(Campaign for Labor Rights n. 13, April-March 1998)

By Stephen Coats, executive director for the U.S./Guatemala Labor Educational Project, who submitted this piece as an individual. The views expresses here do not necessarily represent the position of US/GLEP

At first blush, the idea of independent monitoring seemed straightforward. Companies would adopt a code holding themselves and their contractors to certain minimum standards. Just as companies use outside auditors to review their books to ensure compliance with agreed­upon accounting procedures, companies also would be expected to use independent "auditors" to ensure compliance with their codes of conduct. In Third World countries, those best qualified to gain an accurate understanding of conditions at factories on such issues as intimidation, discrimination and denial of the right to organize are NGOs: local independent human rights, religious or worker rights groups.

But what had seemed a simple concept is fraught with complications. The issue of independent monitoring has become controversial. Even where truly independent monitoring is carried out by respected NGOs, there are growing concerns, with some unionists both in the U.S. and in the Third World beginning to oppose independent monitoring altogether.

There is fairly limited concrete experience to date with "true" independent monitoring that relies on NGOs (local or international) operating with companies' acceptance and cooperation but not as their agent. In the Central America maquiladora sector, the primary cases arc limited to Mandarin in El Salvador, Kimi in Honduras and the one shot role of Human Rights Watch in the Phillips­Van Hausen case in Guatemala, each of which applied independent monitoring to a situation already in crisis, as opposed to taking a more deliberate, preemptive approach. (Ironically, probably more time and resources have been devoted to discussing the issue of independent monitoring than on doing the actual monitoring!)

Reviewers of this article noted that the movement for corporate responsibility has a strategic value in building alliances between religious and human rights groups with workers and trade union organizations, both at the national and the international level. But unless worker rights advocates of varying stripes listen carefully to each other, experiences like the intensifying debate about monitoring could make such alliances harder, rather than easier, to achieve.

LESSONS:

Whfle it seems too soon to establish definitive positions for or against independent monitoring, there are important lessons with respect to the Central America experience to date. Without going into relatively sensitive, and often confidential, details of specific case studies, the emerging lessons of independent monitoring that relies on NGOs include the need for:

1. Acceptance by Labor. Without trust between monitors and labor (the workers and local labor leaders), monitors are likely to be viewed as in collusion with the company or having a separate agenda. Acceptance by labor is important even if the factory doesn't have a union, but absolutely essential if it does. Conversely, if monitors become the workers' primary representatives to the company, unions will believe that their concerns that monitors might become their substitutes and competitors have been realized, leading to conflicts between those who need to be allies in the face of economic globaiization.

2. Clarity about Roles. Unless the role of the monitor in a given situation is carefully defined, conflicts and misunderstandings are likely. Certainly monitors are not meant to be neutral. After all, the first job of a monitor is to ascertain whether a company is in compliance with a code of conduct meant to benefit the workers. In that sense, monitors are inescapably advocates for workers. But if monitors move from investigation to enforcement and problem solving, then they take on the role of representing the workers. Yet independent monitors are by definition not the representative of the workers, which is the role of unions.

3. Credibility. Monitors must have credibility with a sufficiently broad spectrum of civil society to be effective, and can't be seen as uncritical mouthpieces of workers or as having a political agenda that interferes with their objectivity.

4. Caution with regard to outside funding. The prospect of a secure and substantial source of funding from North American companies, foundations and/or aid agencies may lead to divisions and tensions among local NGOs based less on principle than on competition for money. While some groups have approached the prospect of accepting money from U.S. companies with due care, others have shown an unseemly interest in serving as monitors .

5. Capacity and training. Monitoring groups composed of religious and human rights advocates do not necessarily have the expertise or staff to take on all aspects of monitoring a code of conduct. Training and capacity building are needed on health and safety, auditing books, labor law and other. issues.

