peru
The Dominican Republic
is a Caribbean nation which shares the social and economic problems of the
region, of Latin America and of other parts of the world.
Workers here have not
escaped the terrible trend of privatization.
The specific service we represent, electricity, is currently a
victim of this campaign.
The Dominican
Electricity Company is owned by the Dominican people and the state, which
is seeking to sell it off.
The same thing is
happening to a number of social services and state-owned companies and
assets.
The Union of Dominican
Electricity Company Workers, SITRACODE, was founded on February 28, 1962,
months after the fall of the tyrannical dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo,
who was executed on May 30, 1961.
Currently we are
fighting a pitched battle to retain the freedom to organize of SITRACODE,
but since 1990 we have experienced great difficulties.
We are hoping to be
present at your conference. We are proud to be one of the conference
signatories.
Please let us know what
next steps will be taken after the conference.
Sincerely,
Emilio Baez,
Communications Secretary
Ignacio Soto,
General Secretary,
SITRACODE
Supporters of Liverpool
Dockers Fight
McCarthyite Witch Hunt
(Note:
The following statement was issued by the San Francisco Bay Area Liverpool
Dockers Victory Defense Committee.)
From Sept. 28 to Oct. 3, 1997, something extraordinary took place in the Port of Oakland. A broad coalition of labor activists scored a resounding victory when they picketed a scab container ship, the NOL Neptune Jade, at Berth 23. This international solidarity action was undertaken to demand reinstatement for 500 locked out dockworkers in Liverpool, England, who have been fighting to get their jobs back for two years.
For four days, rank-and-file longshoremen and ship clerks from ILWU Locals 10 and 34 refused to cross the picket line. Finally, the Neptune Jade was forced to set sail -- cargo and all -- for what her owners hoped might be more hospitable shores. But the vessel met a like reception in Canada and then in Japan, when longshore workers in the ports of Vancouver, Yokohama and Kobe refused to work the struck containers. Later, the Neptune Jade was reportedly sold in Taiwan, with the scab cargo still on deck. The new owners are busy changing the vessel's name ... maybe to the Flying Dutchman!
Now the maritime bosses want their pound of flesh. Flagrantly attempting to bully workers into fear of exercising their rights to free speech and assembly, the Pacific Maritime Association (the coastwide bosses' association) has dragged the pickets into court with a lawsuit seeking damages, perhaps into the millions of dollars. Harking back to the McCarthyite witch hunts of the 1950s, they're abusing the legal process to force the defendants to name every individual and organization who walked the line at Berth 23, so they can victimize other workers, too.
And they haven't stopped there. Now they're attacking the ILWU and the whole labor movement by naming longshore union officers as defendants in the lawsuit. The right to set up a picket line -- and to honor one -- is at stake. [See accompanying article for an update on the legal battle confronting the Defense Committee.]
Labor
must unite and fight to beat back the bosses legal assault on workers'
rights, and to win the struggle for the Liverpool dockers' reinstatement.
Send Defense Fund donations to: Liverpool Dockers Victory Defense
Committee, P.O. Box 2574 Oakland, CA 94614 for more information call (510)
594-4303.
Shipping Company Uses
Courts to Harass Pickets and Thwart International Solidarity
They named Robert
Irminger and the Golden Gate Chapter of the Labor Party (of which he is
chairperson), the Peace & Freedom Party, Jack Heyman of ILWU Local 10,
and the Laney College Labor Studies "Group," plus unknown Does
(Jane, John and organizations).
After a hearing on
contempt charges against Irminger filed for alleged violations of a
temporary restraining order (TRO) issued during the picketing, the
employers petitioned the court to amend their suit to add Brian Wiles, Rod
Neves, and Michael Eisenscher, all of whom testified in Irminger's behalf
and admitted in their testimony to having participated in the
demonstration. They also seek to add Henry Graham, the ILWU Business Agent
who represented the longshore workers during the picketing.
It is clear that the
employers will use the discovery process of the lawsuit to attempt to
identify others in order to add their names to the suit as a means to
punish their participation and discourage others from participating in any
future actions.
But their objectives
appear to be even broader. In addition to demanding that the defendants
name names of all other participants, they also want to compel them to
identify all political organizations with which they are now or in the
past have been associated. The questions they have posed to defendants as
part of discovery could have just as well been prepared by the House
UnAmerican Activities Committee in the 1950s witchhunts.
This law suit is a
classic SLAPP suit used by large corporations to silence their critics. (SLAPP
stands for Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation.)
The
Contempt Charge
Following the hearing on
alleged violations of the TRO, the judge deliberated for a week and then
found Irminger guilty. He ordered him to pay a fine of $100 or do two days
of community service. This amounts to little more than a "parking
ticket."
