Anarchoblogs

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Historic Victory: Jerzees de Honduras workers win break-through agreement:

On November 14 an unprecedented agreement was struck between Russell Athletic and the union representing unjustly laid off workers at its former Jerzees de Honduras (JDH) factory.
Russell has agreed to open a new facility in the Choloma area, re-hire and provide substantial economic assistance to the 1,200 former JDH workers, institute a joint union-management training program on freedom of association and commit to a position of neutrality with respect to unionization, which will open the door for union representation at all of Fruit of the Loom's Honduran facilities (Russell Athletic is owned by Fruit of the Loom).

"This agreement represents one of the most significant advances for fundamental workplace rights in the twenty-year history of apparel industry codes of conduct," said Scott Nova of the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC), which conducted independent investigations into violations of freedom of association at JDH. "It is hard to overstate the significance of this breakthrough."

"For Honduran workers this agreement represents real hope, especially in the midst of an unemployment crisis in our country," said Evangelina Argueta, Coordinator of the Honduran General Workers' Confederation (CGT) in Choloma, which spearheaded the fight for the former JDH workers. "The fired workers haven't had income to support their families. Now they can be assured that they will have a job - this is the most valuable thing to come out of the agreement."

Russell Athletic was under serious pressure to repair the damage caused by its decision to close the JDH factory last January, which was widely condemned as an attempt to destroy a newly formed union (see last issue of the Update for details).

At the urging of students, unions and labour rights organizations, including United Students Against Sweatshops and MSN, over 100 universities in Canada and the US that have adopted ethical purchasing policies either withdrew their licensing agreements with the company or threatened to do so unless it took action to remedy the violations. Retailers and other Russell consumers were also approached.

"This is the first time we know of where a factory that was shut down to eliminate a union was later re-opened after a worker-activist campaign. This is also the first company-wide neutrality agreement in the history of the Central America apparel export industry – and it has been entered into by the largest private employer in Honduras, the largest exporter of t-shirts to the US market in the world. This is a breakthrough of enormous significance for the right to organize – and worker rights in general – in one of the harshest labor rights environments in the world,” said Rod Palmquist, USAS International Campaign Coordinator.

Talks between the union and the company finally began after Russell Athletic's membership in the Fair Labor Association (FLA) was put on "Special Review" status last June. An FLA investigation carried out in response to a complaint filed by the CGT, the Clean Clothes Campaign and MSN confirmed the WRC's finding that the presence of the union was a significant factor in the FLA member company's decision to close the JDH factory.

The FLA told the company it had to negotiate remediation with the factory union (SITRAJERZEESH) and the CGT, and engage with MSN and the WRC.

Fruit of the Loom is the largest private sector employer in Honduras, owning eight factories that employ over 10,000 workers, making the impact of this agreement extremely significant.
"The partnership being created between a large private employer and an independent union federation is unprecedented in the history of the apparel sector in Honduras and in Central America," said Nova.

Implementation of the agreement will be monitored by a joint union-management committee, with an agreement to enter into binding arbitration in the case of disputes over implementation or interpretation.

"We feel that the company acted in good faith during the negotiations, and this has to be recognized," said Argueta. "Relations between workers, the union and the company have been strengthened, and this will be reflected when the new factory is opened."

"All the support we received from groups like the WRC, MSN and from all of the university students was fundamental and we are very grateful," said Argueta. "The support of international organizations is very important."
• Read the Joint Public Statement on the agreement by the union and the company (November 17, 2009)
• Read more on the Jerzees de Honduras Campaign.

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The Maquila Solidarity Network is a great source of international labour news. Molly highly recommends that her readers sign up to get their news and participate in their campaigns. Here's the blurb about their latest newsletter, with lots more on the evolving situation in Honduras.

