Guatemalan teachers shut ports,
march in capital
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AFL-CIO announces
opposition to drive for war
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LABOR BRIEFS
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Jordan’s sweatshops: the carrot
or the stick of US policy?

By Aaron Glantz



Amman, Jordan, Feb. 26— Syed Adil Ali walks across the ground floor of the two story Silver Planet textile mill outside the Jordanian capital, Amman. The Pakistani national points at a multi-colored pile of clothes ready to be shipped to the United States.

“This is an order for Wal-Mart,” he said. “It’s shorts. Boy’s shorts. We export for all the big US retailers. Target, Wal-Mart, and JC Penny.”

While the world focuses on a potential war on Iraq and the future of the country’s vast untapped oil resources, US companies of a different kind are rapidly extending their influence throughout the Arab world. Under the terms of its 1994 peace agreement with Israel and its newly inked Free Trade Agreement with the United States, Iraq’s neighbor Jordan has seen a massive increase in clothing manufacturing for the US market.

Qualified industrial zones

Three years ago, not a single textile mill in Jordan exported to the big US retailers. Today, there are more than 40,000 workers, toiling in more than 60 factories, producing solely for the US market. Washington inserted a provision into Jordan’s 1994 peace agreement with Israel giving Jordan permission to export products duty free to the United States, provided at least eight percent of their industrial inputs come from Israel. These special factories are located in Jordan’s Qualified Industrial Zones (QIZs).

“The QIZs are very important to the American government,” said Zaid Marar, spokesperson for the Al-Tajamout QIZ which houses the Silver Planet factory. “Jordan is a buffer state between Israel and its hostile Arab neighbors so it’s very important that Jordan’s economy be linked with the US economy.”

Late last year, Assistant Deputy Secretary of State Elizabeth Cheney paid a visit to the Al-Tajamout compound. The State Department official is also the daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney. “Jordan is a strategic tool for both the US and Israel,” Marar said, noting the importance of the visit.

And yet, Jordanians own almost none of the factories. Most are owned and operated by entrepreneurs from China, Taiwan, Korea, India, Pakistan, or the Philippines, who import workers from over-seas.

Of the some 40,000 workers employed in these Qualified Industrial Zones, fewer than half are Jordanian. Ninety percent are women under the age of 22, and almost all of them are paid the minimum wage, about $3.50 a day.

Factory owner Syed Adil Ali says his factory only contracts Sri Lankan girls.

“They are very peace minded girls,” he says. “I found some kind of problem with the boys. They made some kind of union, some kind of disturbance in the factory. So we prefer the girls.”

There is no union at Syed’s factory, which earns more than $2 million a year in profits. He is planning on adding a third floor and hundreds more workers.

Poor living and working conditions

Zaid Marar drives his blue BMW around the Al-Tajamout Qualified Industrial Zone. The public relations official displays the living quarters for the thousands of foreign workers housed at the industrial park. He says the dormitories comply with the minimum human rights standards permitted by US retail giants.

“There are 80 people per floor, ten rooms in each,” Marar explains. “There are eight people per room and five and a half square feet of space for each according to JC Penny’s specifications.”

Syed Adil Ali’s work force of 600 is housed in one of these army barracks-style buildings. They are required to live on the factory grounds — far away from the city. Because of their sixty five-hour workweek, the workers rarely leave the complex. The company provides for their basic needs. For most of these workers, the company even supplies their only source of food and drinking water.

Immigrant workers have few rights

Close to 50 Indian men stand outside one of Amman’s main police stations, where they tried to file a complaint against their employer. Apparently their grievance fell on deaf ears.

One of the workers shakes his head. “Jordan is very bad,” he said. “[There are] no rules, no factory rules.”

The workers say their boss at the Al-Tajamout Qualified Industrial Zone refused to pay them for three months, refused to feed them for a week, and then fled Jordan for the Philippines. Their factory, Tamashi Industries, manufactured the Simply Basic line of children’s clothing for Wal-Mart.

“Three months no pay, no food,” screams one of the workers. “Bad, bad, bad, very bad.”

The workers make significantly more than they would in India. Here, the average wage in a garment factory is about $3.50 a day, compared to about $2.50 a day in India. But in Jordan, the workers have no rights.

Factory owners work with agents in South and East Asia to locate workers interested in coming to work in Jordan. They apply to the Jordanian Ministry of Labor for visas which restrict them to working only for the factories that bring them. Then, they buy the worker a one-way ticket to Amman.

When the employer is finished with the worker, he buys the worker a ticket home. When employees try to start a union, as 120 Bangladeshis did last month, they are summarily deported.

Because the owner fled the country, the Indian workers from Tamashi Industries are stuck in Jordan with no work permit and no way to get home.

“I want to go back to India,” one of the workers standing in front of the police station said. “But I have no ticket, no ticket. No work permit to work.”