Paying it in no way
compromises the defendants in fighting the lawsuit or the preliminary
injunction issued after the TRO. In his decision, however, he found the
demonstration to have been peaceful, a finding that will support the
defendants in the lawsuit. Irminger has three weeks to make payment.
The
Preliminary Injunction
The Preliminary
Injunction (PI) was issued out of the TRO secured by the company during
the demonstration (violation of which led to the Irminger contempt
charge). It restricts the number of pickets that can be in the driveway
entrance to Berth 23 at Yusen Terminal, the site of the demonstration.
If the defendants were
to appeal, it would be based on their Constitutional free speech right to
picket, the fact that an injunction is not needed as there have been no
demonstrations since the Neptune Jade departed, and because the employer
has no evidence that there will be any in the future (none are currently
planned at that terminal). An appeal would not be heard before hearings on
anti-SLAPP motions filed by two defendants (see below). The TRO does not
affect pickets of other terminals or demonstrations for other reasons by
other groups at Yusen.
The appeal would be moot
if those motions were granted, and could always be withdrawn if the
defendants determined it was not in their interests to pursue an appeal.
The primary downside is a $500 filing fee and whatever other costs are
involved. Final date to file an appeal is January 15.
In response to separate
legal actions filed by the PMA against the ILWU, the union has argued that
the employer and ship owner knew well in advance of the conflict in
England and could have predicted the potential for demonstrations; they
chose to take that risk anyway by bringing the ship into Oakland. Union
leaders note that this legal assault by PMA is part of a larger pattern of
employers up and down the West Coast to weaken the ILWU by bleeding its
resources and energies.
The
Lawsuit
The employer lawsuits
seek to recover all the revenues they lost as a result of the picket plus
possible punitive damages. Attorneys for both Irminger and Heyman have
filed separate motions under California's Anti-SLAPP law. [This is a
provision of the California Legal Code that offers a means to dismiss
suites filed to harass people exercising their rights.] A hearing on the
ILWU motion will be conducted on February 26 at 10:00 a.m. in Dept. 81 (in
the Oakland Post Office building); a hearing on Irminger's motion will be
heard on March 2 (location to be announced). The motions have stayed the
McCarthyite discovery sought by the employers.
At Laney College, the
student government has directed the administration not to release any
documents or names of members of student organizations. The administration
issued new stringent rules that bar students or student organizations from
participating in any off-campus actions in the name of Laney without
permission from the College.
This has created a
substantial reaction among students and faculty, resulting in a partial
retreat by the administration. (Ironically, the head of Laney College was
himself once a student strike leader at San Francisco State University.)
The students have also
demanded that the Peralta College District Board provide the Labor Studies
Club and Program with legal representation (which they have so far failed
to do). Labor Studies Department Chair Albert Lannon reports that the
College has received more than 120 letters and email messages from faculty
and other concerned people around the country protesting the failure of
the College to vigorously fight this assault on free speech and academic
freedom. (News of the case has received wide Internet circulation.)
Worker
Solidarity at Stake
The ILWU engaged in two
coastwide work stoppages in support of the Liverpool dockers prior to the
Neptune Jade picket. When ILWU members refused to cross the Neptune Jade
picketline, the employer invoked "instant" arbitration under the
contract. In separate arbitration hearings after each work turn refused to
cross, the arbitrator ruled the union members were justified under the
health and safety provisions of the contract. He found that crossing the
picketline could subject them to a health and safety risk.
After the TRO was issued
and police arrived to monitor the picketline, the arbitrator ruled that
the workers could safely cross the line to unload the Neptune Jade. But
the longshore workers staunchly refused to cross -- recalling that it was
the cops who killed six union members during the general strike in 1934 in
which the ILWU was formed. They upheld the time-honored tradition that
ILWU members don't cross picketlines.
For their part, the
Oakland Police merely stood by, never attempting to enforce the TRO.
While the ILWU is the
immediate target of much of the PMA's retaliation, the larger issue of the
right of workers to express international solidarity is at stake. This
battle comes precisely at a moment when the U.S. labor movement is finally
awakening to the imperative need for international solidarity and global
union cooperation.
PMA is apparently aware
of the growing movement for union cooperation across borders and hopes to
intimidate workers and their supporters from participating in any future
demonstrations.
The Liverpool Dockers'
Victory Defense Committee is organizing activities to raise funds that
will be needed to mount the legal and political defense. While lawyers are
donating their time, there will still be large expenses for filing fees,
court reporters, printings, mailings, and other activities. The labor
councils are being asked to adopt resolutions of support and to seek help
from their affiliates.