6. Distinguishing between approaches. Independent monitoring has taken two forms in Central America: one in which the monitor is brought in to serve as a permanent oversight group (e.g., the twoyear­old independent monitoring group in El Salvador) and another in which a monitor is brought in specifically to assess one set of issues and then get out (e.g., Human Rights Watch in the Phillips­VLIn Heusen struggle in Guatemala). Which is more appropriate will depend primarily on context, but a permanent presence clearly raises more issues than the one­shot approach.

ONE LESSON FROM GUATEMALA:

By far the most effective use of independent monitoring in Guatemala was that undertaken by Human Rights Watch in 1997. After a six­year struggle by workers trying Do organize a union, Phillips­Van Heusen agreed to abide by the findings of an independent investigation by HRW. Using as resource people local labor lawyers and human rights advocates, HRW staff conducted a week long investigation into specific and limited questions, centered on whether or not the union had achieved the legal threshold of 25% support that obligates management to negotiate, a ruling that the Guatemalan Labor Ministry had refused to make. Finding in favor of the workers, the HRW report led to what is the only collective bargaining agreement in Guatemala's maquiladora sector. Without the role played by HRW, the PVH workers might still be without a contract (although it must he remembered that the PVH victory was founded on a solid organising campaign in Guatemala, as well as North American pressure culminating in the HRW report).

In the context of workers' efforts to organize, US/GLEP regularly contacts U.S. companies regarding allegations of abuses and rights violations at factories in Guatemala and elsewhere in Central America. Invariably, a company's initial response is, "You tell us one thing; our contractor tells us another. It's very difficult up here in New York (or wherever the company is headquartered) to know who is telling the truth." As the PVH casc illustrates, there is a real value in having a credible "third party" whose assessment cannot easily be dismissed by companies.

This suggests that, in addition to grappling with the issues surrounding the broader, more permanent company­ and industry­specific approach to independent monitoring, it would also be useful to begin establishing national independent monitoring groups that can be brought in for specific disputes and conflicts, especially those centered on organising campaigns, whose findings can be used in public campaigns in the North. This could be done even without a company's blessing, as long as the monitors have credibility with other parties, such as the media.

THE BIGGER PICTURE:

Independent monitoring and codes of conduct are sometimes portrayed as the magic wand that will end all sweatshop abuses in the Third World (and at home). This expectation places too much faith in the role of codes and most companies' commitment to responsibility and overestimates the capacity of activists. Clothing factories number in the tens of thousands worldwide. Just one major retailer such as JC Penney probably uses several thousand. Is it realistic to expect JC Penney, Sears, Kmart and others to establish independent monitoring of thousands of clothing factories? And apparel is only one industry. Sweatshop conditions characterise most industries in the South (agribusiness, electronics, etc.) and many in the North (poultry, etc.). Moreover, the ultimate leverage to promote worker rights is negative media exposure and consumer activist campaigns. We don't have the capacity to wage thousands of campaigns and must take on specific corporate campaigns with clear strategic goals in mind.

Codes of conduct and the need for independent monitoring reflect the failure of governments to enforce local labor laws and internationally­recognized worker rights. We must never imply that voluntary private sector codes and monitoring are a substitute for national enforcement of labor Llws. As staffof the Maquiladora Solidarity Network in Canada have written, independent monitoring is not meant to be i'a privatized alternative to stab enforcement of national labor Llws." Our support for independent m(lnitorilltg should not distract (IS lr(lm pursuing larger policy goals. On the contmry, our approach to corporate campaigns for worker rights should always be w ith the objective of building political support f Br international tmde agreements that condition trade on respect for the basic rights of workers and as a way to press for enforcement of national labor laws.

The most important value of a code of conduct and having it monitored indipendently is to create a space in which workers can exercise their right to organise. Codes and monitoring are a means to an end, economic justice for and self­determination of workers. Jay Mazurs President of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE!) has been quoted as sahing that the best monitor is a democratic union of the workers themselves. Our work in the North is most effective ­ perhaps only effective ­ when it is linked to organizing campaigns by the workers themselves.

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