Maquila Solidarity Update 14.3 (December 2009):
The December 2009 edition of MSN's newsletter, Maquila Solidarity Update, is now available on MSN's website. In this edition MSN examines how the coup in Honduras has given life to a popular movement, the historic agreement for Jerzees de Honduras workers, the launch of the innovative Asia Floor Wage Campaign, Mexico's policy of busting independent unions while letting fraudulent unions multiply and other stories.
» Download Maquila Solidarity Update 14.3

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Honduran Coup Regime and Landowning Elites Enlist the Support of Foreign Paramilitaries:

By Reed M. Kurtz
NACLA
Saturday, Oct 24, 2009
Even more evidence has come to light regarding the desperation and disregard for human rights of the Honduran coup regime and its elite backers. On Friday, October 9 a United Nations human rights panel issued a warning concerning the presence of contracted foreign paramilitary forces operating inside the troubled country. According to the UN Working Group on the use of mercenaries, an estimated 40 members of the infamous United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) have been hired by wealthy Honduran landowners to defend themselves "from further violence between supporters of the de facto government and those of the deposed President Manuel Zelaya."

As Zelaya's Foreign Minister Patricia Rodas notes, it is widely believed that these mercenaries are being used to "do the dirty jobs that the armed forces refuse to do." In addition, the panel established direct links between President Roberto Micheletti's coup-installed government and foreign paramilitaries, stating that an additional group of 120 hired soldiers from several countries throughout the region had been created to provide support for the coup regime. This report confirms allegations made by the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo back in September.

Noting that Honduras is a signatory to the international convention against the use of mercenaries, the panel, comprised of a diverse array of security and human rights experts, expressed its deep concern and called upon the Honduran golpistas to take action against the use of paramilitaries inside Honduran territory. In response, Micheletti rejected the allegations, denying any recruitment of paramilitaries for protection.

This report represents yet another condemnation from the international community of the de facto Honduran government and offers further evidence of the degree to which Micheletti's regime and its supporters have undermined democracy and human rights in the region. The AUC, essentially an umbrella organization of various right-wing death squads, many of which also collaborate with Colombian drug traffickers, is one of the region's most notorious paramilitary organizations and is classified as a terrorist group by the U.S. State Department. Supposedly "demobilized" in 2006, the AUC has largely continued to carry out its drug-dealing activities and campaign of violence and intimidation against campesinos, indigenous peoples, stigmatized social groups such as homosexuals and prostitutes, labor organizers, critical journalists, and human rights advocates.

The AUC has also been directly and indirectly linked to numerous powerful elites and business interests in Colombia, including many close to President Álvaro Uribe's administration, and is said to operate "parallel" to the Colombian military. (See "Country Summary: Colombia." Human Rights Watch. January 2008.) The AUC usually presents itself as an alternative to the leftist guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). It targets many left-leaning groups, which it generally refers to as "FARC sympathizers," a characterization often repeated by Uribe himself and by members of his government, in order to discredit those groups and justify the brutal activities of the AUC. Above all, however, most of those targeted by the AUC are chosen precisely because their efforts on behalf of social justice and their resistance to neoliberal policies are in direct opposition to the interests of the AUC's elite backers.

Accordingly, the linkages connecting the Honduran military regime, powerful members of the country's landed elite, and right-wing Colombian paramilitaries are extremely troubling but not altogether surprising. Back on July 4, before any evidence of direct collaboration with Colombian narco-terrorists had emerged, journalist Al Giordano noted that the Honduran regime was in the process of making itself into a "rogue narco-state," shutting itself off from the international community while allying with the most shadowy and reactionary sectors of the Latin American right. Among its prominent supporters have been Rafael Hernández Nodarse, a millionaire arms trafficker with ties to Cuban terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, and Otto Reich, a Washington super-hawk who played a prominent role in Iran-Contra affair. All these parties share an agenda of preserving unjust wealth and resource distributions while waging total war against social democracy using any means necessary. Honduras merely represents the most recent arena in which this war is being waged.

The right's problem with Zelaya has never been that he tried to reform his country's deeply flawed constitution ("the worst in the world," according to Costa Rican President Óscar Arias), but because, according to Micheletti himself, he "became friends with Daniel Ortega, Chávez, Correa, Evo Morales. ... He went to the left." In other words, Micheletti is using the same tactics of "guilt by association" that his AUC allies use to justify their violence, only this time the "guilt" consists of association with other popular, democratically elected heads of state in the region. Nevertheless, the message and the effect are still the same: If you oppose us, and what we stand for, we will take you down with force.

