A-Infos (en) Han Young NAO report

["Shawn Ewald" <shawn@wilshire.net>]

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[Information provided by the Support Committee for Maquiladora 
Workers, which asks activists seeking updates to contact Campaign for 
Labor Rights: (541) 344-5410, <CLR@igc.apc.org>]

REPORT ON FEB.18 NAO HEARING
February 20, 1998

Mary Tong, executive director of the Support Committee for Maquiladora
Workers, and 33 workers from the Han Young maquiladora in Tijuana provided
powerful testimony at the NAO hearing in San Diego on Wednesday. However, an
INS supervisor at the border saw to it that, by they time they could arrive
at the hearing, much of the media already had left.

Officials of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service put Tong and
the workers through a lengthy process of paperwork before allowing them to
proceed to San Diego. Twice, staff of the NAO called the border station to
learn why the witnesses were being delayed and, twice, the INS supervisor
lied, saying that their paperwork already had been processed.

In spite of this, the evidence against the company and the Mexican
government was overwhelming. Two top officials of the Mexican Secretariat of
Labor and Social Welfare (STPS, in Spanish), in an apparent attempt at
damage control, arrived in Tijuana on Thursday, the day after the hearings.
They held a press conference to announce two initiatives: A special federal
labor board will be established in Tijuana; and the Baja state government
will establish an STPS of its own. These two moves appear to contradict or
cancel each other, since one implies more federal intervention in a state
with clearly corrupt labor practices and the other shifts the burden of
responsibility (blame?) for labor issues to that same corrupt state government.

Also the federal officials announced that the STPS is fining Han Young
72,000 pesos ($9,000 US or $12,500-13,000 Canadian) for failure to correct
health and safety violations cited in three earlier inspections.

However, the context in which the STPS gave the fine was saying that they
were interested in maintaining Mexican sovereignty. The federal officials
said that NAFTA was supposed to be an agreement of cooperation and
interchange and they were not going to succumb to pressure. They went on to
accuse the organizations behind the NAO complaint of being foreign unions
with a protectionist agenda.


A report on the NAO hearing from the San Diego Union-Tribune
Thursday, February 19, 1998

U.S. Officials Look at Baja Labor Strife
At issue is possible effort by government to quash union
by Dean Calbreath, staff writer

Workers and managers from Tijuana's strike-torn Han Young maquiladora
yesterday squared off in front of a panel of U.S. Labor Department officials
investigating labor-organizing and safety issues at the automotive factory.

At issue is whether the Baja California government illegally worked to quash
the Han Young union - the only independent union along the border - and
whether the government is ignoring hazardous working conditions at the plant.

Under the North American Free Trade Agreement, if it is proven that the
Mexican government ignored its own worker-safety laws, it can be fined as
much as .007 percent of its annual trade with the United States - or more
than $50 million, based on 1996 figures.

Irasema Garza, head of the National Administrative Office of the U.S. Labor
Department, is heading the panel investigation. She declined to comment on
the merit of the workers' complaints, saying it will be a month before she
submits her findings to the U.S. government. The NAO was established under
NAFTA to resolve labor disputes between the United States, Mexico and Canada.

Garza said the hearing - along with similar hearings set up under NAFTA -
involved "an unprecedented level of scrutiny of Mexican labor law,
contributing to a debate that's already existing in Mexico about labor laws."

About 60 people attended the all-day hearing, held at the San Diego
Concourse. From the tone and direction of Garza's questions, she seemed
skeptical about whether the Baja California labor relations office had
abided by Mexican law during last year's long and circuitous
union-organizing attempts at Han Young.

Han Young workers, who began organizing last May, voted 58-35 last October
to form an independent union. The Baja labor board rejected the vote, saying
it was not legally binding and that the steelworkers union the workers voted
to join was not authorized to represent workers in Tijuana. The labor board
finally recognized the union in December, after mounting international pressure.

Han Young's management still refuses to deal with the union, partially
because the labor board has never officially requested that it negotiate
with the workers.

Witness after witness told the Labor Department panel that the board had
violated Mexican labor laws as well as the national constitution by
preventing the workers form organizing. Alfredo Garcia Quinones, a labor
lawyer from Ensenada, listed more than half a dozen violations of the law,
which requires that labor boards recognize majority votes in
union-organizing drives.

"Those problems go far beyond Baja California and the Han Young plant," said
Mary Tong, who heads San Diego's Support Committee for Maquiladora Workers.
Tong complained that labor boards throughout the border region are stacked
against union organizers.

No member of the Baja labor board appeared at the hearing. Han Young
attorney Ricardo Estrada defended the board's actions, saying the union
organizers failed to comply with all regulations when pressing for a vote.
Estrada said the whole union dispute was blown out of proportion by
"non-governmental organizations from abroad, trying to put pressure on the
Mexican government."

Equally serious were the alleged health-and-safety violations at the plant.
A safety inspection by Mexico's Department of Labor and Social Welfare on
Jan. 28 found 46 violations at the plant, including 34 violations that were
first identified as early as last June but have not yet been corrected.

Among the most serious violations were lack of maintenance on the plant's 15
cranes and water leakage through the plant's roof. Recent rains have created
inch-deep puddles on the floor, submerging frayed power lines. Leakage from
the ceiling is dropping directly on one of the plant's 480-volt power
machines, according to the Mexican inspection report.

The Mexican inspection ruled that the leakage was "immediately dangerous to
life and health." But although the inspection identified the problem last
June, they gave the plant an additional 20 days to remedy the problem - far
in excess of the deadline required under Mexican law. The plant has so far
missed two deadlines previously set by the inspectors, but contrary to
Mexican law, no fine was levied.

"Every company has problems," said Han Young general manager Ho Young
"Pablo" Kang. "Inspectors all the time give us time to repair and improve
things at the factory. We've never been fined. We've been working for five
years and there's been no problems yet."

But Garrett Brown, a California Occupational Safety and Health inspector
appearing at the hearing unofficially, was incredulous the problems had not
been fixed.

"In California, that plant would be shut down in 20 minutes," he said.

Labor Alerts: a service of Campaign for Labor Rights
To receive our email labor alerts, send a message to CLR@igc.apc.org
Phone: (541) 344-5410       Web site: http://www.compugraph.com/clr
Membership/newsletter. Send $35.00 to Campaign for Labor Rights, 1247
"E" Street SE, Washington, DC 20003. Sample newsletter available on
request.

-------Message History -------
Date:          Fri, 20 Feb 1998 23:13:35 -0800 (PST)
To:            clr@igc.org
From:          Campaign for Labor Rights <clr@igc.apc.org>
Subject:       Han Young NAO report
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