Under new management

Tamashi Industries will reopen under the ownership of Elias Jamil Bashara. The Filipino businessman is the brother of Levana Fadicaram, the man who skipped the country without paying his workers. The factory has a new name now, Alven Fashion Manufacturing, but the building, the machines, and even the office telephone number are the same. The biggest concern for the factory manager, Mazen Baghdadi, is the four weeks of lost production time caused by the chaos.

“But soon we will have an order for Wal-Mart or Target and we will start up again,” he notes cheerfully.

Baghdadi says the company is looking for a new crop of foreign workers. “We had some Indian workers but they left,” he says. He says he doesn’t know which country the next group of workers will come from, “Maybe China, maybe the Philippines, Sri Lanka, or Bangladesh.”

Free trade carrot and sanctions stick

Jordan’s Textile Trade Union has no problem with the current situation. The union’s President, Falthalla Omrani, flew to Washington for the Free Trade Agreement’s signing ceremony. “You have to start somewhere,” he says. “Jordan needs foreign investment. We need factories.”

Analysts here say that for decades the government has controlled unions in Jordan, with more militant activists languishing in prison for years.

Overwhelmingly, though, Jordanians oppose both the Free Trade Agreement with the United States and the peace treaty with Israel. Most Jordanians would like to bring back the trading regime that was in place before George Bush Sr. declared war on Iraq in 1991. Before the Gulf War sanctions, Jordan ran a brisk $1.2 billion trade with Iraq. Now, that trade has been cut by more than half. The official unemployment rate is 20 percent. Most observers think the real rate is much higher.

In the Bacca Palestinian refugee camp outside Amman, locally owned factories that used to sell to Iraq are shuttered, their workforce laid off, their equipment for sale.

Navri Sarisi is President of a community center at the Bacca Camp. Like many people here, he believes the United States is trying to set up a relationship between Israel and Jordan similar to the one between United States and Mexico. He notes the minimum wage in Israel is eight times the minimum wage in Jordan.

“The trade agreements came by force of the United States,” he says, “and the best example are these Qualified Industrial Zones. The Israelis are investing money in very cheap labor where people work long hours. They are getting free access to the US market duty free and customs free and this contributed largely to the collapse of the locally based industry.”

When the US launched its war on Iraq in 1991, Jordan took a massive hit. King Hussein refused to support the American invasion and in retaliation the Bush Sr. administration cut off all US aid. With trade with Iraq a fraction of it once was, the country has been forced to turn to the West — to Israel and the United States — for economic partners. Critics worry that this comes at a high political cost.

“The government [of King Abdullah] is trying to shift Jordan from a pro-Arab country to a country that gives in to what Bush wants and what (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon.” says leading opposition politician Laith Spilat.

Dr. Ibrahim Aloosh is more blunt. The US-trained economist publishes an on-line magazine called the Free Arab Voice. “They’re turning Jordan into a colony for the United States and the Zionist entity,” he explains. “And if you say Iraq won’t be next you got to be kidding me.”

Source: CorpWatch

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AFL-CIO announces
opposition to drive for war

Compiled by Nicholas Holt

Mar. 5 (AGR)— After backing administrations in the Korean, Vietnam, and Persian Gulf WARs, the labor movement departed today from tradition and criticized President George W. Bush’s approach to war on Iraq.

On Feb. 27, at its winter meeting in Hollywood, California, the AFL-CIO executive council, which represents about 13 million union members, unanimously approved a resolution urging Bush to embrace a broad multilateral approach to Iraq and criticizing the administration for dividing the world and insulting US allies.

“Saddam Hussein is a demagogue and a despot, with an appalling human rights record over the past two decades,” the resolution states, but that no “unity of resolve” exists to wage war on Iraq at this time.

“[D]ivisions, not only among our allies but also within our nation, stand in sharp contrast to the unity and global solidarity that America enjoyed in the days and the months after September 11, 2001,” it says. “Now, just a year-and-a-half later, we have squandered much of that goodwill, managed to insult many of our strong allies, and divided the world at a time when it should speak as one.”

With labor clashing with Bush over many issues, several union leaders said they felt less inhibited about criticizing his foreign policy.

Several leaders said the increased power and role of women and minorities in labor might also have made the movement more adverse to war.

The United Farm Workers, citing the teachings of its founder, Cesar Chavez, said “President Bush has not offered convincing evidence to the American people that war is needed because Iraq poses an imminent threat to the country. Such a use of force would require thousands of young men and women, many of them people of color, to fight overseas.”

Several unions said the administration was pushing for war for political gain and to distract the public from economic troubles. The Union of Needletrades, Industrial, and Textile Employees (UNITE) approved a resolution saying,” This war is a cynical attempt to distract attention away from the real concerns of American citizens — a faltering economy, declining education budgets, state and local fiscal crises, increasing unemployment.”

The Cleveland Central Labor Council, representing 100,000 workers, approved the resolution, saying, “If our nation goes to war, absent demonstrably legitimate concerns about weapons of mass destruction, we will continue to express our opposition to that war, while finding meaningful ways to support our troops.”

