Sweatshops in El Salvador
Country: El Salvador |Â Partner: FEASIES
Aims
- Provide legal support and representation for sweatshop workers
- Increase the skills and knowledge of workers
- To improve the poor working conditions of Salvadorian workers
Successes
- Together with a national coalition of labour organisations (including women workers groups), they have presented reforms to legislation. These focus on occupational health and safety and on good practice for inspections of factories
- 18,000 newsletters produced and distributed within communities to familiarise the population with basic economic concepts
- Workshops held on organising and strengthening union activities, communicating and handling conflict situations
- Factory visits that included educational programmes on IT use, self-esteem and the international labour situation
The facts
- El Salvador has systematically refused the right to union affiliation, collective bargaining and the right to strike
Economic development in El Salvador is characterised by precarious employment, the increasing control by multinational companies, and the decline of the labour movement.
El Salvador has systematically refused the right to union affiliation, collective bargaining and the right to strike. Anti trade union sentiment not only exists in private companies but also at a governmental level.
Officials within the ministry responsible for labour rights compliance often hinder the process of workers claiming their rights. The worst labour rights violations happen in export processing zones (EPZs), also known as sweatshops. Here workers suffer the highest level of dismissals and the greatest job insecurity.
Over the last two years five companies closed with a loss of 3,500 jobs and all workers left being owed salaries, holidays, bonuses and severance pay. Other violations include serious non-compliance with health and safety standards, abuse and harassment, discrimination including sacking whilst pregnant, and the failure of employers to pay health insurance.
Few violations are reported due to workers' lack of knowledge of their rights, the very low level of unionization and a fear of being sacked.
In El Salvador, a group of trade unions have formed an alliance called FEASIES, whose main objectives are to promote unionisation, the training of workers in their rights and to campaign for a better deal. They also provide legal advice and support to the workers in the presentation of cases to the courts, monitor the implementation of labour rights, and produce alternative reports on labour rights violations.
To show how important trade unions are for workers in the factories of El Salvador, it helps to look at one of the only trade unions that operate inside a garment factory. This union, known as STECHAR, is part of FEASIES, and it is widely recognised that workers in this factory have better terms and conditions of employment than in non-unionised factories.
