General Workers Central

Last updated
CGT
Full nameGeneral Workers Central
Native nameCentral General de Trabajadores
Members65,000
Affiliation ITUC
Office location Tegucigalpa, Honduras
Country Honduras

The General Workers Central (Spanish : Central General de Trabajadores; CGT), also known as the General Workers Confederation and the General Confederation of Labor, is a national trade union center in Honduras. It is traditionally associated with the National Party of Honduras.

When, in January 2009 two Honduran factories (Hugger and VisionTex) that were part of Nike, Inc.'s supply chain went bankrupt and closed, the CGT of Honduras claimed that Nike bore some of the responsibility for providing terminal compensation, benefits and priority rehiring for 1,800 factory employees. [1]

The CGT is affiliated with the World Confederation of Labor, and hence the International Trade Union Confederation.

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The economy of Honduras is based mostly on agriculture, which accounts for 14% of its gross domestic product (GDP) in 2013. Leading export coffee (US$340 million) accounted for 22% of total Honduran export revenues. Bananas, formerly the country's second-largest export until being virtually wiped out by 1998's Hurricane Mitch, recovered in 2000 to 57% of pre-Mitch levels. Cultivated shrimp is another important export sector. Since the late 1970s, towns in the north began industrial production through maquiladoras, especially in San Pedro Sula and Puerto Cortés.

Syndicalism Proposed type of economic system

Syndicalism is a radical current in the labour movement that was most active in the early 20th century. Its main idea is the establishment of local worker-based organizations and the advancement of the demands and rights of workers through strikes. According to the Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm, it was predominant in the revolutionary left in the decade which preceded the outbreak of World War I because orthodox Marxism was mostly reformist at that time.

World Federation of Trade Unions International organization

The World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) is an international federation of trade unions. WFTU was established in 1945 to replace the International Federation of Trade Unions. Its mission was to bring together trade unions across the world in a single international organization, much like the United Nations. After a number of Western trade unions left it in 1949, as a result of disputes over support for the Marshall Plan, to form the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, the WFTU was made up primarily of unions affiliated with or sympathetic to communist parties. In the context of the Cold War, the WFTU was often portrayed as a Soviet front organization. A number of those unions, including those from Yugoslavia and China, left later when their governments had ideological differences with the Soviet Union.

Sweatshop Workplace that has socially unacceptable working conditions

A sweatshop is a workplace with very poor, socially unacceptable or illegal working conditions. The work may be difficult, dangerous, climatically challenging or underpaid. Workers in sweatshops may work long hours with low pay, regardless of laws mandating overtime pay or a minimum wage; child labor laws may also be violated. The Fair Labor Association's "2006 Annual Public Report" inspected factories for FLA compliance in 18 countries including Bangladesh, El Salvador, Colombia, Guatemala, Malaysia, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, China, India, Vietnam, Honduras, Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico, and the US. The U.S. Department of Labor's "2015 Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor" found that "18 countries did not meet the International Labour Organization's recommendation for an adequate number of inspectors."

General Confederation of Labour (France)

The General Confederation of Labour is a national trade union center, founded in 1895 in the city of Limoges. It is the first of the five major French confederations of trade unions.

The General Confederation of Labor - Workers' Force, is one of the five major union confederations in France. In terms of following, it is the third behind the CGT and the CFDT.

A national trade union center is a federation or confederation of trade unions in a single country. Nearly every country in the world has a national trade union center, and many have more than one. When there is more than one national center, it is often because of ideological differences—in some cases long-standing historic differences. In some regions, such as the Nordic countries, different centers exist on a sectoral basis, for example for blue collar workers and professionals.

The General Confederation of Labor is a Spanish trade union federation.

General Confederation of Labour can mean one of the following labor unions:

General Confederation of Labour (Argentina)

The General Confederation of Labor of the Argentine Republic is a national trade union federation in Argentina founded on September 27, 1930, as the result of the merger of the USA and the COA trade unions. Nearly one out of five employed – and two out of three unionized workers in Argentina – belong to the CGT, one of the largest labor federations in the world.

The Matignon Agreements were signed on 7 June 1936, between the Confédération générale de la production française (CGPF) employers' organization, the CGT trade union and the French state. They were signed during a massively followed general strike initiated after the election of the Popular Front in May 1936, which had led to the creation of a left-wing government headed by Léon Blum (SFIO). Also known as the "Magna Carta of French Labor", these agreements were signed at the Hôtel Matignon, official residence of the head of the government, hence their name.

Unions have been compared across countries by growth and decline patterns, by violence levels, and by kinds of political activity.

A company or "yellow" union is a worker organization which is dominated or influenced by an employer, and is therefore not an independent trade union. Company unions are contrary to international labour law. They were outlawed in the United States by the 1935 National Labor Relations Act §8(a)(2), due to their use as agents for interference with independent unions. Company unions persist in many countries, particularly with authoritarian governments.

LIP is a French watch and clock company whose turmoil became emblematic of the conflicts between workers and management in France.

Margaret Levi

Margaret Levi is an American political scientist and author, noted for her work in comparative political economy, labor politics, and democratic theory, notably on the origins and effects of trustworthy government.

Confédération générale du travail unitaire

The Confédération générale du travail unitaire, or CGTU, was a trade union confederation in France that at first included anarcho-syndicalists and soon became aligned with the French Communist Party. It was founded in 1922 as a confederation of radical unions that had left the socialist-dominated General Confederation of Labour (CGT), and in 1936 merged back into the CGT.

ICFTU Inter American Regional Organisation of Workers

The ICFTU Inter American Regional Organisation of Workers was the regional organization of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) for the Americas.

United Students Against Sweatshops

United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) is a student organization founded in 1998 with chapters at over 250 colleges and universities in the United States and Canada. In April 2000, USAS founded the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC), an independent monitoring organization that investigates labor conditions in factories that produce collegiate apparel all over the world. The WRC exacts an annual membership fee from participating universities, which is used to fund its monitoring work.

The Federation of Tobacco and Matches was a trade union representing workers in the tobacco industry in France.

References

  1. Brand Responsibility Project Records 2004-2012.0.84 cubic feet (2 boxes) of textual materials plus 83.8 GB of digital files.