-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Sept. 18, 1997
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------Maquiladora workers fight for union rights, wages
By Bob McCubbin in San Diego, Calif.
A local organization has been supporting what may become the first independent union in a "maquiladora"--a foreign- owned factory operating on the Mexican side of the border producing goods mainly for the U.S. market.
The group, the Support Committee for Maquiladora Workers, was founded in 1993. Its work is focused in Tijuana, Mexico, and San Diego, Calif., but it also collaborates with other maquila support groups all along the U.S.-Mexico border.
The committee was among those that filed the first legal action in U.S. courts on behalf of Mexican workers. Known as the EMOSA case after the company involved, it charged sexual harassment of a whole group of women workers and failure to pay wages due.
The EMOSA case ended in a strong victory for the workers, setting a precedent for U.S. courts to accept lawsuits by foreign workers against U.S.-based transnational corporations.
Workers World spoke with Mary Tong, the director of the Support Committee here. She said its latest initiative began when a worker from the Han Young factory in Tijuana, which produces chassis and platforms for Hyundai tractors and trailers, approached the Workers' Center. This is a group the committee helped build in the Tijuana community of Monclovia Rojas in April.
Emeterio Armenta, a Han Young welder, came to the center for advice on how to quit his job and get severance pay. The company had failed to provide Armenta and the other workers with safety glasses, gloves or uniforms. "I can't continue to work in this plant," he said. "I'm getting burned every day. I'm losing my vision."
But Armenta changed his mind about quitting after he spoke with Tong and other workers at the center. He decided to try to organize an independent union at Han Young. Within a month there were organizers on each of the three assembly lines and 75 percent of the workers had signed to join the union.
The utilidades, or profit-sharing bonus that many Mexican workers receive at the end of May, is a big issue among these workers. Since maquilas are foreign owned, they are not legally required to pay anything, much less the full 10 percent of yearly company profits required of domestic companies. Nevertheless, the maquila workers expect it.
At Han Young, some workers receive utilidades of as little as $7 to $20 at the end of a year. But the workers know that the 26 chassis and platforms they produce each day sell for $1,400 each. And they know that the company uses cheap, recycled steel. So they also know that $7 to $20 is nowhere near an individual worker's share of 10 percent of yearly profits.
PROTEST OVER SHORT BONUS
To protest, the workers decided on a two-day walkout at the beginning of June. They made up a list of 10 demands. It included their health and safety concerns, a 30-percent wage increase, and pay scales that take into account experience and job skills. This would prevent the company from pitting workers against each other and from paying new workers more if they didn't join the union--something the company was doing.
The company's original response to the work stoppage was to threaten the workers. But the support committee had arranged for international observers to be present at the scene. This presence, plus the workers' clear unity, caused the bosses to pull back and agree to talk.
The company seemed ready to make concessions, and the workers returned to work as planned at the end of the two- day stoppage. Soon, however, Han Young's management reverted to confrontation. It hired a union-busting firm, which used an assortment of dirty tricks to try to divide and demoralize the workers. Then it suspended Armenta.
On one day's notice, the Support Committee organized a noisy protest outside the San Diego headquarters of Hyundai. The committee also encouraged supporters to write protest letters to the company and initiated a shareholders' campaign of pressure against Hyundai.
A second one-day walkout involving 90 percent of the workers followed the firing of two more organizers, Lupe Y ¤ez and Ren‚ M‚ndez. These workers had refused promotions and company bribes of $2,000 each if they would renounce the unionization effort. Again, the Support Committee quickly mobilized supporters for a picket line outside Hyundai San Diego headquarters.
Tong feels the company will try anything to avoid the election of an independent union because that will be such a humiliating defeat for the bosses. A Sept. 3 Mexican Labor Board meeting that was supposed to set a union election date has been postponed, but the Han Young workers have already made it abundantly clear that they want an independent union in their future.
[The Support Committee for Maquiladora Workers can be reached at 619-542-0826.]
This article is copyright under a Creative Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
Subscribe wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net
Support independent news http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php)HOME :: U.S. NEWS :: WORLD NEWS :: EDITORIALS :: SUBSCRIBE :: DONATE
