The Gap Allows Monitors
into Maquiladoras
NEW YORK, JANUARY 20, 1996
After months of controversy,
the Gap has agreed to allow
independent monitoring of labor
conditions in factories where Gap
clothing is produced. According
to Central American and U.S.
union observers, maquiladoras
operating in the region systemati-
cally violate labor rights. Because
U.S. retail outlets do not generally
own the factories where clothes
are produced, they have previous-
ly shrugged off labor abuses. The
Gap’s acceptance of independent
monitoring could set a new stan-
dard for U.S. multinational corpo-
rations.
The U.S. National Labor
Committee (NLC), the Union of
Needletrades, Industrial and
Textiles Employees, and several
religious groups organized mas-
sive grassroots campaigns in the
United States last year to protest
working conditions in garment-
assembly maquiladoras in Central
America. Special attention was
focused on the Gap and its
Salvadoran supplier, Mandarin.
Mandarin, a Taiwanese-owned
factory, exploited workers and
harassed union leaders who
sought to improve working condi-
tions. In June, 1995, Mandarin
fired over 350 workers, including
pregnant women and many who
had joined the union.
After initially refusing to consid-
er the possibility of independent
oversight, the Gap announced in
December that it would “explore
the viability of an independent
industry monitoring program.” In
order to receive Gap business
again, Mandarin will have to rein-
state the fired workers and meet
with the union leaders at the Salv-
adoran Ministry of Labor. The
Human Rights Ombudsman’s
office in the city of San Salvador
will be involved in monitoring
Mandarin’s compliance with the
Gap’s Corporate Code of Conduct,
which mandates that Gap suppli-
ers adhere to the labor laws of the
countries in which they operate.
The Gap will also allow inde-
pendent third-party monitoring of
all its suppliers throughout
Central America. The Gap has
promised to work with the New
York-based Interfaith Center for
Corporate Responsibility (ICCR)
and other interested groups to
design and implement a long-
term system of independent mon-
itoring of its contractors.
Charles Kernaghan, executive
director of the NLC, says that
companies like the Gap have
been unable to monitor their sup-
pliers adequately in the past. “By
taking this step, the Gap becomes
the first retailer to agree to inde-
pendent monitoring,” Kernaghan
said. “The Gap listened to its
consumers and has taken a signif-
icant step in accepting direct
responsibility for how and under
what conditions its products are
made. It is now time for J.C.
Penney, Dayton Hudson, Eddie
Bauer, Nike, Reebok and others
to catch up to the Gap.”
In El Salvador, the debate over
the maquiladoras has been bitter.
Maquiladora owners-many with
ties to the military-have accused
unionists of betraying their coun-
try by demanding better wages
and working conditions. Things
heated up in November, 1995 dur-
ing a visit to El Salvador by a del-
egation of U.S. unionists, gov-
ernment officials and business
people investigating labor condi-
tions in the maquiladoras. The
maquiladora owners, supported
by the Salvadoran press, claimed
that the delegates, and U.S. labor
in general, were interested in clos-
ing down Salvadoran maquilado-
ras in order to protect U.S. jobs
and wages.
The NLC campaign was con-
ducted in close collaboration
with the fired workers of the
Mandarin plant in El Salvador. Its
objective was not to drive the
Gap out of El Salvador, but to
force it and other U.S. apparel
companies to respect labor rights
both at home and abroad.
-Emily Bono
U.S. Maquiladoras in
Haiti Violate Minimum-
Wage Law
NEW YORK, JANUARY 30, 1996
M ore than half of the approx-
I imately 50 assembly firms
operating in Haiti are violating the
minimum-wage law, according to
a new report by the New York-
based National Labor Committee
(NLC). The NLC carried out an
extensive investigation of 15
maquiladoras in Haiti. Ten were
paying their workers less than the
legally mandated minimum wage
of 36 gourdes (US$2.40) per day, or 30 cents per hour.
