Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras

More Support Needed to Visit Mexican Consulates and Pressure Levi-Strauss, Mudd Jeans and Aeropostale

When the Lajat workers’ representative, Fernando Lopez, and the workers’ lawyer Lic. O’Reilly appeared at the Labor Board hearing scheduled for this past Friday, October 7, they discovered that negotiations between the Labor Board and the company lawyers were already underway. The hearing had begun without them!

The purpose of the hearing was to determine the legitimacy of the Lajat workers’ independent National Union of Garment and Clothing, but when Lopez and O’Reilly objected that the Labor Board had failed to notify them and was proceeding without them, the Labor Board officials said they had sent a notice. Lopez demanded to see the signed receipt, but the document officials produced had no signature.

Blatantly corrupt practices like this are increasing as the alliance of government, corporation, and charro [corrupt] union tightens in the face of a growing and determined Lajat workers movement. Despite the fact that Lajat has transferred production from its Gomez Palacio plant to its other plants and subcontractors and cut workers’ wages in half, the workers continue to demand a union election to let them decide which union will represent them, and the Labor Board, through various tricks, keeps putting them off.

As the hearing proceeded, Lopez and O’Reilly tried to speak up, but were silenced. They left when it became clear that participating in a proceeding which gagged one of the principal parties was a farce. The Labor Board President followed them out, and O’Reilly confronted him saying, “Never in all my years of legal work have I witnessed such blatant impunity!”

Indeed, since NAFTA, the authorities have never permitted maquiladora workers to choose freely a union. The Gomez Palacio labor board is no exception. It appears to be willing to trample on labor law and Mexican workers rights. The outcome of Friday’s sham proceedings was that the Labor Board once again postponed a hearing until November 25. It is obvious that this delay is to let Lajat move production around in a shell game aimed at starving the workers into submission and demoralizing them in the hope that they will give up.

Besides cutting wages, the company has stopped paying mandatory health coverage. One worker with 11 years seniority has a child with birth defects. She needs oxygen, but her father now makes only $35 a week and has lost his health coverage. As if that’s not enough, a manager attacked a worker last week for refusing to surrender her badge. See the attached complaint filed by Gerardo Caro Rodriguez against Ruben de la Torre Pereyra, the new manager. The police issued a citation to Rodriguez, but he failed to show up for the hearing. So far he has not been arrested. The company is also circulating a black list to other employers with the names of the workers in the coalition.

We know from past experience that the Lajat workers will only win if we build a national and international solidarity movement for them that includes pressure on both the Mexican government and Lajat’s client brands. The workers are relying on you. In the US and Canada we need letters and are organizing visits to the brands and Mexican Consulates.

§ Continue to send emails and FAXes to Lajat’s clients [SEE SAMPLES BELOW]. The Labor authorities are taking their lead from the company that listens to its buyers. Demands to include in your letters:

o Pressure Lajat to stop the dirty tricks and insist on compliance with their codes of supplier conduct and international labor standards. We do not want them to cancel their contracts with Lajat, we want them to enforce them.

Conrad Lung
Mudd Jeans
CLung335@aol.com
Phone: 212-730-0404
Fax: 212-730-2289

Michael Kobori
Levi Strauss & Co
mkobari@levi.com
Phone : 415-501-1459
Fax: 415-501-7112

Edward M. Slezak
Aeropostale, Inc.
ESlezak@aeropostale.com
Phone: 646-452-1851
Fax: 646-619-4873

§ Arrange a visit or demonstrations at the Mexican Consulate in your city. Contact CJM’s Action Committee at jancel@igc.org or cjm_mojeda@igc.org. For consulate locations, see www.mexonline.com/consulate.htm. CJM members have visited several Mexican Consulates who have been responsive and we can provide advice and sample materials.

§ Send an email or fax to Mexican President Vicente Fox. See sample letter below.

§ Volunteer to help us organize leafleting at stores if necessary where Levis, Mudd Jeans and Aeropostale are sold. Call 210-732-8957 (CJM) of email jancel@igc.org

§ With wages cut, your donations can help enormously in helping the workers hold out. Send donations for the Lajat workers to The Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras. In memo area put “Lajat Workers” and mail it to: The Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras at 4207 Willow Brook San Antonio, TX 78228

§ Bring a Lajat worker to your city. CJM is organizing a tour to spread the word and raise funds. Contact us at 210-732-8957 or cjm_mojeda@igc.org

The situation at Lajat in Gomez Palacio is becoming dangerous for the workers as the company continues to violate their rights and your code of conduct for suppliers with impunity. Don’t stand passively by and watch while Lajat and the local labor authorities blatantly violate workers’ rights and move production around.

We think that Lajat’s treatment of its workers in closing the plant, trying to starve them out, not paying the health care benefits, physically attacking them, and threatening them with the blacklist is unconscionable.

We wonder how your company can conduct business as usual with a supplier that blatantly violates contracts you have signed with them. Your company’s image is at risk by continuing to tolerate production of jeans in sweatshops like Lajat.

One worker with 11 years seniority producing blue jeans at Lajat Gomez has a child with birth defects who cannot get the oxygen she needs because her father now makes only $35 a week and has no health coverage. Please act before someone is killed, disappeared or seriously injured, before a child dies for lack of healthcare, before workers suffer the dire consequences and desperation of the blacklist.

Demand that Lajat reopen the Gomez Palacio plant with all the workers returned to work at full pay and that they stop their interference in the workers’ fundamental human right to freedom of association.

