Workers on Dole Flower Plantations Win Historic Victories in ...

USLEAP
New USLEAP Report on Guatemala...
took office in January 2008.
Especially troubling for U.S. policy
makers and worker rights supporters,
the mission found strong evidence that
U.S. policy and leverage for supporting
worker rights in Guatemala has weakened
significantly with the passage
of the Central American Free Trade
Agreement.
During the contentious debate on
the Central America Free Trade Agreement
(CAFTA), worker rights advocates
expressed strong concern that
U.S. trade leverage to support worker
rights in the region would be weakened
with the passage of CAFTA on the
grounds that weak worker rights protections
under the labor chapter of CAFTA
would replace stronger protections provided
under the Generalized System of
Preferences (GSP). The track record
on worker rights in Guatemala since
implementation of CAFTA in July 2006
bears out the critics’ concerns.
Since implementation of CAFTA
in Guatemala, there has been a deterioration
in the worker rights situation
in Guatemala, with a sharp rise in violence
against trade unionists accompanied
by near-total impunity, with at
least nine trade union-related murders
and two rapes of daughters of trade
union leaders.
USLEAP Executive Director and Guatemalan Labor Minister Edgar
Alfredo Rodriguez at the conclusion of their July 2008 meeting.
6
Trade Unionists Targeted
in 2008
While some have dismissed the
rise in violence against trade unionists
as simply reflective of rising violence
in general in Guatemala, worker rights
supporters and trade unionists disagree,
saying that trade unionists and other human
rights defenders are being targeted
under the cover of general violence. A
July 2008 human rights report by La
Unidad de Protección de Defensoras
y Defensores de Derechos Humanos de
Guatemala (UDEFEGUA) found that
trade unionists have borne the brunt of
attacks the first half of this year, with
well over one third of all assaults on human
rights defenders directed at trade
unionists.
There is no indication that U.S.
trade leverage under CAFTA has been
effective in addressing any significant
worker rights concerns, with U.S. government
officials in Guatemala and
Washington unable to identify effective
responses to the increased violations
or specific advances for worker
rights that could be linked to pressure
provided under the CAFTA labor chapter.
While it is theoretically possible
that the April 2008 filing by the AFL-
CIO and Guatemalan trade unions of a
CAFTA labor complaint on Guatemala
could strengthen
the political hand
of the U.S. government
to press
for advances, the
apparent inability
of the U.S. government
to exercise
effective leverage
up to this
point stands in
stark contrast to
the pre-CAFTA
era when U.S.
trade and worker
rights policy with
Guatemala, and
other countries in
U.S. LABOR EDUCATION IN THE AMERICAS PROJECT
continued from page 1
the region, was governed by GSP.
Fundamentally, as another longtime
trade union leader observed, there
is no incentive under CAFTA for employers
to respect worker rights, point-
Cover Up for Murdered
Honduran Unionist?
Honduran authorities are
claiming that the April 24, 2008
murder of Rosa Altagracia Fuentes,
the general secretary of the
<strong>Workers</strong>’ Confederation of Honduras
(CTH), was common crime,
a claim rejected by the country’s
trade union movement. Members
of a car theft ring have been
arrested but skeptics point out that
her car was riddled with bullets
and that neither a laptop nor money
were stolen.
ing out that under GSP, economic disincentives
were born by the employer
while under CAFTA, the economic disincentives
are borne by the government
(and any fines are simply returned to
another arm of the government).
Trade union leaders also report that
one of the gains from the pre-CAFTA
GSP process is now under attack. As
an outcome of the earlier GSP process,
the Guatemalan government agreed
several years ago to establish a Special
Prosecutor for Violence against Trade
Unionists and Journalists. Now that
CAFTA has replaced GSP, this office
is reportedly being downgraded, rolled
into another unit with reduced staff.
To add insult to injury, weakened
leverage of U.S. trade policy has been
accompanied by the Bush Administration’s
push to rely on the business sector
to police itself abroad. Last year, for example,
the administration provided a $2
million grant to Business for Social Responsibility
to promote improvements
in labor standards in Central America
and the Dominican Republic, and sup-
continued on page 7
Falll 2008