U.S. companies under license
with the Walt Disney Corporation
contracted Haitian assembly
firms to produce “Mickey
Mouse” and “Pocahontas” paja-
mas. These firms are paying
workers as little as 15 gourdes
(US$1) per day-12 cents per
hour-in clear violation of
Haitian law. The pajamas are sold
in the United States at Wal-Mart,
Sears and J.C. Penney.
When President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide increased the minimum
wage on May 4, 1995, many
companies avoided complying by
simply increasing the production
quota. If workers cannot fulfill
the quota, they are paid only a
fraction of the minimum wage.
At Excel Apparel Exports, jointly
owned and operated with
Kellwood Company, for exam-
ple, quotas have been increased
by 133% since the passage of the
new minimum-wage law. Excel
Vol XXIX, No 5 MARCH/APRIL 19961 Vol XXIX, No 5 MARCH/APRIL 1996 1NEWSBRIEFS
Apparel produces women’s
undergarments for the Hanes divi-
sion of Sara Lee Corporation,
under the “Hanes Her Way” label.
The undergarments are sold at
Wal-Mart and smaller retailers.
Even Haitians who are fortu-
nate enough to earn the new min-
imum wage have less buying
power now than they did in 1990.
A minimum-wage salary pro-
vides less than 60% of the basic
needs of a family of five. A daily
wage of 15 gourdes (US$1),
common in factories producing
goods for U.S. corporations, pro-
vides less than 25% of the basic
needs of a family of five.
Lawrence Crandall, head of the
U.S. Agency for International
Development (U.S.AID) mission
in Haiti, recently stated that
U.S.AID “has no position” on the
violations of the Haitian mini-
mum-wage law. U.S.AID has
long pressured the government
not to increase the minimum
wage. Since September, 1994,
the U.S. government has given a
total of $596 million in aid to
Haiti, including more than $8
million in direct assistance to
U.S. and Haitian businesses.
— National Labor Committee
Zapatistas’ New Political
Organization Prompts
Realignments on the Left
MEXICO CITY, JANUARY 30, 1996
M embers of Mexico’s badly
divided center-left Party of
the Democratic Revolution (PRD)
have spent the month of January
jockeying for position-and
struggling for the party’s self-
definition-following the January
1 announcement of the Zapatista
National Liberation Army
(EZLN) that it was seeking allies
for a new national political organi-
zation, the Zapatista National
Liberation Front (FZLN).
The Zapatistas’ New Year dec-
laration called for “members of
civil society” and “all those with
no political party” to join the new
front. Their objective is not to
seize state power, but to fight in
the political arena for the 13 orig-
inal EZLN demands: “housing,
land, health, work, bread, educa-
tion, information, culture, inde-
pendence, democracy, justice,
liberty and peace.”
The call to form the FZLN–
the Zapatistas’ third attempt to
form a national organization–is
a gauntlet thrown squarely at the
feet of the radical followers of the
PRD’s “moral leader,”
Cuauht6moc Cirdenas. As the
PRD drifts to the center, the
EZLN is clearly attempting to
push Mexico’s constantly mobi-
lized, but badly organized left in
a more radical direction.
In October, 1995, for example,
the EZLN’s Subcomandante
Marcos called for a boycott of
municipal elections in Chiapas.
This effectively deprived the
PRD of many of its natural vot-
ers, and a chance to carry the
state’s main municipalities. In
fact, the PRD finished second or
third in many municipalities it
was favored to win.
A rift between the two organiza-
tions resulted. The party’s centrist
national director, Porfirio Mufioz
Ledo, accused Marcos of “confu-
sion and amnesia” for calling for a
boycott that could only benefit the
ruling Institutional Revolutionary
Party (PRI). “Marcos should calm
down,” said the PRD leader, “and
understand that we are all seeking
democratization, and that the
surest way not to achieve it is to
ask the people to absent them-
selves from the polls.”
“Treating us as though we were
the armed wing of the PRD is
ridiculous,” Marcos responded. “We
didn’t rise up in arms so that the PRD
could come to power, but to demand
liberty, democracy and justice.”