A successful support
rally was held on Sunday, Dec. 14, in San Francisco, at ILWU Local 34.
More than 100 people attended. Speakers included defense attorneys, ILWU
President Brian McWilliams, and Jerry Brown, former governor of
California. Fundraising at the rally exceeded $1200. (Half the proceeds
will be sent to the Liverpool dockers.) Local 510 of the Sign &
Display Union in San Francisco separately donated $1000.
The Liverpool Dockers'
Victory Defense Committee is open to all those who support the cause of
the Liverpool Dockers and defend the right of workers and their supporters
here to express solidarity with that struggle. Volunteers are need to work
on committees being formed to deal with outreach, publicity, and
fundraising.
Donations to the Defense
Fund are requested (make checks payable to the Liverpool Dockers' Victory
Defense Committee).
For more information on
how you can help, contact the Committee at: Liverpool Dockers' Victory
Defense Committee, P.O. Box 2574, Oakland, CA 94614 or call (510)
594-4303.
Excerpts
from the report by ALAN BENJAMIN, assistant conference coordinator, on
behalf of the Conference Declaration Committee:
From the time we first
issued the Call for this conference over a year ago, our concern has been
to build a gathering where working people from different unions and
political organizations could come together to find common ground for
common action against global capitalism.
We have not sought to
substitute ourselves for the unions, federations, and organizations that
have come together in support of this Call. Rather, we have simply hoped
to provide a much-needed lever to promote united action against the global
onslaught we all face -- as we build toward global unionism.
From the beginning, we
realized there were important issues that divide the trade union movement
of this continent in relation to the "free trade" issue. Brother
Gacek acknowledged that we have differences, for example, on the so-called
social clause and whether the trade union movement should advocate its
inclusion directly into the free trade pacts.
I think it's fair to say
that we had a rich debate on this question. All points of view were
expressed freely and openly. I think we all have learned from this
discussion. But following the spirit of this conference -- which is to
build a united action front against the devastating consequences of
"free trade" and privatization -- I think it's only proper that
we agree to disagree, and that we pursue this discussion on strategy in a
calm manner, with an openness to all points of view, through a bulletin
that could be published by a Continuations Committee of this Western
Hemisphere Conference.
What is key here is that
we pursue this debate on strategy and that we continue to exchange
information among ourselves at the same time that we mobilize to build a
total action campaign against these "free trade" pacts and
privatizations.
The Conference
Declaration that we are submitting to you for a vote today proposes to do
just that. It calls for a Continental Day of Action in mid-April 1998,
when the heads of state of the Americas will be gathered in Santiago,
Chile, to promote the Free Trade Area of the Americas. The four final
demands listed in this Declaration are united front demands -- that is,
demands we can all agree to, whatever our views on the question of the
side agreements or the social clause. I call on all of you to support this
resolution and convert into action. Let's leave this conference with the
determination to forge a fighting movement in the streets of the Americas
against global capitalism.
Han
Young Workers Finally Victorious!
The first step toward
this victory occurred on Saturday, December 13, when top managers of Han
Young Corp. held a press conference in Tijuana, Mexico, to announce they
were meeting all the demands of the embattled workers in their Tijuana
plant.
For months, more than 60
Han Young workers have been in the fight of their lives to defend their
vote for an independent union, and to keep their jobs and improve their
wages and working conditions. Three workers began a hunger strike on
November 20 to protest the Mexican government's refusal to recognize their
independent union.
On November 10, the
STIMAHCS union, which is affiliated with the independent labor federation
FAT (Authentic Workers Front), was denied certification even though an
overwhelming majority of the workers voted for the union on October 6. The
company later brought in scabs from the faraway state of Veracruz to
replace the workers who voted for the independent union, and fired 12 of
the most vocal pro-union organizers.
At the December 13 press
conference, Han Young management made several promises: to recognize the
independent union STIMAHCS as the collective-bargaining agent for the Han
Young workers; to fire all the scabs ("replacement workers")
brought in from Veracruz and elsewhere; and to rehire all the workers
fired for supporting the independent union, with full back pay. They also
committed to a 30-percent wage increase and the establishment of a health
and safety commission.
The fact that Hyundai
management was forced to recognize an independent union at Han Young was,
in itself, a gigantic breakthrough. It was the first time in the
maquiladora border zone that an independent union was recognized by a
company as the collective-bargaining agent. Hyundai had felt the heat from
the movement that was built in support of the workers: a massive letter
protest campaign, a boycott of Hyundai, protests at Hyundai dealerships,
an international support campaign, and other activities.
But a major obstacle
remained -- until the last minute. That obstacle was the Mexican
government.
