Guatemala: Garment Plant Signs Accord

From WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS, ISSUE #906, JULY 8, 2007

On June 29 the Illinois-based Kohl's department store chain announced it was withdrawing a line of women's clothes and footwear it had been selling in an exclusive deal with Cuban-born television personality Daisy Fuentes. Kohl's decision came a week after the National Labor Committee (NLC), a labor rights group with offices in New York, issued a report saying the clothes were assembled in a Guatemalan factory engaged in "abusive and illegal" practices. According to the NLC, the Korean-managed Fribo plant in Santiago Sacatepequez was paying workers just $0.25 for each blouse they stitched; the blouses sell for $22 to $38. The NLC said Fribo made its employees work 60-hour weeks without overtime and deducted social security payments from their wages without handing the money over to the Guatemalan social security system. Kohl's said it had been purchasing the finished garments from the P.A. Group, a US manufacturing company, and was unaware of labor abuses. [El Tiempo (Bogota) 6/29/07 from EFE]

On July 5, Fribo, P.A. Group/Regatta, the NLC and the independent Guatemalan nongovernmental organization CEADEL (Center for Studies and Support for Local Development) signed an agreement which the NLC said would "transform the Fribo factory...from an abusive sweatshop into a far better-than-average factory, hopefully on the way to becoming a model operation." P.A. Group/Regatta committed to keeping its work in the Fribo plant once the agreed-upon improvements are initiated.

The NLC notes that the plant, with 500 workers, also depends on work from other US firms: Wet Seal, Inc.; Dress Barn, Inc. (which makes Maurices); Filia; Pretty Girl/Trends Sportswear; and Rue 21/Pennsylvania Fashions Inc. These companies are not parties to the agreement, and the NLC warns that they may "cut and run" as the workers "struggle to win respect for even their most basic legal rights." The group is asking for groups and individuals to put pressure on the companies by endorsing the Fribo agreement in an email to the NLC (nlc [at] nlcnet.org). The agreement is posted at: http://www.nlcnet.org/article.php?id=409; background is posted at: http://www.nlcnet.org/article.php?id=408 [NLC Urgent Action Alert 7/5/07]

Also in WNU #906:

--Ecuador: Violence in Orellana
--Colombia: Army Murders More Campesinos
--Colombia: Army, Paramilitaries Hit Meta
--Colombia: Paramilitaries Kill 5 Near Bogota
--Colombia: Civil Union Law Blocked
--El Salvador: Pride March Seeks Visibility
--El Salvador: Water Protest Repressed
--Mexico: 2006 Vote Protested Again
--Puerto Rico: UN Decolonization Vote
--Puerto Rico: Electric Workers Strike, Governor Probed
--More breaking stories from alternative sources (links)

ISSN#: 1084-922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. If this issue was forwarded to you, please write to wnu [at] igc.org for a free one-month subscription.

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