WORKING CONDITIONS AND TRADE-UNION STRUGGLES
This section is divided into 6 parts:
toys, footwear, textiles, bananas, other agricultural products and miscellaneous.
The documents are shown in alphabetic order
TOYS
FOOTWEAR
- Footwear - January 1998- A women talks about conditions at leather factory East Pakistan Cromemum
- Footwear - March 1997 - Violations in Vietnam factories under contract to Nike (see the report )
- Footwear - 4th November 1996 - Ill-treatment in the factory under contract to Nike in Vietnam (vedi document )
- Footwear - August 1996 - Footwear factories in China are run like military camps (see "Boot camp at the shoe factory" )
- Footwear - March 1996 - A sick woman dies in Indonesia a factory under contract to Reebok because forced to work overtime (see document )
TEXTILES
- Textiles - November 1998 - Young women in honduran free trade zone
injected with depo provera, national labor committee alleges
- Textiles - Foreign enterprises looking for cheap labour in Nicaragua (Mano de obra barata)
- Textiles - January 1998 - Levi Strauss plans 6,400 new layoffs in USA (Fuerza Unida Renews Call for Solidarity Against Levi's)
- Texiles - December 1997 - Abuse and illegal working conditions at the "Quality Clothes" in China
(see "Let some get rich first..")
- Textiles - December 1997 - Deplorable conditions in sweat shops located in Karanogonji near Dhaka in Bangladesh
- Textiles - June 1997 - workers' conditions at V.T.Fashion garment factory located in Rosario Economic Free Zone (Philippines) (see Codes of Conduct and Carmelita: The Real Gap)
- Textiles - March 1997 - The victory of the workers in Guatemala who succeed in obtaining the consent of Phillips Van Heusen to agree to a labour contract (see Phillips Van Heusen agrees to negotiate with Union in Guatemala)
- Textiles - January 1997 - The Trade-unionist, Virginia Hernandez, describes working conditions in the maquilas of Salvador ( see "Interview de Virginia Hernandez" )
- Textiles - 1996 - Table of textile workers' wages in various countries in the world (see "Average hourly wages for garment workers" )
- Textiles - October 1996 - The Human Rights Watch Association denounces illegal pregnancy tests in the maquiladoras in Mexico (see "Production vs. reproduction")
- Textiles - October 1996 - Description of work in the factories of Haiti which produce for Walt Disney (see "Mickey à Port-au-Prince" )
- Textiles - October 1996 - The female workers in the Mexican maquilas undergo illegal pregnancy tests (see "Mexico's maquiladora's abuse women, report finds" )
- Textiles - 1996 - Exploitation in the textile factories in Haiti producing for Walt Disney and other multinationals (see "Paraiso de las corporationes" )
- Textiles - June 1996 - Exposure of the violations of workers' rights in the maquilas of Honduras (see "Tension en las maquilas")
- Textiles - June 1996 - Working conditions in the maquiladoras in Central America (see "Focus on working conditions in maquiladora" )
- Textiles - Summer 1996 - Description of work in the Special Economic Zones in various parts of the world (see "Exploitation in the textile industry" )
- Textiles - May 1996 - Immigrant asian female workers win their battle against millionairess Jessica Mc Clintock (see document )
- Textiles - April 1996 - Working conditions in the textiles sector in Haiti (see "The U.S.-Haiti Connection" )
- Electronics/Textiles - 1996 - Working conditions in the electronics sector and in the textiles sector in Thailand (see "Thailand" )
- Textiles - 1996 - Article written in Italian on working conditions and exploitation in the maquilas (see "La maquila: occupazione e sfruttamento" )
- Textiles - March 1996 - Very low wages and various other violations encountered in the factories of Haiti, producing goods for well-known American entreprises, including Walt Disney (see "12 cents an hour wages in Haiti")
- Textiles - March 1996 - The right to one day a week off denied in Bangladesh (see "Chained to Looms")
- Textiles - January 1996 - Protest against the attack on Trade-union activists in the textile sector in Bangladesh (see "Bangladesh Garment Workers Union Office and Activists Attacked")
- Textiles - January 1996 - The Dominican workers win. For the first time the workers in a factory under contract went on strike in the signing of a labour agreement (see "Dominican Workers Triumph")
- Textiles - December 1995 - Inside Guatemala's Maquiladoras: $3 per Day, and You Fit the Boss with Condoms.
