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FORUM ON INDEPENDENT MONITORING
(Campaign for Labour Rights - May 2/June 13 1997)
Selected comments from the conference:
Dr. Benjamin Cuellar, of the Human Rights Department at the University of Central America in San Salvador: The parties to the GAP agreement negotiated a peaceful solution which is proving effective and which could even serve as a model of conflict resolution on a national level. Companies don't act as monitors. My institution has demonstrated its independence. All the groups in the Mandarin affair can attest to that.
Stan Gacek, of the AFL-CIO International Affairs Department: Religious and human rights organizations are the most qualified to monitor corporate codes of conduct.
Jay Mazur, President of UNITE: The best situation for labor is 1 ) a good union and 2) good laws enforced by a good government. When 1 and 2 are not present, monitoring by human rights organizations on the ground is essential.
Romeo Fuentes, of the Frederick Ebert Foundation in Guatemala: Retailers here and contractors in our countries hire accountants as monitors, who lack knowledge of labor issues. Independent monitoring is necessary but not a substitute for unions. We live in a world of the desirable and the possible: Unions are desirable but often it is independent monitoring which is possible.
Yannick (who uses only her first name to avoid reprisals) of Bataye Ouvriye in Haiti: Independent monitoring by local organizations works only if there are organizations which are not corrupt and which have the confidence of the people.
Susan Jason, of the business ethics department of the giant accounting firm KPMG Peat Marwick, with operations in 180 countries: We help clients write codes of conduct and strengthen internal monitoring. We try to demonstrate the value of working with credible nongovemmental organizations but corporations balk at that suggestion.
Pharis Harvey, of the Intemational Labor Rights Fund: The monitoring that Peat Marwick does is intemal, not independent. For accounting, there is a legal framework set up which does not yet exist for labor monitoring. We should work toward a system of accountability, that would make firms doing labor monitoring legally responsible to the community as they are when they do an extemal audit.
Media Benjamin, of Global Exchange and a member of the Working Group on Nike: In Indonesia, where Nike makes many of its shoes, there is a vibrant civil society ready to participate in monitoring. In Vietnam, labor unions and some in the govemment are concemed with the issue. But in these and other countries the already-stretched budgets of human rights groups cannot assume the extra burden of labor monitoring. Funding will be needed if human rights organizations are going to participate.
Stephen Coats, of the U.S./Guatemala Labor Education Project: The concept of codes of conduct comes fiom the global North and can be seen as a threat or not understood in the global South. Union organizing guarantees must be included in trade agreements and must be a demand in our corporate campaigns.
Later, there was informal discussion among those attending of Andrew Young's monitoring for Nike. Most were skeptical about any positive result from the Young mission.
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