But whereas the reactionary elites in the region are disposed to using violence, intimidation, and the contracting of paramilitaries to impose their will, those on the Latin American left, the people for whom Morales, Chávez, and Zelaya are merely elected representatives, have increasingly turned to strategies of nonviolence, popular organization, and civil resistance in their struggles for justice and democracy. The degree to which the popular left—and its leaders—continue to adhere to the values of peace, justice, and solidarity will ultimately decide whether or not the popular movement achieves its goals, not only here and now in Honduras, but in all of Latin America.
North American Congress on Latin America

The Honduran coup regime has hired the services of Chlopak, Leonard, Schechter & Associates, a Washington DC based public relations firm, to clean up its image. SOA Watch will join Hondureños por la Democracia and others at 12:30pm today for a protest at their offices. Please support the protest by letting the PR firm know that their implicit endorsement of the Honduran coup regime and its record of human rights violations is simply unacceptable. You can send an email message through this webpage and call them at (202) 289-5900 to register your opposition.
Click here for the Online Action.
Video: 100 Days of Resistance:

100 days since the coup d'etat that ousted Manuel Zelaya, Fault Lines travels to Honduras to look at polarization and power in the Americas, and finds resistance and repression in the streets.

The news clip includes interviews with Bertha Oliva of the Committee of the Families of the Disappeared-Detained in Honduras (Bertha will join us at the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia for the November Vigil) and with School of the Americas graduate and military coup leader General Romero Vásquez. It also looks at the elites behind the military coup, the coup plotters connections in the United States and the struggle for real democracy in Honduras.
Take it to the streets!Wednesday, October 28:

marks the 4 month anniversary of the SOA graduate-led military coup in Honduras. Organize vigils and actions in your community to show solidarity with the Honduran people and to close the School of the Americas (SOA/ WHINSEC). November 20-22: Converge on Fort Benning, Georgia to take a stand for justice for the people of the Americas and to shut down the SOA/ WHINSEC.
Click here for more information about the November vigil, travel and hotel information and logistical details.

Click here for information on how to organize a vigil in your community.

Since the military coup--after more than 40 days of untiring efforts by thousands of farmers, women, indigenous people, teachers, students, unionists and ordinary citizens of the cities and the countryside to revert it and to recover democracy and dignity -- the repression by the School of the Americas trained military and the coup plotters has not notched the fighting spirit of the heroic Honduran people.

This struggle has now entered a crucial phase as the National Front of Resistance Against the Coup d'Etat and the farmers movement have summoned the social, union and democratic movements to a National March that began on the 5 of August and will culminate on August 11 in Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula.

In support of this National March, we call you to participate in a "Global Day of Action for Honduras", which will take place on on Tuesday, August 11, 2009. We seek to support strong solidarity efforts in carrying out political and cultural mobilization, concrete actions, and political pressure and lobbying, as well as any and all possible activities that help advance the Honduran popular resistance in defeating this military coup.

Click here for information on how to organize a vigil in your community.

Please contact Jake at SOA Watch at jake@soaw.org to inform us about your plans of action and work for the "Global Day of Action for Honduras" as soon as possible.
Globalize Hope!

Watch this APTVS news report about the US response to the military coup and the involvement of School of the Americas trained soldiers in the overthrow of democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya.

In response to the recent military coup in Honduras the American administration made several "ringing declarations". One of these was to cut off all military aid to the government of the coup. Of course it didn't happen. The following article from the School of the Americas Watch tells how business as usual continues over at Fort Benning (the torture school dedicated to training army officers from Latin America the best ways to serve their American masters) with the Honduran "students" learning all they have to know with no interruptions. The link to the original article from the National Catholic Reporter lays bare even more examples from within Honduras itself.

