By David Bacon
TIJUANA, Baja California — Norberto Cordoba sacrificed his job, trying to end conditions in his factory so dangerous he was afraid someone would die. Cordoba was employed at the Han Young plant in Tijuana, making truck chassis and shipping containers for the huge Hyundai industrial complex. Last June, when his friends on the job organised an independent union and walked out on strike, he joined them willingly. He had been working there only three months.
"I've always been a union man", he says. "In Veracruz, where I'm from, I was a union leader at all the shops where I worked."
A skilled welder, in Veracruz Cordoba could make only 300 pesos (A$52) a week. So he did what millions of Mexicans have done over the last few decades: he made the long trek north to the border. At Han Young, he found a job that paid him almost twice as much.
Although this company had a union too, it was not like those he had known before. "I saw it was just a union for the protection of the boss", he recalls. "It did nothing for us."
Han Young managers were so surprised by the two-day strike that they made concessions. Among them, they finally agreed to set up the health and safety committee required by Mexican law. In its five years in Tijuana, Han Young had never permitted one.
Cordoba was chosen by his fellow workers as one of three representatives on the safety committee. Within months, all three were fired. According to Han Young plant manager Pablo Won Young Kang, "If you want to strike [in Mexico], you're supposed to have permission. Their work stoppage wasn't legal, so we fired them."
US hearing
In late February, Cordoba's case was brought before the National Administrative Office of the US Department of Labor at a San Diego hearing.
The NAO is the enforcement mechanism for the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation, NAFTA's labour side agreement. It hears charges that Mexico or Canada are not enforcing their own laws protecting workers — each of the three countries has an office to hear complaints about the two others.
Cordoba's case was included in a complaint alleging that Mexico had refused to allow Han Young workers to leave the old company union and form an independent one.
Han Young's original union was the Revolutionary Confederation of Workers and Farmers (CROC), an organisation tightly allied to the country's ruling party. For months following the June strike, Han Young workers sought to join the independent Union for Workers in the Metal, Steel, Iron and Allied Industries (STIMAHCS).
According to Enrique Hernandez, who represents the independent union, "Companies sign protection agreements with CROC in order to have uninterrupted production. It collects money directly from the employers and holds no meetings. Its representatives only come to the factory when there's trouble, to tell the workers to go back to work."
Union election
On October 6 workers forced Tijuana's office of the Mexican labour board to hold an election to choose between the two. Despite having to vote openly in front of representatives of management and the company union, 55 voted for the independent union and only 32 for CROC.
"All the maquiladora owners were worried that an independent union at Han Young would encourage workers to organise at other factories, and drive up wages", Hernandez says. The government shared the concern. Despite the majority vote for STIMAHCS, the labour board refused to certify the results.
After the government denied certification, charges were filed with the NAO by the San Diego Support Committee for Maquiladora Workers, Mexico's National Association of Democratic Lawyers and other organisations.
At first, the charges seemed to go nowhere. In the US, a network of union and community activists began picketing car dealerships belonging to Hyundai Corp. Bad publicity and possible lost sales, they hoped, would force Hyundai to intervene.
Seeing no progress, a small group of fired Han Young activists started a hunger strike on November 20 in front of the state government building downtown. On December 2 and 3, workers struck the plant again, and company officials finally agreed to talk. But the labour board still refused to permit negotiations. The hunger strikers chained themselves to the doors.
Under intense pressure, the labour board finally agreed to a deal. If the factory's workers voted for the independent union again in a second election, and their supporters withdrew the NAO complaint, the board would certify the results. Han Young would rehire the fired workers, and bargain with STIMAHCS.
On December 4, in front of the factory, 32 workers voted for the independent union for a second time; 27 voted against it. At first it seemed the deal would hold, and six of the fired workers were rehired. But it quickly started to unravel.
Broken agreement
A representative of another government-affiliated union, the Revolutionary Union of the Working Class, began appearing in the factory almost daily. Meanwhile, the company refused to bargain with STIMAHCS representative Enrique Hernandez, or permit him to enter the plant.
Just after New Year, a crane carrying a one-ton truck chassis almost collided with another, and the chassis fell. Six workers leaped out of the way, narrowly escaping death or serious injury.
