THURSDAY, APRIL 1, 2004 (Redacted version)

The Hearing was held at 9:00 a.m. in Room N-4437 in the Frances Perkins Building, 200 Constitution Avenue, N.W., Lewis Karesh, Acting Secretary, NAO, presiding.

NAO:

LEWIS KARESH, Acting Secretary, NAO
GABRIELLA RIGG
CARLOS QUINTANA
CHANTENIA GAY

WITNESSES:

NILAY VORA -- USAS
BOB JEFFCOTT -- MSN
SALVADOR GARCIA SANCHEZ -- Former Worker, Tarrant Mexico
MARIBEL RAMIREZ TORRES -- Former Worker, Tarrant Mexico
SCOTT NOVA -- WRC
SHAILA BALDERAS TOLEDO -- CAT
BLANCA VELAZQUEZ DIAZ -- CAT
ALEJANDRA CONSTANZA -- Human and Labor Rights Attorney
BENJAMIN COKELET -- Liaison to CAT

Nilay Vora, USAS

Bob Jeffcott, MSN

Salvador Garcia Sanchez, (Former Worker, Tarrant Mexico)

Maribel Ramirez Torres, (Former Worker, Tarrant Mexico)

Scott Nova, WRC

Shaila Balderas Toledo, CAT

Blanca Velazquez Diaz, CAT

Alejandra Constanza Ancheita Pagaza, Human and Labor Rights Attorney

Benjamin Cokelet, Liasion to CAT

(9:15 a.m.)

SECRETARY KARESH: Good morning. We’re going to try to get started if everyone wants to take their seats. Thank you for being with us this morning. My name is Lewis Karesh. I’m the Acting Secretary of the U.S. National Administrative Office and I’ll be conducting today’s hearing with my colleagues. I’m accompanied by Carlos Quintana from the Office of the Solicitor, and Gabriella Rigg and Chantenia Gay from the Administrative Office.

For interpretation purposes, headsets are available in the back of the room. You’ll also find copies of documents pertaining to the hearing in the back of the room and please feel free to take one of those copies. I’m told that as far as interpretation, English is on Channel 4 and Spanish Channel 5.

This hearing is being conducted in accordance with the procedural guidelines issued by the U.S. National Administrative Office pursuant to Article 16 of the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation. Procedural guidelines were duly published in the Federal Register on December 30th, 1993 and were subsequently revised and published again in the Federal Register on April 7th, 1994. Notice of today’s hearing was published in the Federal Register on March 2nd, 2004.

The purpose of today’s hearing is to gather relevant information that will assist the U.S. National Administrative Office in preparing a public report with respect to U.S. Submission 2003-01. U.S. Submission 2003-01 was filed with the NAO on September 30th, 2003 by the U.S. based United Students Against Sweat Shops, the Mexico based Centro de Apoyo al Trabajador, and was later joined by the Canadian based Maquila Solidarity Network.

The US NAO accepted the submission for review on February 5th, 2004, notice of which was duly published in the Federal Register. The review of the submission is intended to further the objectives of the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation as set out in Article 1, which include improving working conditions and living standards in each party’s territory, promoting to the maximum extent possible the labor principles set out in Annex 1 of the agreement, among them freedom of association and the protection of the right to organize, the right to bargain collectively, minimum employment standards and prevention of occupational injuries and illnesses.

Providing compliance with an effective enforcement by each party of its labor laws and fostering transparency in the administration of labor law. Submission raises issues concerning protection of the right to freedom of association and protection of the right to organize, the right to bargain collectively, occupational safety and health and minimum employment standards, among others, minimum wage and overtime pay requirements.

The Submission also raises issues concerning access for workers to fair, equitable and transparent labor tribunal proceedings and asserts that the allegations represent an overall and persistent pattern of non-enforcement of labor laws. The Submission alleges that the Mexican government has failed to fulfill its obligations with respect to NAALC principles 1, 2, 6 and 9. The Submission also alleges the failure of the Mexican Government to fulfill its obligations with respect to NAALC Articles 4 and 5 regarding access to workers for fair, equitable and transparent labor tribunal proceedings.

The objective of today’s hearing is to gather information to assist the NAO to better understand and publicly report on the Government of Mexico’s promotion of and compliance with its labor laws and whether it has taken appropriate government action to do so. The purpose of this hearing is not to adjudicate individual rights and therefore, it is not an adversarial proceeding. As such, the rules of evidence are not in effect and there will be no direct or cross examination of witnesses. The hearing format is intended simply as a means providing the public with an opportunity to present information relevant to our review of the submission.

I’ll be the only person questioning witnesses today. In accordance with the procedures established by the NAO, witnessed filed timely requests to testify and provide the NAO with summaries or outlines of their testimony. Submitted testimony has to be reviewed by the NAO. Therefore, I would ask witnesses to please supplement their written testimony rather than just rereading it for the record. I will permit 10 to 15 minute presentations by each witness unless I deem it appropriate to extend the time and IU would ask that you please keep to your allotted time so that all witnesses will have ample opportunity to make their presentations today.

These oral presentations and written statements will be entered into the record and will be considered by the NAO in the formulation of its public report. Pursuant to the NAO’s procedural guidelines, the hearing record and documents therein will be made available to the public. I will call a recess when I think it’s appropriate, most likely midway through our morning session and then we’ll take a lunch break. I ask you to cooperate with times when they’re announced and be back in your seats so that the hearing is ready to resume after any recess.

Should any of you experience trouble with your interpretation receivers, please tell a technician or a member of the Department of Labor staff and they’ll be happy to assist you in fixing it or getting a new receiver. To make life simpler for the interpreters and to allow accurate transcription of our proceedings, I’d ask that everyone try to speak clearly and slowly. Don’t follow my example. ]

We’re now ready to proceed with the first panel. The first panel includes Nilay Vora of the United Students Against Sweat Shops and Bob Jeffcott of the Maquiladora Solidarity Network. I’d ask everyone here today before you start your presentation if you would please identify yourselves for the record. Mr. Vora?

MR. VORA: To introduce myself, I’d like to say that I’m a graduating senior at the University of Southern California majoring in math and human rights. I became involved in United Students Against Sweat Shops about two years ago. Although I started out as pre-med, I’ve always had a great interest in math -- or in law and human rights and I wrote a paper about the NAALC and that NAO process as a process to remedy human rights violations that occurred as a result of increased free trade.

When the United Students Against Sweat Shops brought my attention to the Matamoros garment case, and where the workers were fired and the union was denied, I brought up the idea that we should write this complaint. When a critical mass developed, we wrote the complaint and I was honored to be involved in such a dedicated voluntary effort. With USAS I’ve traveled to the Dominican Republic, to Sri Lanka and to India where I’ve met with workers who worked in export processing zones.

One thing has struck me throughout all of my delegations, while taking testimony from workers how young they are. In Mexico and the Dominican Republic and Sri Lanka and India, the story remains the same; young women and men that are trapped in abusive work environments with little opportunity for improvement. My parents are immigrants from India and they left India under the impression that they had little economic opportunity there for success.

They came here with admission to graduate schools and through extremely hard work and a good start and a lot of luck, they’ve made a great life for themselves and our family. They’ve also given me excellent opportunities for which I am grateful but I’ll never forget that I shouldn’t take these opportunities for granted and that is why I’m here to testify today. Too many young people in the world will never be provided with these opportunities. There are too many young people who are robbed of their culture, robbed of their youth, robbed of their education.

This is why United Students Against Sweat Shops wrote this complaint. We came to the United States National Administrative Office and the Canadian National Administrative Office only as a last resort. Having exhausted all local remedies available to the workers, through the Mexican Government’s legal process, we were forced to seek international intervention. This case covers several recent cases in Mexico. The cases mentioned are Kukdong, Matamoros Garment, and Tarrant, factories in Puebla, Mexico. These factories saw violations of Principle 1, the right to freedom of association, Principle 2, the right to a collective bargaining process, Principle 6, obligation to enforce minimum employment standards and Principle 9, the obligation to prevent occupational injuries and illnesses. The failure of the Mexican Government to enforce Mexico’s Federal Labor Law is a key complaint that USAS hopes to address in this process.

In the past, United Students Against Sweat Shops has addressed labor rights violations by putting pressure on factory management and brands and the administration of the schools which are placing orders in the given factories. This system has worked reasonably well and we have had a positive effect upon factory conditions while maintaining the placement of orders in factories to insure their economic livelihood. In the case of Matamoros garment and Tarrant the pressure that we have placed upon factory management and brands has yielded precious little result. When pressured by brands themselves upon factory management failed, United Students Against Sweat Shops relied upon the Mexican Government to fulfill their obligation to enforce their own laws and provide justice through official means. The Mexican Government has abducted its responsibility in the cases of Matamoros garment and Tarrant de Ajalpan.

Indeed they have condoned illegal behavior failing to act even when they observed first-hand workers paid wages below the legally required minimum wages and failing to conduct fair and impartial registration and appeals processes. The obligation of the Mexican Government to enforce its own laws comes from the Mexican Constitution, the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation but most importantly, from a common sense understanding of how a government is supposed to function. When the Mexican Government fails to administer its own laws, justice it being denied from the very system that is in place to insure its existence.

The complaint is an attempt by United Students Against Sweat Shops, the Maquila Solidarity Network and the Centro de Apoyo al Trabajador and workers at these factories to force an investigation into Mexico’s failure to enforce its own laws. Until the Mexican Government enforces its own laws, it cannot claim to be responsible for the livelihood of its citizens. I sincerely hope for Mexico’s sake as well as for the workers, that the barriers to effective law enforcement and justice are properly cleared as a result of recommendations made by the United States Secretary of Labor to the Mexican Minister of Labor.

With these goals in mind, we the Petitioners hope that the National Administrative Office and the United States Secretary of Labor, Elaine Chow (ph) will offer the following recommendations to the Mexican Government. First, that the Secretary of Labor’s recommendations remind the Mexican Government of its obligations with respect to its own national laws and the principles stated in the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation. Second, that I recommend that all federal and specifically the Puebla Local Labor Boards publicly disclose registros and collective bargaining agreements and also that they grant registros in a transparent manner and in strict accordance with Mexico’s federal labor law.

Third, that I recommend the establishment of a tri-national oversight committee composed of labor rights experts with the power to investigate and issue reports regarding allegations of violations of the first three principles of the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation, namely freedom of association and protection of the right to organize, the right to collectively bargain and the right to strike and specifically, denial of registros, use of black lists and denial of secret ballot votes in their quento (ph) elections. Fourth, that I recommend the holding of a public cooperative activity in Puebla on the theme of freedom of association and specifically the right of a union to receive its registros under federal labor law with the participation of the governor, the local labor board and the organizations that have presented the submission.

Additionally, we seek the assistance of the United States Secretary of Labor in insuring that the issues in this submission are subject to review by an evaluation committee of experts, namely those with relation to safety and health, forced labor, and minimum wages be reviewed by such a committee. We sincerely feel that these recommendations and actions will strengthen Mexico’s ability to enforce its own labor laws and to insure adequate oversight, to investigate and hopefully deter any possible future derogations from justice. We look forward to working with the Mexican Government in order to insure that justice is provided to its hardworking citizens.

Thank you.

SECRETARY KARESH: Thank you, Mr. Vora. Mr. Jeffcott.

MR. JEFFCOTT: My name is Bob Jeffcott and I work as a policy analyst with the Canadian Maquila Solidarity Network. I’d also first like to thank the NAO for the opportunity to testify at these hearings today on behalf of the Maquila Solidarity Network. The Network is a network of 400 organizations and individuals across Canada. We were founded shortly after the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement and 2004 is our tenth year of advocating for the rights of Maquiladora workers in Mexico and in other countries as well.

MSN is also the secretariat for a coalition of labor, faith, non-governmental organizations, overseas development organizations called the ethical trading action group which is Canada’s anti-sweat shop coalition. Since 1994 MSN has been involved in a number of campaigns in support of Mexican Maquiladora workers’ rights. These include the Itapsa case in 1997, Han Young, in 1997/’98, Custom Trim Auto Trim in 1999, Duro-Bag in 2000/2001, Kukdong in 2001 and 2002, Alcoa in 2002, Matamoros Garment in 2003 and Tarrant in 2003/2004. Through our involvement in these solidarity campaigns we have witnessed a systematic pattern of violations of Mexican workers’ rights particularly the right to freedom of association and the right to bargain collectively.

We’ve also witnessed the failure of the Mexican governmental institutions to enforce national labor legislation and a pattern of improper and bias decisions by Mexican labor tribunals. As you know, many of these cases have come before the NAO. Yet, despite serious concerns being raised at ministerial consultations, very little has changed in the past 10 years. The 2000 election of President Vicente Fox raised hopes that democratic, federal elections would open up the door to democratization of Mexican society and particularly democratization of the country’s industrial relations system.

When the newly elected president visited Canada, shortly after his election, the Globe and Mail published an opinion piece that was authored by Linda Yantz, who is the coordinator of the Maquila Solidarity Network, and that opinion piece was titled “Mr. Fox, does Mexican Democracy include workers”. The article pointed to the Han Young, Custom Trim and Duro cases as examples of the failure of the Mexican governmental institutions to enforce that country’s labor legislation.

The article concluded whether a Mexican democracy will include Mexican workers depends to a great extent on the willingness of Mr. Fox to challenge the mechanisms of social control created by the old ruling party and the monopoly of power of corrupt official unions.

At that time President Fox promised that the right of workers to be represented by unions of their choice through secret ballot votes and union representation elections would be guaranteed in upcoming reforms to the federal labor law. However, as many legal experts have pointed out, Mexican workers should not and do not have to wait for new labor laws some time in the indefinite future, legislation that may or may not provide improved protections for workers. Nothing prevents the Mexican Government from acting today to insure fair, impartial rulings by labor tribunals, democratic secret ballot votes in union representation elections and the publication of union registrations and collective bargaining agreements.

In 2001 and 2002 MSN and the Human and Labor Rights Commission of the Tehuacan Valley carried out joint research on the blue jeans manufacturing industry in that region and also on working conditions and labor practices in jean assembly plants and laundries. Our visits to Tehuacan and other communities in the State of Puebla and worker interviews carried out by the Commission have convinced us that the events described in the testimonies you’ll hear today and the written submissions are not isolated incidents. Protection contracts negotiated by official unions without worker knowledge or participation are the norm rather than the exception in Puebla’s garment industry.

Workers do not have access to these agreements and in many cases they’re not aware that represented by a union. The role of the official unions in local and state conciliation and arbitration boards is an institutionalized barrier to fair, equitable and transparent labor boards and processes, nor are these practices isolated in the State of Puebla as we have seen from the other cases I’ve mentioned above. I should mention at this time that the director of the Human and Labor Rights Commission of the Tehuacan Valley was recently assaulted by an unknown assailant. This happened on December 30th and since then has actually received death threats as well.

And his organization, the Commission, has made a formal complaint to the local authorities but this assault occurred outside of his office. It occurred not that long after his organization had been providing support and advice to workers employed by Tarrant in the Tehuacan area as well as to other local maquilas. This at least, I think, gives a sense of the kind of atmosphere and the problems faced by local NGOs and human rights groups when they advocate on behalf of workers’ legal rights.

In 2001 MSN also joined with the Worker’s Support Center, CAT, USAS and a number of other labor rights groups in the U.S. and Europe in an international campaign in support of workers at the Kukdong factory which was later renamed MexMode in Adlesco (ph) Pubela. After a long and difficult struggle local organizing combined with international solidarity on -- and pressure on brand name buyers was successful in achieving employer acceptance of the independent union or of an independent union.

However, it’s worth noting that the Pubela Conciliation Arbitration Board initially rejected the workers’ first application for union registration and only approved a second application in the name of a different union after the employer had recognized and accepted the independent union. The precedence set at Kukdong, MexMode, raised hopes that there would be changes in how state authorities and conciliation and arbitration boards responded to worker applications for registration of independent unions. Unfortunately that has proved not to be the case. The CAB’s response to subsequent applications for the registration of independent unions at Matamoros garment and Tarrant confirm that despite this important precedent, very little has changed. The Conciliation and Arbitration Boards continue to block workers’ legitimate and legal attempts to be represented by the union of their choice and the state and federal governments turn a blind eye to these practices.

We will hear more about these recent cases later on today. Given the Maquila Solidarity Network’s 10-year history promoting respect for Maquila workers’ rights, we are extremely concerned about recent violations of workers’ rights in Puebla’s garment industry and the failure of the Mexican Government to insure that its labor laws are in force. As a Canadian network we are also concerned about how the lack of labor standards enforcement in Mexico impacts on Canadian workers.

It’s worth noting that the Canadian apparel manufacturer, Peter Nygard, is an important shareholder in Tarrant. While Nygard’s employees in Canada have been able to make use of legal processes to gain recognition of their union, Tarrant workers in Mexico are denied that same right because of the lack of labor standards enforcement by our NAFTA partner.

In addition, the Canadian retailer Licensa and it’s CEO and President are major shareholders in Wet Seal, which has been sourcing from Tarrant’s Puebla factories. As you listen to the testimonies today, I would urge you to view them as part of a pattern of practices that are not isolated to one city, region or state of Mexico. While these testimonies focus on specific incidents that took place in three factories in the State of Puebla, they are symptomatic of general -- the general failure of the Mexican governmental institutions to insure respect for workers’ fundamental rights.

Thank you again for giving me the opportunity to discuss these important issues with you today. I urge you to take appropriate action to insure that the Mexican Government fulfills its obligations under the North American agreement on labor cooperation and I would like to lastly just express the Maquila Solidarity Network’s support for the recommendations that were put forward by my colleague from USAS. Thank you.

SECRETARY KARESH: Thank you, Mr. Jeffcott, Mr. Vora. I’m interested in talking with both of you a little bit more about an issue that both of you brought up about patterns and that this isn’t just in Puebla or just in these two particular companies but it’s other companies in Puebla as well as other regions in Mexico and you mentioned a couple of the cases which we’re familiar with but maybe we can talk a little bit more about others. But before we kind of have that general discussion, let me ask a couple of specific questions.

You talked about -- and either of you can answer these and feel free if you have a response. You talked about the idea of public disclosure of union registrations. Let me ask you a couple things about that. One, whether you are aware of this list that the Mexican Labor Department has prepared and I believe is on its website and if so, you know, if you’ve looked at that, what your view of that is and whether that’s of any help. And then the second part of that would be what type of information and how should that be made available to the public would you think would be the most beneficial and what is it that workers would need to know and who should make that information available, what your views on that might be.

MR. JEFFCOTT: Well, maybe I can comment first. I mean, our experience has been that many times when we interviewed workers or actually when the Commission that I spoke of interviewed workers for the report that we did, the study that we did, many workers are not aware that they’re represented by a union at all and often times what happens is when workers attempt to organize a union, when they first protest conditions in a factory, that becomes the first time that they learn that they are supposedly represented by a union.

When they approach the management of the factory or union officials and ask for a copy of the collective agreement, they are told that they cannot have a copy of the collective agreement. In some cases workers are told that, “Go to management, they’ll give you a copy of the agreement”, and management says, “Go to the union, they’ll give you a copy of the agreement”, and sometimes they’re told, “Go to the Conciliation Arbitration Board, they’ll give you a copy of the agreement”, and none of these bodies are willing to give them copies of the collective agreement.

So in addition to the issue of registrations, there is the issue of collective agreements and the fact that workers don’t have access even to collective agreements. These agreements, in many cases in the State of Puebla are negotiated without worker participation, without worker knowledge and they become what we call protection contracts. In fact, the term usually used in Puebla for the unions is “protection unions” and for the contracts is “protection contracts”.

In some cases, these contracts are negotiated between an official union, one tied to the pre-party prior to the hiring of any workers, sometimes when very few workers have been hired, usually without the knowledge or participation of workers. So this becomes a fundamental problem because the cycle is one in which workers, in the process of processing bad working conditions find out that they’re represented by a union. Then, they, in many cases try to democratize that union, elect union officials democratically. When that fails, they attempt to form an independent union.

Then they, you know, run into the obstacle of the fact that they’re told that, “You already have a union, you should be dealing with the union that you have”. Then the go to the Conciliation Arbitration Boards. The Conciliation Arbitration Boards basically find pretext -- I wouldn’t even say technicalities because in many cases I don’t even think these are technicalities by Mexican labor law, and they find pretext to refuse the applications of the independent union.

When workers eventually do get a registration for an independent union, then they have to go through another process called a recuento, union representation election and in a recuento, often times they have to vote publicly in front of government officials, in front of official union officials and they are quite aware that if they vote the wrong way they will be fired and that has happened in many instances. Once case that I think was brought to your attention but was not taken up was the Duro-Bag case. So there are many of these instances.

And then -- and so for workers, first of all they need to know whether they have a union, they need to know what the collective bargaining agreement, if you can call it that, is. They need access to that and they also need to know, you know, whether there is a registration for a union in that particular factory. And in many cases it seems very strange, but in many cases it seems as if a union is suddenly discovered after workers attempt to organize an independent union, so there really, in my view is some suspicion about whether there really was a registration prior to the workers’ act of attempting to organize an independent union or that registration is, in effect, dormant. It’s -- there really is no union in that case.

So I think that the two things that would be extremely valuable for workers is one, to have access to information about whether or not there is a union in the factory, there is a union registration or more than one and secondly, what is the content of the collective bargaining agreement. This seems very basic. It seems like something every worker has a right to but in Mexico, in the State of Puebla in particular, this is not always the case.

In terms of how it would be made public, I think that, you know, the Conciliation and Arbitration Boards in themselves should be providing access to workers with that information. It should be something that’s on a website. I’m not as familiar with what is on the Mexican Government’s website currently but I know that workers in Puebla and in other states have a great deal of difficulty gaining that kind of information prior to attempting to organize.

SECRETARY KARESH: Thank you. Mr. Vora, did you want to add anything to that?

MR. VORA: I just wanted to say that I think the main reason that we were requesting this kind of action was because of exactly what Bob said, was the protection contracts with unions, you know, it seems really unfair for a worker to try to form a union and then discover suddenly that their union is already an affiliate of the CTM or the CROC and you know, this is particularly the case which you can ask the workers about during their testimony but you know, they find out that they’re under -- they already have a union that represents them, their interest supposedly and not only that but that their union has connections with the junta and then the question is, “Well, why is it that we have so much trouble with the junta then if our union is already well-connected with the local labor board”.

These are the kinds of questions that seem more obvious to ask and I think that the purpose of publicly disclosing exactly, you know, what the union is already and being able to easily find out what exactly your collective bargaining agreement is, is something that’s fundamental to any sort of labor law. And I think that additionally, that the vast spreading of protection contract unions is well-documented in academic literature.

SECRETARY KARESH: In this particular case with Matamoros Garment and Tarrant, was there an existing union at both of those facilities or just one? Do you know? And what was that union and was there -- and what was the affiliation of the Puebla Labor Board union member?

MR. VORA: I’m not particularly sure in both the cases. I know that in one of the cases there was a protection union and that it wasn’t just -- and I’m not sure exactly as far as the protection union’s affiliation to the local labor board, but I am aware that it was -- since it was a contract union, that is was -- that the factory management is also alleged to have ties to the ruling party in Puebla and since the factory management signed the exact same protection contract with the current union that they obviously had connections to the local labor board as well.

SECRETARY KARESH: I see some people indicating they think they know that answer, but we’ll come back to that and we’ll ask that of other panelists as well so we’ll have the opportunity to talk more about that.

You mentioned black listing of workers. Can you talk a little bit more about that, what you’ve seen in this particular case? Are there other places in Mexico in the sense of how that has worked or is that just a word of mouth or are there actually written lists of these kinds of things you’ve seen or what’s your experience with that?

MR. VORA: I’ve never actually worked with the people in Puebla so I have never seen anything but from what I -- what they have told me, which you can ask them about further yourselves, is that in fact, somebody has been pointed to a list and seen their name and usually what ends up happening, particular in the case with Tarrant was that they’ve seen signs that say, “If you’re from Tarrant you need not apply”, and things along the lines of, you know, when asking about previous employment whenever Tarrant come up, they’re immediately taken out of the employment possibility pool.

MR. JEFFCOTT: There are very few instances when people actually gain a copy of a black list, in other words, a list with names on it that show that companies are passing this information back and forth. But certainly there are, you know, antidotal evidence that workers, when they apply for jobs at other factories, and they tell them where they have worked previously, that they are not hired. We, in our research into this situation in the State of Puebla we also heard from workers allegations that there was even a list of workers who had moved from one factory to another often.

In other words, in the boom period, workers have the ability to move from one job to the other because there was a need for workers. There was a shortage of labor and therefore, what some companies put together was a list of -- apparently, this is reported by workers -- put together a list of workers who had left jobs often and that therefore, they were on kind of a black list as well. If that’s the case, then it means that even -- you know, there are lists even about things beyond the question of whether you’re attempting to organize a union.