The substance of the actions of the Obama administration certainly is less than its rhetoric. This seems to be a pattern with Obama. Every time he is asked a question of substance he slowly repeats a selection of abstract platitudes. One wonders whether his hesitations (very rarely punctuated by the required "umms" of normal speech) are actually a rhetorical devise designed to give the appearance of "thoughtfulness" or whether they are really pauses necessary to form words that are void of all reference to the real world. I'm beginning to think the latter. Obama is, of course, a politician. As such he is fully cognisant of the need to say a nothing so that his words can be taken by all audiences as reflections of their own desires. I am still, however, becoming increasingly appreciative of the "poker strategy" of the man. Not only does he give nothing away in terms of his hand before the fact. Even after the cards are already down he maintains the poker face of saying nothing. It will likely serve him well until the various medias become accustomed to calling his way of speaking as to what it really is.

The present situation in Honduras is one more proof that the American empire will continue as before (with a little "progressive lip gloss" of course). The statement that the USA had cut off all military aid is a lie. The supporters of Obama will try to ignore the fact, but, if pressed, they are sure to say, in one way or another that "it was only a little lie. Here's the story....

U.S. continues to train Honduran soldiers:
Military coup that ousted president, didn't stop U.S. engagement in Honduras
A controversial facility at Fort Benning, Georgia -- formerly known as the U.S. Army's School of the Americas -- is still training Honduran officers despite claims by the Obama administration that it cut military ties to Honduras after its president was overthrown June 28, NCR has learned.

A day after an SOA-trained army general ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya at gunpoint, President Barack Obama stated that "the coup was not legal" and that Zelaya remained "the democratically elected president."

The Foreign Operations Appropriations Act requires that U.S. military aid and training be suspended when a country undergoes a military coup, and the Obama administration has indicated those steps have been taken.

However, Lee Rials, public affairs officer for the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, the successor of SOA, confirmed Monday that Honduran officers are still being trained at the school.

Trade unionists in Honduras – a country that despite its small size is the fourth largest exporter of garments to the United States – have been vociferously rallying in support of democratically-elected President Manuel Zelaya, who was violently ousted from power by a military coup June 28. SweatFree Communities supports workers in Honduras, including Elizabeth Gutierrez, a former garment worker and leader in FESITRADEH, the Honduran garment workers' union, who toured the U.S. this spring with SweatFree Communities to educate the public about conditions in the Honduran garment industry.

While the Honduran National Business Council (COHEP) - whose members include the apparel industry trade group Asociación Hondureña de Maquiladores (whose members in turn include U.S. companies Dickies, Cintas, Russell, and Hanes) - has come out publicly in favor of the de facto government, trade unionists have been victimized in the weeks since the coup. The Spanish daily newspaper El Pais reports that freedom of association among other civil liberties have been suspended. According to the Inter American Commission on Human Rights, “Roger Ulises Peña, a union member, was allegedly attacked by a military command on June 29, 2009, and his current health situation is very critical.” And on July 4, one week after the coup d'etat, the offices of the Central General de Trabajadores (CGT), the national trade union center, was broken into and ransacked, with important documents stolen. CGT staff report that police have not responded adequately, and many believe the crime was political in nature.

Honduras Laboral, a media organization, reports that on July 8, approximately 1000 members of the Bloque Popular (Popular Block) – peasants, labor unionists, students and teachers – stopped traffic on the Pan-American Highway for five hours in the town of Comayagua, as a form of pressure to restore a constitutional government. This “paro” took place as anti-coup marches continued in the larger cities of San Pedro Sula, El Progreso and Tegucigalpa. The National Labor Committee also reports that the Honduras Teachers Union has called on its members to join a national strike.

“The take-over [of the road] was done peacefully, and the police did not suppress it because the majority of the anti-riot forces are concentrated in Tegucigalpa,” said Víctor Petic, director of the Honduran Cement Industry Workers' Union (SITRAINCEHSA). “In addition to the marches and take-overs that have been expanding since last Sunday, more people have joined in and this is a sign that the people are aware that what has happened is a Coup d'Etat that needs to be disavowed by everyone.”

Here are a few additional resources for more information on popular protest of the unelected Honduran regime:
Democracy Nowwith Amy Goodman
Monthly Review zine
Anti-sweatshop movement´s joint blog
Commentator Mark Weisbrot in the Guardian