'Work, Yes - But With Dignity!' - Nicaragua's labor policies - Brief Article

Nicaraguan workers have prevailed on foreign employers to adopt a code of ethics enshrining respect for their rights and better working conditions

After more than a decade of war and internal conflict, peace officially returned to Nicaragua in May 1990. Thousands of members of the so-called "Contra army" laid down their weapons and tens of thousands of reservists and soldiers were retired. Many of them automatically swelled the army of the unemployed.

"When the war ended, we didn't know what to do, we felt exposed. I got a job in a factory at the Las Mercedes industrial free trade zone, picking up garbage and cleaning machinery," says Eugenia. Her experience is echoed by many women working in the country's maquila(1) assembly industries. Eugenia never thinks of leaving her job. "There aren't any other factories" she says, "and I'm 40 years old, so I have to stay where I am and put up with things without complaining."

Violence

The Las Mercedes free zone currently has more than 20 textile assembly plants, most of them Asian-owned and directly providing over 18,000 jobs, 80 per cent of them held by women. These factories exported more than $135 million worth of goods in 1997, compared with the slightly more than $200 million earned by the country's main export, coffee. For many years, the local media attacked the violation of labour laws by the factories. Women in particular were the victims of persistent physical, psychological and verbal abuse. They were also fired simply because they became pregnant.

"There was a really violent aspect to life in the free zone," says Sandra Ramos, leader of the Maria Elena Cuadra Movement of Working and Unemployed Women. "To try to end the abuses, we forced a code of conduct on the assembly plants."

The 10-article code deals with matters like maternity leave, working hours, overtime wages, regular medical checkups and job security. It is the first of its kind to be negotiated and put into effect in Central America, where there are about 1,100 such factories employing more than 300,000 workers. Under the banner, "Work, yes - but with dignity!" (the slogan of a coalition of women's labour groups lobbying for codes of conduct across Central America), the Nicaraguan initiative owes its success to workers' determination and strong public support which took the shape of a 30,000-signature petition.

The ministry of labour made the code a ministerial edict on January 23,1998.Within about a week, all of the factory owners of Las Mercedes accepted the code in an open letter to the labour minister: "We have decided of our own accord to comply with the ministerial edict because we think it will improve and harmonize relations between employers and employees."

Working conditions slowly began to get better. A survey carried out in January 1999 by the Maria Elena Cuadro Movement showed that since the code was adopted most workers (95 per cent of the 2,562 women polled) had not been victims of the kind of mistreatment common up until then. The survey also found that factories began opening creches and food areas where workers could eat meals brought from home or bought from vendors. But the workers also said there was a long way to go before they had social security, decent wages and good factory hygiene. The average monthly wage was less than $100, far below the estimated cost of a family's basic needs of around $150 a month.

"Regulation of foreign investment in Nicaragua is inadequate," says Ramos. Backed by women MPs, her movement is now pushing for parliament to reform the laws governing the free trade zone. "The code of conduct was a first step," she says, "but it's only a means to an end."

The whole matter is a tricky one, however, and demands caution. Ramos says international consumer campaigns to press for codes of ethics can be risky. Pressure applied the wrong way could lead to closure of the factories and the loss of local jobs.

'Clean' clothes

"At international level, some people are campaigning with good will, but others are seeking to advance their own national interests through these campaigns."The Nicaraguan activists are against, for example, boycotting Central America's free trade zones. They are also opposed to the idea that consumers in rich countries should only buy locally-made goods. Trade unions in the United States in particular have promoted this approach, which Ramos rejects as nationalistic. On the other hand, "We think the campaign in Europe for 'clean' clothing products, which doesn't talk about a boycott but about improving working conditions, is more effective," she says of campaigns like that of Oxfam (see article page 37).

"What we ask campaigners in rich countries to do is negotiate directly with the big textile firms there so they respect workers' rights in their factories in poor countries and later to organize an independent inspection to check whether the factory owners are keeping their word.

"Anyway," says Ramos, "the code of conduct isn't something invented in the North. It was thought up by women of the South. We haven't copied any foreign model."

1. Foreign-financed textile factories set up in free trade zones, where they are exempt from taxes and produce for foreign markets. Most of the women are manual workers who assemble, garments.

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