But I think the important thing would be to talk to the workers themselves about what their experience is in attempting to find employment. It’s not uncommon that workers who are engaged -- in many of these cases, workers who are engaged in union organizing attempts find it extremely difficult to find work in the Maquila industry ever again. And in fact, one thing I think that’s quite interesting about Mexico is that many of the local groups, particularly in the border region that are labor rights advocacy groups, are made up of former Maquiladora workers who no longer can maquilas because basically they’ve found themselves on a black list for attempting to organize.

SECRETARY KARESH: What’s your awareness of those issues being brought before Minister of Labor officials or Labor Board officials and if they have been brought before them, what has been the response of those governmental agencies?

MR. VORA: I’m personally not aware of any instances in which that’s the case but I would imagine that’s incredibly hard to do because just as we’ve just discussed in the previous question, finding evidence of this is nearly impossible and it’s very difficult to obtain actually a list that has a series of names on it and then prove that these individuals have applied for employment and been denied.

SECRETARY KARESH: Yeah, but if there’s a sign that says no one from Tarrant need apply, I mean that would seem to me to be a pretty visible thing that could be pointed out to Labor Board officials. You don’t have any knowledge as to whether those kinds of issues, there’s been attempts to bring them before labor officials?

MR. VORA: Personally, I don’t but I’m sure that you can ask the workers or one of the other witnesses bound to testify.

SECRETARY KARESH: Mr. Vora, when you were talking about recommendations, you mentioned ECA and asking for an evaluation from experts and you mentioned several issues and I believe you said forced labor. Can you expand on that a little bit if that’s a specific principle under NAALC and carries with it some different meanings from some of the issues that have been raised in the Submissions. So I’m curious as to your use of that term and if you have specific information related to, you know, how that might be defined under the NAALC.

MR. VORA: My understanding of forced labor is under a use cogent or a custom under international law which would be a situation in which somebody is forced to conduct particular labor or forced labor in some cases would be the most extreme but in addition, forced labor has also been expanded to include things along the lines of being locked in a factory and not being allowed to leave and that’s the issue here.

The issue here is whether or not forced labor has for interpretation for international law is allowed to include the idea of being locked into a factory and forced to work for an entire eight -- an extra eight hours beyond the regular shift. That is clearly a denial of liberty and in my opinion, it’s widely accepted under international law to be a forced labor matter, you know, not perhaps in the egregiousness or in the same level of evil as slavery but it’s certainly accepted.

SECRETARY KARESH: Mr. Jeffcott, I believe you mentioned the Human Rights Commission. If you’re able, can you explain exactly what that commission is? Is it a governmental agency? Is it funded by the government? Is it independent? How is that set up?

MR. JEFFCOTT: Okay, the name of the commission is the Human and Labor Rights Commission of the Tehuacan Valley. It’s a non-governmental organization. It began as an indigenous rights organization and because much or many of the indigenous youth moved into the towns and the City of Tehuacan in order to work in the maquilas the began to put focus on that issue as well on the situation of the young indigenous workers in the factories in the Tehuacan.

SECRETARY KARESH: And it gets no support from the Mexican Government.

MR. JEFFCOTT: I don’t -- it may get some grant money for some of its educational work with indigenous communities. I’m not sure but in terms of its -- it is not a government organization. It’s a non-governmental organization.

SECRETARY KARESH: I just wanted to clarify. Have -- I know individuals from both your agencies have been in Mexico and have visited the facility and talked with workers. Have you two yourselves been down there?

MR. JEFFCOTT: Yes, I’ve been to Puebla, the State of Puebla a number of times, and I have been to Tehuacan quite a few times. My -- well, the coordinator of MSN is the person who does most of that work, but I have been there as well and I have talked to workers outside of factories. I have met with local civil society organizations, so, yes.

MR. VORA: I’ve never traveled personally to Puebla itself but I’ve worked in Mexico. And I just wanted to add, I just thought of something also, with regard to the forced labor. There’s -- you know, there’s a number of examples that have been adjudicated in the United States courts as well as far as the definition of forced labor is concerned under the Alien Torts Claims Act and particularly the one with Unical. That’s being adjudicated right now in federal courts. It’s currently in the Court of Appeals but Unical is under investigation for collaborating with Burma and Burma uses forced labor in the sense of grabbing individuals in villages and then forcing them to work and then releasing them and then again obtaining them and forcing them to work. So things along the lines of what has been happening in Mexico where they’re locked into factories and required to work, albeit, it is their normal employment, is certainly within that realm.

SECRETARY KARESH: Okay, let me ask you, if you would, I know you had limited time in making your presentations, but both of you talked a little bit about how you’ve seen issues similar to the allegations made in this submission elsewhere in Mexico. And I wonder if either of you wanted to expand on that a little bit with any specifics in the sense of what labor boards we’re talking about? Was it the Federal Labor Board? Was it other state or local labor boards and what the issues were.

I mean, we’re familiar with the Duro-bag case as you mentioned, but if there’s other particulars and, you know, what the response was from those labor boards when similar issues came before them.

MR. JEFFCOTT: Well, I think you’re all aware of the Han Young case which is a case where there was also an attempt to form an independent union and there also was an NAO complaint in that particular case. And this is one -- this is a long time ago, so I don’t remember all the details, but there were a number of attempts by the workers to gain the independent union. They went to the Conciliation and Arbitration Board and in fact, when the hearing occurred that came out of the NAO process in Tijuana, there was actually a confrontation between the unions and the interpretation I received was that people from the official union literally attacked the members of the independent union right in the midst of the hearings.

So in that particular case, the union was not able to move beyond the case -- you know, beyond the step of applying for registration. There are cases in terms of the -- let’s see, well, the Altepexi case is one that’s well-known as well. That was the one that was heard by the Canadian Government as well as the US NAO, and that’s a case in which workers were literally beaten up inside the factory when they were -- you know, it was a vote and that was a vote for the representation, whether they were going to be represented by the CTM or by an independent union.

And so there was clearly a case in that situation in which the workers’ ability to democratically vote for the union of their choice was disrupted with the collaboration of the company and it was an official union in that case as well. So I mean, there are a number of cases as well. There’s Alcoa is another example in which workers attempted to gain representation by an independent union and that application was denied as well.

Those are the ones that come to mind for me.

MR. VORA: I just wanted to -- yeah, Alcoa was the only one that I’ve also --

SECRETARY KARESH: Okay, well, thank you very much. I would ask you that if there is additional information that either of your organizations have, whether it’s in relation to these particular factories or if you’ve had individuals from your organizations who may have visited other areas in Mexico and have information you’d want to provide us, we’d be happy to receive that.

And I see that you both had written remarks, and if you would like to provide us a copy of those, we’ll enter it into the record as well. Thank you.

Okay, we’ll proceed to Panel 2 with Maribel Ramirez and Salvador Garcia. If you wanted to respond to any questions that were raised with the first panel, you’re welcome to do that or just go ahead and make your remarks, whatever you’d prefer.

MS. TORRES: Yes, this is something I had a personal experience about black listing. I went to Azteca (ph) company and there was a sign there saying, “If you come from Tarrant, you can not request any jobs here”. I just wanted to answer what you asked about black listing.

MR. GARCIA SANCHEZ: (Through Interpreter) I am Salvador Garcia Sanchez. I am 28 years old. I’m single, no kids. I am a sewer. I work in the Puebla and since 2002 I heard about Tarrant and I started working there in April 2, 2002. They asked for my birth certificate, address certificate and my pink slip from the Social Security Administration. I submitted an application and I was taken to my work area.

I work on Area 2, line 6. I had already worked in other material companies that make trousers and, therefore, I was given a job. A woman hired me. Her name was Guadalupe and she asked me to sign a contract for an indefinite time. Three days later, I was given medical coverage and all the benefits except profit sharing.

The company was not very good ventilated. The chairs were not comfortable. We were very tired because we were sitting all day long. They allowed us to go to the bathroom but we were clocked on that and the bathrooms were very few and we had to stand in line. And they were not very well kept. And when we wanted to drink water, we were clocked on that issue as well. The water was very hot. When I entered in, my salary was 660 pesos and then when I started working more and produce 1,250 garments, I was paid 880 pesos.

When we didn’t produce enough, we had to stay overtime and we were not paid for that. And they said that if we were not stayed, we were not going to be paid for that week. They were threats but if you didn’t stay one day was discounted from your salary. Very few times we were paid overtime and we had to work during holidays as well. We worked 10 hours from 8:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Monday through Friday but when the production was not up to par, we had to work on Saturdays and sometimes on Sundays and we were not paid for that. They put pressure on us to work very fast and we had to produce high amount of garments. My job was very risky because we had cuts in our hands due to the machines we work with.

I was cut several times and the only thing that they did was to sent to see a nurse. And the only thing that she did was to wash the hand and give us a pill for the pain. We had to go back and keep on working and even if we were hurt, we had to keep up with production. They were not giving us safety equipment, cover for out mouth and the paint could not be removed. They didn’t give us any ear plugs as well.

When I was working there I got sick. I was allergic to moth and some other companies had some problems with the respiratory tract. We were given only half an hour to eat. We were more than 200 people their first shift and we didn’t have time to eat well. We had to go back to work still chewing the food and the food was not good at all. The company accepted people that were 15, 16 years old but everybody in that area needed to work and therefore, the under age go to work falsifying the birth certificate.

We had sexual threats and especially with young ladies. They -- these people caress them and many women were not very happy with this. When I started working there, I met some people that said that we had to have a union to defend the workers because with these we will be benefits not only in our working conditions but the amount of hours that we had to work, but when we tried to get together and submit something to the manager, they said, “If you do something like that, we will fire you”. I chose this work because we didn’t have any other work resources there and even if you are not very well trained, and I realize that my rights were being violated. I saw a lot of people working there during the say, at night, half the following day, and they were not paid overtime.

We were very tired due to all these violations and they didn’t give us the profit sharings and that was the straw that broke the camel back and we decided to go on strike in June to ask for this profit sharing. That stoppage was for three days and we had a coalition for workers to represent us. We went to this local board in Tehuacan to support this coalition. We also submitted a petition with all the complaints from the workers and this board call the company and the coalition. The legal representative from the company, Mr. {  } and {  } were there to try to reach an agreement with coalition. We had a petition and this was signed by everybody but none of the clauses included in that petition were complied with. And that’s why I was very disappointed, because I realized that the authorities were with the patron.

Therefore, we decided to set up an independent union and on July 12th, 2003 we met in Altepexi Puebla, more than 400 workers out of 1100 workers and after that, the people that did not attend said, “We would like to be part of that”, and they signed this petition. Therefore, we had more than 700 workers and the name was Single Union for the Workers of Tarrant.

In July 16th, 2003, the company starts firing the six most important leaders that were part of this committee. When we realized about this, the workers decided to stop work that specific day but the company threatened that we would be fired if we didn’t go back to work, therefore, we went back to work. July 28th, 2003, one newspaper published an article saying that Tarrant was going to fire more than 4500 workers from Ajalpan and Tehuacan and therefore, on August 4th, 2003, we decided to go from Ajalpan which is where the company is located, to the municipal palace in Tehuacan and with the local board. When the company realized who participated in that activities, the leaders were fired on August 7th, 2003.

That day we asked for the union to be registered before the local Conciliation and Arbitration Board in Puebla. After that, we went to Casa {  } and we talked to we talked to the {  } and he promised that he was going to give us his support. We talked to {  }, the President of the local Board, {  }, with the media and with somebody from the Labor Secretary of the City of Mexico and we also went to the Mexico City office of Tarrant and {  }.

We also contacted some of the companies that we made garments for but Levi’s was the only one that answered. They wanted to do something for us but they said that they would not complain with the Levi’s work which allows for the association. But we had somebody come in and check to see whether these violations were true or not. That group is called Verite. And they investigated or tried to see what happened inside the installations but we have not heard about the results.

The Center Portia Jores (ph) has been advised and I was hired August 12th along with 100 other workers that are part of this committee. Of course I was effected negatively. I come from Vera Cruz and I went to Tehuacan with my family five years ago trying to find a job because where I come from, we have no work whatsoever. Here in Tehuacan we have to pay rent, we all work, and when I was fired it was very hard because my family didn’t have enough money with what my father and my sisters brought.

We were fired unjustly. However, everything that we did was not useful because October 6th, 2003 all the members of the committee went to the board to see what our petition’s response was and we were surprised to hear that the union had not been accepted. This is what {  } said. He is the General Secretary of the Conciliation and Arbitration Board of Puebla. He gave us some arguments that something about the local law and the federal law and we asked for the decision of this board to be nullified and to acknowledge our union.

This we were effected because everybody that participated in this fight were very disappointed when the authorities were with the company and not with us and we -- and our rights were violated. It was very difficult. We had been without our salary for four months. It was very sad because we had a lot of single mothers. Some of them carried their kids to the meetings because they had nobody to leave them with and they had to ask for some money to be able to feed their kids and therefore, some of the workers wanted to leave. The company said, “You have to sign that you agreed to leave”, and they told us that due to us, the company was going to close down.

{  } said that we had to renounce of our request to have a union. They said, “If you don’t sign, you’re not going to get your money”, and they signed. They had been without a salary for many months, we had a lot of debts. I and two other people did not sign. After that in February the company closed down and fired more than 500 workers who were still working at the company. They gave them a minimum salary that was not what the law agreed upon. And it’s very difficult for me to get a job right now because we are part of a black list that has been distributed to other companies and they said that we are agitators because we request our rights. I have been out of a job for more than seven months and I’m very concerned that the government does not even hear of our complaints. We have no idea whom else to turn to, to be able to get some justice in this. We ask you to press Mr. {  } not to oppose the unions and talk to the local arbitration board in Puebla especially, {  }, President and the General Secretary, {  } not to be as corrupt and not to defend the company instead of defending us.

We ask all the companies that go and work in our country to respect the Mexican law, especially the freedom of association and to press the President of Mexico, {  } and {  }, the Social Security Administration, to respect the rights of all the workers in the country, to respect our right to organize and have a dignified salary and therefore, we can have a dignified live. Thank you very much.

MS. RAMIREZ TORRES: (Through Interpreter) I am Maribel Ramierz Torres. I’m 21 years old, single. I live in San Diego Chalma in Puebla State. I work in the final checking in the Maquila industry. I found out about this job through people who were already working at that company and I started working at the company on January 3rd, 2000 when its name was still Confecciones Jamil. I was asked for my birth certificate, proof of residence and my pink slip from IMSS.

I was hired by a secretary, {  } and she gave me a contract three days after I started working and all the benefits except for profit sharing with a salary of 600 pesos per week and eventually that went up to 750 pesos per week, because I was producing more. In the factory it was very hot because the air conditioning was not sufficient for such a large place. When we wanted to use the rest rooms, they would take our time, they would time us and we had very few rest rooms for so many workers.

The work load was excessive. I had to check 850 garments per day. This is work for two people because it involves checking and taking the threads out and the material was not in good condition and we had to rush to get the work done and all day we had to stand. And at the end of the day, I was very tired and I had a lot of pain in my feet and even today, I have problems with my legs. When we finished our production, we were forced to stay all night and if we went out before morning, there was no transportation and so we had to wait until there was public transportation, so we could go home. So we were working 26 consecutive hours without a break.

And in those work days there was sexual harassment of women. It never happened to me but it did happen to my coworkers and some of them would tell me sometimes that they would get called into the office and they would be told that if they stayed there with the men in the office, they would no longer have to work at night. And all these hours were unpaid. We were paid as if it had been a normal work day.

Overtime was also not paid. Salaries were at the minimum wage level even if we stayed day and night to work, it was always the same. We never got dinner and we never got a break. And it was very tiring work because it was all day long, all night and part of the morning of the next day. They would not allow us to go to the bathroom. If we wanted to drink water, we would get timed. We had a specific amount of time and if we went over, they would yell at us and we would have to stay later, even if we had finished all our work for that day. There was no consideration, even for pregnant women.

Because of all this abuse, there were accidents. On one occasion a coworker had a miscarriage because of excessive work. I was with her when she started feeling sick and the supervisors did not believe her. They told her that she could not leave yet because there was a lot of work to do. And then they saw that she started bleeding and that’s when they took her to a doctor. I don’t know where but when she came back she was no longer pregnant. It was a very ugly thing, very difficult because she could never say anything for fear of losing her job, especially because she was a single mother and she had a girl to support.

We had no protection, no dust masks, no ear plugs but we were forced to go to work because we have no other alternatives and if there are any, there are a lot of requirements that most of us cannot comply with. I realized that my worker’s rights were being violated when I was forced to start working nights without payment, even holidays, not respecting that these were not business days and that was for everyone. And that is why on June 10th, 2003, we decided to stop working, all the workers. We had been told that there would be no profit sharing as in previous years and this happened since the company was registered as Tarrant Mexico. This was starting in 2000.

When Tarrant came in, it made a commitment to respect seniority and profit sharing and that was something it did not fulfill. During the strike the company began to take reprisals against the workers who had stopped working. We were approximately 80 percent of the workers, so they said that they would not pay us for those works -- for those work days or profit sharing even if we spent entire weeks struggling for our human rights and workers’ rights, and we agreed then to form a coalition that would represent all the workers. This was six coworkers who agreed this and on July 8th, they went to the local Conciliation Board of Tehuacan and the Coalition and two representatives of the company met. These were {  } and {  }. She was the general administrator, general manager of the company.

An agreement was signed based on a list of our demands and the company made the commitment to satisfy all our demands, but the next day the company continued with the same attitude, violating our rights and it made us very angry to realize that the very local board was favoring the company and not us as workers. And this is why we decided to form an assembly and organize our union, so that we could protect ourselves as workers because we saw that we could not trust the authorities.

We saw that already our signed agreement had not been respected, so we organized our union on July 12th, 2003 and more than 400 workers out of 1,100 were there and they agreed that the members of the committee would be elected and most of the workers brought with them a copy of their ID from the company and their pink sheet from the IMSS, the Social Security Institute. They left us all their information, their full name, their fingerprints and their signature and the people who were not able to attend the assembly would find us later and give us their documents and their signature so they could be a part of the union, too. And then for this reason, the company starting firing the first members. The first six coworkers who had also become part of the committee. We were a total of more than 700 workers in the union and that’s why when we saw that the leaders were being fired, we tried to have another strike and we were asking for an explanation of why t these people had been fired, but instead of explaining it to us, they began to threaten us trying to get us to go back to our work area.

Otherwise they said they would fire all of us so we decided to return to our work, but the following day a report came out in the newspaper saying that Tarrant was going to fire more than 4,500 workers from the plants of Ajalpan and Tehuacan and that’s why on August 4th we decided to march from the company to the Municipal Palace of Ajalpan and of Tehuacan and to the local conciliation board. It was a distance of over 20 kilometers under hot sunlight and the warmest season in the region and this is how the company knew who the people were who were participating and we -- and they started firing the people, mainly the people from the committee.

It was over 50 people a day who were being fired. Then on August 7th we filed our papers for the union with the Board and after that we tried many ways to put pressure on the local board of the State of Puebla so that we could obtain the registration since we already had experience with the Board of Tehuacan that did not support the workers, we did not want to go through this again. And that is why we went to see the Governor, {  }. We demonstrated in front of Casa Aguero (ph) and we also talked to {  }, Secretary General of the local board.

We also went to demonstrate at the office -- the Tarrant office is in Mexico City and we also contacted the companies that had the brand names produced in our company. We had help from the CAT and also legal support from them so that we could file our registration and to start making our demands for reinstatement because by that time many had already been fired. I was one of the last members of the committee to be fired. I had been selected as the treasurer for the union by my colleagues.

On October 6th, we went to the local board and {  } told us that our registration had been rejected. He gave us some explanations which, when we were talking later to the lawyers we found out were reasons that the board had given but they were not valid because the federal law, labor law does not say that it has to be that way. The board said that we were missing a copy of the papers but they had not said anything about that. And the federal labor legislation says that they have to let us know if there’s anything missing before they issue their resolution.

So we all felt very discouraged because we had already been fired and the company did not want to reinstate us. That is why we thought that if we were able to succeed with this union then we could fight for our reinstatement and for me it’s very important to have a job because I pay the expenses for my younger sisters. I pay for their schooling because I don’t want them to have to stop going to school because of lack of money.

It’s for girls that I support and we need everything because we are orphans. I have to protect them and for those reasons we were fighting for our rights. And that is when the company starting putting more pressure on us to try to get us to leave and I was pressured several times. And when the company closed, {  } said to me and to my coworker {  }, that we should sign and be liquidated because we were their only headache before they could close the company.

Also on another occasion, I received a call from a lawyer from the company and she said she had my documents ready and that I should sign them. Now that the company is closed, it’s more difficult for us to deal with this situation. That is why we are asking that this type of injustice not be allowed any longer because companies come here and it is good that they give us jobs, but they try to profit at our expense. They try to take advantage of our needs because we have no other choice and then when we try to defend ourselves through the law, the government closes the doors on us because the government has given many advantages to the companies and then they say in their reports that there are jobs in the country.

I think that is useless to us. We did not get the registration for our union because it did not suit the companies for us to have an independent union in Tehuacan. It’s just not convenient for them. And the government wants companies to keep coming in and it will do anything to get them to come in, even violating people’s labor rights. In Tehuacan the water is very polluted because they wash the denim pants there. The Maquiladoras are our source of employment. That’s what feed us, but it is also killing us because it’s making us sick.

We’re running out of water and what little water we have left is polluted. So I ask that these injustices be resolved, that the government and the companies respect the right of free association and unions. I want them to stop breaking Mexican law. I want my right to work to be given back to me. All we want is to work but we also want to be treated in a dignified manner as we deserve as workers.

SECRETARY KARESH: Okay, thank you. We have several questions. Be patient with us. First off, let me ask you about the existing union that there was. When did you find out that there was another union at your plant and once you found that out, did you as leaders in forming your own union, have discussions or conversations with them about taking any of your issues to management or to the labor authorities?

MR. GARCIA SANCHEZ: (Through Interpreter) When we asked for the union to be registered to the Conciliation Board, {  } told us that we already had a union that belonged to FROC-CROC but we never -- we have never heard of that union at the facilities. The quota was not taken from our salaries. Mr. {  } met with us in Puebla and they showed us a piece of paper and said, “You have a bargaining agreement”, but he didn’t let us read it.

That was the day that according to them, we belonged to a union called Syndicata Jovinal (ph) of the garment industry but we denied that because we had never heard of it before. Then another union sort of appeared, CTM, but this union never defended us. We don’t even know who the general secretary is.

SECRETARY KARESH: So in all the time that you were there and supposedly represented by this union, you never had dues taken out of your paychecks, never paid any dues to this union.

MS. RAMIREZ TORRES: (Through Interpreter) Actually we had no union at least I had been working there for four years and we were never told that we had a union. The dues were never deducted or anything, so when we decided to make up our own union or we requested our independent union, all these unions started appearing. But we had never heard of them before. We didn’t even know that there was a union in that company.

SECRETARY KARESH: You mentioned a July 8th, 2003 agreement that had been signed between some of the workers and management and that also the junta officials had signed that or were aware of that document. Could you tell us a little bit more about that, what that process was, who were the workers that spoke to management and were involved in that and whether either of you were involved in that? And then you indicated that the next day really after that agreement, management started violating your rights again. I wonder if you could tell us exactly what you mean by that.

MR. GARCIA SANCHEZ:(Through Interpreter) Well, yes, the coalition was made up by six members. We were -- we chose them, the workers chose them so that they could represent us negotiate with the company some clauses to fulfill our requests. That day July 8th, we went to the Conciliation Board in Tehuacan. Ms. {  } was there and the representative of the company, {  } was there, too, but unfortunately, the clauses of our requests nothing was complied with. They violated all our petitions.

MS. RAMIREZ TORRES: (Through Interpreter) Yes, that is true because when we went to the local board to sign that petition, the next day things remained the same because at least in my case, I was made to stay longer. We wanted to leave after the shift because the agreement had been signed because our rights had to be respected and the answer I got was, “I don’t care what that paper has. How do you believe a paper that is useless, not only for you but for my company”. That’s the answer that I got and that was the day after that was signed. I mean, our rights were violated, being violated the next day.

SECRETARY KARESH: What was the involvement of the junta officials? This appears to be a document that was worked out between this group of workers and management at the facility. How did the junta get involved and what did they do? I mean, were they mediators, you know, conciliators? How did they get involved in this document?

MR. GARCIA SANCHEZ:(Through Interpreter) Well, Conciliation and Arbitration is in Tehuacan, but actually, they gave away all their responsibilities. They didn’t do anything for us. They did not punish the company for the violation and unfortunately, the authorities work with the companies. Even this guy in the Arbitration Board in Tehuacan, he used to go with the company to talk to the accountant and, you know, maybe they reach an agreement between the two of them but they didn’t respect our requests.

SECRETARY KARESH: Subsequent to this document being signed and the junta officials being aware of it, did the group of workers at any time go back to the junta and tell them, you know, “You were involved with this, you were aware of this but management is not living up to what it committed to do in the document?

MS. RAMIREZ TORRES: (Through Interpreter) Well, when we went from the company to Tehuacan, we asked the local board to know how they had supported us because they had reached an agreement with the workers and they did not put pressure on the company at all. The company did whatever they wanted to because we told them that they had sided with the company and not with the workers, and we told them that.

