Labor Ideologies in the International Factories of Rural Guatemala

Abstract

In a recent review of labor organizing in Latin America, Henry Frundt (2002) has noted that large unions have been losing membership whereas smaller or independent ones have been growing. A World Bank study on the impact of unions in Latin America reports that participation in unions in Guatemala is very limited, with union members representing about 5 percent of all workers (Acefia, 2002).' The International Labor Organization (ILO) in Guatemala has noted considerable labor-code noncompliance, including human rights violations, repression and persecution of labor leaders, violations of the rights to organize and to strike, and failure to provide end-of-year bonuses and severance payments. In 1992, at the request of labor organizers, unions, and human rights groups, the United States placed Guatemala on probation within the U.S. General System of Preferences (GSP). (It was taken off probation in 1997.) In 2001 the ILO requested changes in the labor code and enforcement of existing regulations. Nine of 40 changes proposed by labor, focusing on labor rights, the right to strike, and the organization and accounting of unions, were approved by the Guatemalan congress. An agreement was reached out of fear that Guatemala would be completely excluded from the GSP. In the same year the ILO lifted sanctions against Guatemala after the Ministry of Labor agreed to enforce labor codes and replace lax inspections with more reliable controls. Organizing has been difficult in Guatemala, to say the least, with some successes and some devastating setbacks. The successful installation of a union in the Philip Van Heusen factory in 1997 after eight years of struggle was followed by the closing of the same factory in 1998, allegedly because of the loss of an important client (see Armbruster, 1997; 1999). According to Frundt (2002), in spite of weakened militancy, privatization, subcontracting, and diminished international financial support, organizing has reemerged with fresh vitality in Guatemala, with the new constituencies being women

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