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The economy of Guatemala is a considered a developing economy, highly dependent on agriculture, particularly on traditional crops such as coffee, sugar, and bananas. Guatemala's GDP per capita is roughly one-third of Brazil's. The Guatemalan economy is the largest in Central America. It grew 3.3 percent on average from 2015 to 2018. However, Guatemala remains one of the poorest countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, having highly unequal incomes and chronically malnourished children. The country is beset by political insecurity, and lacks skilled workers and infrastructure. It depends on remittances for nearly one-tenth of the GDP.
A sweatshop or sweat factory is a crowded workplace with very poor or illegal working conditions, including little to no breaks, inadequate work space, insufficient lighting and ventilation, or uncomfortably or dangerously high or low temperatures. The work may be difficult, tiresome, dangerous, climatically challenging, or underpaid. Employees in sweatshops may work long hours with unfair wages, regardless of laws mandating overtime pay or a minimum wage; child labor laws may also be violated. Women make up 85 to 90% of sweatshop workers and may be forced by employers to take birth control and routine pregnancy tests to avoid supporting maternity leave or providing health benefits.
Strike action, also called labor strike, labour strike in British English, or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became common during the Industrial Revolution, when mass labor became important in factories and mines. As striking became a more common practice, governments were often pushed to act. When government intervention occurred, it was rarely neutral or amicable. Early strikes were often deemed unlawful conspiracies or anti-competitive cartel action and many were subject to massive legal repression by state police, federal military power, and federal courts. Many Western nations legalized striking under certain conditions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
A maquiladora, or maquila, is a word that refers to factories that are largely duty free and tariff-free. These factories take raw materials and assemble, manufacture, or process them and export the finished product. These factories and systems are present throughout Latin America, including Mexico, Paraguay, Nicaragua, and El Salvador. Maquiladoras date back to 1964, when the Mexican government introduced the Programa de Industrialización Fronteriza. Specific programs and laws have made Mexico's maquila industry grow rapidly.
Freedom of association encompasses both an individual's right to join or leave groups voluntarily, the right of the group to take collective action to pursue the interests of its members, and the right of an association to accept or decline membership based on certain criteria. It can be described as the right of a person coming together with other individuals to collectively express, promote, pursue and/or defend common interests. Freedom of association is both an individual right and a collective right, guaranteed by all modern and democratic legal systems, including the United States Bill of Rights, article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights, section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and international law, including articles 20 and 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and article 22 of International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work by the International Labour Organization also ensures these rights.
The Caribbean Basin Trade Partnership Act (CBTPA) is a law adopted by the U.S. Government in October 2000 to delineate enhanced trade preferences and eligibility requirements for the 24 beneficiary countries of the Caribbean Basin region.
Labor rights or workers' rights are both legal rights and human rights relating to labor relations between workers and employers. These rights are codified in national and international labor and employment law. In general, these rights influence working conditions in the relations of employment. One of the most prominent is the right to freedom of association, otherwise known as the right to organize. Workers organized in trade unions exercise the right to collective bargaining to improve working conditions.
The Maquila Solidarity Network (MSN) based in Toronto describes itself as:
"A Canadian network promoting solidarity with groups in Mexico, Central America, Africa, and Asia organizing in maquiladora factories and export processing zones to improve conditions and win a living wage."
The Women's Trade Union League (WTUL) (1903–1950) was a U.S. organization of both working class and more well-off women to support the efforts of women to organize labor unions and to eliminate sweatshop conditions. The WTUL played an important role in supporting the massive strikes in the first two decades of the twentieth century that established the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union and Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America and in campaigning for women's suffrage among men and women workers.
Community unionism, also known as reciprocal unionism, refers to the formation of alliances between unions and non-labour groups in order to achieve common goals. These unions seek to organize the employed, unemployed, and underemployed. They press for change in the workplace and beyond, organizing around issues such as welfare reform, health care, jobs, housing, and immigration. Individual issues at work are seen as being a part of broader societal problems which they seek to address. Unlike trade unions, community union membership is not based on the workplace- it is based on common identities and issues. Alliances forged between unions and other groups may have a primary identity based on affiliations of religion, ethnic group, gender, disability, environmentalism, neighborhood residence, or sexuality.
The Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights, formerly known as the National Labor Committee, was a non-profit, non-governmental organization (NGO) that investigates human and labor rights abuses committed by large multinational corporations producing goods in the developing world. The Institute was headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with offices in Bangladesh and Central America. Charles Kernaghan served as the Executive Director. The Institute published investigations with the goal of influencing public opinion and corporate policy. It is widely considered to be the organization that began the late-20th-century anti-sweatshop movement in America.
The International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF) is a nonprofit advocacy organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., U.S., that describes itself as "an advocate for and with the working poor around the world." ILRF, formerly the "International Labor Rights Education & Research Fund", was founded in 1986, and the organization's mission statement reads: "ILRF believes that all workers have the right to a safe working environment where they are treated with dignity and respect, and where they can organize freely to defend and promote their rights and interests. ILRF works to develop practical and effective tools to assist workers in winning enforcement of protections for their basic rights, and hold labor rights violators accountable."
Worker centers are non-profit community-based mediating organizations in the United States that organize and provide support to communities of low-wage workers who are not already members of a collective bargaining organization, or have been legally excluded from coverage by U.S. labor laws. Many worker centers focus on immigrant and low-wage workers in sectors such as restaurant, construction, day labor and agriculture.
The Lowell mill girls were young female workers who came to work in textile mills in Lowell, Massachusetts during the Industrial Revolution in the United States. The workers initially recruited by the corporations were daughters of New England farmers, typically between the ages of 15 and 35. By 1840, at the height of the Textile Revolution, the Lowell textile mills had recruited over 8,000 workers, with women making up nearly three-quarters of the mill workforce.
The Chinese Staff and Worker's Association (CSWA) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan workers' rights organization based in New York City which educates and organizes workers in the United States so that they may improve their working conditions. It primarily assists workers in restaurants, the garment and construction industries, although it is active among workers in a variety of professions. The organization serves workers from all backgrounds, most of its members are Chinese and most of its efforts directed at employers in Chinatown.
The Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC) is the garment industry's largest alliance of labour unions and non-governmental organizations. The civil society campaign focuses on the improvement of working conditions in the garment and sportswear industries. Formed in the Netherlands in 1989, the CCC has campaigns in 15 European countries: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. The CCC works with a partner network of more than 250 organizations around the world.
Nike, Inc. has been accused of using sweatshops and worker abuse to produce footwear and apparel in East Asia. After rising prices and the increasing cost of labor in Korean and Taiwanese factories, Nike began contracting in countries elsewhere in Asia, which includes parts of India, Pakistan, and Indonesia. It sub-contracted factories without reviewing the conditions, based on the lowest bid. Nike's usage of sweatshops originates to the 1970's. However, it wasn't until 1991, when a report by Jeff Ballinger was published detailing their insufficient payment of workers and the poor conditions in their Indonesian factories, that these sweatshops came under the media and human rights scrutiny that continues to today.
The Jasic incident was a labour dispute in Pingshan District, Shenzhen of the Guangdong province of the People's Republic of China between labour organizers and Chinese authorities that lasted from July to August 2018.
Women in Asia have been organizing to address workplace issues, such as unequal pay and workplace violence as early as the 1880s. The formation of women's labor unions in South Korea began in the late 1970s with the Minjung movement, as it is based on the mobilization of young female factory workers and martial law suspended labor rights. Women in South Korea are typically irregular workers, who are not protected by labor laws, make up to 35% less in wages than men, and are less likely to be a union member.
Workers for the Scripto company in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, held a labor strike from November 27, 1964, to January 9, 1965. It ended when the company and union agreed to a three-year contract that included wage increases and improved employee benefits. The strike was an important event in the history of the civil rights movement, as both civil rights leaders and organized labor activists worked together to support the strike.
References
- ↑ ATTACKED MAQUILA WORKERS REACH SETTLEMENT IN GUATEMALA!
- ↑ Liz Claiborne Suppliers in Guatemala Sign First Union Contracts
- ↑ "USLEAP: Justice in the Americas".
- ↑ Fair Labor Association Archived 2007-06-10 at the Wayback Machine
- ↑ Phone calls to Dr. Angelina Godoy from union leadership.
- ↑ Student Labor Action Project Archived 2009-10-05 at the Portuguese Web Archive
- ↑ Online Action Page