SECRETARY KARESH: It’s our understanding that at some point in this process your union sent letters to the Governor of Puebla and other governmental officials. Did you ever receive any reply to any of those letters that you’re aware of?

MR. GARCIA SANCHEZ:(Through Interpreter) Well, we sent letters and we personally went to talk to the Governor. We, as representative of the committee on September 15th, we met with the Governor in Puebla and he promised that he was going to support our request for a union. We met with the President of the Board, {  } and they promised that they would support our request, but unfortunately October 6th we received the denial flat because they said that the union could not be formed because we had no experience in running a union.

But we went there to talk to the Governor but he didn’t give us any support.

SECRETARY KARESH: Did you receive any response from letters that were sent to the Mexican Labor Secretary, {  }? You’re both shaking your head no.

Did you or other officials or members in your union have any discussions with any local offices of the -- I think in English we call it the Attorney General’s office but in Mexico, {  } (ph)? Was there any local office that you may have spoken to that -- I understand in Mexico these offices are supposed to be established to assist workers in the defense of their labor rights.

MR. GARCIA SANCHEZ:(Through Interpreter) I didn’t really understand what you meant with your question. Could you repeat it, please, or just make it more clear?

SECRETARY KARESH: Sure, my understanding in Mexico there are these offices called {  }, that there are both federal offices and local offices and that they are established to provide legal advice and assist workers in legal defense of their rights. What I’m wondering is whether you’re aware of any offices locally within the area where you worked or lived and whether you were ever able to meet or speak to any of those legal officials.

MR. GARCIA SANCHEZ:(Through Interpreter) No. The only person that gave us support in Tehuacan is the CAT, the Center for Support of the Workers. Those are the only ones that approach us and has given us any sort of support. Nobody from the Becoro de Ria, we have no idea who they are and I don’t even know what they do.

SECRETARY KARESH: The Federal acronym is PROFEDT, Becoro de Ria Federal de la Defense del Travajo (ph). That’s the federal office. I don’t know if that is helpful. No? Okay, well, we can raise the same question with other panels. I see some people nodding their heads that they’re familiar with the office, so we can talk more about that later.

You raised several issues regarding overtime pay, force overtime, failure to pay profit sharing, safety and health issues, concerns about safety and health in the factory. Did the workers or did your union, your organization you attempted to make into a union, did you file any complaints with labor officials and if so, what were the response to those complaints?

MS. RAMIREZ TORRES: (Through Interpreter) Well, these complaints were submitted and the answer is that we had no support from anybody.

SECRETARY KARESH: Were there hearings on these cases or did you have the opportunity to go before the labor board and present your case and indicate, “We were not paid appropriate wages”, or “There are safety and health conditions that, you know, we’ve reported to the government and no action has taken place”?

MS. RAMIREZ TORRES: (Through Interpreter) Well, we requested that but we never got any sort of support from the official representative or from anybody.

SECRETARY KARESH: When you first were hired to work at the facility, did you have a written work contract? Was there any kind of written contract you had to sign or anything that you were given that explained what your pay was and what the work rules were and what the terms for your employment were?

MS. RAMIREZ TORRES: (Through Interpreter) Yes. We had a contract where it said how many hours we were supposed to work every day and what benefits we were given and that company was giving us work for an indefinite term. We didn’t have a due date to finish our work.

SECRETARY KARESH: The same situation for you, Mr. Garcia?

MR. GARCIA SANCHEZ:(Through Interpreter) Yes, yeah, the contract said that we used -- should work nine hours a day, Monday through Friday, but it was never really respected because some times we worked 11, 12 hours and sometimes more and it did not agree with the agreement that we signed the day that we were hired.

SECRETARY KARESH: At the time of your dismissal, could you talk a little bit about that process, what the employer said to you, what reasons he gave you for the dismissal and what severance was offered, and what type of document it was that you had to sign in order to receive your severance payments?

MR. GARCIA SANCHEZ:(Through Interpreter) Well, yes. I was called. They shouted at us and since I didn’t go, well, we argued with them and they called the policemen and they threw me out because we have -- we went to the office and I talked to the accountant and the human resources rep. They gave me a piece of paper that said I gave up my job willingly and they told me, “We don’t have any more work. This company is going to go bankrupt and therefore, I was going to be fired”, but that was a lie because we knew that we were producing a lot and they could not go bankrupt with that.

SECRETARY KARESH: You refused to sign that document at that time?

MR. GARCIA SANCHEZ:(Through Interpreter) No, because they offered me 50 percent what the law says, but I didn’t sign anything and I was thrown out.

SECRETARY KARESH: Did you ever take a severance, sign a document and take severance or did you file a complaint with the local labor board?

MR. GARCIA SANCHEZ:(Through Interpreter) Yes, we submitted the request to the Conciliation Board and we asked to be reinstated, that was the case. We asked the company to reinstate me, but they never rehired me.

SECRETARY KARESH: And what’s the current status of that complaint before the Labor Board? Did the Labor Board ever have a hearing on that or make a ruling on your allegation that you were, you know, improperly dismissed?

MR. GARCIA SANCHEZ:(Through Interpreter) Well, our lawyer, Alejandra Ancheita, and she submitted the documents and maybe she’s more qualified to tell you, you know, where the case is because I really don’t know.

SECRETARY KARESH: Okay, well, we’ll ask her later today. Ms. Ramirez, would you have a similar situation?

MS. RAMIREZ TORRES: (Through Interpreter) Yes, yeah, it was just like that when I was fired, they had a policeman carry me to the office and the officer told me, “We don’t have any work for you and therefore, you had to leave right away”, because I couldn’t even go back to pick up my sweater or anything, my purse and all effects. The policeman had to go there, pick up my things and they said, “You cannot step in this company any more. You’re going to have to leave right now”, without any sort of explanation.

I said, “Well, explain to me why you are firing me, what did I do, or why I’m not performing up to par”, and they said, “Well, they are orders that we receive from higher up”, whatever higher up means, you know, and I had to leave right away.

SECRETARY KARESH: With regard to some of the issues you raised on occupational safety and health, safety and health conditions in the facility, did either of you ever see government inspectors in the facility or get any information about that they had been there or -- and what they had found? Were they issued any reports on safety and health?

MS. RAMIREZ TORRES: (Through Interpreter) Well, the inspection was regarding the brand. For example, Levi, sometimes would send the reps to see how the workers were treated, but they called beforehand to the company, so because if they knew that they were coming, we -- they would put water, they would put soap and toilet paper in the bathroom. They would sweep, they would clean up and they would threaten us. We have to say exactly what was not happening there because if we didn’t lie, they would fire us.

SECRETARY KARESH: Okay, did you ever see any Mexican Government or officials come into the facility to do any kind of inspections?

MS. RAMIREZ TORRES: (Through Interpreter) No, no, we never saw anybody because they never knew what the conditions were there. They only way for them to know something is if we approached them and told them. Even though we asked, they never did anything.

SECRETARY KARESH: It’s our understanding that facilities in Mexico are required to have safety and health committees that include workers on them. Were you ever aware of the existence of such a committee in your facility?

MR. GARCIA SANCHEZ:(Through Interpreter) No, we don’t know of any committee or anything that was ever conducting any inspections in that facility. Nothing was ever done in that regard. Not even the government would go and do hygiene or safety inspections there. We never saw any representatives of anything like that for cleanliness or anything. We really don’t know of anything like that for these cases.

SECRETARY KARESH: There’s an allegation that there was an instance where workers were locked in the facility. I don’t know if this was at Tarrant or Matamoros Garment but if it was at Tarrant, are you aware of that situation and if so, can you tell us what occurred?

MS. RAMIREZ TORRES: (Through Interpreter) No, when they didn’t want to let us out, what they did was just have the police officers there and they wouldn’t -- at the door and they wouldn’t let us out or the guards who were there, they simply wouldn’t let us out and they were actually guards from the company.

SECRETARY KARESH: Why was it that they wouldn’t let you out. I mean, was this because there was work to be done or because there was some other situation going on that they didn’t want the workers involved in?

MS. RAMIREZ TORRES: (Through Interpreter) We always had the experience where they would force us to stay longer because there was always too much work to be done in that company and they would fill their production quotas but they would go over just so they could have more profits for themselves, I guess, because we never saw any overtime pay.

SECRETARY KARESH: This isn’t a single instance. You’re saying this is a regular occurrence and that there would be guards who were employees of the company who would prevent you from leaving. Is that correct?

MS. RAMIREZ TORRES: (Through Interpreter) Yes, that’s correct. The supervisor said that we had to stay and the guard would not let us out. He would close the door.

SECRETARY KARESH: Were there ever situations where there were officials of the government, be they police officers or some other type of guards that were government officials that prevented employees from leaving the facility?

MR. GARCIA SANCHEZ:(Through Interpreter) No. It was just the company. I don’t think the government was even aware of what was going on there or they were pretending not to realize what was going on there.

SECRETARY KARESH: You mentioned gloves and masks and other kind of protective equipment. Were you issued that kind of equipment and were you given any instruction as to whether you needed to wear it or whether it was optional?

MS. RAMIREZ TORRES: (Through Interpreter) The dust mask we got was really not the right kind to work in those conditions. It was very light protection that was not really useful for the type of work we were doing, the type of things we were producing. We couldn’t even use it because all it did was make us sweat and wasn’t even helping at all and we never got gloves, at least we didn’t. I was always working just with my bare hands that they were always dyed blue because of this chemical that’s in the denim and we didn’t even have soap to wash our hands, and when we ate, we were actually eating this dye because our hands were completely dyed blue.

SECRETARY KARESH: There’s been allegations included in the Submission about underage workers. Were you aware of the hiring of workers who were underage and if so, to what extent?

MS. RAMIREZ TORRES: (Through Interpreter) Yes, there were minors, 15 years old, and of course, they knew they were underage because every time there was going to be an inspection, they had to hide these workers.

SECRETARY KARESH: Were workers required to provide a birth certificate or some other means of showing their age at the time of hiring?

MS. RAMIREZ TORRES: (Through Interpreter) Yes, those birth certificates were fake. They would just increase their age on the document.

SECRETARY KARESH: You say that management was aware that some of the workers were underage because they would hide them. Who were they hiding them from? I mean, what kinds of visits or inspections are we talking about?

MS. RAMIREZ TORRES: (Through Interpreter) When the people from the brand name companies like Levi’s for example, they’re very strict in their request that they not hire minors, so when these people came to visit, they would have to send these workers somewhere else where they would not be seen.

SECRETARY KARESH: Okay, thank you very much. We’ll move to Panel 3.

Mr. Nova, please.

MR. NOVA: I’ll start again. Thanks very much for the opportunity to provide testimony on this important matter concerning implementation of the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation. I’m the Executive Director of an organization called the Worker Rights Consortium and I want to give you one quick moment of background as an explanation of why we have information to offer you with respect to this complaint.

The Worker Rights Consortium is a labor rights monitoring organization created by colleges and universities and representing 121 colleges and universities who license their names and logos to apparel companies who then produce and sell clothing with the colleges’ and universities’ names. All of these educational institutions have adopted codes of conduct that are designed to insure that the rights of workers are respected in any factory around the world engaged in the production of this university clothing.

Our organization exists for the purpose of assessing conditions in these factories and providing information to the colleges and universities and the public about those conditions so that colleges and universities can take whatever action is necessary to bring about full and faithful enforcement of their codes. In this particular case, the case of the factory Tarrant Ajalpan our organization received a complaint alleging a range of violations in the factory and as a result of that complaint, we conducted an intensive investigation in August of 2003 and produced a report the following month with respect to our conclusions concerning those issues having to do with freedom of association and allegations of illegal dismissals at the factor.

And we have also conducted in response to other complaints, three other investigations of apparel factories in Mexico and I’m going to comment to a lesser degree on those in particular the case of a factory that at the time we conducted our investigation was known as Kukdong and is now knows as MexMode.

The case of Tarrant Ajalpan is not only of course, the subject of the complaint but also an excellent starting point for gaining a sense of the problems with enforcement of federal labor law in Mexico because the case illustrates a number of the most significant ways in which Mexican labor is being flouted systematically today. While Tarrant Ajalpan has violated federal labor law in Mexico in a brazen fashion, the reality is that the actions the company has taken to deny workers’ rights to associate freely and the inadequate response on the part of Mexican authorities to these violations unfortunately reflect a widespread pattern in Mexican labor relations in the apparel industry.

I want to begin with a bit of background on Tarrant Ajalpan and I’ll try not to cover ground that’s already been covered. The complaint the WRC received made a number of allegations and our investigation concentrated -- the investigation of August 2003, on two related allegations; that the factory had taken actions that prevented workers from fully exercising their legally protected associational rights and that workers had been illegally dismissed from the factory for exercising their associational rights.

We also looked at several issues having to do with conditions inside the factory but I want to mostly focus on those two related issues. The WRC, in its investigation in 2003, interviewed 24 workers at Tarrant Ajalpan, the staff of the Labor Board in Tehuacan Puebla and a representative of Tarrant Ajalpan. And we focused first on the case of eight workers who were fired from the factory on the 16th of July after having -- as you’ve just heard, after representing workers at the factory in the negotiation of an agreement in the presence of the Tehuacan Labor Board with the management of Tarrant Ajalpan. Eight days after the conclusion of the agreement, the workers were dismissed and we looked at two questions; why were the workers dismissed and how were they dismissed?

Because it’s very important to bear in mind that in addition to protecting workers’ associational rights, the federal labor law in Mexico provides strong protections for workers from arbitrary dismissals of all kinds and in that sense, on paper, it’s fair to say that Mexican labor law is much stronger than U.S. labor law.

And I want to quote briefly from Article 48 of the Federal Labor Law which sets forth one of the two basic reasons for which a worker can be legally fired, for which the employment contract with an individual worker can be legally terminated in Mexico and that is for cause. And this article sets forth examples of the legitimate causes for which a worker can be dismissed, various kinds of misbehavior, absenteeism, et cetera and the article concludes by saying this: “The employer must inform the worker in writing of the date and cause or causes of the termination. This document must be brought to the attention of the worker and if he refuses to accept it, the employer within five days following the termination must bring it to the attention of the respective board.”

In other words, whenever a worker is dismissed for cause in a factory in Mexico, the employer, prior to the act of dismissal, must provide the worker with a written explanation of the cause. In the case of the eight workers fired on July 16th from Tarrant Ajalpan, there was no provision of written explanation of the reasons behind the termination and thus, we concluded on that basis alone these were illegal dismissals.

There was also very strong evidence that the dismissal of these eight workers was motivated by anti-union animus on the part of the factory, the most obvious point being that these were the eight workers who had represented other workers in protesting labor conditions and negotiating the agreement of July 8th. And it’s also important to note that in addition to providing protection for union rights, Mexican law also gives workers the right to form what the law calls coalitions, which is an informal organization of workers represented by leaders to advocate on behalf of workers’ interests and it’s quite clear that the eight leaders at Tarrant Ajalpan were, in fact, representing a coalition and thus, all of their activities, including the negotiation of the agreement of July 8th were protected activities under Mexican law.

So we concluded both that the workers were fired for an illegal reason which is to say the anti-union animus of Tarrant Ajalpan management, but also that the process through which they were fired was illegal. We then looked at roughly 150 terminations that took place in the month of August, a substantial portion of the Tarrant Ajalpan workforce, and based on extensive interviews with workers, based on our discussion with factory management, we reached the same two conclusions, vis-a-vis, those terminations as we did with respect to the initial eight terminations, which is that these workers were fired because they supported the union and one of the interesting pieces of evidence in support of that were -- was mutually corroborated testimony from a number or workers who were still working at Tarrant Ajalpan at that point in time that they had heard explicit statements from managers to the effect that the firings that were then underway were the fault of the union, were exactly what workers can expect to get when they support a union and similar comments.

We also concluded that again, the factory had failed to follow the requisite legal procedures for dismissing an employee and I want to focus on that point for one moment more. As the workers who testified on the previous panel noted, when they were called in to be dismissed, they were told -- they were not given a written explanation for why they were being fired; thus, the factory was violating the law. They were simply presented with a voluntary resignation agreement. And they were told, in effect, you can either sign this agreement and we will give you some money, or you cannot sign the agreement and you’re fired anyway and you will get nothing. And this is a common method used by employers in Mexico. It’s taking place in all four of the factories that we’ve investigated in depth for getting rid of workers who are engaged in independent union activities.

Because Mexican law does protect workers from being fired arbitrarily and because there are occasions when through great effort and pressure, the local labor boards will take action with respect to a particular illegal dismissal, and because increasingly factories in Mexico are subject to inspections by labor rights monitors employed by the buyers in U.S. and Europe who are the customers of these factories, the managers like to have in their files an explanation for what happened, that at least on its surface seems to be appropriate. And that is why factory managers like to have in their file when a worker is dismissed, a voluntary resignation agreement.

At one factory investigated, workers were actually asked to sign a voluntary resignation agreement on the day they were hired in the event that the factory should ever need to make use of this. In the case of Tarrant Ajalpan, the workers were asked to sign this voluntary resignation agreement at the time of their dismissal.

Now, of course, since the workers were being fired and being told that if they refuse to sign the voluntary agreement, they would get nothing and be fired anyway, the decision of some workers at Tarrant Ajalpan to sign the agreement so that they would, knowing that they would be fired anyway, at least leave with some money, is a coerced decision and it is the kind of coerced decision coerced agreement to resign and relinquish rights that is the primary tactic employed by managers who wish to dismiss workers engaged in independent unionism.

And we have yet to see in our four in-depth investigations a single instance of a local labor board despite the lodging of numerous complaints, a single instance of a local labor board taking action to achieve the reinstatement of a worker fired through this process. And in discussions with representatives of the local labor boards, there is also an unwillingness to acknowledge that there is anything inherently troubling about the employment of coercion to compel workers to sign voluntary resignation agreements. So it is not merely that the local labor boards do not take action to protect workers’ associational rights with respect, for example, to the granting of registros to independent unions, it is the fact that the local labor boards do not, in accordance with Mexican law, protect workers who are illegally terminated because they have sought registros because they had taken other actions in support of independent unionism.

In the case of Tarrant, the local labor board, as you’ve heard, did not, in fact, take action to correct the violations committed by the factory and of particular note, in dismissing a number of the complaints that some workers brought about these illegal dismissals, the labor board in Tehuacan cited the fact that some of these workers had accepted severance and resigned as creating a circumstance in which the workers no longer had standing to complain that they had relinquished their rights. And so you see the beauty of the method.

Managers coerce workers into signing voluntary resignation agreements. The local labor boards can then use the presence of these coerced agreements to justify a refusal to take appropriate action to bring about reinstatement and unfortunately this is a common pattern of collusion between factory managers and representatives of local labor boards.

SECRETARY KARESH: Let me interrupt you if you don’t mind.

MR. NOVA: Sure, please.

SECRETARY KARESH: Are workers given an opportunity before the board members or before the judges in court to assert that, in fact, they were coerced?

MR. NOVA: Workers can file a complaint after being terminated. But if the worker has already signed a voluntary resignation agreement, while the worker can make that representation to the labor board, I’ve never heard of a case in which the labor board responded by acknowledging the coerced nature of the resignation and acting in an appropriate fashion as a result. So the worker can lodge a complaint but the likelihood of success, I think it’s fair to say is minimal and of course, it’s also important to understand that in the moment when a worker has been brought into the human resources office and yelled at and threatened and told, “You’re out of here”, the worker is unlikely to either possess the knowledge or the moments for reflection that will be necessary to make a studied legal determination as to what the legal consequences might be or might not be of signing the document and, of course, this is why it works. Workers are being told, “You’re fired, you’re fired, you’re fired today, you’re going to have no income as of today. You can take several hundred dollars and at least have some money to support your family or you can refuse to sign this document and you’ll get nothing”. And for obvious reasons many workers sign under the circumstances and then those documents are used as a legal tool by the factory and by their contemporaries at the local labor boards to justify a failure to take action to reinstate workers.

SECRETARY KARESH: And in the case of Tarrant and Matamoros Garment, we know some of the workers have filed complaints. Have they -- has this idea of coercion in severance agreements been any part of any of those complaints?

MR. NOVA: I actually have to say just two points really quickly. In the case of Tarrant, I believe most of the complaints that were brought, were brought on behalf of workers who did no, in fact, resign but our investigation which focused on the events of July, August and September of 2003, did not include a focus on the subsequent legal process after that point in time. So unfortunately, I’m not in a position to offer you much useful information in response to that particular set of questions.

So let me not take too much more of your time but talk briefly about the case of Kukdong, which the Worker Rights Consortium investigated in-dept in the early part of 2001 after mass firings resulting from an effort by workers to protest conditions and assert their associational rights and in so doing to try to find some way to overcome the efforts of an existing union which in no way represented the workers’ rights or interests to prevent workers from taking any action that -- either that union or management viewed as problematic or difficult or troublesome.

And I want to talk about in the context of Kukdong, the process through with registros are granted and the process through which unions in Mexico come to legally represent workers at a factory and come to be in a position to negotiate a contract. In the case of Kukdong, we were trying to figure out it had gotten to a point in 2001 where workers were so angry and frustrated with the legally constituted union in the factory that they organized a massive strike and protest of that union’s refusal to represent them and in protest of certain conditions in the factory that that union was tolerating and I think it is unfortunately richly symbolic of the situation in Mexico that when that strike was broken up outside the factory by local police, and state police, that according to credible worker testimony, the person leading the charge for the police who beat many of the workers, 17 of whom needed medical treatment, the person leading the charge was the head of the state union, the FROC-CROC that, in fact, in theory represented workers at the factory.

So it was the workers’ own legally constituted union, the leader of this legally constituted union, that led the violent assault upon them and their expulsion from the factory grounds. So we looked in-depth at how the FROC-CROC came to represent the workers at Kukdong. And we conducted extensive interviews of the local labor board in Quaplia, the leadership of the FROC-CROC and the management of the factory to discuss the process through which the CROC came to hold the title that is to say came to have the right to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement on behalf of the workers at Kukdong.

What was very interesting was that those three parties gave us three entirely different and mutually contradictory stories as to how the FROC-CROC came to be in this position. The junta locale (ph) claimed that it happened because the FROC-CROC has been able to present factory management with credible evidence that they in fact, represented a substantial number of workers at the factory and on the basis of that evidence, the factory would be able to negotiate a contract with them.

The FROC-CROC leadership claimed that, in fact, management had refused to negotiate a contract with them and they had, therefore, filed a strike notice which under Mexican law, unions may do if management refuses to negotiate a contract. The management of the factory said no, there had not been a strike notice and there had never been evidence presented that the CROC represented a substantial portion of the workers, that the factory had simply chosen to negotiate with the CROC because they were a far-known company with limited experience in Mexico and they were told that that was what you do when you open a factory. We received testimony from a large number of workers at Kukdong that the vast majority of the workers did not even know that they had a union until about six months into their term of employment and we were unable to find an individual worker who was not a union delegate who stated in confidential testimony that they did, in fact, support FROC-CROC as their representative.

It became quite clear that not only had the legal procedures of the establishment been violated in the case of the FROC-CROC in Kukdong but that to the day of the events of the strike, that the FROC-CROC had made no successful attempt to actually win the support of any of the workers inside the factory. Instead the FROC-CROC had signed a collective bargaining agreement which contained no benefits, privileges or rights beyond those mandated by Mexican federal labor law, which is a typical contract in a Mexican factory or workers represented by the FROC-CROC or the CTM or one of the other corporatist unions.

Just two more quick points; the workers at Kukdong had never seen their contract and this is a phenomenon that we’ve witnessed at several factories, where workers may work for a period of years under the terms of a collective bargaining agreement, which management commonly cites as a justification for certain disciplinary actions, certain actions with respect to paying benefits without ever having actually laid eyes on the document and workers will go to their union leadership who will refuse to supply it. Workers will then go to the local labor board who will say, “Well, we can’t give it to you because that’s the job of your union leadership”. Nor will management assist workers in finding the contract.

In the case of one factory we investigated in the state of Qualpila, the name which I don’t want to mention because we haven’t published a report yet, but we will supply that information to you later, we were able to obtain a copy of the contract after a long discussion with the local labor board, and therefore, we were able to provide the workers, for the first time after having worked under the contract for nearly five years, with a copy of the document that defined all of the rules under which they were working and I think the inability of workers even to see the contract under which they were working says a great deal about the actual nature of representation that is done by unions like the FROC-CROC and the CTM.

The process of registros, you’ve heard testimony about. I don’t want to cover that same ground again except to say that we have seen in multiple cases, in addition to Tarrant, exactly the process that occurred at Tarrant where workers will file clearly legitimate petition in what is supposed to be a pro forma process that will be denied on the basis of pretexts on the last possible day under the law on which the junta locale can respond.

And one point I want to note is there are specific provisions of Mexican federal labor law that require the local labor boards when a petition of any kind is submitted, to assist the petitioning party with a correction of any technical problems in the petition. So, in fact, in all of these cases, most prominently in Tarrant by refusing to correct the technical problems that become the junta locale’s pretext for denying the registros, the junta locale is, in fact, breaking the law. And I want to mention only a couple of issues not related to freedom of association.