The accord between the
independent union and the company was supposed to be signed on December
14. This did not occur, however, as the Baja California state government,
which had pledged to underwrite the agreement, refused to sign it. Baja
California's undersecretary of government, Ricardo Gonzalez Cruz, refused
to add his name to the agreement as a guarantor.
The three Han Young
hunger strikers promised in response to continue their fast until they got
clearer guarantees that their union would be recognized. Four other Han
Young workers then chained themselves to the gates of the Baja California
State Building to demand the recognition of the union. And the
international campaign to pressure the Mexican government went back into
swing, full force.
On December 15, Han
Young management offered 1,000 pesos to each worker at the plant who
promised to vote for the pro-company CTM union in a new election. But the
next day, everything changed.
On December 16,
negotiations were held between Han Young workers, Han Young management,
and representatives of the Mexican federal government, Baja California
state government, and the Tijuana labor board. By the end of the day, a
majority of the workers had voted for the independent union in a new
election. The government officially certified STIMAHCS.
As we go to press, the
events of December 16 appear to be the final victory activists and
supporters around the world have been waiting for. The STIMAHCS union has
finally been recognized by the Mexican Labor Board!
The victory at Han Young
is only the beginning. But the difficult task of extending to workers
throughout the maquiladoras the right to independent unions will be made
less so by the example of this victory, and thanks in no small part to the
international solidarity campaign that pressured the bosses into
relenting. -- ALAN BENJAMIN
DETAILS OF THE HAN YOUNG
VICTORY
This victory was not due
to concessions on the part of the Mexican federal government, the state
government of Baja California, nor the management of Han Young. Instead,
all of these players conspired to lure the workers into a trap.
For two days leading up
to the election, management had been offering 1,000-peso bribes to any
worker who would vote for what management was claiming was a different
"independent union," going by the name "Revindication for
the Working Class." However, the director of this supposed
independent union is known as an operative for the CTM, the
government-affiliated labor federation.
During intense
negotiations on Dec. 16, the government and Han Young management insisted
on a new union certification election, even though the workers already had
indicated their preference in an earlier election on October 6, when they
voted overwhelmingly to be represented by a union not aligned with the
government.
The new election would
not just include the CROC, the government-affiliated union which
previously had a contract with the company, but also the CTM union that
was posing as an independent union, even though it apparently did not file
appropriate papers or have standing to be in the election.
Knowing that they were
taking a huge risk -- given the recent bribe offers and attempts by
management to sow confusion, and given how long the struggle already had
dragged on -- the workers agreed to a new election, but only on condition
that the government commit in writing before the election to certify an
independent union -- whether STIMAHCS (part of the independent FAT union
federation) won or not.
The government agreed,
believing there was no chance that STIMAHCS would win the election.
Apparently the government figured that the workers would lose face when
STIMAHCS was defeated during the second election and, with the workers in
this weakened position, the company and the government could withdraw
their recognition of the unaffiliated independent union.
And so, STIMAHCS, a
member of the Frente Auténtico de Trabajo (FAT), won the election by a
vote of 36 to 25 and now has been certified as the legal representative of
the workers to negotiate a contract.
International solidarity
played a crucial role in this struggle. Although the government and Han
Young management did not intend to have justice served by the second union
election, that does not mean that our pressure was ineffective. Quite the
contrary: The usual response of these forces would have been outright
repression.
However, they felt
constrained to negotiate precisely because of intense international
scrutiny. They schemed. Their scheme failed. In spite of every effort on
the part of the wealthy and the powerful, justice prevailed for these
workers.
The hunger strike was
called off and the workers are gradually preparing to return to solid food
under doctors' supervision.
In addition to the
above, which mostly resulted from negotiations between the workers and the
government, workers also reached an accord with Han Young management, the
terms of which are close to those of the agreement struck on Dec. 13 but
not ratified the next day:
* Reinstatement of fired
workers with back pay.
* Pay raises -- not the
30 percent across-the-board raises agreed to on Dec. 13, but raises based
on job category -- essentially, the equivalent of the earlier raise.
* Establishment of a
health and safety commission.
These commitments do not
constitute a collective-bargaining agreement. Negotiations for the latter
are to begin when workers return from their Christmas break.
We should expect the
power structure to try to derail this process. There may be attempts to
crush the union. Han Young may renege on its promises to bargain a
contract in good faith. The Support Committee for Maquiladora Workers will
continue to monitor the situation closely.
Campaign for Labor
Rights will continue to notify international solidarity activists of
unfolding events.
Given the behavior of
both the government and Han Young management during the negotiations on
Monday, we have to be prepared that these parties still have something up
their sleeves. Until a collective bargaining agreement is signed, we need
to keep up the pressure.