Workers struck again for a day on January 6 to force a government safety inspection. The NAO complaint was amended to include allegations that Mexico was not enforcing health and safety laws at Han Young.
When the NAO hearing finally opened in San Diego on February 18, more than two dozen workers lined up to testify to the failure of the legal process to guarantee their union rights, and government's unwillingness to enforce safe conditions.
Even getting to the hearing wasn't easy. Although workers received temporary passes the day before to cross the border, when they presented them at the San Ysidro crossing at 8am, agents of the Border Patrol questioned their validity.
For three hours, they refused to allow the workers to pass. Only after NAO secretary Irasema Garza personally phoned the border station did the Border Patrol let them proceed.
Poor record
The Han Young complaint is the sixth heard by the US NAO office. Parties who have brought previous complaints say they were met with indifference bordering on hostility, and a total lack of enforcement.
The first complaint was filed by the United Electrical Workers and the Teamsters in 1994, after General Electric defeated a STIMAHCS organising effort in Ciudad Juarez. The unions charged that GE threatened to close its plant, and fired a number of workers after they were interviewed on the Macneil-Lehrer Newshour.
The NAO hearing was held in Washington, DC, virtually inaccessible to workers who wanted to testify. The complaint was summarily dismissed.
Another was filed by the Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras, assisted by the International Labor Rights Fund (ILRF), the American Friends Service Committee and Mexico's National Association of Democratic Lawyers, on behalf of workers at the Sony plant in Ciudad Laredo.
Workers there tried to elect their own leadership in the company union, and were beaten by guards and police in front of the plant while protesting against election fraud. When workers later tried to register an independent union with the local labour board, government officials turned them away.
After NAO hearings, US labour secretary Robert Reich met with his Mexican counterpart and agreed that the Mexican government was illegally obstructing independent unions. But when workers tried to register their union again, the labour board again refused. No further action was taken.
The NAO process failed US workers as well. The Mexican telephone workers union charged in 1995 that the US government had failed to protect San Francisco workers at Sprint Corp when 235 of them were fired and their workplace closed a week before a vote on union representation. Although hearings in this case also documented extensive violations of the National Labor Relations Act, no corrective action was ever taken.
There are no penalties under the side agreement against governments which violate workers' union rights.
In San Diego in February, though, politics had changed things. The Clinton administration has already announced it intends to reintroduce fast track legislation [to permit trade agreements, including expansion of NAFTA] this spring. It needs to blunt criticism from Democratic Party opponents.
So dumping the Han Young case like the others is not an option. That's no small irony for activists who have spent years organising workers on the border. The administration intends to use their greatest case to win credibility for a policy they hold responsible for workers' poverty and lack of rights.
"There's no question that the purpose of free trade is to create favourable conditions for foreign investment", Hernandez says.
"On the border, those conditions include low wages and company unions. So it's hard to give any credibility to the labour side agreement, which was just window dressing to get us to accept NAFTA to begin with. But we have to use the tools that are available to us."
New workers
It is still a race against time, however. The steps in the legal process take over three years. Meanwhile, Han Young is hiring new workers.
Bus loads are arriving from Veracruz, where big lay-offs in shipyards and oilfields are producing lots of unemployed welders. STIMAHCS supporters worry the company will eventually claim once again that a majority of workers oppose the independent union, and push for a third election.
The company may be undermining its own plan to pit them against the independent union, however. Carlos Perez Cruz, hired in Veracruz in September, says Han Young's recruiter promised he would make 1200 pesos a week. Kang denies the company ever made such a promise.
Perez' pay stub for a week in late February shows he made only 558 pesos, including overtime and incentive bonus. "I'm being evicted from my room because I can't pay the rent. I don't have enough to eat or send money to my family", he complained bitterly. "I can't even go home. The fare to Veracruz is 1200 pesos."
Norberto Cordoba is from Veracruz as well. Since being fired, he's worked short jobs in construction, living from day to day, trying to send money home, he says. He wasn't rehired with the others in December.
Kang says the company offered Cordoba money to give up his claim to his job, and that he accepted. "That's true", Cordoba admits. "I was out of work for a long time, living a thousand miles from my family, who had nothing to support them at home. I didn't know if I would ever see the inside of the plant again. What was I supposed to do?"
Buying out workers is a common way for Mexican employers to settle the cases of troublemakers without giving them back their jobs.