We did a document in the case of Tarrant illegal forced overtime beyond the three hours per day and nine hours per week that are allowed under Mexican law and we have not investigated a factory in Mexico where there was not to some degree illegal forced overtime. We also have seen, although we did not look at this at Tarrant, significant violations of minimum wage law in the apparel industry. Usually in that Mexican minimum wage law sets not just a general minimum wage, but higher minimums for various professions. And commonly we have seen workers who should be earning the higher minimum that the law provides to people who work on sewing lines in an apparel factory that many of these workers are not, in fact, receiving the higher minimum, either because the factory isn’t paying it to anyone or because the factory is arbitrarily classifying some sewing machine operators into other job classifications so as to avoid paying the wage.

And finally, we have -- you talked briefly before about the issue of health and safety committees. In the factories we have investigated in-depth and also in others that we’ve looked at less in -depth, we have yet to see an actual functioning health and safety committee which is doing the work that a health and safety committee is supposed to do. All we’ve seen is either nothing in place or health and safety committees that are obviously going through the motions and not doing any of the real work that legally their obligated to do. So I will conclude there and answer any questions you may have.

SECRETARY KARESH: Thank you, Mr. Nova. What does the Mexican labor law say about a worker’s right to a copy of the collective bargaining agreement?

MR. NOVA: Well, there isn’t any specific stipulation to this effect but it is assumed that as members of a legally constituted union that is negotiating a collective bargaining agreement on behalf of workers, that workers would have a right to know whether the actions the union is taking on their behalf area actually representing their interest. And Mexican -- and I would cite with respect to this, the very definition of a union under Mexican law and I may or may not have this but if I don’t, I’ll do my best to paraphrase for you -- I think I don’t but the law very explicitly says that a union is an entity that exists for the purpose of advancing the interests of workers. So any action that is taken by a union and certainly any systematic action, and that is countenanced and tolerated by local government officials, is an illegal act and certainly the act of denying workers the right to see their own collective bargaining agreement and particularly one that on its face does not appear to be an agreement that serves the workers’ interests would seem to me to be quite clearly a violation of the spirit at least of that article.

SECRETARY KARESH: What is you experience in Mexico with workers ever voting on a collective bargaining agreement, approving a collective bargaining agreement?

MR. NOVA: I’m not aware of the process occurring, not at any of the factories that we’ve seen. We are familiar with some elections that have been held, very few, but some where one union is challenging the other’s right to be the bargaining representative, but we aren’t aware of actual democratic ratification of labor agreements. In the case of the factory in Quapila, we were able to get very detailed testimony about the process of union formation because unlike the case of Kukdong, the union did not form until after the factory had been open and operating for a number of years and what was particularly important in our view about that testimony was that it credibly described a process in which factory management and the representatives of the union in this case the CTM, were working in tandem and in fact, it was the factory that announced to workers they should meet their new union president, who they had never laid eyes on before.

And so with collective bargaining agreements but more generally with respect to the simple fact of union representation, it is hard to find examples of democratic procedures. The cases where we’ve seen democratic procedures have been in Kukdong and in Tarrant and in other factories where there’s been an actual attempt to organize an independent union and as you’ve heard, those have generally been met with illegal refusal to acknowledge the rights of those independent unions in the cases where they have come forward.

And it’s interesting to think about the contrast between what happened to the workers at Tarrant where 700 workers had clearly expressed their belief that the SUITTAR union represented their interests and that they wanted to be represented by this union, the treatment that they received and the response that they got to their legal filings from the junta locale and the response that the CTM union that this factory in Northern Mexico that the FROC-CROC at Kukdong had received when they had failed to establish in any way that they represented workers’ interests and the workers wanted to be represented by them but had no trouble whatsoever negotiating legal ins and outs of becoming the collective bargaining representative and, in fact, were receiving the protection of the local labor boards in both cases.

SECRETARY KARESH: How many workers were there total?

MR. NOVA: About 1,000.

SECRETARY KARESH: In your experience, you indicated that you had come across many situations where unions existed but the workers were not really aware of it or at the very least, not many of the workers were aware of it. In those instances, did workers have dues being deducted?

MR. NOVA: Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Generally, yes, because that, of course, is how these unions generate income. In some cases we’ve seen not only dues being deducted by unions that aren’t acting on workers’ behalf but other funds being taken out. A common one is a deduction for funeral expenses that is supposed to create a fund for to pay for funerals of the family members of workers, except that the funds are never available when a worker actually seeks to pay for a funeral and we assume that those funds end up in the same coffers as the union dues.

In the case of Tarrant, there were not dues being collected and there may, in fact, have been a union. I mean, one of the interesting things about the Tarrant case is it remains a mystery to this day whether or not, in fact, there ever was a legally constituted union at Tarrant prior to the factory’s closure and as I think you’ve heard, in talking to the different labor boards that had jurisdiction, specifically the Tehuacan Labor Board and the Puebla Labor Board, people got two different stories as to whether in fact there had or hadn’t been a union. So we -- in general, we’ve seen cases where dues are, in fact, being deducted but in the Tarrant case and in one other, where there was, in fact, a union, there was not dues deductions happening.

SECRETARY KARESH: And what would happen if a worker went in to management and said, “Stop deducting my dues. I don’t want to pay dues to this union”?

MR. NOVA: Well, in the case of Kukdong, workers who attempted to rescind their union membership and not pay dues were approached by the FROC-CROC and told that if they did not, if they did not retain their membership, they would be fired. And Mexican law, the statutory law, allows a factory and a union in a contract to agree that once the contract is signed, the factory will not hire any worker who is not willing to become a member of the union.

There was a ruling, I think now it is thre years ago to the effect that that actually is a violation of the Mexican Constitution and it’s not clear yet how all of that will play out but the law does stipulate that even in a factory in which such an agreement exists, it cannot be used in a prejudicial way against workers who are already employed.

If, for example, the contract is signed when workers are already employed and some choose not to join, they are not supposed to be subjected to any disciplinary action.

SECRETARY KARESH: This case you’re mentioning, is this a Mexican Supreme Court case?

MR. NOVA: I believe so and I have to apologize because my recollection is vague. We do have information on it and certainly can submit it to you. It was a ruling that happened in the time frame of the Kukdong case, I believe mid or late 2001 that basically said that it isn’t -- and I believe it was a Supreme Court case, that by denying employment to workers who weren’t willing to join a particular union, the statutory law was a violation. I’m sure there are other witnesses who are far more knowledgeable than I who can give you a confident and correct answer.

SECRETARY KARESH: You mentioned a variety of issues that you’ve seen at various plants. What is the response of the government officials when you meet with them and raise these concerns?

MR. NOVA: In our experience there have been two types of responses, neither of which suggests any willingness or commitment to actually take appropriate legal action. In the Kukdong case, we received a response that I would describe as a filibuster. We are -- our team of investigators met at great length with junta locale to discuss what was taking place at Kukdong and the various violations that we believed had been committed with respect to workers’s associational rights. And in a meeting that must have lasted two hours, I’m not sure that we were able to ask more than seven or eight questions because to each specific factual question, we received a response in the form of a lecture about Mexican law and Mexican history. So that type of response, I guess I would characterize as non-responsive.

In other cases and in the case of our conversation with the Labor Boards in Puebla and Tehuacan, vis-a-vis, the Tarrant case, the response we got was an acknowledgment that the factory may have acted illegally. For example, one of our staff people spoke of the junta locale in Puebla and was told that in fact, the factory had not -- I need to backtrack for just one sec. The larger group of dismissals that happened, the group that we measured at 150 in August, was justified by the factory on the grounds of an economic downturn. That there was less business, therefore, less production, therefore a need for fewer workers. It’s interesting to note that in Mexico the law does not allow employment contracts to be terminated for that reason. An economic downturn of that nature is a legal justification for suspending a contract, but not for terminating a contract.

And if --

SECRETARY KARESH: What’s the distinction between suspending a contract and terminating a contract?

MR. NOVA: If a worker’s contract is only suspended, the worker remains in legal -- in the legal sense, an employee of the company. And, in fact, the worker has the legal right if after time passes and the workers believes -- has reason to believe that the economic problems have abated, and that there’s more production in the factory but the worker has not been called back, the worker can take legal action to enforce the law and require the factory to reinstate the worker.

Termination means that the employment relationship is over, and once that’s concluded and any necessary severance is paid, the worker ceases to have any legal rights as an employee and that is allowed in Mexico only in cases of extreme financial distress or an act of God, some sort of natural disaster that shuts the factory down, makes it literally impossible for the factory to issue another paycheck, you know, or operate a production line.

SECRETARY KARESH: Are you familiar with the process -- I assume the employer has to file some sort of document with the Labor Department.

MR. NOVA: Right.

SECRETARY KARESH: Is there a hearing?

MR. NOVA: Right, and this is --

SECRETARY KARESH: Are the worker or the union allowed to come to a hearing and present a different argument?

MR. NOVA: Right. And this is what gets back to your original question. In a case where an employer is providing an economic justification for multiple layoffs, they are supposed to provide the labor board that has jurisdiction with a filing to the effect that this is happening and an explanation of the reasons, and the labor board in the case of Tarrant acknowledged to us that there had been no such filing made and that if the conditions -- if the facts we were describing were in fact, true that these would be violations of law but no action was ever taken and that’s the other kind of response we’ve received in these cases, is an acknowledgment by an official, a staff member of a local labor board that, yes, the fact pattern we’re describing would constitute legal violations but this is never, in our experience led to any action by the board to correct those violations.

SECRETARY KARESH: Are you familiar with any specific cases where workers specifically would have filed a complaint and said, “This discipline was improper, that the employer did not file the appropriate papers, the local board never made a ruling allowing them to dismiss workers or to close their facilities?

MR. NOVA: In the cases we’ve been involved in, no. I know that there have been cases where workers did file a complaint and were successful. And I should stress that it is not the case that the kind non-compliance I’m describing is universal. It is, I believe, accurate to say that with respect to the areas of what we’re discussing, there is a systematic disregard of labor law in Mexico by employers and the government but that does not mean that it is a universal disregard and there no doubt are instances where the law is upheld with respect to a particular worker’s dismissal. I think the area where you’ll find almost universal disregard is when independent unions seek registros and the case of Kukdong, of course, is in many ways one of the exceptions that proves the rule, because the registros in that case was only granted after enormous pressure on the government of Puebla, the state government of Puebla, not only from Kukdong management itself after a certain point in time, which for its own reasons no longer wanted the CROC to represent workers, but also from well-know apparel companies who are Kukdong’s key buyers and whose business is very important to that part of Mexico.

So it probably is true, with that sort of pressure that one can imagine achieving the kind of success that was ultimately achieved at Kukdong, but absent such extraordinary circumstances, there seems to be at least near universal disregard for the law with respect to the obligation of the local labor boards to grant a registros to a duly constitute independent labor union.

SECRETARY KARESH: Were the junta officials who were involved with granting the registration ultimately at Kukdong, are these the same officials the same board members that were involved in Tarrant and Matamoros?

MR. NOVA: There are -- there is a labor board in Puebla and then there are more localized labor boards in Bohatlisco which is the town near Puebla in which the Kukdong factory is located and in Tehuacan, which is the town quite close to where the Tarrant Ajalpan factory is located and I have to admit that I find somewhat confusing the question of how the different labor boards share jurisdiction.

In some instances it appears as if it’s possible to approach either labor board, for example, with a complaint, although it’s clear that the Puebla Labor Board is a more senior body, and in the Kukdong case and the Tarrant case, the Puebla Labor Board had substantial involvement and we did talk to the labor board in Puebla about both cases. And the filibuster experience I described to you is with the labor board in Puebla.

SECRETARY KARESH: Did your organization when you were doing the review, actually see the union registration petitions and --

MR. NOVA: Yes, in the case of Tarrant, yes. In the case of Kukdong, yes. And I would only say that with respect to the Tarrant petition, although we haven’t seen that many, it’s quite extraordinary from what we understand about the situation more generally in Mexico, to have so many workers’ names on a petition. Usually because there’s so much fear of retaliation, workers will submit a petition with the bare 20 names that are required or a handful more, sometimes a handful more because they know that the junta locale, the local labor board will look for a pretext to reject the petition and they want to make sure if one name gets struck out, that that won’t push the total below 20, so it might be 22 or 23, but to have hundreds of names on a petition is unusual and I think reflective of the degree of support and enthusiasm for the independent union at Tarrant Ajalpan.

SECRETARY KARESH: In the case of Tarrant, did you ever have any conversations with the union that the workers were told already existed?

MR. NOVA: No, and in the time frame in which we were actively investigating the case in August and September of 2003 the issue was never resolved as to whether there was or wasn’t an independent union. We received, and I understand the workers also received, different answers to this question from the Tehuacan Labor Board and the Puebla Labor Board.

In our staff person’s conversation with the Puebla Labor Board the answer was that they didn’t know whether or not that was the case and that while there would have to be some record of it, they were not in a position to access the files that the question could be answered definitively. The information, as I think the workers’ testimony indicated, largely came from public pronouncements by union officials to the effect that they already represented the workers at this factory.

SECRETARY KARESH: With regard to board membership there’s allegations made that because the board is tripartite, the federal, local boards, that if there’s an independent union, then that the union member on the board is going to be from one of the more traditional unions and therefore unlikely to rule in favor of the independent union. In your efforts have you come across any situations where that union board member recuses himself because of his potential conflict or --

MR. NOVA: No.

SECRETARY KARESH: -- any situations where it’s been asserted by the independent union that that person could not rule impartially and therefore, should recuse him or herself?

MR. NOVA: That’s I think, a very important question. We haven’t seen any recusal and in the case of Kukdong we did raise the issue in our meeting with the Labor Board in Puebla because we had the same concern. Given the nature of the conflict we wanted to make sure that there wasn’t a conflict of interest and we asked the Labor Board to identify for us who the labor representative was or representatives were in this tri-partite structure and they flatly refused to answer the question and we never were able to get the information from them but we do know that there was no recusal, at least not one that was ever made public and it is a -- without question, a significant problem. It would be interesting to do some research and see whether there is any example of an actual recusal in the documentary record of the activities of any labor board when dealing with one of these cases where there’s a conflict of an independent union and the CTM or the FROC-CROC or what have you.

Just one other quick point in that regard; one thing that came out of our conversations with the Puebla Labor Board in the Kukdong case was that far from viewing the workers seeking an independent union as Mexican citizens due the full protection of Mexican labor law, that at least some officials of the Puebla Labor Board actually had great contempt of the independent union organizers and voluntarily described them to us as troublemakers.

SECRETARY KARESH: In your view, when workers are dismissed or forced to resign under the law they’re entitled to severance payments. In your view if a worker takes severance payment, does Mexican law still permit him to file a complaint and request reinstatement?

MR. NOVA: Well, this is the question and it is ironic that in these kinds of cases you see so many instances where voluntary resignation is combined with the payment of severance. Because voluntary resignation is actually one of the few areas, one of the few kinds of -- one of the few mechanisms for the termination of the labor contract in which severance is not called for. If a worker is dismissed for cause or resigns voluntarily, the factory has no obligation to pay severance, only in cases where there is dismissal for another reason is severance required and yet in these cases of voluntary resignation, we see severance pay and the reason is that it’s paid as an inducement to compel the worker, to convince the worker to resign voluntarily.

As I mentioned earlier, there -- it was the case in the Tarrant situation and we know of, although we have not directly observed other cases where the fact that a worker has signed the voluntary resignation agreement and accepted severance is used by the labor board or other authorities to make a determination that the worker no longer has standing to seek reinstatement or standing to file a complaint. I think it has more to do with the voluntary resignation than it does with the payment of severance per se, because the same argument could be made even if there have been no severance as long as there’s a voluntary resignation agreement.

Whether a truly voluntary resignation could under Mexican law be said to be a full relinquishment of rights such that a worker wouldn’t have standing, I don’t know. I do know that if it’s a coerced resignation, then legally speaking, it can’t be used as a basis for a determination that a worker has given up standing.

SECRETARY KARESH: In a situation where workers are trying to form a union, trying to get the union registered, and the facility that they work at closes, under Mexican law, does that then end the ability of the workers to continue with that union registration and continue to attempt to form a union?

MR. NOVA: I’m not certain, but I don’t believe that it does.

SECRETARY KARESH: Okay, so it’s your view that under Mexican law, you could attempt to form a union even though there’s not a facility that the workers are working at?

MR. NOVA: I believe that the process has been -- has begun that it can continue but it is not an area that I’m familiar enough with to say that I’m confident that that’s a correct answer.

SECRETARY KARESH: Have you come across situations in your reviews where that has been used as a reason by a labor board to basically terminate the union registration process?

MR. NOVA: In our experience not in any of that factories we’ve investigated directly. Tarrant is the only one that actually shut down in the midst of the conflict.

SECRETARY KARESH: One other question about severance payments; what has been your experience in situations where workers may have been offered a severance and even accepted a severance but that severance was lower than what’s required by law and whether they’ve been able to bring any cases or bring a complaint and get any remedy for that?

MR. NOVA: In our experience that’s common. More common for the worker to be given or offered less severance than the law requires. It was the case at Tarrant, it was the case in a number of instances at Kukdong, it is the case in the factory in Quapila that we’re presently investigating and in the Quapila case, I do know of one instance in which a worker did sign the voluntary agreement. The worker was, in our view, fired for exercising her associational rights. She was told, “You’re fired, we don’t need you any more, you can have this money if you sign this voluntary resignation agreement”.

The amount was less than the severance she legally would have been due had she, in fact, been laid off and she went to the board and did, through bringing a complaint to the board, ultimately get a larger amount of severance.

SECRETARY KARESH: With regard to Tarrant or Matamoros or Kukdong or any of the other situations that your organization has been involved in, have you had discussions or raised these issues with federal labor authorities, either with the Mexican Labor Ministry or with the Federal Labor Board?

MR. NOVA: We have not. We do know of other organizations that have had some interaction on that level about similar circumstances, but we are ourselves, have not done so.

SECRETARY KARESH: And have you had any experience with PROFEDT, this organization in the Mexican government that is supposed to assist workers in legal defense?

MR. NOVA: Yes. In the case of a factory called Porpoise Point Manufacturing, which is located in Mardida (ph) in the State of Yucatan, we did meet with the local procurador, who had -- was, in fact, some who was respected in Mardida, as someone who would, in fact, bring cases on behalf of workers. It’s important to stress though, that this individual has no judicial or enforcement power. He functions or she functions very much like a legal aid organization would function in the United States, which is to say their job is to provide free legal representation to workers specifically who have been treated unfairly or illegally by their employer.

But the procurador in bringing a complaint has not power to achieve a particular result than would a private lawyer hired by the same worker.

SECRETARY KARESH: Okay, thank you very much, Mr. Nova.

MR. NOVA: Thank you very much.

SECRETARY KARESH: I think at this point, we will take a break for lunch. If we could come back and start at 1:15 with our next panel, Ms. Balderas and there’s a cafeteria on the sixth floor and there’s a snack bar down the hallway on the fourth floor here, if you want to stay in the building.

(Whereupon at 12:04 p.m. a luncheon recess was taken.)

AFTERNOON SESSION
(1:26 p.m.)

SECRETARY KARESH: The first panel is Ms. Balderas and Ms. Velazquez. Ms. Balderas?

MS. BALDERAS TOLEDO: (Through Interpreter) Good afternoon, my name is Shaila Toledo Balderas. I’m 24 years old and I’m a member for the Center for Workers Support, AC. I have been a member for a year and a half approximately and I am in charge of cultural and gender outreach.

I’m here to testify on what to me are clear examples of violations of human labor rights by the Mexican Government. I have been a witness to genuine union forming processes especially in the sector of garment production factories in the country and during my experience in the organization, I have participated actively with two organized workers groups from Matamoros Garment and Tarrant Mexico and they were trying to form union. And these groups come up due to the need to fight against the terrible working conditions in the Maquila industry in garments for exports.

The environment is very hostile, the damage to workers is incalculable since they are effected economically, psychologically, and physically. The rate of work is extremely high which causes severe damage to their joints and muscles. The lint that comes from the fabric causes chronic diseases in the respiratory -- respiratory disease. They are yelled at constantly, insulted. They are against their will and this with very low wages that are not enough for an individual to support himself much less a family.

We have visited them and we have been in direct contact, not only with the workers, but with their families and we have seen how they live and the relationship between how they live and the work they do. Why do they continue to go to these sources of work, because of the lack of jobs in the country and the tremendous economic necessity of which employers take advantage, creating an atmosphere of fear of being fired. And this makes it more difficult for the workers to organize. And in several occasions the workers expressed fear of losing their job due to the employers’ practices of firing workers at the first attempt to organize.

In spite of these circumstances, the violations are so many and so serious that the workers risk being fired and they organize to form independent unions, since the unions that already exist for many of these companies are protection union, which are really fictitious. They just are limited to a document that calls them a union. They are recognized legally but they don’t really represent the workers at all.

And on many occasions the workers are not even personally -- personally have no knowledge of these so-called unions. In the case of {  }, a former worker of Matamoros Garment, is it obvious that the situation is so terrible that workers will run the risk of losing their jobs even if this might effect their companies -- their families directly. {  } is approximately {  } years old. She has much experience in sewing. She is a single mother of three children who are in secondary school and prep school and junior high school and her economic pressures are tremendous with her salary of 400 pesos per month.

And on many occasions she’s said that she could only buy one thing. If she buys food, she cannot buy shoes for her children and if she buys shoes, she cannot eat. {  } is a former worker, as I said, of Matamoros Garment and she was one of the workers who were suspended, supposedly by the company. That’s how she was removed from the factory. They said it was just a suspension but she was never rehired, so it was really actually an unjustified dismissal.

There’s another case, {  }, who used to work for the same company. He’s young and single but he lives in a community where there are very few options for employment. So his salary is very important for himself and for his family, for these families. Each member -- the fact that each member has a salary is vital. And I’d like to mention here some of the violations that they told me about personally as I conducted these home visits that I conduct as part of my job with the CAT.

In the case of Matamoros Garment, we found cases such as where they’re kept there against their will. {  }, {  }, {  }, several people from this company told us that on several occasions they were literally locked in the company and were not allowed to leave until they had produced their quota for that day. That was for an undetermined period of time until they were done. And another violation was that their dining room had a leak of polluted water, of waste water. It was very -- there was a very foul smell and they also talked about physical and verbal abuse by the employers. This was {  } and previous boss they had. These people would yell at them, insult them and even he struck some of them on the head or on the back on a couple of occasions. The area where Matamoros Garment is located is a very hot area and the last weeks that it was working, a measure they took against the workers was to not give them water, not allow them to drink water. This was a way to control them, or if they gave them water, it was water that was obviously dark, that was obviously not clean.

And one of the things that set off this process of trying to organize by the workers was the fact that they weren’t being paid. The workers were not getting paid. Their payday came and after all these violations of their rights, after these very long work days and they were not getting paid. They were told or they were being paid through a direct system where it was deposited at the bank. They made them sign that they had been paid, but when they went to the bank to withdraw the money, it wasn’t there. So they spent three weeks not being paid and we’re saying that if these workers are dealing with a situation such as this one, it’s because they are tremendously dependent on this job and a huge need for what this job can give them.

Some of the salaries were under the minimum wage level. They were being paid wages that were less than minimum wages for sewers. On many occasions also they told us that there were minors who were working at the company and that the company was resorting to these practices. We’ve heard of making them hide when inspectors came so they weren’t seen. {  }, who is a former worker at Matamoros Garment, she told me that sometimes they would hide them in cabinets or in some kind of a closet so that they weren’t seen when the American companies, the brand name companies would come to do their inspections.

Now, talking about Tarrant, we should mention also that they also engaged in this practice of hiring underage employees and we should talk about the impact that these companies have had on the life of each one of these workers but also on the lives of their families and their communities and also on the environment. It’s common place in Tehuacan to see that after 6:00 p.m. people are going back home from their jobs with their hands completely dyed blue as Maribel said earlier. So they get no protection and they’re getting sick because of these chemicals and because of the lint.

And there’s also the issue of the water. This water is blue because again, as I said, the dye from the jeans and sometimes it makes its way to their corn crops where they’ve planted their corn. So we see that the effect of these companies really is -- has many different aspects to it and that there is some impunity in the case of their activities. Tarrant is a clear example of what the Mexican Government has done when faced with the workers’ attempts to defend their rights.

The government and the company used time as a way to put pressure against the SUITTAR movement deferring hearings and delaying the administrative processes, trying to exhaust the workers and favoring the employer which also had a campaign of economic pressure against the workers, firing them and denying their right to work. And the local boards also acted in a way that was totally biased and was a result of a clear strategy and makes quite obvious that there is a relationship between the authorities and the companies. The scenario of the struggle of the workers has been clearly adverse towards them.

The government not only fails to promote their defense, rather it creates obstacles. It makes an effort to maintain foreign investments at the cost of a good environment for the reduction of production costs. And this, of course, results in low wages, exploitation, lack of benefits, violations of rights and work for minors.

