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While Congressional representatives debate CAFTA in Washington, and labor rights activists criticize the legislation for its weak labor standards, workers in a unique factory in San Salvador struggle to keep afloat a fledgling pilot project that challenges conventional wisdom about so-called market forces. In the face of and in competition with the dominant free trade model, workers here are determined to prove that their worker-controlled production model-one that treats them with respect and pays a decent wage-can turn a profit.
Like hundreds of thousands of Central Americans including approximately 75,000 Salvadorans, Sonia Diaz goes to work every morning in a free trade zone maquila. Though the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) has yet to be ratified by all six parties, free trade zones-designated industrial areas where international companies are granted access to cheap local labor and allowed to produce goods tax free-have increasingly dotted the Central American landscape since the 1980s. But the factory where Sonia works, located on the outskirts of San Salvador near the San Bartolo free trade zone,* is very different from other maquilas. Just Garments is the only unionized maquila in El Salvador-meaning workers have a collective bargaining agreement and each worker belongs to the union.
In an industry in which generally 80% of the profit goes to the brands, 14-16% goes to factory owners and 4% is distributed among millions of workers, Just Garments seeks to prove a non-exploitative business model is possible. They pay better-their salaries are currently 1.05% of the industry standard with an immediate goal of raising that to 1.5%-and the working conditions are defined by the workers. Diaz, who herself has lobbied against the trade agreement in the U.S. Congress on behalf of Salvadoran workers, isn't putting any faith in CAFTA to lift Central American countries out of poverty, protect workers rights or promote democracy-benefits U.S. government officials promise free trade will bring. "They say they'll create more jobs here in El Salvador," she says skeptically, "but this will end up meaning the good jobs in the US will become the bad jobs in all of Central America, because it's a lie - they won't come here to pay a salary like they pay in the US." She points to Mexico's experience with NAFTA as an example.
A 35-year-old mother of three, Sonia started working with what is now Just Garments over three years ago back when it was still run by Tainan Industries, a Taiwanese company that owns factories in nine different countries. Tainan was emblematic of other Central American maquilas, producing for large American brands such as GAP and using threats, intimidation, and random firings to discourage workers from organizing beyond a management-sponsored union. With help from the Center for Labor Studies and Support (CEAL) workers at Tainan succeeded in organizing an independent union-the Textile Industry Workers Union (STIT). Upon receiving the official request to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement from the STIT in April of 2002, Tainan owners announced they were shutting down, claiming they did not have enough orders to keep the factory in business.
When workers presented proof that there were in fact sufficient orders to sustain production, Tainan Industries blamed the brands not wanting to work with unions as their reason for closing. This claim led to an international campaign to pressure GAP to keep orders in Tainan and pressure Tainan to reopen. Just Garments also got help from the Workers Rights Consortium (WRC)-an organization of university students and administrations and labor rights experts that monitors the garment industry-who helped prove Tainan was distributing a blacklist to other factory owners. Sonia Diaz was a blacklisted worker. "They didn't even separate the non-affiliated workers; they just put everyone on one single list. I mean, the crime was basically being from Tainan, not necessarily being organized." Eventually, thanks to the combined pressure of resisting workers and the international campaign, the STIT was able to reach an agreement with Tainan and the transnational brands.
Diaz credits effective organization and the solidarity support Just Garments received from groups outside El Salvador for why she never gave up hope even though many of her co-workers were caving in to mounting pressure from Tainan. "I believe the organization has given me a lot as a person," she says, "in order to not let myself be defeated I always thought: we have to continue on and make our own future." Currently, the factory is struggling to stay in business. To demonstrate their viability and continue working at an acceptable operating capacity, Just Garments has been forced to accept subcontracts, even though they make only cents on these orders and have to operate at a deficit. If it were not for the progress they have made in the sweat-free, union-made niche market, Just Garments would no longer exist.
"If anyone is still unaware of what is happening here or they see it and aren't analyzing it," Sonia says. "I encourage them to learn about it, to not allow it to go forward, to not be complicit in the negative things CAFTA will do-in the exploitation, in the violations of our rights here and in the shameful salaries we have. And I always say this is my message from the working class because we are the ones who suffer the consequences." But don't be fooled into thinking Just Garments will go away if CAFTA is passed. While it would certainly be a damaging blow to the international labor movement and the improved worker conditions it aims to bring about, Sonia and others like her aren't giving up. "We're not going to say 'well, this is as far as we can go' if they end up ratifying CAFTA," says Diaz. "No, on the contrary, we'll simply need to find more ways to enter into the fair trade market. We've come too far and struggled too much to abandon it at this point." * The industrial center where Just Garments is located is geographically outside the San Bartolo free trade zone, but is subject to the same rules and regulations as the factories located inside the free trade zone. Back to Faces of Trade homepage
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