Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras

When Lajat workers arrived at the Gomez Palacio plant on Thursday morning November 10 they found the gate locked and police surrounding it. Lajat’s criminal attorney Jorge Arturo Palomares was waiting. He called each worker by name and demanded that they sign resignation letters on the spot. The lawyer said the worker was guilty of causing damage to the company and thus would renounce any claim to severance pay. At no time did Palomares announce that the plant was closing, he merely demanded that the workers quit.

This was only three days after Levi Strauss & Co. delivered a Corrective Action Plan (CAP) to Lajat management which stated that Lajat had violated Levi’s Global Code of Conduct when it called in about 35 cops last week to beat and tear gas workers. Levi’s CAP told Lajat “Lajat should not involve police in handling disciplinary matters at factory,” but a Lajat official said Thursday’s action didn’t violate the CAP because police were outside, not inside the factory.

Lajat prefers to fire all the workers rather than let the workers have an election for an independent union which they had been demanding since last January,. The fifty-one workers out of two hundred who have stuck it out through threats, midnight home visits by management, outsourcing of their work, wages reduced to starvation levels, and police attack were are now being told to get lost.

The Levi Strauss Global Sourcing and Operating Guidelines Terms of Engagement (TOE) mandate ethical standards by their suppliers. They say, “We expect our suppliers to respect the right to free association and the right to organize and bargain collectively without unlawful interference. Business partners should ensure that workers who make such decisions or participate in such organizations are not the object of discrimination or punitive disciplinary actions. . .” (http://www.levistrauss.com/responsibility/toe)

Yet Levi’s Vice President for the Global Code of Conduct, Michael Kobori, repeatedly has said that there is nothing he can do for workers to get work back in the plant even though he has been shown evidence that Lajat shipped work to a subcontractor and then claimed it had no work for the Gomez Palacio plant. Kobori has said that the outsourced work wasn’t Levi’s work so there’s nothing Levi’s can do. He advised us to go find the other brands but declined to tell us who is currently producing at the Lajat Torreon plant.[1] Levi’s decision not to pressure Lajat to reopen the factory makes a mockery of their claims to ethical and responsible business practices.

Levi’s is a leader as a global outsourcer and was the first company to elaborate a code of conduct for suppliers[2]. The Lajat workers and CJM were impressed by the strong principles of worker justice in their code and hoped that Levi would make them a reality. There was never any doubt that Lajat was producing a lot of jeans for Levi’s, and the company played an important role in May in forcing Lajat to rehire leaders of the organizing effort whom they had fired. After that, Levi’s was less responsive. As months dragged on in fruitless Labor Board hearings; as Lajat lined up support from the Governor of Durango and the Mexican Chamber of Commerce (Canacintra); as production began to be withdrawn from the plant, Levi’s was unengaged.

Finally in October CJM sent a delegation to meet with Kobori at headquarters in San Francisco. They presented evidence of multiple violations of Levi’s TOE, and Kobori agreed to talk to Lajat about the midnight visits to workers’ homes by Palomares and other top managers to demand resignations, and they sent a letter to the Governor of Durango requesting him to respect Mexican labor law. They said they did not want to cancel their contract, but wanted to work with Lajat for compliance. We applauded those efforts, but we also realized that Levi’s failure to demand that Lajat return production to the plant would negate any pretense of supporting freedom of association for the workers. Two days after that meeting Lajat called police into the factory and arrested Fernando Armijo on trumped up charges. [See Alert 10/27/05]

In response Levi’s sent an investigator to Gomez Palacio and we had a four hour conference call to discuss what had happened. Then on Tuesday November 8, Levi’s informed us of its Corrective Action Plan which insisted that Lajat drop charges against Armijo, not use police in discipline, hold trainings for management on labor rights, insure its safety provisions are adequate, hear worker grievances, and “extend an invitation to meet with workers and discuss their grievances (with neutral observers present). (To be done immediately).”

At no point in the discussion did the workers agree that these were adequate “corrective actions.” Instead they asked Levi’s once more to stand by their code of conduct and insist Lajat stop sabotaging workers’ right to free association, give them work in the plant, and protect their right to organize. Levi’s, however, repeatedly insisted that they cannot tell Lajat how to run its business—even though the very premise of their code of conduct is to do precisely that by holding their suppliers to an ethical standard that respects the right to organize.

On Wednesday, November 9 the workers received an unsigned note that was not on company letterhead instructing them to come to a meeting. They sent three representatives who presented management and the Levi representative, who was there too, with a written request that Lajat formally request negotiations in writing in the form of a signed letter identifiably from them. Management refused. Neither management nor the Levi’s representative mentioned the requirement for a neutral observer in the negotiations. Instead they sent Palomares and police to the plant gate the following morning to demand that the workers resign.

The workers refused to sign. They are not giving up. They are determined to keep their cause in the public eye and went to the media immediately. They are setting up a permanent encampment (planton) outside the factory and demand an end to this flagrant violation of workers’ right to freedom of association.

On yet another conference call right after these events, the CJM Action Committee informed Kobori of Lajat’s response to their Corrective Action Plan. Kobori concluded that Lajat was closing the plant and there was little else to be done but wait for the Labor Board to deal with workers’ severance payments.

This is the same labor board that has been blocking the workers legal efforts for 11 months! It’s the same labor board that has been denying the union registration and refusing to set a date for the union election. And it’s the same one that denied the workers’ petition to freeze company assets (a common practice in a plant closing to insure workers are paid in full).

We ask what good is Levi’s code for suppliers if they refuse to address union busting? Are these codes just window dressing while Levi’s conducts business as usual? Are they just tools to stall workers and make empty promises?