We are concerned about a blatant violation of workers rights currently going on in Gomez Palacio Durango in the cast of the Lajat workers who have petitioned the Conciliation and Arbitration Board to establish representation by their union, the National Union of Garment and Clothing. The company, the local CAB and the CTM have all conspired to violate the Federal Labor Law to insure that these workers remain under total control even to the extent of closing the plant as a pretext to avoid an election. There has been a variety of illegal activity including use of the blacklist, threats, bribes and even violence against workers by a supervisor. Yet the local CAB doesn’t even bother to have an appearance of neutrality. It holds hearings without notifying the workers legal representatives and without allowing them to speak.

Please intervene. It is now almost twelve years since the implementation of NAFTA in which your government promised to respect worker rights and its own labor laws. Why is this still happening?

By means of this written testimony I denounce Ruben de la Torre Pereyra, manager of the company Manufacturas Lajat (he introduced himself to us in that way). He had been working in that position in the plant for scarcely two days, when at 7.15 a.m. my co-workers and I requested that he open the shop floor to us since it was locked with a padlock. This included those areas for review, maintenance and control of production, as well as the cafeteria, where we keep our lunch that we consume during the working day. He answered in a despotic way that none of those areas were going to be opened and that we did not have the right to demand anything. So I demanded again that he had to open these areas since those are our working departments, to which he responded, “Be quiet or you are going to be f***ed!”

Minutes later he tried to remove the ID badge of one of my co- workers and she would not give it to him, since it is the only way we can prove that we came to work. He attacked her, pushed her, and she fell down on the floor.

I also want to mention that in my 10 years in this company’s service I do not have any negative reports that would demonstrate I have misbehaved inside the company. Because of what I am doing now I’m afraid of what could happen to me or to my family, and if anything does happen then I hold responsible the above mentioned person and the company.

Please insert below the name, address, city and fax number of the <Meexican consul office in your community

De la manera más atenta estamos solicitando su intervención para hacer llegar a la Secretaria de Reilaciones Exteriores y al gobierno del estado de Durango nuestras preocupaciones y demandas.

Los trabajadores de Manufacturas Lajat en Gómez Palacio Durango, han venido padeciendo durante estos 9 meses una constante violación a sus derechos laborales. Las trabajadoras demandaron el pago del tiempo extra que Lajat ha evadido, así como el monto de las aportaciones al INFONAVIT que les ha deducido de su salario y no ha cubierto en dicha institución. Así como las aportaciones al IMSS.

La Junta de Conciliación y Arbitraje de Gómez Palacio ha hecho caso omiso a sus solicitudes. Todo lo contrario los trabajadores fueron despidos injustificadamente y solamente a través de nuestra intervención con los clientes de Lajat como es Levi’s fue posible que les reinstalaran. Los trabajadores solicitaron su sindicato el cual les fue negado por la junta de conciliación con argumentos ridículos. Posteriormente demandaron la titularidad del contrato colectivo y la junta de conciliación dolosamente dicto fecha de audiencia y recuento al mismo tiempo. La CTM y le comunico a los trabajadores que tomaron el acuerdo con Lajat de cerrar la planta por dos meses para evitar las elecciones sindicales. Los trabajadores solicitaron el embargo precautorio y hasta el momento la junta de conciliación no ha respondido el proceso. Lajat a intentado sacar químicos y materiales y los trabajadores lo impidieron. Lajat les recorto a 350 pesos el salario para presionarles.

El 7 de octubre tendrán una audiencia del proceso del recuento sindical por la titularidad del contrato, pero de acuerdo a las declaraciones de CANACINTRA en el periódico La Opinión el 30 de septiembre el cual declaró que se están implementando los acuerdos de la alianza entre la CTM, Lajat y los tres niveles de gobierno para impedir que los trabajadores se organicen democráticamente. Esto nos hace comprender los antecedentes del compartimiento del Lic. Francisco Javier Covarrubias Presidente de la Junta de Conciliación de Gómez Palacios Durango, quien ha hecho caso omiso a la solicitud de los trabajadores. Estamos convencidos que después de esta audiencia los trabajadores seguirán igualmente desprotegidos. Todas estas prácticas desleales contra los trabajadores únicamente están fomentando la emigración hacia nuestro país en busca de un empleo que Manufacturas Lajat les ha negado. Las trabajadoras ya están amenazadas con la lista negra y si pierden en esta lucha, tendrán que salir de la región Lagunera. Además porque nuestra coalición seguirá apoyando a las trabajadoras hasta que ganen justicia, hasta los clientes Levis, Mudd, y Aeropostale, presionaran a Lajat para conformidad con sus códigos de conducta o cancelan los contratos en México, nos parecen que los intereses del gobierno de México están en la aplicación de la ley y los estándares internacionales.

Solicitamos que la Secretaria de Relaciones Exteriores se comunique inmediatamente con el Gobernador de Durango Ismael Hernández Deraz y le haga saber de nuestra preocupación además de nuestras demandas.

· Que la Junta de Conciliación y Arbitraje de Gómez Palacios Durango actué conforme a derecho y les de la fecha para el recuento sindical

· Que la Junta de Conciliación y Arbitraje les de la fecha del embargo precautorio para que se garantice la indemnización de los trabajadores

· Que Manufacturas Lajat respete el derecho a la Libre sindicalización de los trabajadores

· Que las elecciones sindicales sean en un lugar neutral [plaza pública] y con voto secreto