Workers of the World, UNITE!
For every Mexican, Central American or Caribbean work-
er who migrates to the United
States, another is hired by a U.S.
firm that has migrated southward.
Companies in virtually all indus-
tries have discovered that geograph-
ical mobility can have substantial
payoffs, and have become adept at
playing desperately poor countries
and workers off against one another,
convincing their hosts (and work-
force) that awful jobs are better than
none.
Not only cheap labor, but low (or
no) taxes and tariffs, and lax (or no)
health, safety and environmental
regulations have attracted U.S.
firms to areas of the world not cov-
ered by the gains won by U.S. labor,
environmental and other progres-
sive activists over the past century.
In turn, a number of “free-trade”
agreements have given those firms
the same access to the lucrative U.S.
market they would have if they
were still producing in New Jersey
or North Carolina. A new produc-
tive sector defined by a variety of
easy-access arrangements with the
United States (ranging from desig-
nated free-trade zones to in-bond
maquila production) has attracted
thousands of U.S. firms to areas in
the Caribbean and Central America,
as well as-of course-to Mexico.
The sobering news for these com-
panies is that U.S. unions are begin-
ning to follow the work to other
countries. The Teamsters, United
Electrical Workers (UE), Communication Workers of
America (CWA) and, among the
most active in the free-trade zones,
the Union of Needletrades,
Industrial and Textile Employees
(UNITE), have established working
relations with their counterparts
abroad to deal with this internation-
alization of production. UNITE’s
concern is the half-million unorga-
nized apparel workers in Central
America, the Caribbean and Mexico
working for companies that sell
exclusively to the U.S. market.
This past March, the union held a
meeting at its New York headquar-
ters to announce its support for local
organizing drives in Central
America and the Caribbean-par-
ticularly Guatemala, Honduras and
the Dominican Republic. “There is
not a single collective-bargaining
agreement in a maquiladora in
Guatemala,” UNITE president Jay
Mazur told those assembled, “but
we are hopeful there will soon be a
breakthrough.” The breakthrough
came a few days later when Phillips
Van Heusen, a major U.S. employer
in the maquila sector, recognized
the union which had organized its
workers, and pledged to negotiate a
contract. [See “Union-Organizing
Breakthroughs,” p. 1.] The rest of
Guatemala’s 80,000 maquila work-
ers, however, remain without labor
contracts.
In the free-trade zones of the
Dominican Republic-in which
140,000 out of 170,000 workers are
in the apparel industry-there was
not a single agreement until 1994.
In that year, a contract was signed
with a small subcontractor for a
U.S. label in the Bonao free-trade
zone. That contract was precedent-
setting for the Dominican Republic.
Since it was signed, seven new col-
lective-bargaining agreements have
been reached, covering 3,000 work-
ers in that country.
“International organization and
pressure is the key,” says Mazur.
“Laws have to follow trade, and fol-
low work.” As UNITE follows the
work to other countries, it concen-
trates on building public awareness
and consumer solidarity back home,
and on providing advice and sup-
port for host-country unions. In
many Latin American countries, the
legacy of U.S. domination is a hard
one for a U.S. union–even a union
as progressive as UNITE-to shake
off. But union officials say that
when they get attacked these days it
is not from the left but from the
right, and, they emphasize, the
attacks are not meant to defend sov-
ereignty but to neutralize attempts
to organize. Even so, the union
always establishes a “strategic part-
nership” with a local union, fre-
quently affiliated with the same
international trade secretariat-in
UNITE’s case, the International
Textile, Garment and Leather
Workers Federation, based in
Brussels-so that the relation is
clearly one of solidarity.
UNITE has deep roots in
New York City, the old
center of U.S. apparel pro-
duction. For a century, the union’s
precursors-the ILGWU and the
ACTWU-have “followed the
work,” as manufacturers and their
subcontractors, or “jobbers,” tried
to escape union jurisdiction by
moving further and further from the
city. While New Jersey and
Pennsylvania were once considered
foreign territory for the apparel
unions, the past few decades have
considerably broadened the indus-
try’s geographic scope. Once again,
the union is catching up-this time
internationally. As transnational
capital increasingly considers the
globe its home, labor is following
suit. “The labor movement has
always called itself international-
ist,” says Mazur, “but now we are
moving into a practical dimension
of that term.” The union, says
UNITE’s leader, has both a right
and an obligation to help workers of
all countries defend themselves
against the depredations of transna-
tional companies, especially when
those countries are producing for
the U.S. market. It is a development
well worth watching.
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