Morton Bahr, president of the Communications Workers of America, said the resolution was the result of a number of briefings on Iraq with officials who worked in the Clinton administration, including former national security adviser Sandy Berger and former chief of staff John Podesta.

“We had real broad input from these guys who had been living with this for a long time,” Bahr said, adding that organized labor has historically taken positions on wars that involve American workers and their families.

Bob Muehlenkamp, of the anti-war coalition US Labor Against the War, called the resolution historic.

Muehlenkamp’s group has called for a “Labor Day for Peace” on Mar. 12, with anti-war activities planned at work sites around the country.

Labor officials ended the meeting with a sense of unity in a time of uncertainty, with mounting job losses, a poor economy, and a presidential administration that is hostile to their cause, AFL-CIO President John Sweeny said.

Perhaps the defining moment was Labor Secretary Elaine Chao’s Feb. 26 address, which shocked and enraged labor leaders, Sweeny said.

They were particularly angry about her response to a question about the department’s new financial reporting requirements. She read from a paper a list of criminal charges involving one union.

Teamster’s Union President James P. Hoffa, a White House ally whom officials said was growing frustrated with Bush for his administration’s anti-union tactics and policies, was particularly enraged over Chao’s remarks. He told colleagues in the closed meeting that unions should support a presidential candidate friendly to working Americans.

Sources: AFL-CIO, Associated Press, CNN, New York Times

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Guatemalan teachers shut ports,
march in capital

Compiled by Seán Marquis

Mar. 4 (AGR)— Tens of thousands of striking teachers marched into Guatemala City on Mar. 1, the final stop of a five-day trek that began in the northwestern region of the country.

The educators were greeted with applause and fireworks from supporters who lined the streets to join the march, offer nourishment and boost morale. Many carried signs calling them “heroes” and “valiant compatriots,” as motorists tooted their horns and cleared the road.

“I don’t really approve of the strike, but if we don’t show that we are worthy as a population, if we don’t have a voice, then there will never be change,” said Angela Moliva, 27. “Here in Guatemala, we have never been able to get things done by good faith. We’ve always had to force the government’s hand to get action. This strike is no longer just about the teachers. The whole population supports them.”

The strike, which teachers refer to as an “assembly,” was launched to seek an increase in the education budget from approximately $422 million to $782 million. The extra funds would help pay for much-needed resources and permit a near doubling of salaries that now range from about $190 to $390 per month.

Educators also seek better school buildings, more books, adequate meals for students, and other educational tools that could help reduce the illiteracy rate. Guatemala’s social indicators, such as infant mortality and illiteracy, are among the worst in the hemisphere. Approximately 80 percent of the population lives in poverty, and about two-thirds of that number in extreme poverty. Nearly half of the population can’t read or write.

At least 60,000 of the country’s 80,000 public school teachers have joined the strike since it began Jan. 20.

Federal negotiators have offered a monthly bonus of $12 to supplement educators’ incomes, saying funds are too limited for a bigger increase. The government also has lashed out against the civil disobedience acts, calling them illegal obstructions and warning of repercussions.

“The government will not tolerate any more illegal actions like the ones that have been occurring with the takeover of public buildings, blockades of streets, customs, ports, and the obstruction of public services that affect the normal function of the economy and fundamental rights of the rest of Guatemalans,” said a notice published by the National Palace and repeated in television public service announcements.

For more than a month, academics have faced off with police as teachers have occupied government offices, blocked major highways and border crossings, and created human barricades at the entrances of seaports and airports, including the capital’s La Aurora International Airport

Last week hundreds of marchers overran the Santa Elena Airport in the northern province of Petén, forcing it to close. Strikers also blocked entries to two of the country’s three principal seaports, Quetzal on the Pacific and Santo Tomás de Castilla on the Atlantic.

At dawn on Feb. 24, the strikers targeted La Aurora International Airport. Many flights were delayed and some were canceled.

By day’s end, the protest at the airport had swollen as supporters streamed in by the thousands. Many pitched makeshift tents and vowed to remain until the government fulfilled their demands.

The following day, all US flights, including American Airlines’ three daily flights to and from Miami, were canceled indefinitely as the strike intensified and talks remained stalemated. Entrances to seaports also remained blocked, preventing shipments from entering or leaving.

Also on Feb. 25 some 2,000 teachers seized a pumping station on the French-owned oil pipeline that carries all of Guatemala’s oil production from wells in the north to Atlantic ports.

Antonio Minondo, a spokesman for oil company Perenco, said the line carries some 25,000 barrels of crude oil a day.

“What we are fighting for is the future of millions of children, who deserve a good education,” said Susan Bautista, a teacher for 20 years.

“The truth is, the government doesn’t want to educate its youth because they want to be able to dominate them for life.”

Sources: Associated Press Miami Herald

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