Tijuana Union Fight Highlights NAFTA Fears

Congressional opponents of the Clinton administration’s bid for increased authority to negotiate free trade accords are pointing to a grimy Tijuana factory where they say workers won an uphill election for what is being billed as the first independent union of the border maquiladora factories--but lost their jobs.

Even a manager of the Han Young plant, which supplies tractor-trailer chassis for Hyundai Precision America in San Diego, concedes that the independent union won the Oct. 6 election. But 12 workers who led the union drive at the Korean-run company have been fired. The local labor board president who allowed the vote to proceed has since resigned, and the board has yet to officially recognize the union.

To some U.S. members of Congress, the Tijuana union standoff underscores concerns that existing free trade accords do not do enough to safeguard workers’ rights. Eight have signed a letter to Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo asking for a meeting to discuss the Han Young dispute during his upcoming visit to Washington.

Mexican labor authorities and company officials say that nothing improper has occurred.

Industry leaders say the Han Young affair has been overblown. “There are no labor problems in the maquiladora industry in Tijuana,” said Alfonso Ruiz, a director of the Tijuana chapter of the National Chamber of Manufacturing Industry. “Even if one maquiladora did have a problem, that would not be representative of the 600 plants here.

“The maquiladoras have played a very positive role in the development of Baja California industry,” he said. “The reason Tijuana has developed its industry so much in recent years is because labor relations are superb, much better than the rest of the country.”

Critics of NAFTA--signed by Mexico, Canada and the United States--say it encourages companies to move where overhead is lowest and scrutiny scarcest, robbing U.S. workers of jobs and reinforcing substandard labor and environmental practices in Mexico.

The labor issue is being cited by House Democrats who oppose the fast-track legislation, which would give the White House increased powers to negotiate trade agreements.

“This exposes the labor guarantees for the fraud they always were,” said Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.). “Promises have been broken. Evidence is mounting that this is a bad deal for workers on both sides of the border.”

DeFazio, a longtime opponent of the North American Free Trade Agreement who is leading House efforts to press for recognition of the Tijuana union, said poor working conditions at the light-industry border factories--called maquiladoras--may even be encouraging the immigrant flow into the United States.

“They are magnets. They bring people to the border, but the workers can’t make a living wage,” he said. “They live in sight of the border. If they can just get across, they can make so much more.”

Tijuana labor officials defend their actions.

Carlos Perez Astorga, secretary general of the Tijuana labor board, called the labor board president’s resignation a “personal decision” unrelated to the Han Young vote. He said the labor board was studying the workers’ allegations and had still made no decision on whether to certify the union election results.

“The board must review the entire file before it can make a determination,” he said. At the Han Young plant, production manager Sam Lee readily acknowledged that the independent union won the vote Oct. 6, but said it might not have if 30 other workers had not been absent. He denied claims of safety problems at the plant. He said workers had been dismissed not because of the union, but because they were lazy and “want to sabotage” the plant.

At Hyundai Precision American in San Diego, the only person qualified to comment, Peter Ahn, was unavailable.

Tijuana labor advocates say the outcome of the showdown at Han Young de Mexico will be critical for Tijuana’s 132,000 maquiladora workers.

“To approve this union would be to open the doors to the unionization of all the maquiladoras,” said Enrique Hernandez, a legal advocate for the union effort. “It would be historic.”

Actually, Mexico’s 860,000 maquiladora workers are formally organized. But like the Han Young workers, most belong to unions that are wings of Mexico’s ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party. Most workers had no role in choosing these unions, which are often criticized for not being strong advocates for workers’ rights.

The dearth of independent unions is often blamed for slow wage growth and little pressure to improve health and safety conditions.

Seven previous labor complaints involving Mexico, filed with the U.S. Labor Department, have faded into obscurity and inaction. But the fast-track debate in Washington is shoving the Tijuana union dispute into the spotlight.

On Oct. 25, DeFazio and House Minority Whip David Bonior (D-Mich.) met with four of the fired Tijuana unionists Oct. 25 in Ciudad Juarez, on the Texas border, the legislators’ staffs said.

Irasema Garza, secretary of the U.S. Labor Department’s National Administrative Office, which reviews NAFTA labor complaints, is studying a complaint about Han Young sent by the San Diego-based Support Committee for Maquiladora Workers.

Although they have not decided whether to conduct a formal review, “I consider the allegations to be quite serious,” Garza said.

Garza said NAFTA has invited a healthy scrutiny of Mexican labor practices that encourages reform.

On Nov. 19, her office will hold a public hearing in Brownsville, Texas, to review a complaint alleging that Mexican maquiladoras frequently require women job applicants to undergo pregnancy testing, Garza said.

“It has forced Mexico to show the international community how and why it treats its own domestic labor issues a certain way,” she said. “We firmly believe that this type of continued scrutiny and debate will result in very significant changes.”

NAFTA labor provisions, like the environmental pledges, are side agreements, calling for the countries to abide by their own domestic labor laws. There are a few issues that could lead to fines or trade sanctions: health and safety, child labor and minimum wage, Garza said.

Seven previous Mexico labor complaints reviewed by Garza’s office have not led to the reinstatement of fired workers or other concrete actions.

In a 1994 complaint, Mexican workers said they were fired and even beaten by police when they pushed for a better union at a Nuevo Laredo plant that makes Sony electronics. Workers publicly aired their grievances, but never got their union or their old jobs.

Teresa Valladolid, an AFL-CIO observer from San Diego, said the Tijuana union vote Oct. 6 showed how actual conditions contradict optimistic claims.

“Politicians talk about NAFTA ensuring employees’ rights and workers’ safety, but it really is not happening,” she said. “Workers’ rights are just lip service.”

In the Tijuana case, Valladolid said, the election for the independent union began quietly, with 54 employees publicly stating their desire to join.

But then, management brought in workers hired after the union drive began and administrative staff who are ineligible to vote, she said.

Unionists decided to let them vote anyway to avoid having the election halted or nullified, she said. With their support, 34 votes to keep the existing PRI-linked union were cast, she said.

“It was pretty bizarre,” Valladolid said. “It was just real obvious what the company was doing.”

The labor board representative then asked U.S. observers to leave, threatening to call immigration officials, she said.

Twelve leading unionists lost their jobs in the Han Young affair.

One, Jaime Garcia, 51, has a wife with advanced breast cancer who he says is now unable to get treatment, and a 3-year-old son.

Another, Miguel Angel Meza, 24, supports his elderly parents. His mother needs surgery for a heart condition, but because he no longer has a job, he cannot get her the operation, he says.

The election followed months of worker complaints about wages and safety.

Many earn about 85 cents an hour--double Mexico’s minimum wage--and want a raise.

Han Young’s Lee said they have now hired new workers, bused in from Veracruz, who are much better.

“They don’t make trouble. They work harder. They want to work overtime,” he said. “They don’t care about the union. It’s all the same to them.”