In many places they don’t have -- in many rural areas they really don’t have anyone to resort to, to present their complaints. Also there is an environment of fear, how can they do this if there’s direct communication between the boards and the employers, and the other unions? To them, this is like going to someone who is against them. So as I was saying in communities such as Aldapahe (ph), Delapa Hap in San Diego (ph), Cos Scota (ph), Mautla (ph), De Singo (ph), Quat Singo (ph) among many other rural communities where these workers come from, information about the rights of workers is practically unaccessible. There are no organizations or government organizations rather in charge of improving their standard of living and there is no one to protect their right to associate.

The work that is being done is done through several associations and NGOs and these are the only alternative for workers who want to receive any kind of advice on labor issues. The government agencies, labor agencies, do little or nothing to find a solution and the cases that we have seen here are a clear example of this. When a group organizes works, gets training and does this all after many hours of hard work and devotes its holidays or weekends to trying to solve these problems at the cost of their family stability, their economic stability, repression, frustration, et cetera, when they take their children to the marches, to the demonstrations, to appointments with authorities and when we see that they still try to defend their rights, we see that we are witnessing a clear and absolute violation of the right to free association.

The violations are really of huge dimensions. It’s not just the workers themselves. It’s the families, their children, the communities and the social impact of these companies and their labor policies are truly devastating. Sometimes these companies close permanently, sometimes only temporarily and this is after a number of strikes and they leave the workers with nothing. In some cases some of them are given a severance but not what the law demands and these companies have really not helped improve the life of these workers and it’s not being an engine for development in their communities. It’s an emergency solution for the problem of unemployment but eventually they end up in a situation that’s worse than they had before due to the impact on the environment over exploitation of natural resources and human resources, unemployment after awhile since they always go to where it will be easier to find cheap labor. And this is in addition to an environment of hostility towards the workers, individuals and organizations who are trying to promote their human rights.

In the case of the workers, they have been listed and they are labeled as undesirable workers for the companies and this goes against their right to work. We have also seen very unpleasant experiences during the Matamoros Garment movement. Workers such as {  }, {  } and {  } were harassed by suspicious individuals and this was so alarming for them that they resorted to several agencies trying to guarantee their own safety. We went to the Procuraduria General of the State of Puebla and other municipal authorities and their response was that they would just have more police patrols in the area of the Maquiladora which was the place where the workers were meeting for their movement, but these promises were never fulfilled.

Also the organizations also suffer the effects of this repression. In the case of the CAT, we were victims of persecution in the City of Tehuacan where a vehicle was waiting for us at the door of the house we were using at that point. The behavior of the individuals who were in the car was clearly intimidating even though they were not in direct contact with us. And this is why we decided to talk about this experience publicly. We talked to the Proud Center (ph) for Human Rights in the City of Mexico, also the Labor Attache of the United States in Mexico, Alice Tidball and several organizations that are working with USIS, WRC, MSN and we also implemented security measures in our activities and our daily habits.

Recently, in the area of Tehuacan, {  }, leader of the Commission for Labor Rights for the Valley of Tehuacan, who also does very important work in defending human rights in the area, was brutally attacked by an unknown individual who, at the door of his house, struck him on the head and the stomach using a piece of a brick and this is evidence that circumstances or the situation for human rights activitists in the area are very violent and this is why we have made this public and sought recommendations for the Mexican Government so it can put an end to the impunity regarding the enforcement of laws on the rights of workers, especially regarding the rights of free association and unions.

SECRETARY KARESH: Thank you, Ms. Balderas. Ms. Velazquez:

MS. VELAZQUEZ DIAZ: (Through Interpreter) Good afternoon. Before I make my presentation as an organizer, I would like to submit the pictures. They are pictures of different cases, Kukdong, Matamoros and this shows how the workers have to produce. We will show the contaminated waters, the strike and some training courses. After you see the pictures, I would like to have them back. You can have copies if you want.

First, I would like to thank all of you for this opportunity you that you are giving us to be able to present our case here because we want to say that we are against all injustices, either female or male, whether they work in car factories or in garment factories. I am Blanca Velazquez Diaz. I represent Centro de Apoyo al Trabajador the support to the workers in ‘99. I work for Siemens and I also worked in different companies in the industry. I’m 30 years told. The idea of the CAT when this was formed was basically because we saw the in Puebla there was a lot of violence in the workers and their demands were not fulfilled. So we decided that we had to make up an organization where their rights would be respected, where the workers could be -- could go to submit their demands, so the CAT is an organization NGO was founded in December of 2000 and started operating in May of 2001.

We started to support the workers of the garment industry that have been abused by the government and by the companies and the unions that do not respect their laws and their rights. The main objective of the organization is that solidarity and the support of the workers, so that their human and labor rights are respected. Our activities are training workshops whether it is for a union and a gender to investigate the violation of rights of workers in the maquilas, home visits. The CAT takes into account not only the local level but national and international level and they try to work together so that all these violations are known worldwide.

I’m going to explain how the Maquila works in Puebla and I will also tell you how the labor boards work in Puebla. Puebla has five and a half million people. It’s one of the most important states for Maquila in Mexico and exports a lot of articles, especially garments and Puebla is key for the FTAA where the companies and the government go there to create jobs that are not paid well and inhuman conditions. Poverty is worldwide and the society, the society sees this despair and there is more unemployment. In trying to improve their lives and the one of their children, they realize that the only option out is the Maquila. These maquilas are and will be a very silent industry without a lot of fanfare and they produce, they export, they hire, they fire and they are responsible without taking on the responsibility that they have to the workers according to national and international laws. The main municipalities where the large industries are established are Alixco, Matamoros, Tehuacan.

Here I would like to mention that in ‘94, when the free trade agreement is implemented, Mexico grows and these maquilas establish themselves there. When these maquilas arrived to these states, of course, they already have agreements signed with the companies and these agreements are signed without the workers being notified of this. We called them protection contracts and the only purpose is to sign them under the table and when the workers want to organize themselves or unionize, or they want to ask and require that right that they are entitled to, and one of these rights is to be part of a union, a formal union, they are not allowed to do that by the labor boards.

And I also wanted to say that there are three members or parties here; the unions in Puebla are under the FROC-CROC and this revolutionary federation of workers and farm workers is affiliated to the PRET (ph). That has been in power for more than 70 years in Mexico and in the State of Puebla is still the most important party. The local boards are composed by three members; “the representatives of the workers”, quote, unquote, those that represent the company and those that represent the local boards.

However, there is something here that you have to know so that you can understand how these local boards operate. The alleged representative of the worker is chosen by the government. In the State of Puebla the one that is in charge of the contracts is the FROC-CROC and is that person, that person that supposedly represents the worker as part of the FROC-CROC and as part of this local board in Puebla.

And from the management point of view, I don’t have the name of this person, but it’s also a union for owners which is the corpamec (ph). So when the workers decide somehow that they want to organize themselves as a union, since they majority of these contracts are held by this specific person, these agreements are -- or {  }, who are brothers, and when the workers decide to register a union at the local board level, the representative of the worker says, “Excuse me, I have the majority, I hold the majority and I will not allow any other union to come here and impose at my local level what you want and I will not allow any of these unions to be registered because I hold the majority vote anyway”.

And they said, “You have no authority because I have millions and millions of workers on my side and if you don’t want to have any problems, why don’t you just leave, you know. So I will not allow any independent union”. And then the owners will do what this “protection union” will do. In this case, the workers are the only ones that are not represented and they are at risk when they want to register a union at the State of Puebla. So we see this as a triangle.

You have the General Secretary, the President of the Local Board, {  } (ph), the representative of FROC-CROC, I don’t remember his name but a scientist as well, and then the representative of the companies. So I wanted to also explain that the maquilas have been a very silent industry. I can give you an example of Tarrant. When the Maquila closed, January 3rd, the workers were shuffled from one place to the other, giving them excuses that maybe the company would reopen but right now there was no production and therefore, they were just working on some samples for some brands and if the contracts came through they would call them back, and they said come back on January 20th.

Most of them went back and once person came out and said, “We don’t have anything for you right now, come back later”, and when they came back, the surprise was that the company was not going to be in operations any more. The company was going to be closed and they were going to pay severance payment but those payments were not according to the law. The federal law establishes that the workers, when they are fired without reason, they have to receive 100 percent severance pays and they received 60 percent and 65 percent.

When a news reporter asked the General Secretary of the Local Board {  }, he said that the workers had been paid according to the union and the worker said, “What union are you talking about”, and he said, “Well, you know, according to what the union had negotiated for the workers”, and of course, the severance pays were not in agreement with the law.

It is said, as well, that there is a slight possibility that here in Tarrant there it could reopen. They said maybe by June or July it might reopen but I want to have this as part of the minutes in saying that if this company is going to reopen, doesn’t mean that the workers cannot set up a union and this doesn’t mean that the request that was placed before has to be denied and cannot be resubmitted. This is a very easy way out that the companies have. What they do is they close the companies temporarily and then when the movement weakens, they open again under another name, like Kukdong and now because of everything that what happened, now they operate under MexMode.

The governments -- the municipalities offered a lot of incentives for the companies to establish themselves there by giving them the land, reduce taxes and very qualified workers for very little money. The workers of the Maquila are very young people, 18, 25 years of age and they include even underage people, most of them women and single mothers that have to work extra time without pay. They are verbally abused and sometimes the companies are locked down until production is attained and you already had some examples with {  } and {  }.

Men are no exception to this rule. Many workers do not have protection to work. In Matamoros Garment and Tarrant, in the case of Kukdong, according to what I know and because I work at the maquilas, there is no protection, adequate protection for the workers. In the case of Kukdong, they did not have a mouthpiece to cover their mouths. They have no adequate chairs where they could sit all day long in a comfortable way. In case of Matamoros Garment, as Shaila said, it’s a very hot place. The air conditioning wasn’t working. Ventilation was not working and in the case of Tarrant, as the other people had mentioned, the chemical products are very, very damaging and they are poisonous.

So when they touch those chemical products, they have to have a specific kind of soap and the company never supply them. So when they asked for them, they didn’t give it to them and when they touched the skin, the color of the skin is effected. They have breathing problems, respiratory tract infections and there is an example, for example of Tijuana when this company made batteries with lead, many people had birth defects because they had no protection whatsoever.

Men are not exempt from this because there are many workers that do not have adequate protection. However, they have to work under these terrible conditions because it rural areas there are no other jobs, whether it’s because the farms are not working, because you have to have higher education to work in different jobs and to get into Maquila is not difficult. The only thing you have to do is know how to work and follow orders. Their requirements are minimum and in some maquilas they don’t even require you to read or write. So that’s why the companies exploit and use the workers and that’s why since they hired a lot of rural people, especially in Puebla, we are the third ranking state in illiteracy so, there are people that come from very far away places. They don’t know how to read or write and some of them belong to indigenous tribes and they speak Zapoteco, for example, so it’s very difficult for them to express themselves and it’s very difficult for them to know their human labor rights. That’s why they cannot defend themselves and that’s why they are exploited by the government and by the companies and they use their ignorance.

So the lack of official participation is clear. They do not defend the labor human rights and that’s why the workers try to find other ways, other mechanisms and organizations that might help them to receive those rights. According to my experience as a union leader in Siemens and due to my experience in Kukdong, Matamoros and Tarrant, I had never ever seen a representative from the Labor Department that would come to see the conditions under which the workers work and to see whether training is being given and that’s why we have the training commissions and hygiene and safety and I had never ever seen anybody going to -- anybody inspecting those plants that would come to see the conditions under which the workers work and to see whether training is being given and that’s why we have the Training Commissions on hygiene and safety and I had never ever seen anybody going to -- anybody inspecting those plants or teaching the workers what are the conditions that they are supposed to work under. And of course, according to what I know there is no document issued by any company that has been investigated or reviewed under this Safety and Hygiene Commission.

The CAT has worked on three very important cases, Kukdong International of Mexico, Matamoros Garment and Tarrant Mexico. In these three companies I had the honor to participate in these three campaigns and these three cases and I was one of the leaders of these campaigns. For me -- it’s been very difficult for me to understand why the workers, when they decide to exercise the right of association, they have been hit upon by the local authorities. In the case of Kukdong, we are talking about 700 workers and 500 people from the local government hit on them. It didn’t matter whether they were kids or women or men. As I said, the strange thing is that the FROC-CROC representative was there and I know him personally because of the Siemen case. I know how the FROC-CROC operates in Puebla and I know the local boards and I know that person was there hitting on the workers, basically leading the attack on the workers.

In Kukdong when the workers -- when they got the name, the new name, the first registration registros application was denied and in other cases it has been the same and I’ll talk about this in more detail. Later when they held their second assembly with the majority of the workers present, the company changed its name to Alianza DeMex and that’s when the local board was able to give them this recognition but this was only one through solidarity at the local, national and international level by demanding the foreign corporations that they look into this because the conduct, the codes of conduct were being violated beginning with the firing and the underage workers. This is an eight-month campaign and it was a campaign where we went to every possible agency and finally, on September 21st, this recognition was granted and the workers were able to have their independent union and it’s the only one I have to say nationally that has a collective contract signed with the company and the Matamoros Garment workers were also a case in which their struggles lasted eight months, where they went to many different organizations where the workers also organized themselves legally and may went voluntarily to sign the documents, so they would be a part of SUITTAR union.

And in this case they encountered some pressure against the workers. This was by Francisco Villa, the union that was already there and this was a union that the workers had not chosen as is the case in Mexico. Usually, this was a union that was also telling the workers to desist in their fight and in the company, in Matamoros Garment sometimes they use this method where they suspend activities when workers are beginning to exercise their right to free association and this has been a sort of escape valve, these paras technicos (ph) these strikes, and when the company tells them that -- or rather these are just stoppages, technical stoppages and when the company tells them that there will be these stoppages, the workers are not taken into account.

And when the local board and the Francisco Villa union engaged in this precautionary embargo, there was never anyone to testify or in this case Francisco Villa never said to the workers, “Look, I have a document where we have the agreement from the local board and we, as your representatives, supposedly as the representatives of the workers are conducting this embargo and here it is”. And if this happened, I don’t know where the document is but if it is somewhere, Francisco Villa has it, so the workers were never taken into account and they were misled.

They were told that some day that company would reopen but now we know that there are more than 250 unemployed workers. They’re still unemployed and they have been unable to find a job.

In the case of Tarrant, Mexico, this is a Maquila that exports primarily to the U.S. and to Europe. It came with a lot of promises. The workers want their -- {  } who’s a worker said it was the one that was in style, it was the latest fad. It was to go there. They came in ‘99 and the workers’ rights were being violated, of course, with these sexual harassment, this aggression, et cetera and when the workers decided to organize themselves again, we find these same conditions imposed by the employers when the employees want to organize themselves.

The local board in Mexico, it is said that in order to obtain or to be a part of an independent union, this union has to have at least 20 workers, and these were 700 workers and when the local board rejected this registration, the local -- the five reasons they gave were so absurd. The name, for example, of the worker was misspelled and just for that reason, they rejected the registration. But the question here is in what about the other workers, are they worth nothing. Over 700 workers, are they worth nothing, and the law is clear on this. The minimum is 20 workers.

They need to have an assembly, a constituent assembly and this took place. They had this. They had their charter, their statutes, and the local board according to the law and it says this very clearly, the authorities and the employers have no reason to be involved in the internal business of these assemblies. And here they were saying they didn’t have the permission of the other union. Well, who is to say how they should deal with their own business internally.

We know, as organizers what this could have done if in Tehuacan they had had a union. It’s over 180 maquilas for exports that are there in that region and free trade agreements cause people to look at that region because there’s a lot of water there. And also because they’re a little bit more vulnerable there because it’s more difficult for education or for authorities to reach these areas and talk to these people about their rights, so they take advantage of this and that’s why the government itself does not allow a union there because they know what could happen. They know what could be generated if the other maquilas sort of caught this bug, this inspiration and they started to -- began to defend their own rights.

So these cases submitted by CAT show the conditions under which the workers conduct their activities and there are the cases that Shaila mentioned, the violations that she mentioned and I did, too, and we see that labor authorities, as well as companies and protection unions constantly violate the right to free association in unions and this is also in the NAFTA. And they had all the requirements by law. They were violating the agreement, the labor agreement under NAFTA by not allowing these workers to associate and these corrupt practices have allowed union -- official unions such as CTM, the Confederation of Mexican Workers, the FROC-CROC, has allowed them to sign collective agreements with the employers at the cost of the workers and before a Maquila is set up in many cases, they already have an agreement with the protection unions, CTM or FROC-CROC.

And of course, the government wants to create a climate in which workers will just remain silent, not say anything where they will con -- these companies will continue to do what they are doing and so that the workers will not exercise the rights that they actually have under the law. So this control for -- through protection unions, the reason for this is so that they will not lose control of the situation and this is why when workers try to organize themselves, they are fired, they are attacked, they’re sent away.

So since we have resorted to every legal agency, we went to the Secretariat of Labor at the federal level. We went to the representations at the local level. We went to the local boards, to the embassies. We talked to the representative or the president himself of the local board. We talked to {  } himself, the Governor, regarding his responses. I can testify that when the workers went to him and told him of their concern and told him that they had been fired and that their right to work had been violated and that their right to free association had been fired (sic), the state level government on two occasions said, once when he was at the Municipality of Antapeje (ph), they came with big blankets and were demonstrating and the governor didn’t want that because he was coming to give his big speech and they were in the way.

So he told them to come to him and said, “I will support you. I will say it publicly here but please, don’t make a scene here”. And when we went to talk to him again, they reminded him of that occasion. They said, “What happened, Mr. Governor, you said you were going to support us and it’s been four months. {  } was saying, it’s been four months that I haven’t been paid. I haven’t been able to feed my family”, in the case of {  }. “I don’t know if my siblings will be able to study, go to school again because I have no money and you have been the obstacle. You have been the cause of this.” And although we have the right to associate ourselves, the first ones we went to were the local boards and that’s not working for us, so where do we go?

We’re talking to you, that’s what {  } said. And the governor said, “I’m committed to helping you. I like strong unions. I like true authentic unions”, and that’s what {  } said. That’s exactly what we are, we are a true union, not a union based on 20 people, a union based on more than 700 people and now this registration is denied. Why?

And the local government was silent and all they did was give them some money for their transportation back home with no response. And later there was an organization from England against sweat shops that was there and we also talked to them and they talked to the local board and said to them, “Please don’t go through this process again”, the one that Kukdong went through when the first registration were denied, and the president of the local board said, “Well, how will I react when I see that it’s a majority of the workers and I see that they are putting their fingerprint on it”. In any case he said, “How do you think I should respond”? Well, No Sweat said, “We think that you should respond positively because we have proof here. We have evidence”.

And when I asked him, this guy {  }, he said, “Well, I understand that this is a matter of local jurisdiction, it’s a union that we don’t even know the name. What do you have here? So can you show us the collective bargaining agreement for the union?” That’s what we said and he said, “Well, yes, just a moment”. And it took him about a half hour and finally, he brought a stack of papers and said that there was a union, Belasario Dominguez, that is also affiliated with FROC-CROC.

So I said, “Well, let’s see it. We want to see the articles. We want to see the clauses”. And the workers were there and they said, “Well, if you don’t want to” -- I’m sorry. I said, “If you don’t want to give it to me, you can give it to the workers. They have a right to request this and that’s when he said, “Well, that’s not within my jurisdiction. I don’t have the authority to give it to you”. And I said, “Well, don’t give it to me. Give it to them”. But no, he just showed it to us and didn’t want to give it us, but later he said, “Well, now that I remember, this is actually not within local jurisdiction. This is federal because it’s a federal union. And then I said, “Well, is it local or is it federal”? And we also said, “If you don’t want to give us the collective agreement, then tell us when it was made”. And he said, “I can’t tell you those things”. And the workers also said they wanted to know. Supposedly they’re members of that union but he said he could not tell them.

SECRETARY KARESH: Excuse me, let me ask you a question about that, if I may.

MS. VELAZQUEZ DIAZ: (Through Interpreter) I’m sorry, could you ask the questions after I’m done?

SECRETARY KARESH: I’d like to ask you some questions unless you can sum up in the next minute.

MS. BALDERAS TOLEDO: (Through Interpreter) Okay. Well, after we had exhausted all these avenues and hadn’t found any response, we went to this international organization and asked them to make recommendations to the government for just and equitable treatment and for a response to the demands of the Mexican workers who have organized themselves to improve their standard of living and of work. These same five demands are a summary of the obligations of the Mexican Government if they’re respecting their law and the principles of the NAALC. They said that also collective contracts should be made public and registration should be authorized in a transparent way.

Also it should recommend the establishment of a three-party council (Interpreter speaking Spanish). They recommend that a tri-national commission made up of experts on labor rights be established with the power to investigate and issue reports on allegations. Freedom for unions and freedom to organize, freedom for collective bargaining, a right to strike and the rejection of these registrations, denial of registrations, use of black lists and not allowing secret votes. They should allow for public cooperative group in Puebla and the right of (Interpreter speaking Spanish).

The issues of this reclaim had to be reviewed by an expert of committee of safety and hygiene regarding minimum salary, forced labor and work for minors. Thank you.

SECRETARY KARESH: Okay, thank you, Ms. Velazquez. I’m going to ask some questions and either one of you can answer, or both. Let me ask you first, you talked about several allegations and you talked about speaking with the governor and labor ministries. My understanding from this submission that there also have been several complaints filed with the labor board and with the courts and I was wondering if you could talk about those, whether they were filed by CAT as an entity or they were filed on behalf of individual workers and what the status of any of those claims before the labor board or the court are, whether it’s with regard to dismissals or wages or any other related issues.

MS. VELAZQUEZ DIAZ: (Through Interpreter) Yes, the complaints were submitted on behalf of the workers with the support of the CAT. When we went to the labor secretariat in Mexico with {  } (ph), the workers were able to submit their claim or the violation of their rights and this person said that {  } was going to be told about this violation and that was the end of it. The only thing we knew is that he recommended us to go and see {  } who is -- who belongs to the Federal Labor Ministry in Puebla and when the workers have made these complaints on October 6th, he said he couldn’t do anything for us because it was under the labor board authority.

And when we went to talk to the Puebla government, we submitted letters where the workers talked about all these violations and that was September 15th. In Antipethi (ph) the same thing and we have proof that those letters were submitted but we received no answers whatsoever. Not -- the workers didn’t receive any answers and neither did we.

SECRETARY KARESH: What about the formal request filed before the labor board to register the union; what is the current status of that petition before the board?

MS. VELAZQUEZ DIAZ: (Through Interpreter) Yes, when we submitted the requirements to be able to register this union with a local board, that same day, we also talked with the General Secretary and we told this person that we did not want to have the same story with Kukdong, to have the registry denied and that the workers had registered voluntarily to the SUITTAR union and that they were awaiting a favorable response and the local board said, “We are going to work according to the law”, that’s what they always say, and that they were going to wait 60 days, but we have to mention that all the requirements were complied with.

SECRETARY KARESH: Included with materials that was provided to us by the submitters, was a document, January 21, 2003, where union leaders signed an agreement with the plant director at Matamoros Garment. Can you provide us any additional information about how that document came about? Was there some kind of negotiation between the union leaders and management and what was expected to be gained by that document and what was the outcome of that?

MS. VELAZQUEZ DIAZ: (Through Interpreter) Well, that was January 21st, 2003. Six of the leaders went, they were basically made to sign that agreement. They were forced to sign. {  } promised to resolve the issue very fast. That agreement, one of the female workers told us that there was a representative from the local board present at the meeting and he was there just as an observer but {  } said that he promised to solve the problem. When these people from the local board left, the leaders were removed from their job. Agustina Liliana, she was a supervisor, then she went to work in a specific machinery and she was displaced because she was the leader of this committee or this agreement, but this letter was never ever taken into account by the company, that according to {  }, he was going to make sure that these demands were fulfilled.

SECRETARY KARESH: What do you mean by they were forced to sign it? I mean, did the management approach them and say, “I have this document. I want you to sign it”. Or was there some kind of negotiation with the workers? And which parts of that was this official from the junta at if you know, which parts of that did he observe?

MS. VELAZQUEZ DIAZ: (Through Interpreter) The workers told us that they -- when they were working they were called and they didn’t want to go to Mr. {  } office. They said they didn’t want to sign any papers but they were taken to this office by Sigmenta (ph). They were taken to that office against their will. They listened to that and said, “This agreement is not favorable for us”. But {  } said, “If you do not sign this agreement, you will have serious problems in the future”.

And basically that’s all we were told by the female workers and we said, “What did the local representative do?” “Nothing, nothing”. He was there like, you know, dumb. You know, he didn’t utter a word.

SECRETARY KARESH: Do you have the name of who that junta official was or would you be able to determine that?

MS. VELAZQUEZ DIAZ: (Through Interpreter) I think it was the General Secretary of the local board and somebody else but before giving you any name, I will look through my papers and I’ll give it to you.