In the exportation factories in Guatemala (maquiladoras) workers earn $3 a day in the most dreadful conditions. Jane Slaughter reports in "Labour Notes"
- Textiles - November 1995 - "Mandarin International"
(from Clean Clothes Newsletter n. 5).
In december 1995, the American Association 'National Labor Committee' organized a Pressure Campaign on the GAP distribution chain in order to force it to put an end to the violations of human rights perpetrated by its suppliers, Mandarin International, in Salvador.
BANANAS
- Banana - December 1997 - Union recognition remains unresolved in Fyffes banana plantations in Belize (Fyffes-fiffe times better?)
- Banana - Settembre 1997 - Interview with Gilbert Bermudez, general secretary of Costa Rica Trade-union SITRAP, about workers' conditions in plantations of Central America
- Banana - November 1996 - Some Irish NGOs visit the Fyffes plantations in Belize (see "Belize - Mejor con Fyffes?")
- Banana - November 1996 - The workers on the Fyffes banana plantations in Guatemala obtain the reinstatement of 6 sacked workers (see "Victoria de los trabajadores de Cobsa/Fyffes en Guatemala" )
- Banana - September 1996 - Violence still going on in Colombia. Attempt against a trade unionist by a police station (vedi document)
- Banana - october 1996 - Dole finds new legal loopholes to slow down the court proceedings in which it is accused of harming thousends of workers through the use of DBCP (see "DBCP: companies manoeuvre to avoid compensation" )
- Banana - October 1996 - Repression in Fyffes plantations (see "Fyffes/Cobsa workers' breakthrough in Guatemala" )
- Banana - Spring 1996 - A new independant Trade-union is founded in Belize in opposition to the trade-union called "Solidarismo" sponsored by the employers (see "New Banana Union Challenges Solidarismo" )
- Banana - February 1996 - "Amargo Banano" (Bitter Banana) is the title of an article published on 22nd February 1996 by "Noticias Aliadas", on the violations of Trade-union rights in Belize on the part of Fyffes multinational
- Banana - December 1995 - "Philippine banana situation" . The majority of the workers sacked by the banana plantations in the Philippines wants to avoid the completation of the Agricultural Reform
- Banana - August 1995 - The Chiquita plantation workers of Tacamiche oppose eviction (see "La batalla de Tacamiche")
OTHER AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS
- Coffee - April 1996 - For the first time the International Trade-union for Agricultural Workers meets the European Coffee producers (see "European Coffee Meeting Brings Together Processing, Rural Workers" )
- Tea - January 1996 - Workers' conditions on the tea plantations in Africa and Asia were discussed in two separate International Meetings. Also put forward was the proposed collaboration between Fair Trade and the Consumers' Movement (see "IUF Tea Unions Build Coordination")
- Tea - 1996 - Working condition and trade union organizations on the tea plantations (see "Tea plantation labour")
- Flowers - September 1995 - Por arriba flores, por abajo temblores (from Noticias Aliadas).
Although flowers are related to Beauty and Love, the life of the women workers on the flower plantations in Columbia is in no way romantic.
- Agriculture - 7th September 1995 - Esclavos en la modernidad (from Noticias Aliadas).
On slavery in Brazil
- Agriculture - 4th September 1995 - Massacro in Rondonia, Brazil (from CUT - Confederazione Sindacale CUT, Brazil).
150 arrested, 190 imprisoned, numerous injured and dead amongst the women, childeren and workers of the Fazenda Santa Elina in Corumbiara, Rondonia in the struggle for an Agricultural Reform which would give land to those who cultivate it. CUT invites all Trade-union organizations to send their protest to the Minister of Justice and to the Government of Rondonia and has launched a Solidarity Campaign for the injured and the bereaved families.
MISCELLANEOUS
- Miscellaneous - September 1998 - Canadian Web Site that gives informations about workers' conditions in Central America
- Miscellaneous - February 1997 - The exploitation on the eve of the year 2000: we thought it belonged to the past, yet it is back both in the North and in the South
- Drinks - August 1997 - A three-year old union at the Pepsi bottling plant in Guatemala City is under attack. 28 union workers fired as contract negotiations about to begin. Urgent action requested.
- Miscellaneous - August 1997 - Reflections about minimum legal and susteinable living wages. (see In sweatshops wages are the issue)
- Miscellaneous - 1997 - Report on the medical and social conditions of the survivors of the Bhopal disaster (see "International Mediacal Commission")
- Electronics - February 1996 - Conditions of the workers in foreign-owned electronics factories in the province of Guangdong (see "Working condition")