The Lajat workers’ demand is simple: Levi’s must live up to their claims of corporate responsibility, and require Lajat to bring work back to the Gomez plant and insure that the union election take place or transfer the workers to the Torreon plant fully paying their transportation.

We are asking CJM members to write Michael Kobori and call on Levi’s to STOP THIS STEALTH UNION BUSTING!! [See sample letter]

CJM is planning a forum on freedom of association in Gomez Palacio on November 25 and parallel consumer actions starting on that day and continuing through the holidays at Levi’s outlets in several US cities. If you are able to hold a consumer action or are willing to help an organization that may be coordinating one in your area please contact the CJM office immediately. Contact: m_ojeda@igc.org or jancel@igc.org

Get your friends and organizations involved in sending Levi’s Strauss a holiday message:

Wal-Mart and many more) starting November 25 and continuing through the holidays

While I appreciate Levi’s attempts to correct the behavior of management at Manufacturas Lajat in Gomez Palacio Durango, particularly in preventing violence against the workers, they are entirely inadequate. Your Terms of Engagement for suppliers include respect for their right to organize and bargain, but your remediation does nothing which will assure that the workers can exercise these rights. Indeed, your actions simply give you cover while the workers human rights are violated, and they lose their jobs. When it’s all over, you’ll get your jeans, but you will have shirked a responsibility you claim to have. You will have done nothing to make Mexico a place where workers can enjoy any measure of dignity or justice.

Your claim that you can’t interfere in Lajat’s business decisions is simply an admission that the rights of corporations are superior to the rights of people. That’s not ethical, and it’s a stain on the name of Levi Strauss. Please, insist that Lajat give the workers back their jobs and insure their right to organize. If Lajat then refuses to do this you must insist they be transferred to the Torreon plant with transportation fully paid. You also need to insist that workers legally required benefits be paid in full and that Lajat take their names off the black list.

Since January 2005 workers at Manufacturas Lajat, a large blue jeans maker with 12,000 workers in the states of Coahuila and Durango Mexico, have been fighting for justice on the job. Right now, they are at the forefront of the struggle for labor rights in Mexico. A victory at Lajat could break the decades-long cycle of repression of workers in Mexico.

Get your friends and organizations involved in sending Levi’s Strauss a holiday message:

January Workers organize when Lajat announces shutdown of Gomez Palacio plant and moves equipment and workers in pickup trucks to Torreon plant 6 miles away. Workers are left at Torreon plant with no ride back. They protest unpaid overtime, unsafe conditions, low pay, lack of restrooms and potable water, fines, and nonpayment of Social Security and Housing taxes. They form a workers coalition and discover that they already have a “union”. They get support from local organizations and CJM and go to the media. On Jan. 31 and Feb. 1 they striek and sit in at the Conciliation and Arbitration (labor) Board (CAB) until Lajat negotiates and signs an agreement.

February Lajat signs agreement to keep Gomez plant open and agrees to many of the workers’ demands on working conditions, but pay cuts, harassment, and layoff of leaders follows.

March Workers decide to form an independent union. They force Lajat to give them a raise. When Lajat learns of the union it fires 8 leaders saying work is short. The eight refuse severance pay and ask CJM for help. CJM asks Levi to intervene.

April Levi’s inspector denies the Gomez plant produces for them. The workers prove her wrong. CJM also begins to target another customer, Mudd Jeans. Lajat refuses reinstatement.

May Under pressure from Levi, Mudd and CJM, Lajat agrees to rehire five workers with full back pay and a promise not to harass them. Workers file for an independent union with the CAB

June CAB grants registration for independent union and schedules a recuento (election) for July 29. CTM company union comes to life and begins giving gifts to workers. Lajat reneges on promise to remain neutral. Workers demand secret ballot election in a neutral place with observers.

July CAB postpones election until October and questions the union’s registration. CJM delegation meets with Mudd Jeans in New York.

August Lajat begins removing production from Gomez plant claiming slow sales, but supervisor admits it’s to avoid the union election and workers get proof that jeans are being sent to an outside firm. Wages are cut to $35 a week. CJM contacts Aeropostale which denies production at Lajat. CJM holds annual meeting in Gomez and leads a march and demonstration at the CAB.

September Threats and offers of bribes increase against the workers. On 9-15 Independence Day workers demonstrate at Lajat owners’ country club party. Both Mudd and Aeropostale cancel their production and cut and run. CANACINTRA (Mexican employer organization) and CTM union publicly announce cooperation in stopping the union election.

October CAB fails to notify workers’ lawyer of a hearing and refuses to let him speak when he shows up anyway. Election postponed again until Nov. 25. Five Lajat managers with a briefcase full of money begin late night visits to workers’ homes to demand they resign. CJM delegation meets with Levi Straus in San Francisco and asks them to intervene. Two days later Lajat calls in entire Gomez police force to arrest a worker on false charges. Police beat and tear gas workers.

November Levi’s issues its Corrective Action Program which calls on Lajat to stop using police and visiting homes, negotiate with workers, etc. Instead Lajat locks out workers and demands they sign resignation renouncing all rights.

[1] Two customers: Aeropostale and Mudd Jeans both claim they have cancelled their contracts. They have cut and run rather than apply any code of conduct. When Lajat began removing work from the Gomez Palacio plant they sent work to a subcontractor named Tex Pant to do the same operations that Gomez had been doing.

[2] Levi produces in 50 countries including almost 200 locations in China and 33 in Mexico (www.levistrauss.com/responsibility/toe/supplier_list.pdf)