SECRETARY KARESH: Have there been any other instances you’re aware of where officials from the junta were involved, you know, whether there was discussions that may have taken place between the union and management or any other meetings or whether they were at a facility or at the junta itself?

MS. BALDERAS TOLEDO: (Through Interpreter) Well, from the Conciliation Board of Tehuacan, we did have a case when the agreement was signed with the three parties. The first agreement signed with this coalition where there were representatives of the workers, the legal representative of the company and the local board. But I think they never had any negotiation in front of the board, inside the facilities.

SECRETARY KARESH: With regard to the Kukdong case, you had indicated that initially the union registration had been denied in that case as well and then ultimately the defending union was able to gain its registration. Could you tell us in your view or with regard to the legal documents that you’re aware of, what were the reasons used to reverse that decision? What would lead to the board changing its mind and granting the registration?

MS. VELAZQUEZ DIAZ: (Through Interpreter) Very good question. Yes, when there workers had their first assembly, March 18th, they did it according to the minimum requirement of the law which is more than 22 people. They submitted the documents according to the law and so the local board said that it could not be granted because three of the workers were what they call trustworthy employees which was not true which were just regular workers actually.

And three -- another three, had decided not to belong to the union and therefore, the total amount of workers was 16 and therefore, they could not have a registry as a union because they needed 20 people minimum and two or three according to them, were bought by the company. So when the second petition was submitted and it was Sitekeen, the name, and then SiteMex, it was because the workers tried again and that registry had about 400 workers. And because the U.S. students starting putting a lot of pressure against the brands, and therefore, these companies went to audit like the WRC talked about, and some representative from the academia and from my organization to verify these allegations. And when the government feels this pressure because they don’t like to have an international scandal on their hands, and they don’t want strikes for manifestations by the workers, and because they were close to the elections, they didn’t have one bit of scandal in their hands and that’s why it was granted.

And I think that the U.S. companies put a lot of pressure through the conduct code and the government said, “Okay, I don’t have any other way out. I have to say the FROC-CROC to cancel this collective agreement”, and the government said, “Okay, this is the only -- these are the only jobs in Aldesco I can give you. Other collective agreements to the FROC-CROC and let’s give the Kukdong their union. I don’t want to have any problems”, and this is why it was granted the second time around.

MS. BALDERAS TOLEDO: (Through Interpreter) I just wanted to say that according to what {  } just said regarding the pressure from international organizations, obviously, the company felt the pressure from their clients to accept the existence of that union. And I think that this -- the attitude of that board shows very clearly this complicity I would say, that existed with the local boards and the companies, you know.

And is shows that the boards are not impartial and it should be mentioned that when this registry was issued, it was given in a very short time around, maybe 48 hours it was granted, so obviously, they don’t need 60 days to grant it, as it was said before in Matamoros Garment and Tarrant. So obviously, the thing of waiting 60 days is a way just to wear the workers down because it was granted in 48 hours. So the company had already accepted that the union had to exist, you know.

SECRETARY KARESH: So far we’ve been talking about -- so far we’ve been talking about Maquiladoras and the three companies particularly we’ve talked about where there was an attempt to form a union was Matamoros Garment, Tarrant and Kukdong. What’s your experience in the region where you are with regard to other companies, not Maquiladoras in attempts to form unions or workers desire to form unions at other facilities?

MS. VELAZQUEZ DIAZ: (Through Interpreter) I had heard from some workers that tried to join and form a union in the case of shoe workers, some bakeries, some bakers that wanted to form their own unions, but the company said, “You cannot do that. You have to be part of the already existing union”, CTM, the CROC and this is what they said. “They are the only ones that can represent you”, so it’s basically because they do not know their rights and they do not know that they can decide whether they want to belong or not to a union.

And I can -- Nova was talking about the Yucatan case. The government said, “Come here, we do not allow unions”. Basically, there are unions that would assure you that the workers would be in control of these unions and therefore, there is a way to attract companies. And you see that all over Mexico and when the workers want to organize themselves, they face a lot of articles -- of obstacles set up by the companies, by the government, by everybody. The local boards fulfill all their requirements according to the law and the only thing that they have to do is to grant that, to give a signature or a seal and to grant them a union.

So when they deny that there is a union, so we present this petition to the judicial branch and it was worked on by {  } (ph) and they are the ones that did all the legal proceedings with them. And it was a very, very well drafted petition and when the first meeting is held, the local board was supposed to submit a report when they have to go to this meeting and they submit this late and therefore, the meeting cannot be held and then these two other meetings are held and one week before this last final meeting where it was going to be decided whether violations or not existed, especially in the union right, {  } is taken by the company’s representative to the judicial branch and basically he is made by both parties and the representative told him, “If you do not sign, the company is going to close. If you don’t sign, all your workers will be fired without any compensation”, so this person decided to sign.

So when the judicial branch decides no case is there to be decided because the workers withdrew the case. That’s the way the case was decided and you can see that, you have the document.
When the judge of a district says that they had found some violations, but there was no case because the workers decided to withdraw their complaint. So if in one case this person was made to sign that, it doesn’t mean that everything is going to be finished. We -- the representative from the labor department knew about that and our petition, the government knew about that. The board knew about that and this is why we come here, you know, just to make sure that the workers have the right to unionize and all this parties seem to be working together, the local board, the companies and the government, so not to allow the workers to form these unions.

SECRETARY KARESH: Do you have access to a copy of the decision of the labor board in the Kukdong case, the initial rejection, denial of the union registration? Do you have a copy of that decision or would you be able to obtain a copy of that decision?

MS. VELAZQUEZ DIAZ: (Through Interpreter) Yes, you have it. Yes, but we do have it. When the first petition for registry was denied, yes, we have it and in the case of Tarrant as well, when the registry was denied.

SECRETARY KARESH: Well, we can follow up with you maybe after the hearing about how we can get a copy of that.

MS. BALDERAS TOLEDO: (Through Interpreter) All the denials of the registry, copies of those things have already been submitted to you. But if you want them, we can make another copy of it, you know.

SECRETARY KARESH: We’re aware that, yes, we do have copies of some things, but we didn’t think we had a copy of that particular document but we can check, thank you. Let me ask you with regard to injuries or illnesses in the workplace, what is your experience with workers who have been injured in filing -- going to see doctors or filing with IMSS, you know, Worker’s Compensation claims with IMSS and what has been the response of IMSS to Worker’s Compensation claims and taking care of workers who are injured on the job?

MS. BALDERAS TOLEDO: (Through Interpreter) Well, the fact that the workers go someplace to submit these petitions is not something that we see very often. As {  } said, when they hurt themselves, something minor, they are given maybe a pill, a band aid or something and they send them back to work. Now, when something is a little bit more serious, for example, the case that {  } mentioned when somebody had a miscarriage and she bled while working, she said that she doesn’t know where she was taken. The company that in these cases do not take them to the Social Security Administration, IMSS. So they go to a private doctor, so there is no registry that something of that magnitude happened while at work as if it had happened if they go to IMSS.

But sometimes they lose the work and the job and they don’t find any other. In the case of this person from Tarrant, she was threatened and she said, “Don’t say anything. If you say anything, we’re going to fire you”. She was pregnant with her second child. She’s a single mother and she had to keep her mouth shut if she wanted to feed her daughter.

So the workers do not really complain. Where do they go to complain? You know, nobody here listens to them.

SECRETARY KARESH: Has your organization on the workers’ behalf attempted to contact IMSS or other government officials? You particularly mentioned that here were muscular injuries because of the repetitive work and that there were respiratory problems because of inhaling fibers. Have these issues been brought before the governmental authorities?

MS. VELAZQUEZ DIAZ: (Through Interpreter) Yes, we give support to the workers in any case that they bring to us. When the workers are hit while working, the first responsible party is the company first. And if not, they can file a complaint for being hit in the workplace. And there is a whole proceeding before going to a trial. But we can do it but we have never used it and this has to be done through a formal complaint and then a trial but we have never been involved in any sort of cases when the workers are hit.

What we have done is we have complained about that. In the case of Kukdong, when the workers were hit, what we did was we filed a complaint with the president of the company and we also went to see a doctor and it was clear that the workers had been hit and one of the ribs had been broken. I don’t really remember what article it is but when the workers are hit for example, while at the workplace, they can request an investigation by the local board and they also have the right to request their contract to be terminated and the company has to respond.

SECRETARY KARESH: Okay, what about some of these other issues that you talked about, the respiratory problems and the muscular problems, were there any discussions or notices given to the management that your view was that several workers were being injured in those ways because of the work that they were doing?

MS. BALDERAS TOLEDO: (Through Interpreter) Well, the complaints are filed by the workers to the owners. The complaints are not submitted to any labor ministry or labor authority. You complain to first your supervisor for example, “I have this problem. This is harming me. I need some sort of protection.” And usually these claims go unheard. The workers, usually, according to my experience, many times they workers go to the doctor because the Social Security system is not very efficient to tell you the truth.

So sometimes for example somebody from Matamoros Garment, I don’t remember her name. She was very allergic and she had to take pills constantly and some sort of a nasal spray, I don’t remember the name, something that you put in your nose, but -- and the company itself gave her money for her medicine, so did not send her to the doctor so that it won’t be any registry that this was caused by her work. And somehow, you know, she was happy that the company gave her money, but actually, you know, the company was not solving the issue itself. It was just trying to cover -- you know, to solve the symptoms of the company.

SECRETARY KARESH: When the Matamoros Garment factory shut down, what kind of notice was given to the workers and are you aware of what procedures the owners of the factory, you know, followed with the local labor board in getting permission to shut the factory down?

MS. VELAZQUEZ DIAZ: (Through Interpreter) There was no notice of any kind to the workers, nothing in writing. It was just a verbal. This was through the Francisco Villa union. Maybe our colleague, the lawyer can explain this to you a little bit better but as far as I know there needs to be a document in which if there’s going to be a stoppage at the company, there has to be something drawn up between the company, the local board and the workers, and if the company is closing down definitely, it needs to submit some kind of document to the local board and also to the workers, show them some kind of document, but in the case of Matamoros Garment this did not happen or at least in the case of Tarrant, it did not happen. Perhaps, if you request those documents, you can get them from the local board of Puebla. I’m sure they may have them.

SECRETARY KARESH: Were the workers given severance payments?

MS. VELAZQUEZ DIAZ: (Through Interpreter) Which workers?

SECRETARY KARESH: Matamoros Garment?

MS. VELAZQUEZ DIAZ: (Through Interpreter) No.

SECRETARY KARESH: When the facility closed?

MS. VELAZQUEZ DIAZ: (Through Interpreter) No, to this date, they have received not one cent of their severance.

SECRETARY KARESH: Have they filed claims in court for that or claims before the local labor board for that?

MS. VELAZQUEZ DIAZ: (Through Interpreter) In the beginning when we were advising them, the workers, we had actually thought of taking some measures so that the workers could take their money from the machines, but the machines were gone. We call them the flight of the maquilas. They thought that they could get their money from these machines, but suddenly these machines were gone.

SECRETARY KARESH: Does Mexican law require that the employees be paid severance from the facility closing -- shuts down?

MS. VELAZQUEZ DIAZ: (Through Interpreter) Yes. I don’t have the text of the article but when a company closes its doors, it needs to give them severance based on their wages, their vacation time, benefits, and it has to be at a rate of 100 percent or a minimum of 80 or 90 percent, not less than that because the company is closing.

SECRETARY KARESH: In the Submission there was an indication that officials from the Puebla junta witnessed payment of back wages to workers who had worked in the Matamoros Garment factory at some point and that -- and there seemed to be some indication that perhaps some of those wages were not sufficient, but I’m curious if you can provide any additional detail about that situation, that workers would have been, you know, in a room or at the junta and junta would have witnessed payments being made to them that were due them for back wages.

MS. BALDERAS TOLEDO: (Through Interpreter) I’m sorry, are you asking about the Matamoros Garment case? In that case, no, there was no payment of any kind. In fact, when the company began to retain these payments which were supposed to be received on Fridays by the workers, and it was almost four weeks and after a lot of sacrifice and a lot of struggle, they were able to get them to pay their payments or their wages but there was no severance.

I’m sorry, I think the question referred to whether there was a witness who was a local official saying that they amount that was due to them was not given to them in its entirety or am I confused?

SECRETARY KARESH: The Submission had information in it that at Matamoros Garment there was allegations made that there were time periods when workers were not paid their wages and that there was an instance where in front of the junta, there were back wage payments made and that the junta officials witnessed those payments being made. And what I would like to know is, if you’re aware of that, you know, what occurred, what the junta’s involvement was and what it was exactly that was witnessed because there also seems to be allegations that even though back wages may have been paid, you know, workers may not have been paid the full wages that were owed them.

MS. VELAZQUEZ DIAZ: (Through Interpreter) When the Matamoros Garment workers were paid, when they were given these back wages there was a person from the local board that was {  } and he was the same person that I was going to -- whose name I was going to give. He was also present when they were forced to sign this agreement. And those back wages for the Matamoros Garment workers were covered.

SECRETARY KARESH: Did the junta play a role in that? I mean, did they conciliate that between the -- or mediate that between the workers and management and have some role in getting those wages paid or were they just called and asked to witness the actual payment?

MS. VELAZQUEZ DIAZ: (Through Interpreter) No, they were just witnesses of the payment of back wages. As to how the company was forced to make these payments, this was really through the struggle of the workers through all this pressure that they were putting on the company but if it had been for the junta, for the local junta, nothing would have happened. If it had been up to them alone, nothing would have happened. Even with all the dissatisfaction of the workers, I think even today those amounts would still be owed to them.

SECRETARY KARESH: Okay, thank you very much. What I’d like to ask if we could take a short break and we can come back at quarter after for the last two panels. Thank you.

(A brief recess was taken.)

SECRETARY KARESH: Thank you. We’ll move to the next panel, Constanza Ancheita.

MS. ANCHEITA PAGAZA: (Through Interpreter) Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Alejandra Constanza Anchieta Pagaza. I'm a lawyer. I graduated from the Metropolitan Autonomous University. I'm accredited by the General Professions Administration, Professional ID Number 3773657. My experience in the field of human and workers rights comes from the year 1999 when I was working with an NGO, Center for Labor Reflection and Action, CEREAL, an organization devoted to promoting and defending the human rights of workers in Mexico. And I am now part of a comprehensive defense program by the Center for Human Rights, Miguel Agusin Pro Juarez and I participated independently as a legal advisor of the workers of Tarrant Mexico, SDRL in Ajalpan Puebla and I participated in that starting July 1st, 2003.

While the workers were organizing themselves, I was their advisor in this process for organizing their union SUITTAR. This took place July 12th, 2003 in the municipality of San Francisco, Altepexi, Tehuacan as has been said in the previous document. This took place through an assembly in which after verifying that they had legal quorum for the constitution of the union the participants became associated by unanimous vote and they established their union statutes and these were, again approved unanimously and they named their first group of leaders and their attributions, everything according to what is established in Article 371 of our Federal Labor Law.

Then on August 7th, 2003, {  }, {  } and {  } as the Secretary General, Secretary of Organization, Recording Secretary and Secretary of Agreements respectively and myself went to the Board of Conciliation and Arbitration of the State of Puebla to request a registration of the previously mentioned union. This application was done complying with each and every one of the requirements established in Article 365 of our Labor Law.

It was submitted in writing with a duplicate copy, an original and the copy of the incorporation papers and the election of the first leaders signed on July 12th, 2003 and the list with the name, number and address of the members as well as the number of -- and address of the employer, the company or establishment in which they worked, the union statutes, which have been approved and the proof of the elections in which the leaders were elected. These are established by our law for registration.

The authorities of the local Conciliation and Arbitration Board of Puebla had a 60-day period to issue a resolution on this application for registration as established in Article 366 of the Labor Law, Federal Labor Law. At that time I had an opportunity to attend different -- on different occasions meetings held at the board while we were asking for information about the resolution and on two occasions I talked to Mr. {  }, Secretary General of the Board and Mr. {  } who is the President of the Board on August 27th of 2003 and September 18th, 2003.

At both meetings the workers and myself saw that the labor authorities had an attitude of not taking into account the workers and their needs since they only told them that they were still studying the application and if they did not receive their registration it would be due to ineffective legal advice not taking into account the rights of the workers which are established in Article 18 of our Labor Legislation which says that in case of any doubts, the authorities are to interpret labor regulations in way that is favorable to the workers.

Also assuming, without saying that this was the case, if there was any omission in terms of the requirements, the labor authorities ignore their obligations under Article 685 and 873 of our Labor Law, the obligations, as I was saying, to warn the workers if there was any irregularity or omission in their application. Another example of the inefficient performance of the labor authorities in Puebla is what we saw on August 18th of 2003. On that day a group of approximately 20 workers of Tarrant Mexico and myself went to the Conciliation Board in Tehuacan Puebla with the purpose of meeting with representatives of the company in the presence of the labor authorities in order to reach an agreement so that the dismissals would stop as this was a means of exercising pressure due to the union that was being formed.

The representatives of the company of Tarrant did not attend and the labor authorities only took -- made a record of the lack of will of the company in participating in this process and showed no intention of taking measures to protect the rights of the workers who had been fired. Later on October 6th, 2003, Special Board Member Two which is part of the Local Board of Conciliation and Arbitration of Puebla issued a resolution that was negative to the workers even though the workers fulfilled all the requirements established by Article 365 of the Federal Labor Law, thus violating the guarantees of legality and legal security that they should have. And these are in Articles 14 and 16 of the constitution.

Similarly with this negative decision by the local board and this is an agency that is directly under -- directly reporting to the executive power, they failed to comply with their obligation to apply any government measures that are necessary for effective enforcement of labor legislation which is something that was agreed to under the NAALC. And it says that each one of the parties will promote observants of its labor legislation and will enforce them effectively through government -- the adequate government measures.

Also it will guarantee that its authorities will give due consideration to any request that any alleged violation be investigated. For this reason, on October 27th, 2003 a document for an amparo judgment was submitted to the Federal Court of the State of Puebla and this was referred to the Third District Court of the State of Puebla. It was told to study these violations. After a month of pressures by the company and due to emotional exhaustion and economic exhaustion of the workers, in November 28th, 2003, the members of the -- the leaders of the union decide to not continue with this legal proceeding and they received their severance. In Article 53, Paragraph 1 of our Federal Law, this was under that article their severance.

And as has been said in previous documents, the denial of the registration had no reason and shows that there was a partial bias behavior by the Board of Conciliation and Arbitration. There has been proof of this that has been documented by Human Rights Watch in their report on the Free Trade Agreement and Human Rights in Mexico where they record cases of violations of their right to form unions, the workers’ rights to form unions in Mexico due to unethical behavior by labor authorities and here we have to point out that the governments had signed the NAALC made the commitment to comply with the following obligations.

They have a certain level of protection that they need to grant and, or course, all the countries are responsible, but the main issue is in the hands of the Mexican Government. And as I was saying, the obligations are regarding levels of protection to respect the constitution for each one of the parties and all of them must guarantee that laws and regulations in the field of labor will be consistent with the highest quality and productivity and that they will continue to improve these regulations in this context.

Government measures or each party will promote their respect of their labor laws and we’ll effectively apply through government measures. It will also guarantee its pertinent authorities to take into consideration any request to investigate any alleged violation of the labor law.

Third, access to proceedings. Each one of the parties will guarantee the persons will have the right to have access to tribunals for the application of the labor law of the party in question. The legislation of each one of the parties will guarantee that these persons will have access to the proceedings through which of their rights established in the law will be respected and in the collective agreements as well. Procedural guarantees, each one of the parties will guarantee that the proceedings for the application of its labor law will be just, equitative and transparent. Each one of the parties will have the definite resolution, will be submitted in writing and they will be based on information and evidence and it will be published quickly.

Each one of the parties will be able to review the final resolution. Each one of the parties will guarantee that the tribunals will be impartial and independent and each one of the parties will have access to different resources so that the labor rights are respected. Each one of the parties will, through appropriate means, establish or maintain offices for the defense of the worker that will represent or advise the workers or its organizations. Faith Publication (ph) as one of the parties, will make sure that the laws, rulings and proceedings and administrative resolutions will be published as soon as possible or will be sent to the interested party. Finally, six, that talks about information and public knowledge, each one of the parties will promote the public announcement of these labor legislation guaranteeing its publication. Based on all of the above, the Mexican Government has not fulfilled these obligations and, therefore, the result has effected negatively the right of the Mexican workers and it has not respected the 11 labor principles established by NAALC but it should be mentioned that it doesn’t matter what NAALC establishes and the signatory parties agreed upon, international law of human right has established that the states have the following obligations; to respect, prevent, guarantee, and protect human rights of all people and therefore, the flagrant violation of labor human rights of the workers, whether female or male, will be a constant practice without any sort of sanction and effect negatively the right of development that all the Mexicans have.

In conclusion, I would say that according to my opinion and as defender of labor rights, the Mexican Government is violating the first level of protection related to NAFTA and the freedom of association and the tribunals are not just. Regarding the workers of Tarrant Mexican SRLCV it’s clear evidence of this. However the workers of Matamoros Garments and its testimony show that according to these 11 principles of NAACL have to be revised, for example, the minimum working conditions and the restriction on hiring minors.

Likewise, we could say that in the cases of Kukdong, when the registry for a union was denied, new violations are seen here. The situation of the Tarrant workers SRL and CV show the extractor that the special repertoire of the United Nations has qualified is something that has to be dealt with by the Mexican Government. The Junta of Conciliation and Arbitration of Puebla is partial and does not take into account the rights of the workers but the employers is not something that happens here or there but it’s something that is seen throughout the country and when the workers try to use the competent authorities to resolve their problems.

Thank you.

SECRETARY KARESH: Thank you. I have several questions that I want to ask you, some of which we’ve asked previous presenters that you may be aware of but I want to run through several of them anyway. Can you explain what the difference is and what the jurisdiction is of the junta in Puebla versus the junta in Tehuacan?

MS. ANCHEITA PAGAZA: (Through Interpreter) Yes, the federal labor law establishes the different jurisdictions that each one of the boards have. In the CAB of Puebla, that operates in Puebla, Los Angeles and Saragosa (ph), can hear individual problems or collective issues and can establish its decision as an arbitrator. The junta of Puebla has only the authority to mediate between the parties when a problem arises but the proceedings are not taken there because that’s not their responsibility.

SECRETARY KARESH: The Board members that are on each of these juntas, how many members are there and what’s their representation, do you know?

MS. ANCHEITA PAGAZA: (Through Interpreter) The members of the board depends whether the Federal Board of Arbitration has more members. It depends on how many table as we would say, to hear cases. I don’t know the total number but it all depends on what the states decide. Each one of the states have their local arbitration board and depending on how the industrial area was handled, or the different industrial areas that are being developed in the area, this representation, either national or local, vary in the case of Tehuacan. That is not a Board of Conciliation and Arbitration but just conciliation and each one of the boards has a representative. The President of the Board, the General Secretary of the Board, you have the workers representation -- somebody that represents the workers and somebody that represents the companies.

But one of the tables or juntas, let’s say, the group of officials that hear the cases and take all the necessary measures to solve these issues there is what we call a Secretary of Agreement. You have or somebody that takes notes or the minutes, whether there is a petition, for example, for X or Y reason, this person has the authority and this person has to notify the company against which the claim has been placed. And this person has to notify the workers when they have to have a hearing.

We have the Secretary for the Agreement. We have the President, the General Secretary and then we have the Secretary of Agreements of each one of the Boards and it all depends what issues those boards are answering to. Those are selected by issue, whether it’s a collective issue or an individual issue because you know that that Mexican labor law is divided into two big sections, the individual section and the collection section. Therefore, that’s why there is a board that hears all the cases regarding collective issues.

For example, or very specific examples, for example the request to a registry of union, a right to strike or a stoppage of work or the signature of collective agreement, all those are examples of what we call the collective labor law and there are other classic cases that you know which are individual law, when, for example, there is a baseless firing of a person or an accident in the work place. Those are situations that effect one specific person and therefore, there is a board that hears in the case of Puebla for example, the local CAB that operates in Puebla, that can be an arbitor for that specific situation because in that case, it’s very important to remember that it plays sort of an arbitor role and we hope you know, respecting the law, but does not have the same authority that the court or the tribunal would have. The different agents, the different levels that you can use to get to the justice they are administrative here in some proceedings. They are not labor judges, they are public officers that operate and work as arbitors between the patron and the worker.

SECRETARY KARESH: In the Submission there was an indication that some workers at the Matamoros Garment factory filed complaints regarding -- in the Submission -- can you hear me now?

In the Submission there were indications that some of the workers at the Matamoros Garment factory had filed complaints about failure to pay wages or failure to pay appropriate wages and they filed these complaints with the Attorney General’s office in Puebla. Why would they have filed those with the Attorney General’s office rather than the CAB, the junta and what would be the appropriate process for that? Could they have been filed in either place and what would be the process of the Attorney General’s office or the junta in the handling of those kinds of complaints?