The current jockeying within the
PRD anticipates this July’s party
convention, at which a successor to
party leader Mufioz Ledo will be
chosen. Over half-a-dozen candi-
dates have emerged from virtually
all the party’s tendencies. They fall,
however, into two major camps-
the moderate followers of current
leader Mufioz Ledo, and the more
radical followers of Cirdenas.
At stake is whether the party con-
tinues to follow Mufioz Ledo’s pur-
suit of “a negotiated democratic
transition,” or whether it opts for a
more radical confrontation with the
country’s current rulers, and fol-
lows Cirdenas’ call for the forma-
tion of a “government of national
salvation.”
If the “government of national
salvation” line triumphs, the party
will radicalize, challenging not only
the corruption and authoritarianism
of the PRI, but its free-market
model of economic development as
well. It will also align itself with the
various mobilized groups of “civil
society,” including many whose ide-
ological predisposition is more con-
servative. A radicalized party will
very likely invite the fledgling
FZLN to become one of its many
semi-autonomous tendencies.
If the “negotiated democratic tran-
sition” wins, the party will move
even closer to the center, win over a
greater number of disaffected priis-
tas, become a traditional social-
democratic party, and probably lose
the radicals to the new FZLN. The
shape of Mexico’s emerging left
hangs in the balance.
-Fred Rosen
Women Coca Growers
Protest Coca Eradication
LA PAZ, FEBRUARY 1, 1996
0n January 17, more than 500
campesina women entered La
Paz after a 31-day march across the
country. An initial group of 200
women set off last December from
the Chapare, a key coca-growing
region 250 miles north of the capital
city. Others joined the march as it
passed through Las Yungas, another
coca-growing region. The women,
who are all coca growers, were
marching to protest the govern-
ment’s continuing policy of forcibly
eradicating their coca crops, and to
demand alternative development
policies for the countryside.
After nearly a week of govern-
ment backpedalling, 150 of the
women began a hunger strike on
January 23. On February 3, the
government agreed to the growers’
demand for an end to the compul-
sory eradication of coca crops. The
accord was negotiated by Oscar
Salas, president of the Central
Obrera Boliviana (COB), Evo
Morales, chief representative of
the coca growers, and Minister of
the Interior Carlos Sanchez
Berzafn. The government freed the
coca growers who had been
detained during the protests, and
promised aid to victims of anti-
drug police operations in the
Chapare. How-and whether-the
accord will be implemented
remains to be seen.
The coca growers’ protests were
set off by massive sweeps carried
out by Bolivian antinarcotics
police in mid-January, in which
300 people were arbitrarily
detained. The Bolivian government
decided to step up its antinarcotics
operations in light of the U.S. gov-
ernment’s warnings that Bolivia
would lose U.S. economic assis-
tance if it did not meet coca-eradi-
cation targets. Over the past year,
seven people have been killed,
scores wounded, and hundreds
arrested as a result of conflicts
between antinarcotics police and
coca growers.
It is widely accepted-even by
the coca growers themselves-that
90% of the coca grown in the
Chapare goes toward the process-
ing of cocaine. “The women claim
their innocence, however, based on
the fact that their activities are dic-
tated by necessity and survival,”
says sociologist Silvia Rivera
Cusicanqui. “Their greatest aspira-
tion is to feed their family and lead
a better life.”
-InterPress Service
Sources
Emily Bono is a freelance writer currently based in Kansas City, Missouri. She visited El Salvador last November.
The National Labor Committee is an independent human rights advocacy group which focuses on protecting labor rights. To order “The U.S. in Haiti: How to Get Rich on 11 an Hour,” contact the NLC at 15 Union Square, New York, NY 10003, (212) 242-0700.
Fred Rosen is on leave from NACLA. He is working for the Mexico City newspaper, El Financiero International.
InterPress Service (IPS) is an international news service based in Italy. Its dispatches can be read on-line in the Peacenet con- ferences: ips.espanol and ips.english.
