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 by Lynn Biddle, Steering Committee Member Activists are still handing out fliers and writing letters. To help end child slavery in Africa, Global Exchange is urging stores to carry candy that will cost them more because it is partly made with more expensive, Free-Trade chocolate. Banana workers and unions everywhere bananas are grown are closely following a struggle for labor rights and higher wages on seven banana plantations in Ecuador. Their fight has the potential to alter the entire banana industry. Employers are still harassing union members and organizers, still firing them, and still arranging to have thugs attack them, as they've done with the banana workers. They are still threatening to close down plants when workers try to organize, and they are closing them, too. In El Salvador, for instance, the maquilla Tainan was sewing clothing for Target and Kohl’s. The Gap is major customer of Tainan’s parent Company in Taiwan. The workers were told that the maquilla was closing, because “it didn't have enough orders.” But, according to US/LEAP, a respected US NGO, The Gap has been “engaging (the parent company) regarding the worker rights violations at the plant” and pressing all three retailers to intervene with the parent. (US/LEAP Newsletter, April 2002). It appears that The Gap must have a Code of Conduct that it is taking very seriously. I have to wonder whether all those fliers and letters didn’t have a part in bringing this about. In Colombia, disagreements with labor unions generally end in the assassination of union leaders. And this is happening more each year, with or without actual disagreements. As dedicated NGOs grow in experience and develop new strategies, they are also bringing these struggles to the attention of US consumers and corporations; most people in the US are aware of unfair labor practices at least somewhere in the world. In the case of Yoo Yang, maquilla workers in Honduras won in collective bargaining with help from US/LEAP in regaining an agreement . In their own words, the NGO “prompted the intervention of the US embassy,” and they brought the president of the parent corporation to Chicago for a face- to-face meeting with the NGO’s staff. US/LEAP also provided a way for the two sides to communicate, and thereby to negotiate. Students across the country have joined in a powerful anti-sweatshop campaign. Also encouraging, is growing international solidarity, especially among unions. When workers at Tainan went on strike, for example, they were joined by workers in the US and in Taiwan, the home of Tainan’s parent. Meanwhile, there have been some important court decisions recently. The first step in bringing a civil suit is to have a court accept jurisdiction. Having a US court accept jurisdiction can be a major victory, particularly when the plaintiff lives in a country with a poor record of enforcing labor rights. A court can set a precedent, also, by accepting an unusual legal theory or allowing a suit against a particular class of plaintiff. One court has now agreed to hear a suit brought by workers claiming poor working conditions, against not only their immediate employers, but also against the retailers and designers of the clothes they make. The California Supreme Court held, this June, that Nike could be sued for false advertising, in California by workers in other countries because Nike’s ads falsely reported good working conditions in its subcontractors’ plants where they worked. Governments, at least in Latin America, may be feeling some small pressure now to enforce workers' rights. The flier-handers and letter-writers may have had something to do with this also. In Ecuador, banana workers are waiting for the Labor Ministry to grant legal recognition to their union and to unravel a tangled web of corporate structures so they can decide which entity has legal responsibility for their employment, and thereby for their illegal firing, as well. That the company at the top of the web, Noboa, is largely owned by the family of the newly elected president of Ecuador makes this rather remarkable. Back behind the barricades and police cordons, are those who negotiate, in secret, the decisions which will effect the lives of us all The progress of workers has been slow; its victories hard-won. It’s very important to recognize the enormous impact that trade agreements and neoliberal economic reform loan conditions imposed by the World Bank and IMF have on workers’ welfare. These institutions, dominated by the U.S., strive to bring a free-market economy and free trade to the entire world,. Now Congress has given the U.S. President renewed Fast-Track trade negotiating authority. Bush makes no secret of his economic plans. In the long run, will the workers’ individual small victories really matter? Or, will powerful international institutions and trade agreements run over and crush these victories without, perhaps, even noticing that they once existed? NAFTA was in place when Bush arrived in DC. Soon he hopes to be negotiating “CAFTA,” modeled on NAFTA, between the US and most of Central America. Next, he plans to move on to the FTAA, a free trade agreement among all the countries of the entire Western Hemisphere (except Cuba). Then there is the World Trade Organization (WTO), still in its formative stage, demanding privatization of government services, unfettered financial mobility, an end to tariffs and trade quotas, and the primacy of its own rules over national and local law for all matters touching international trade. One thing that free-trade agreements has done, has been to hurt small farmers and small business owners in lesser developed countries, because they can’t compete with larger and more efficient producers in the more developed countries. Meanwhile, typically, free trade rewards most, the efficient producers, which are usually the larger corporations. In the poorer countries, noncompetitive producers go out of business, unemployment rises, wages fall, and poverty deepens. In wealthy countries, rewarding efficiency has a different effect. Companies attempt higher and higher “productivity.” That means, of course, fewer employees (a smaller payroll) producing more widgets, or financial statements, or whatever. Over the last decade, work-related accidents have increased significantly. I’ve heard a Firestone worker complain that the company pressures them to work too fast to be able to produce tires that are consistently of the highest quality. I’ve heard former miners and sons of miners talk about safety violations in nonunion mines, including the one where nine miners were trapped in waist-high water, but somehow were rescued alive. U.S. companies must pay their workers a minimum wage far higher than the wages in the Third World. In labor-intensive industries, they can’t compete with companies using cheap labor abroad. They close, and create more unemployment here in the US. Larger efficient companies, of course, do well, thus increasing the already sizable gap in income and wealth both among and within nations. We will not give up the fight for labor rights. There are new strategies and some victories. However, we must always keep a sharp eye on developing trade agreements and on the powerful institutions which impact workers across the globe. Don’t let them wipe out what labor has made so many sacrifices to win.
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