MS. ANCHEITA PAGAZA: (Through Interpreter) Yes, the PROFEDT, this is an instance that is taken. It is one of the possibilities that a worker has to look for justice. The first issue is to represent and advise workers and unions if the workers and the unions request their assistance. For example, we could say, for example, if the public defense, public defender, let’s say for the worker is an institution that is part of the labor ministry to fulfill that gap if there is a request by a worker or by a union for example, or the workers that would like to form a union. So they can go to these Procuraduia General so that their advisors can help them in any sort of conflict that we had already mentioned whether it’s individual or collective issue.

However, the difference is that they are like public defenders. They cannot decide anything. They cannot do an evaluation. They are not arbitors because that’s what the CAB does. So that’s the difference that the Conciliation and Arbitration Board has the authority to hear the complaints and hear all kind of requests, whether individual or collective, so that they can call the parties involved, maybe the patron or the manager or the workers and ask them to submit evidence. Usually the proceedings are oral and usually both parties have legal representation and that’s where the controversies are cleared up.

The board has that authority. They can carry out this proceeding. The PROFEDT is more a conciliation and advice to the workers. For example, you can read the web page of the Procuradur and we could see that in some cases there are some workers that do use this recourse because some of the problems that we have, too, is that the public defender that could offer the CAB in some of the cases is totally inefficient. So they can go to this prosecutor’s office for the defense of the worker and in many cases they offer assistance, whether individual basis or collective basis. So basically what happens is that the cost that it implies to the companies is not very much but you can see that PROFEDT does not have a lot of cases regarding collective issues meaning a strike or the defense of a registry for the worker because the other going to PROFEDT is more expensive, so basically that’s the difference between PROFEDT and the CAB.

Of course the prosecutor’s office for the defense of the worker is represented in each one of the states.

SECRETARY KARESH: In the Submission there was a reference to Procuraduria General Justicia, that’s not PROFEDT right, or is that?

MS. ANCHEITA PAGAZA: (Through Interpreter) No.

SECRETARY KARESH: Okay, and it’s that agency that they indicated they filed complaints with.

MS. ANCHEITA PAGAZA: (Through Interpreter) In which one of the agencies are you asking where the complaints are filed?

SECRETARY KARESH: Procuraduria General Justicia.

MS. ANCHEITA PAGAZA: (Through Interpreter) It is very important to make a difference between these two agencies because, yes, there is a Procuraduria General de la Republica (ph) and each one of the states has it’s own general prosecutors of justice and they are part of the Judicial Branch and these agencies have the authority to hear all kind of violation of human rights, but they can also investigate and send this to the pertinent authorities and that’s another part and therefore, you could talk about the Judicial Branch that investigates and the different agencies in the labor channel, in the Labor Department which are administrative, which hear cases, they are arbitors, they look for conciliation of these different cases.

Regarding the Matamoros Garments case, I do not know this because I was not working on that case at the time, but I believe that the claim that was submitted to the Procuraduria General Justicia must be related to some sort of intimidation suffered by the workers since some -- for example, physical aggressions, verbal aggressions, hits, you know. So, vis-a-vis that situation, the right track is to go to the Procuraduria General Justicia which also hears -- that also hears and investigates possible crimes, but this is penal, criminal, but it’s not labor.

SECRETARY KARESH: Is there a PROFEDT office in Puebla, in Ajalpan and Esucar (ph) de Matamoros?

MS. ANCHEITA PAGAZA: (Through Interpreter) It should be an office of PROFEDT at the state level, let’s say in each one of the states of Mexico. So there should be a representative of PROFEDT in each one of the states. Obviously, there is one in Puebla and I believe it would be in Puebla City but I’m not very sure if there is one or a representative of this office and in Matamoros, in Tehuacan. Of course, that information, I can send it to you if you deem it necessary but they do have to have a representative in each one of the states.

SECRETARY KARESH: Are you aware of workers that use those offices and what kind of response or assistance they’ve gotten from those offices?

MS. ANCHEITA PAGAZA: (Through Interpreter) Well, I know that the workers of Tarrant did not use those offices or the assistance of PROFEDT because past experiences of different workers that have used this agency show that the public officers that are in charge of those offices when they try to “reach an agreement or conciliate or arbitor an issue”, quote unquote, they call the parties and in most of the cases they convince the workers to accept a severance that is below what is established by the law, therefore, benefiting the company.

Therefore, as you -- you can do an investigation, for example, you can ask different workers and there are a lot of reports. There is a report of what these offices have done where the public officers basically violate, infringe labor of the rise of the workers instead of defending them. What they do is they make the workers or they convince the workers to accept severance pays lower than those established by law. Since the experience is not good, the past record is not good, the workers of Tarrant decided not to use this instance and not to go to PROFEDT and therefore, this is not a compulsory step but the workers request advice and intervention from this agency.

SECRETARY KARESH: When workers have complaints and allegations maybe regarding failure to pay wages or failure to pay overtime or forced overtime, or that they were -- you know, that they’re being harassed in the workplace or were improperly dismissed or threatened with dismissal, what is the appropriate office, what is the appropriate governmental office that they should go to for that and file a claim, a complaint?

MS. ANCHEITA PAGAZA: (Through Interpreter) It’s the Conciliation and Arbitration Board because one thing that we should highlight and I think you know this already, is that the Secretariat of Labor and Social Welfare, this is in our Federal Labor Law, establishes categories of the various offices that will be in charge of labor relations in the country. You can refer to our federal legislation, Article 523, where it establishes how these regulations will be enforced and it says it goes to their jurisdictions.

First of all, the Secretariat of Labor, secondly the Secretariat of the Treasury, then of the federal entities and at the state level and their offices, these are the various offices of the Secretariats itself but at the state level the National Service for Training, Labor Inspection, which also needs to have an office, the National Commission for Minimum Wages and National Commission for the Participation of Workers in Company Profit Sharing, local and federal conciliation boards, local conciliation -- or rather the Federal Conciliation and Arbitration Boards, the local boards and the jury of responsibility. So it makes it very clear which are the agencies, the institutions that are in charge of hearing any type of complaints or conflicts in labor relations and this is the way it should be if we follow the law exactly.

The offices that are the first ones that the workers go to are the local or the Federal Conciliation and Arbitration Boards depending on the conflict.

SECRETARY KARESH: Once the workers make the local labor board aware of their concerns, regardless of what the issue might be, the issues I mentioned are maybe safety and health issues, what is the responsibility and role of the junta officials? Are they supposed to do an investigation or do they have time frames or time limits for doing an investigation? Are there requirements to report back to the worker or the union? What’s the process for that?

MS. ANCHEITA PAGAZA: (Through Interpreter) In our legal system in Mexico we have general regulations or norms that we call them that establish that access to justice by any person must be expedited, must be timely and in general, we are talking about a period of six months, so this is access to justice on any issue because this is a general regulation.

Another example of the poor performance of the juntas, the Conciliation and Arbitration Boards is that on many occasions controversies, conflicts that are looked at take one or two years to resolve so in spite of the existence of these general regulations under which public servants, public officials must -- I was going to say give the workers an opportunity but it’s not that, they just have to give them access to their rights, they can still take a year or more to resolve the conflict and what they have argued is that they have excessive amounts of work. They have excessive work load at the local boards, nationwide practically and this is the reason why they cannot deal with issues in a timely manner.

So we have on the one hand what the labor legislation, federal labor legislation establishes and then more general Mexican law as well, but then on the other hand, we have the patterns of conduct that these agencies actually follow but they should give the response to the workers and often they don’t give them timely access to justice and for this reason, we think it is important to underline that.

The labor legislation in Mexico is not one of the problems. The problems is not -- the problem is not enforcement or non-compliance with this legislation by Mexican authorities and this argument has been presented in many other fora and many different ways and in the country there has been talk of a labor reform even though it is well-known that it is not our labor legislation that is ineffective, it’s our labor institutions that are not complying with the law.

SECRETARY KARESH: With regard to the union registration process, when workers file a petition to register a union, what is the responsibility under the law of the Labor Board and what is the responsibility of the Labor Board if it finds errors or mistakes or omissions in that petition and which -- and if you’re able to, could you point us to the particular articles of the labor law that cover that?

MS. ANCHEITA PAGAZA: (Through Interpreter) Of course, I mentioned it in my testimony but I will be happy to repeat it. When there is an application for registration of a union and labor authorities observe that there’s any kind of omission or even errors that have been a baseless really justification for denial and you can see this on the complaints from Matamoros Garment and for Tarrant, too. It was just a spelling or a typing error on one of the names. That was one of the justifications.

So even in case that there is a typo or something, labor authorities have the obligation to warn the workers of that error or of any omission they may find when they are reviewing the application for the union registration or any other petition that is being made to the board, it can be a claim because of unjustified dismissal and if the worker forgot to include his legal address so he can receive notice, notification, they have to say to him, “We will call you or tell you, let you know that it’s incomplete. You forgot to write down the name of the street”, or perhaps they could not find the street because he didn’t identify which street corner is was close to. So they have this obligation to let the workers know and these obligations are spelled out in Article 685 and 873 of the Federal Labor Law.

These articles establish that after any actions by the authorities, they have three days to correct the error or the omission after they have been notified to make these corrections for any of their claims and in this regard, it’s important to point out as I did earlier in my testimony that in the area of labor, one of the most significant aspects that people like me who protect rights and what we have said at the board and sometimes these are people who don’t know a lot about labor law and it’s necessary to say this, Article 18 of our Labor Law establishes that in case of any doubt authorities must interpret the law always in favor of the workers because Mexican labor law in its spirit is tutorial.

Because when our Political Constitution of 1917 was signed and Article 123, which establishes specifically the right to work, and also gives a very clear definition of other economic, social and cultural rights that Mexican workers have, it establishes that due to some differences and inequalities that exist between employers and workers that government must always be more respectful and careful of the rights of the workers. That is the spirit of the Constitution and of Article 123. Our federal labor law is the law based on Article 123 of the Constitution and it reflects that spirit which is also seen in Article 18 that I have just mentioned.

There’s another point that I think is important to mention. The application for registration is just an administrative procedure and these authorities have used this procedure of registering the unions as a control mechanism for the workers who have decided to organize themselves as an independent union, independent of the large central unions. You know these well. These have been mentioned and described and defined in the course of this hearing such as CTM, CROC, FROC-CROC, the Workers’ Congress, et cetera. So these boards will find any kind of deficiency in the worker’s application and use it as an excuse to deny them the registration.

And the main job of these Conciliation and Arbitration Boards through this registration is exactly what this says. It’s just to keep a record, a registry of the unions which the workers have the right to request and have requested, but it really should not have this role of deciding whether it has been done. However, the interpretation and the use that has been made of it has caused it to be applied in this way.

SECRETARY KARESH: I thought I heard you mention that the Board has -- did you say the Board has three days to indicate that a correction is needed or that the people filing it have three days to respond to it and where is that in the law because I don’t see that in Article 685?

MS. ANCHEITA PAGAZA: (Through Interpreter) I mentioned two articles, 685 and 873 and also in Article 18 of our Labor Legislation where it is established that labor authorities must warn the workers and the workers have three days to correct these omissions.

SECRETARY KARESH: The idea that filing a petition for registration and meeting all the requirements and getting your union registered is supposed to be proforma or administrative in nature. Is that laid out in the law or are there court decisions or pronouncements from the government to that effect? Where does that viewpoint come from and where is that expressed in the law?

MS. ANCHEITA PAGAZA: (Through Interpreter) The idea that the registration is an administrative procedure, is that the question? Where does it come from? Well, it comes specifically from the situation in which labor institutions are administrative and not judicial institutions.

I can also give you some references, some documents issued by the Supreme Court, some precedents, some Juris prudence. This is laid out also in a document that was submitted as an annex with the complaint that we’re discussing. I think it’s important, it’s an important question and I think we should read these and tell you when they were issued by the Supreme Court of Justice. This is from the fifth labor period with an isolated thesis from the registration room. This is the reference of where you can find this if you would like to visit the Supreme Court of Justice’s website. Otherwise, as I said, there’s a document where we also have this.

This is Volume L3X, page 2421, Rodriguez Ernesto, et al, May 9th, 1944 with four votes. The thesis what it says basically is that if the organization complies with the conditions substantive and form, the registration cannot be denied because there is no provision granting them that power. It’s a very clear example where it is established that the boards really only have the power to register these unions and not to make them as a constituent role which is what is currently happening. And this is what I think basically, is the violation to the freedom to associate in unions and then Agreement 87 of the International Labor Organizations some parameters are established for protection of workers and the freedom to assemble in unions and in the agreement itself the obligations are established for governments, for the signatories.

Mexico is one of the governments that signed and ratified Convention 87 of the ILO and as you know, in Article 133 of the Constitution establishes that all agreements, conventions and international treaties that have been signed by our President and ratified by the Senate become part of the body of -- legal body of Mexican legislation and, therefore, this agreement is completely applicable, enforceable and any Mexican citizen can refer to it when establishing that his or her labor rights are being violated especially in the case of the right to form unions.

SECRETARY KARESH: Thank you, that’s very helpful. We tried to write those numbers down and those cases but maybe we can check with you afterwards to make sure that we got them correct. In the Submission there’s a reference to a paras technicos. Can you talk a little bit about that, explain to us, you know, what that is and where the references are in the law to it and what process has to be followed in order to have that done permissibly?

MS. ANCHEITA PAGAZA: (Through Interpreter) This is another topic that has been mentioned at this hearing but I do think it’s important to say that in our federal labor legislation there is no specific definition of what a paras tecnicos is. You can find in our Federal Labor Law several different chapters that refer to labor relations or where references are made and there are two modes, suspension and termination of the relationship, collective relations, labor relations.

And here you can see in Article 427 through 432 collective suspension of labor relations, what their definition is and what the procedure should be for avoiding an impact on the workers’ rights. In the following chapter, there’s a reference to collect -- termination of collective labor relations, and this goes from Article 433 to 439. Also here the text defines what should be considered a final termination of the relations in which cases is this allowed, who should be informed of these two situations, of suspension as well as collective terminations and again, these are the Conciliation and Arbitration Boards when a company or a factory, an employer, is in a situation such as the ones described in these chapters in which it is forced to suspend the labor relations, it must notify the board and if there is a union then the union must be notified. Obviously, if there is no union, then the workers who are working there should be notified.

And there are situations or special requirements in order for this suspension to be legal. The same goes for termination of the labor relations. There must be specific characteristics established by the law itself in these articles I have just mentioned and unless these conditions are complied with and these procedures are followed, the situation is deemed illegal, and obviously, they effect the rights of workers because the right to work is a right that is linked to other kinds of rights such as the right of seniority or promotions or Social Security or retirement, the right to housing, the right to training, the right to wages that are sufficient and most of them don’t have that but we continue to struggle to fulfill that right, so it’s not just one right that’s being effected and this is why labor legislation when it was established care was taken to establish these conditions for the case of suspension or termination of the collective labor relations. I have not found in any other place a specific definition of paras technicos.

SECRETARY KARESH: In the case of Tarrant were these procedures followed by the employer?

MS. ANCHEITA PAGAZA: (Through Interpreter) As far as I know they did not.

SECRETARY KARESH: In those kinds of situations where procedures were not followed, what kind of options do workers have? I mean, are they able to file complaints about that?

MS. ANCHEITA PAGAZA: (Through Interpreter) Yes, obviously the procedure is that a lawsuit or a suit or a claim is submitted to the board and there have been significant cases, important cases from a legal perspective, even if the results have not been the best for workers themselves. An example is the case of a company called Imprinta Morales (ph) it used to exist under that name, and the company declared itself in bankruptcy even though that was not the situation. The company was shut down. The workers were not notified and the employers left, leaving over 100 families completely defenseless. They depended on this company. It was a small plant, small shop but about 100 factories -- I mean, families depended on it. And the workers filed a complaint at the Board of Conciliation and Arbitration and this went up to the District Courts and they won. What they won was their severance pay through the sale of the machinery, the equipment which because of its size, the employers were not able to take with them. But this case took five years to resolve, five years during which the workers and their families had to live under a very difficult situation financially and also very stressful but they were being helped by various human rights organizations and organizations that support workers’ rights, and it was never government institutions who were supporting them. That’s true also.

And they were able to hang in there, but when they were given this favorable decision, they had already spent five years in a terrible situation and they had to face another set of problems. Now, who will buy this equipment so that they money that is obtained from that sale can be distributed among the workers because this equipment after five years was obsolete.

So this is another example of what can happen in this type of situation even when these complaints result in a decision favorable to the workers.

SECRETARY KARESH: Were there any complaints filed in the case of Tarrant or Matamoros regarding the closing down of the businesses?

MS. ANCHEITA PAGAZA: (Through Interpreter) You mean to the CAB? Not to my knowledge.

SECRETARY KARESH: Our understanding was there were still some workers’ cases pending where they had filed complaints saying they had been improperly dismissed and they were seeking reinstallation into their positions. Do you know what the current status is of any of those complaints whether they’re before the CAB or the courts, wherever they may be and what’s happening with those? We were originally told there were supposed to be some hearings in March but I don’t know if those occurred or not.

MS. ANCHEITA PAGAZA: (Through Interpreter) Well, the hearings took place. All the workers that had asked to be reinstated received severance pay and they were fired or their jobs terminated.

SECRETARY KARESH: The severance that they received, was the because the Board found in their favor and said, “You’re owed this severance”, or was it that they just could not continue the cases and they basically took the severance and withdrew the case?

MS. ANCHEITA PAGAZA: (Through Interpreter) In all the cases the sentence was not given. Obviously, the workers were facing very difficult economic problems and they agreed with the company that the severance pay would be given according to the federal labor law. So it was not something -- it was not a decision by the Board. The agreement was reached upon an intermediate stage.

SECRETARY KARESH: Under Mexican labor law, if a worker is fired or dismissed, and he claims or she claims that it was because of anti-union animus, the person was fired because of union activities, what does the worker have to show in court in order to win? Is it enough that that was one of the reasons for the dismissal or under Mexican law can an employer come and say, “Well, maybe I fired her because she joined the union but I also fired her because she wasn’t a good worker”?

MS. ANCHEITA PAGAZA: (Through Interpreter) I don’t know if I understood your question correctly. Let’s see with my answer. The fact that a worker, female or male, belongs to a union with the union as strong as it is, it is not in most cases a reason for dismissal. Now, of course, many of the unions are what we call corporate unions that are known by the companies and they are not a danger for the company, a threat for the companies. So any reason given for the dismissal of a worker according to the labor law, even though there are some exceptions in the chapter talking about rights and obligations for workers and owners or management and I can give you the articles if you want to, if this person is fired for belonging to the opposing union or for forming a union besides the one already existing, it is an unjust cause and they can ask for the rehire for baseless firing and the burden of the proof is on the owner of the company because the worker asks for his or her rights, but the one that has to show that the firing was not baseless and the reason he is alleging meaning, “Because I belong to an independent union and because I want to form an independent union or because I am fighting for the democracy within the union”, that does not respond to the rights of the workers.

If the worker writes that reason for baseless firing, the burden of the proof is on the company itself because that is where the burden of the proof lies. But I don’t really know too many cases where this baseless reason was because I belong to a union because most of the unions in Mexico as we said before, charro (ph), that was the word that they used, those are the unions that respond more to the owners than to the workers.

SECRETARY KARESH: There have been some Submissions or Allegations that some workers were not paid minimum wage, a violation of law. Can you explain to me how minimum wage is determined in Mexico and does it include just the base wage or in determining the wage paid to the worker and whether it meets minimum wage, does that include other kinds of benefits that might be given like the cost of providing a meal or Christmas bonus or things like that? How do you determine whether the wage that a worker is receiving meets the minimum wage or not?

MS. ANCHEITA PAGAZA: (Through Interpreter) The minimum wage in Mexico is related to a lot of economic variables. There is three different wages or salaries, minimum wages and they are divided into three regions, A, B and C. Region A is the north of the country, all the border states with the US north of Chihuahua up to Alvajio (ph), Sonora, Chihuahua, up to el Bajillo, el Bajillo, San Luis, Guanajujato, Sacateca (ph), Lascala, the Federal District, that’s B and then the southeast is C. The minimum wage right now is 42.11 pesos and I don’t know how many dollars that is.

And this minimum salary should cover the minimum needs of the workers; for example, food, clothes, housing, and education as well. Of course, this is something that is not complied with. The minimum wage is determined by the mixed Commission of Minimum Wages that is made up by representatives of different agencies mentioned in the labor law and the articles I mentioned. And this commission is under the Labor Ministry. Of course, it should also cover the minimum articles of what we call the basic basket and with 42 pesos as you know, does not cover the minimum needs of a family.

And that was a debate that we had with the Secretary of Social Welfare and because the minimum wage is something that has been the issue of debates for years in Mexico. And this is defined every year taking into account for example, the GP, GNP, the investments, different economic variables that I personally do not know but we can send you the information on how this minimum salary is determined in Mexico.

What I wanted to mention is that the salary is established with the labor law and this is something that is not -- it’s a right that is not complied with. And the minimum salary is divided into three regions, A, B and C. This response to the economic differences that we have in the three regions. It is said that A is more -- is richer than the southeastern part of the country and therefore, the minimum salary should be higher at the southeast part of the country than north or Bajillo. Bajillo is the industrial area of our country.

SECRETARY KARESH: That’s the question of how you establish what the minimum wage is. I appreciate that. Let me ask you this; when -- what I’m trying to find out is what goes into determining whether a worker is actually being paid that minimum wage. For example, let’s say a worker takes home a paycheck and it shows that he’s made 40 pesos in a particular day and we’re assuming that the minimum wage is supposed to be 42 pesos, is there something else that goes into determining whether the worker is actually receiving the minimum wage other than just the money he takes home? Is there a situation where, for example, would an employer say, “Yes, he was paid 40 pesos but I served him lunch and lunch is worth two pesos and I provided some other service that’s worth two pesos and so therefore, I do meet the minimum wage requirement”, that’s the question I was wondering about. What kinds of things can go into that kind of a factor?

MS. ANCHEITA PAGAZA: (Through Interpreter) Yes. It can be determined when there is a company that hires workers, they have to pay at least the minimum salary and the way to check this is in the check, the receipt that you get whether there is weekly by weekly or monthly. That receipt has the salary and if there is any what we call the occupational minimum salary which is a technical. The minimum is the minimum. You cannot give less. You have to give more according to their skills that the worker has, so each receipt issued by the companies when they pay it has to show the salary and the other -- the additional, for example, a specialized skill, overtime, some sort of bonus or whatever, anything that the company has decided to grant the workers.

Another important issue is that when a worker is hired, the companies must register them at the IMSS. This Social Security Mexican Institute is the one that makes sure to offer all the social services for the workers and their families, dependents and the ones that will benefit from the social services. And the objective is for basically health care. It is a comprehensive health care which is something that IMSS offers where workers and their families can go and their families, and families include the wife, the husband, the parents and the children of the worker, they are the beneficiaries of this and this registry or this registration of the workers that the company should do it implies an investment by the companies in the social security of their workers.

And there is also a deduction of some sort of dues that they -- for social security, I would say it’s like the FICA here in the US and this has to be part of the receipt here. And another thing that we should mention is that the companies must pay -- must declare the net salary of the workers and many times the companies report only the minimum salary and therefore, the contributions to the government is minimum. So basically that’s another thing that we should have mentioned.

SECRETARY KARESH: Okay, thank you very much. We appreciate your time.

MS. ANCHEITA PAGAZA: (Through Interpreter) Thanks to you.

SECRETARY KARESH: Mr. Cokelet, please proceed.

MR. COKELET: Sure, thanks. My name is Benjamin Edward Cokelet. Before I give an introduction and hopefully very brief testimony, I’ll just make three disclaimers. One is that two weeks ago when we had to submit the written statements of our intention to testify, I submitted about four and a half pages of essentially complete testimony but something I’ve changed since then for various reasons, given what’s already been said. So you guys have that on record, I’m sure and if you need to ask me questions about it, feel free and go ahead, especially regarding the conversations and the e-mails I exchanged with the former operator and director of Matamoros Garment. I believe that was one of the main questions that you guys were interested in asking me about.

In addition, I think one of the other points from that written testimony which I should mention is that I was invited by workers in the CAT on several occasions to accompany both Matamoros Garment and Tarrant workers in meetings with the state and federal governments as well as meet with folks in their home, so, you know, I have met with workers from both factories, heard their testimonies as well as met with and heard the government’s perspective on this stuff also, so if you guys have questions for me about that, feel free but I won’t go ahead and repeat what I already submitted.

And I guess my last disclaimer is that I hope to be the only witness today that does this in under 10 minutes. So my capacity is a consultant for the American Center for International Labor Solidarity, AFL-CIO. I’ve been employed there since January 21st, 2003 where I’ve been a liaison between the Solidarity Center’s Mexico office and the Center of the Apoyo al Trabajador or the CAT located in Puebla, Mexico. Among other duties I’ve collaborated with the CAT during the Matamoros Garment and Tarrant Mexico Ajalpan campaigns including assisting the CAT with communication with international allies, conducting corporate research and providing strategic and organizational advice.

