PVH Contract Signed in Guatemala!

PVH Contract Signed in Guatemala!

(US/Guatemala Labor Educ. Camp. Ott.1997)

After four months of difficult negotiations and nearly six years after international campaign work began, the Phillips-Van Heusen workers at the company's Camisas Modernas clothing plant in Guatemala City ratified a contract on August 14, 1997.

The contract between PVH and STECAMOSA (Sindical de Trabajores de Camisas Modernas) is the only contract in Guatemala's maquiladora sector and only the second in the history of the ten year-old apparel- for-export sector, despite dozens of efforts to organize unions. And it is one of only a few contracts in the entire Central America maquiladora sector (there is a basic contract at the Fortex plant in Nicaragua although it does not deal with wages, none in El Salvador and several in Honduras, mostly from the 1980s).

The PVH contract responds to all of the major concerns of the union. The two-year contract calls for:

a wage increase equivalent to 11% in the first year and 12.5% in the second;

maintaining current employment and full production levels at the plant as long as basic productivity levels are met;

a grievance procedure;

clear descriptions of how wages are calculated, how productivity is measured, and of other management processes that in the past were vague and subject to arbitrary (and discriminatory) use by plant supervisors;

increased subsidies for transportation, lunch, and school-age children and subsidies for child care;

a signing bonus; and

visible recognition of the union, including the right to use plant facilities for an anniversary party, the right to have a bulletin board in the factory, and rent money for an office off factory premises.

Empowerment the Most Important Victory

The PVH victory is one not only for the 500 PVH workers in Guatemala but is an important (and too rare) model of a solidarity campaign that has brought not only concrete benefits to Central American workers but represents a fundamental advance for social and economic justice in a country with one of the worst human rights reputations in the world, supporting workers in their struggle for self- determination and empowerment.

"We are now the best paid workers in the maquila sector," said Monica Felipe Alvarez, general secretary of STECAMOSA, "but the most important thing about achieving this contract is that it opens a new space for us and for the workers in other maquila factories."

The highly-coordinated cross-border campaign used a multitude of tactics based first and foremost on solid organizing by the workers themselves. Without the technical assistance of the International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers Federation (ITGLWF) and the resources provided to support organizing on the ground in Guatemala, no amount of U.S. pressure would have been sufficient to enable the workers to establish a union and win its contract.

On the other hand, without the North American pressure, culminating in the Human Rights Watch investigation earlier this year, it is quite likely that the union would not have been able to get the company to the bargaining table. As Jay Mazur, President of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE!) says, "This victory is an example of what can be done when enough people care about making workers' rights real in this new global economy." To cite one of many actors, the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility (ICCR) played a key role by meeting regularly with PVH executives to review the Guatemala situation.

PVH workers first began organizing for a union in 1991 in order to improve wages and obtain better treatment. In 1992 the union became the first one in the maquila sector in six years to obtain its legal recognition, in large part because of U.S. pressure led by US/GLEP. A second organizing drive began Labor Day, 1996, applying a new model of maquila organizing with the help of the ITGLWF and its U.S. affiliate UNITE!, that enabled the union to secure broad enough public support from the workforce that the company was legally obligated to negotiate.

However, the Guatemalan Labor Ministry refused to rule that the union had achieved the threshold required for negotiations, leaving the matter at an impasse until Human Rights Watch (HRW) conducted an independent analysis verifying in March, 1997 that the union had in fact met the legal requirements. PVH Chief Executive Officer Bruce Klatsky, a member of the HRW board, immediately accepted the HRW findings and the company began contract negotiations in April. (Note: The HRW role is a good illustration of the need for independent monitoring and how it can be used effectively in the context of an organizing campaign).

Those who have followed US/GLEP since its early days will remember that the first seven newsletters were entitled not "US/GLEP Campaign Updates" but "Phillips-Van Heusen Campaign Updates." Those who have participated at any point in the North American campaign deserve a congratulations and thank you for this huge break-through.

What Next?

Besides monitoring compliance with the PVH contract, US/GLEP will undertake similar U.S. campaigns in support of maquiladora organizing campaigns in Guatemala on the condition that there is solid organizing on the ground. US/GLEP will continue to respond to requests from workers and unions for solidarity actions but major campaign work in the U.S. will generally be focused on those struggles where workers are engaged in strategic organizing campaigns that have enough of a chance of winning so that campaigns in the North have a real chance of helping workers obtain obtain concrete benefits and a change the balance of power with workers.

Action suggestions:

1. Send a message of congratulations to STECAMOSA. Fax: 011- 502-232-1324. Or send it to US/GLEP for delivery to the union.

2. Send a message to PVH Chief Executive Officer Bruce Klatsky thanking him for respecting the right of his workers to organize and negotiate a contract in Guatemala. It may have taken six years, but PVH has now done the right thing in Guatemala (and is none too popular with the rest of the maquiladora sector in Guatemala!). Phillips-Van Heusen, 1290 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10104; Fax: 212-247-5309.

Don't be overly congratulatory, however. While the wage increases appears substantial, they only keep pace with inflation rates of that have been a bit over 10% a year in Guatemala. PVH wages still do not provide Guatemalan workers with a living wage. While the wage increases are considered very good for a first contract, the union will seek to improve the wage package in future contracts.

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