Though I have not participated in either the Matamoros Garment or Tarrant campaigns in a hands-on, organizing role, through invitations from the CAT and the Maquiladora workers themselves, I’ve met with workers and their families in their homes, accompanied the CAT and the workers in meeting with Puebla state government officials and the Mexican Federal Government. On occasion, I’ve met with or had contact with the garment and factory owners and their international apparel clients and maintained contact with the CAT’s international allies who have likewise had contact with the workers, the factories and their international clients as well as the Mexican Government.

So essentially I want to cover today is a slight review of what’s been said, the issues that we see as a collective group pending in the cases that we’ve presented before you folks, the case of Matamoros Garment and Tarrant as well as I want to finalize and kind of add more meat to I believe the four or five recommendations that you’ve heard two or three times today from some of the other panelists. First, just to give the brief context of what we’ve already spoken about, as {  } mentioned and as {  } mentioned, after 70 plus years of PRI rule in Mexico, you know, with the election of {  }, people in Mexico as well as, I’m sure in other countries, including the United States had hoped for significant change with the Administration of Justice’s enforcement of Mexico’s labor law and its compliance with international labor law, especially its agreement under the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation.

So it was in this vein that -- or I should say in the last three years that these workers, the Kukdong workers, the Matamoros Garment workers and the Tarrant workers have undertaken these campaigns and what they hoped were surely would be a new climate of labor justice in Mexico. The agreements or the submissions that we’ve submitted or that USAS, the CAT and Maquila Solidarity Network have submitted have spoken to the Mexican Government’s failure to uphold its obligations under federal labor law, international agreements and the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation, in all three cases what we believe are trade related issues in the sense that all three were garment factory support producing for export to the United States, Canada and lesser so Europe also.

Essentially the NAALC principles as well as the obligations that we feel have been addressed in the Submission include a general duty to provide high labor standards, effective enforcement of labor laws, due process, transparency, timeliness and effective remedies for labor rights violations, promoting public awareness of labor law and workers’ rights, freedom of association, the right to organize as well as the right to collective bargaining and something that on behalf of everyone who has given their testimony today I’d like to emphasize, of course, are the violations of the Occupational Safety and Health Standards in both cases of Matamoros Garment and Tarrant, the minimum employment standards including the minimum wage laws, which we can talk about later in the question and answer or if you guys feel it’s already been covered in the case of Matamoros Garment and, of course particularly with the overtime and the lack of paid overtime in both cases.

Of course, access to fair and transparent labor tribunal proceedings which has been an issue in all three cases, insuring the labor tribunals operating in a fair and equitable fashion, with appropriate remedies as well as probably the mention but perhaps not so deeply explored allegations of child labor protection, especially in the Matamoros Garment and Tarrant factories where here today we don’t have first-hand testimony of, you know, actual child laborers, but of course, second-hand corroborated testimony of instances in both cases of child labor in both factories.

Before I go on to address, I think, the demands that the folks who have testified today have essentially set out or their wish or their desire out of these proceedings, I think it’s important to mention or reiterate what’s already been said that this is, of course, a classical case of collusion of state and federal governments, the company and the protection contract union and in both cases as evidenced by the tri-partite Conciliation and Arbitration Boards that {  }, {  } and others have talked about.

USAS has asked me to mention something that wasn’t mentioned in the first testimony which is, perhaps in later submissions or what have you, there were two United students and Sweat Shop students that were in Mexico this past summer who personally interviewed and met with and accompanied both Matamoros Garment and Tarrant workers and actually, essentially wrote and distributed to the submission you guys already have. So if you would, at any time, like to meet with them, we could arrange that also.

And of course, before talking about the actual requests or demands we have, it’s important to comment that earlier when we mentioned the coercion and intimidation that’s taken place in both cases, workers being forced to sign agreements, meeting under conditions of duress with management and local labor board being present, in the case of Matamoros Garment accepting back pay, the question has come up from your side as why haven’t the workers, why haven’t the CAT, why haven’t the lawyers pursued more effective remedies through the justice system, why haven’t they perhaps filed demand when they could have, why haven’t they, you know, presented themselves in front of a government entity that they might have not thought of, for example, PROFEDT and I think it’s important to mention in all cases that because quite literally of the coercion and intimidation in both cases, both directed towards the CAT, as well as the workers and in all three cases, including Kukdong, there’s obviously a high, almost undescribable level of fear, literally fear for one’s life but also fear for physical injury and so on that was evidenced in the case of Kukdong. Before the Matamoros case was underway in November 2000, workers there did a one-day strike and were also beaten by essentially riot police. So as you can imagine, the level of intimidation and fear, I think is the most clear answer as to why folks have not gone forward with perhaps more high level demands in front of the Mexico’s Department of Labor and Social Welfare as well as in front of the state.

So essentially to flesh out more of demands and requests that the CAT, USAS and Maquila Solidarity Network have already made in front of the USAO and the Mexican Government, the first that we listed was a report summarizing the obligations of the Mexican Government to respect its national laws and the NAALC principles. Needless to say this would probably be the thousandth time that you’ve issued a report on these principles, but nevertheless, out of these cases are very serious issues and once again, the petitioners in this case are asking for the public written commitment of the Mexican Government to uphold these standards and these principles. That, perhaps is the most basic request.

Secondly, that the USNAO recommend ministerial consultations in this case on issues presented before your panel, the 11 NAALC principles and if unresolved, vis-a-vis, what I’m about to say, of course, the petitioners ask that this reach a committee of experts. We feel that that would be an effective second step to address the violations presented in these cases, understanding, of course, that three of the NAALC principles will not be included at this level, nevertheless the occupational safety hazards, the child labor protections, being locked in a factory, and the minimum employment standards, minimum wage and overtime would be eligible at that level.

So needless to say, we hope that the USNAO would recommend ministerial consultations in its report and perhaps in further levels, if we do reach an evaluation committee of experts, that the federal and Puebla Conciliation and Arbitration Boards, number one, publicly disclose the registros and collective bargaining agreements at the federal and local levels specifically in Puebla and that they grant the registros in a transparent manner in accordance with the federal labor law to unions, both independent and otherwise, I of course, would request this.

And of course, the third demand or third request is because essentially in proven cases in ministerial consultation reports issued by the USNAO and the knowledge {  } presented in the legal record in Mexico, that the local Conciliation and Arbitration Board system is essentially broken and does not work, which is why we recommend to hope that you would recommend out of an evaluation committee of experts or at the level of ministerial consultations the establishment of a tri-national oversight committee, something composed of labor rights experts with the power to investigate and issue reports regarding allegations of violations in the first three NAALC principles, the ones not addressed at the evaluation committee of experts level and beyond, freedom of association, protection of the right to organize, the right to bargain collectively and the right to strike, specifically focus on the denial of registros, the use of black lists and denial of secret ballot votes in requinto (ph) elections.

Perhaps the last statement, the secret ballot votes requinto elections is something we haven’t quite reached in this case, but nevertheless, it’s obvious that if there as a more fair system at the earlier stages of the process, we could reach that stage and have to have effective enforcement and perhaps an oversight to be able to assure that that also was transparent and just.

The fourth is that we recommend the holding of a public cooperative activity in Puebla on the theme of the freedom of association and specifically the right of a union to receive its registros under federal labor law with the participation of the governor, the local Conciliation and Arbitration Board, the organizations that have presented the submission, obviously the workers themselves and hopefully with the presence of the Secretary of Labor and Social Welfare.

Lastly that, as mentioned, out of this hearing, out of your public report, and perhaps out of the ministerial consultations if they do not work, that I recommend that the issues in this Submission that are subject to review be moved to an evaluation committee of experts and be reviewed by such a committee. And I think it’s important to close just by saying though we’ve essentially proven that the workers in both cases have exhausted the legal organizing and perhaps moral remedies available to them in these cases, in a sense they literally and legally have exhausted themselves and, you know, essentially all possible outlets, on both cases, Matamoros Garment and Tarrant workers have told me and told us they still want an independent union registros. This is still a demand on the table essentially that they have before any available body. So needless to say, if they have accepted their -- or if they accepted severance payments, which we can argue have been illegal, and if they have essentially exhausted some of the legal remedies available to us, wouldn’t it be wonderful if out of the tension around this case and around the government’s compliance with its own labor laws already stated, if they were able to grant the independent union registros in both cases, perhaps more likely in Tarrant because the factory supposedly is going to reopen in May or June of this year and there’s a chance then to move to that level. So I’ll end with that and, of course, if you have any questions, please feel free to go ahead.

SECRETARY KARESH: Thank you, Mr. Cokelet. Do you know if there are any workers who were at Tarrant who didn’t take severance and they were still left fighting their cases or have all those cases been concluded now?

MR. COKELET: It’s my understanding and without eyes in the back of my head, will not know if I’m speaking out of turn, our understanding is of the original people that have filed reinstallation demands, essentially trying to get their legally entitled reinstallation or their legally entitled severance pay, some haven’t been able to present themselves at their reinstallation hearings. So there are still, I believe three pending cases of folks that have not been able to complete the process of actually showing up to the hearing to say yeah or nay whether they want to continue with this.

Of the people that we’ve identified, we know where they are and who have showed up to the hearings, 100 percent of them have accepted, perhaps 10 percent, 100 percent of their legally entitled severance pay and others perhaps between 50 and 70 percent.

SECRETARY KARESH: And if Tarrant is closed, where is the money coming to pay these severance payments? Are they selling assets or is there somebody else who’s making the payments on behalf of the facility?

MR. COKELET: Unlike the case of Matamoros Garment, where essentially the director went bankrupt and fled to the United States, Tarrant is owned by an international consortium of Los Angeles based companies and there are Mexican investors as well who essentially have quite deep pockets and have other investments in Mexico, for example AZT International, which is the wholly owned subsidiary of Azteca Production International also a Los Angeles based company, also owned by the same Guess (ph) brothers that own Tarrant, also with a significant investment by a man named {  } (ph) who is a Mexican investor, as I said, investing in both and according to most SEC documents, currently operating the AZT and former Tarrant factories in Mexico.

We have not seen a document other than press releases and newspaper articles saying that the factory has indeed closed. It’s let the workers go obviously. It’s essentially given severance pay less than 100 percent to everyone who was working there, but there still is a functioning office at the Ajalpan plant, staffed by the administrator, who we’ve mentioned today named {  }, which gives us one, an idea that the factory to some extent is still operational, at least at the administrative level, and secondly, that as noted in SEC documents and press statements, that {  } is most likely -- is taking over the operation, the full time operation of these factories as a significant stockholder of Tarrant Apparel Group and Azteca. Azteca is a private company but as a significant investor I Azteca and as the administrator of the factory told the workers when they were let go, it would most likely reopen in May or June of this year.

So as we see it, it’s still a pending closure. It hasn’t officially closed in the sense that Matamoros Garment is now growing weeds literally in the ground where they used to make the garments. Now, Tarrant Ajalpan is still a potentially viable factory and as far as we know, a legally operational company at this point.

SECRETARY KARESH: What is the responsibility of the Labor Board to inform workers that an employer has filed papers or has received a ruling allowing an economic closure of a facility? Is there a responsibility on a Labor Board to inform workers, are there requirements to post notices? I mean, what’s the requirement?

MR. COKELET: Once again, without the eyes in the back of my head, I won’t know who’s looking at me funny, but my understanding is that in the case, for example of Matamoros, it’s still a pending decision of paras technicos. There was never an official closure in that case. In the case of Tarrant, there were paras technicos announced from January 20th to essentially February 3rd or 5th of this year when the factory closed, so for the last two weeks of January. So for these two cases, they’re essentially both cases of a pending paras technicos that never had the official -- essentially never shut down officially.

I frankly, don’t know what the law states related to how they need to shut down factories, whether the workers and their representative and the company have to sign an agreement in front of the junta which is my guess, but frankly, I’ll let {  } or anyone else who can answer that question come to the microphone if they can do that.

SECRETARY KARESH: Well, why don’t we take Mr. Cokelet up on that? Is -- anybody else want to comment on the closings and what the requirements may be for the Labor Board to inform workers?

MS. ANCHEITA PAGAZA: (Through Interpreter) On the question you asked Benjamin, we had talked earlier about collective -- a termination of collective labor relations and this is in the case of a closure of any plant or company for any reason, the law establishes the appropriate reasons and specifically in Article 3435 it is established that employers must inform the Conciliation and Arbitration Board or the Federal Board, depending on the type of company, about the situation that is taking place and why there will be this shutting down and the collective relations will be terminated and the Board can approve these justifications by the company or plant or not.

And when there’s an approval or a rejection, those who have the authority to legally notify the workers, are the people of the junta. Although we must assume that in case there is a union, those who must inform the workers themselves about the closing of a plant are the leaders of the union because they have to agree with the employers on payments, severance of the workers, the bonus for seniority or for retirement or even proportional payment for benefits such as the end of the year bonus, proportionately in case they didn’t close in December, they closed in May. Then it’s pro rated.

If I may show you on this specific point there is a report by the CEREAL in Mexico. They participated as a human rights organization in the case of the closure of Phillips Company in Mexico. Just by coincidence, the workers found out -- they were mostly women, they found out really just by coincidence, they had a union and the union had already made an agreement with the company with the knowledge of the board on the closure of the factory and the severance, et cetera, and they had not notified the workers.

They just happened to find out. They called the CEREAl and they were able to have an negotiation with the union so that the union would demand this severance from the company. So this was done and the Phillips Company finally left. I can give you a copy of that report on how this closure happened and who must be notified, who does it and who has the obligation of notifying the workers of an imminent closure of a company or factory.

SECRETARY KARESH: Mr. Cokelet, you indicated that you were at several meetings with the workers and with junta officials and other people. In particular there was this notion of payments made to workers and in the submission, I guess there was an allegation that they were illegal payments or improper payments or insufficient payments. Can you talk a little bit about that, exactly what you mean by illegal payments and what the junta’s involvement in that was?

MR. COKELET: You’re referring to Matamoros. You have this in writing but I can repeat it once again. It’s -- essentially what I have written on March 21st is a submission -- it’s a written statement for this, the first one that I haven’t mentioned today, which is in late 2002, early 2003, Matamoros Garment was producing for Puma and Puma came to Matamoros Garment and supposedly did an audit of the factory and in one of their follow-up letters to the CAT, essentially to the workers through the CAT, they admitted that there were payments made under the minimum wage at the factory and they referred us at the time to a web site that is no longer operational but we have copies of pay stubs at the time that show quite clearly workers were paid 39 pesos a day, which at the time was below the legally set minimum wage for Zone C which is Puebla.

What happened as a result of this -- or I should say earlier what happened is on January 14th, the day after the work stoppage at Matamoros Garment, the junta came and witnessed what was essentially the workers’ main grievance, three and a half weeks back pay going back all the way to early December, the payments of these 39 pesos per day wages, which of course at the time were illegal. So when I say that there were illegal wages, Puma corroborated that there were illegal wages. We have the date when workers were paid these wages. We know the junta signed off on the payments that day, so that’s why I say that. Even if the junta itself didn’t admit it, it was there when the workers were paid 39 pesos per day as Puma corroborated in their audit.

SECRETARY KARESH: So I take it, it’s your assertion that since the junta official witnessed this, that officials should have been aware that these payments were lower than minimum wage and didn’t react to that in any particular way.

MR. COKELET: Because it’s quite clear in the statements and actually we’ve submitted it into evidence so you folks should have that. The statement is literally showing 39 pesos per day as the base wage. So he would have essentially had to sign a document verifying that he had seen workers sign these pay stubs that day. So, yes, that’s essentially what I’m asserting. He knew he was watching these -- {  } mentioned his name, I don’t recall his name right now, but the junta official, and he essentially witnessed those payments of 39 pesos per day, which was illegal.

MS. VELAZQUEZ DIAZ: (Through Interpreter) Photographs, I don’t know if you saw them, there the ones that show the payment stubs for 39 pesos and in 2003 it was supposed to be 40.2 or something like that. And that’s where they were, of course, infringing on the right to a minimum wage which was not 39 pesos and I can repeat the name of that person who was present even present when the stoppage began. That was {  }. He’s a person in charge of Special Junta Number 2 in Puebla.

SECRETARY KARESH: Mr. Cokelet, in the testimony that you’ve provided us you indicated that you accompanied workers to meetings September 24th and 25th with the junta in Puebla and then on the 26th, I believe to meetings with the Mexican Labor Department in Mexico City. Can you provide any further information on what happened subsequent to those meetings, what kind of responses you got from those officials and did they provide anything in writing?

MR. COKELET: At the time of those meetings, on September 24th, 25th and 26th, 2003, an English solidarity group named No Sweat had a delegation of roughly seven or eight folks that were visiting Puebla and I accompanied them as invited by the workers and by the CAT to help interpret but also to be present as essentially a witness, as they were, in these meetings with government officials. So on September 24th and 25th and subsequent days, we did meet with the junta locale of Puebla. Essentially, it was meeting with them to find out what the status was of the pending registros application that would have as its 60-day expiration date October 6th.

The first day the person we met with was {  }, who declared himself not able to give us a satisfactory response, so without further ado we left and came back the following day, the 25th. That day was a longer conversation. We met with {  } (ph) which is the President of the junta from Puebla. Essentially, he told us many things, some of which {  } has already stated. One thing I’d like to clarify is that instead of telling us that it was a union called Bella Sario Dominguez (ph), which he actually told us was that the workers at the Tarrant Ajalpan factory already had a protection -- he didn’t say a protection contract, but he said they already had a collective bargaining agreement, that the workers were unaware of signed by the Sindacato Nacional de Landucia de la Contexion similare si Connectsos (ph).

This, he said, was part of the CTM Workers Federation of Mexico, who had their Secretary General, a man named {  }. This was the second time that the workers in this case were told that a different union already existed that hold their collective bargaining rights. The first time a FROC-CROC representative early in August told the workers that. This was the second time and the third time was at the denial of the union registros. The workers were again told by the local labor board that they had something called the Sindicato Judinial (ph), which would make it three different protection contract unions they essentially were told that they had.

And that day he also mentioned that he had spoken with the Governor about the pending registros application. The Governor, as {  } mentioned, supports strong unions in Puebla and gave every indication to us through {  } that they were going to look favorably upon the workers’ application. I believe the workers, myself, the group No Sweat and the CAT left that day, perhaps, naively hopeful that things would have changed.

On the 26th -- I guess it’s worth mentioning that day we also delivered to {  } what was a rough draft, essentially of the submission by the CAT and USAS at the time of this very submission that you guys -- that we’re having a hearing for right now, as well as we delivered to him copies of all the legal documents that we had submitted and as well associated newspaper articles that had come out on this case, including the announced 4500 firings that happened, that was announced by the Mexican press, roughly August 5th of 2003.

That day he gave me his e-mail address and asked me to follow up with him by e-mail to talk about how we could be in contact about essentially providing him with further documents that he might need to help make a favorable decision which was the impression we left with by October 6th. The e-mail address he gave me turned out not to work. On September 26th, not having had a satisfactory response necessarily the day before, the workers and the CAT invited myself and No Sweat to go to the Secretary of Labor and Social Welfare in Mexico, where we met with representatives of {  }, we did not meet with him, himself, and we again, essentially had two demands; one, “Please show us the collective bargaining agreement that supposedly already represented the workers at the plant”. That day we went with information given to us the day before, that was the CTM contract.

At the time, of course, {  } would not show us information the day before. He said that we had to find that information out for ourselves in Mexico City, in {  }’s office, which is where we went. Of course, that day they told us they weren’t the competent folks to give us the information. That was something that we might have to work out with the federal delegate that they have operating in Puebla, a man named {  }, who the CAT later met with on October 6th.

There was a letter exchanged after a meeting with STPS that’s already been submitted into evidence, essentially following up on not the commitments because no commitments were made but following up on the conversation, essentially a formality saying, “Thank you for meeting with us”. I have not exchanged further communications with the junta nor with STPS. That last communication to the CAT and the workers was the last pending communication we had from the meeting on September 26th.

SECRETARY KARESH: Did you also give a copy of the draft submission to people at STPS when you met with them?

MR. COKELET: Yes, we did, so hopefully they’re translated by now.

SECRETARY KARESH: Do you have the names or does anyone else in the group might have a list of the people you met with at STPS that you could share with us?

MR. COKELET: I believe Blanca or Shaila gave that name to you folks earlier, so if Blanca or Shaila want to come up to the mike and give that name to you once again, I would invite them to do so.

MS. VELAZQUEZ DIAZ: (Through Interpreter) Yes, it was {  }, {  } (ph) from the Labor Secretariat in Mexico and October 6th with {  } of the Labor Secretariat in Puebla.

MR. COKELET: May I add something before you ask a question? Is that okay?

SECRETARY KARESH: Please.

MR. COKELET: As you pointed out before, I forget, earlier you asked for the original denial from the Kukdong case of the registros. We have that here. Also {  } just gave me essentially the case from the Phillips case that she just mentioned to you, so you guys can take copies of that, as well, it’s worth mentioning if you think it will be helpful, throughout both the Matamoros Garment and the Tarrant cases to add more meat to everything we’ve been saying, there were regular bi-weekly updates that the CAT wrote on behalf of the workers’ campaigns that were distributed publicly among international solidarity allies.

For example, one which gives much more meat to the meeting that happened on January 21st, 2003 after the workers at Matamoros signed the agreement which we’ve already submitted into evidence between the director of Matamoros Garment and the workers which was testified earlier as having essentially failed. In addition, all throughout -- during the eight months of Matamoros and the eight months of this case, Tarrant, as I said, there should be roughly bi-weekly updates that we can make available to you if you think that would help flesh out details of the case.

SECRETARY KARESH: Thank you. Yes, we’d be happy to receive whatever documents you believe might be relevant. And that includes any other court decisions or CAB decisions or other documents that talk about the relevant issues. I guess on the Kukdong case, we had particularly asked for a copy of the decision originally denying the registration, but obviously, also if it’s available, we’d appreciate a copy of the -- if there was a written decision reversing that and announcing the acceptance of the registration as well.

There’s one other question I’d like to clarify, I’m not sure, Mr. Cokelet if you know the answer or if perhaps one of the other presenters know the answer. We talked about this earlier but it still wasn’t clear to us that there had been complaints filed with the Puebla Attorney General’s office or the Procurdoria Federal de Justicia (ph) and we were just wondering if anything ever came of any of those complaints that were filed for harassment or any other of those issues.

MR. COKELET: The answer is, no, and on December 16th, 2003 Molly from USAS submitted essentially a detailed answer to questions that included that response, the short answer is, no. Of the wage demand filed, near the end of the Matamoros Garment case when the factory essentially -- effectively closed, of the demand that the cotton workers or I should say the notarized testimonies that the cotton workers gave the Attorney General’s office in Puebla when they were intimidated -- some incident of intimidation, I believe, during February of 2003, neither one of those had any further follow-up on the part of the government or any other state or federal entity in Mexico. So the short answer is, no.

SECRETARY KARESH: In a submission regarding the Matamoros Garment case, there was indication on union registration that when the denial was issued, that it was -- the Board’s decision as sent to the wrong address and therefore, wasn’t received until the time period for appeal had almost run. Can you explain to us why no appeal was filed?

MR. COKELET: In this case since the Matamoros Garment workers aren’t present, I would suggest Blanca from the CAT shall testify to that aspect.

MS. VELAZQUEZ DIAZ: (Through Interpreter) Could you repeat the question, please?

SECRETARY KARESH: Yes, in the submission regarding the Matamoros Garment facility, the submission stated that the decision from the Labor Board denying the union registration was sent to the wrong address and therefore wasn’t received by the workers in sufficient time to allow for an appeal, but it did indicate that, in fact, it was received before the full appeal period had run, and my question is why the workers did not attempt to file an appeal within that time period.

MS. VELAZQUEZ DIAZ: (Through Interpreter) Well, it was not on Matamoros Garment case where it was in the Tarrant case. It was sent to the wrong address, that it was supposed to be received on the 20th but it came on the 26th or 28th and the denial was based on similar of Tarrant because that was a typo in the last name and because the company closed.

SECRETARY KARESH: Okay, well, it’s our recollection from reading the submission that it was the Matamoros Garment case and I mean, if there’s any further information you have on that, you can -- you know, you can present that in written form. We’d be happy to receive that but our question basically is, even though it may have been sent to the wrong address, which took away some of the appeal time, it was still received within the appeal time period and it appears as though no appeal was filed.

MS. VELAZQUEZ DIAZ: (Through Interpreter) Yes, I’m almost sure it’s in the case of Tarrant but I’m going to read a little bit more and I will make the necessary corrections of it pertains to that Matamoros Garment case.

SECRETARY KARESH: As far as that point goes, if you want to follow up in writing, any of the presenters or any of the submitters involved with the case, we’d appreciate that response.

This concludes our hearing for today. A transcript of today’s hearing will be produced and made available to the public. I’d like to thank everyone for participating in the hearing today and let you know that all presentations made and all information provided orally here today will become part of the record. For those who made oral presentations, if you have that in writing, we would be happy to receive that and we appreciate receiving whatever you brought in written form as well.

Thank you very much and the hearing is adjourned.

(Whereupon, at 5:33 p.m. the hearing in the above entitled matter concluded.)