Students and Workers Celebrate Major Solidarity Victory

Garment workers at the MexMode Factory in Atlixco, Mexico have voted overwhelmingly to accept a new independent union at the site of the former Kukdong factory, which had been the scene of so much labor unrest this past winter. Members of United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) and workers' rights advocates around the world are celebrating what they are calling "a major breakthrough in garment workers' right to organize in the maquila region." Evelyn Zepeda, a student at Pitzer College, says, "Students around the country have spent the past two-plus years building the means by which to effectively utilize our power as students to both stand in solidarity with workers and to effectivley tap into the power that our universities hold over the collegiate apparel industry. Mexmode (Kukdong) is a major win, because it proves that the USAS model involving codes of conduct and independent monitoring is effective."

The strike at the former Kuk Dong factory in the Mexican state of Puebla began on Jan 9th of this year after the company fired and forced the resignations of 25 workers who had complained about rotten food in the cafeteria and low wages. Two days into the work stoppage nearly 200 riot police surrounded the factory and, despite the lack of any resistance by the workers, used violence to disperse them. Many were beaten severely, with fifteen sent to area hospitals, including two whose injuries were severe enough to require hospitalization. The squad of riot police had actually been headed by an official of the FROC-CROC, the corrupt company union that was then in place at the factory. During the ensuing days, workers thought to have been involved in the work stoppage or sympathetic to its goals were stopped at the factory gates, fired, and told not to return.

Word of the situation in Atlixco reached members of USAS almost immediately and students across the country began to call on their school administrations to intervene and demand that the major apparel labels with business at the factory use their leverage to insure that workers were allowed to not only return to work, but also to form an independent union of their own choosing. "It is customary in Mexico for owners of maquiladoras to seek out a contract with a "charro" or protection union, without the consent of the workforce and often before the workers have even been hired," according to Lenore Palladino, a regional organizer at the University of Chicago. "These unions," says Palladino, "are closely affiliated with the Mexican government and business leaders, and have historically served to actually undermine the interests of the workers they are supposed to represent. Many consider this to be the most significant barrier to freedom of association and the right to organize in Mexico."

Marie-Louise Joseph, a student at Cornell University says, "An independent union for the workers at MexMode has become a reality only because of the intense pressure exerted by students and their administrators, the Workers Rights Consortium and its worker complaint mechanism, as well as the hard work of several other non-governmental organizations. Campaign for Labor Rights, the Maquila Solidarity Network, Global Exchange, US-LEAP and Korean House on International Solidarity rallied their membership to write letters, made phone calls and consulate visits and maintained pressure on those with the power to effect these changes."

Students are working to build not only institutional relationships with working people, but also personal relationships with the workers themselves. It is relationships like these, some students believe, that will help bridge the divide between the U.S. and the Global South. Dale Weaver, a graduate student and member of USAS' national Coordinating Committee believes that "real, on-the-ground connections like these form people-to-people ties that lessen the distance and lead to better relationships between the U.S. and working peoples in the Global South.

Bhumika Muchhala, a staffperson at the USAS national office in Washington, DC, says, "This victory is significant not only because it affirms that international solidarity campaigns can work but also because activists everywhere are now energized to support workers in bringing victories to upcoming campaigns, both internationally and domestically."

Currently, students have been focussing on their next target -- the New Era Cap Company of Derby, New York. Workers at New Era's Derby facility, which manufactures baseball caps for many colleges and universities as well as Major League Baseball, are currently on strike because they refused to accept a 30% pay cut accompanied by an increase in workload and OSHA (Occupation Safety and Health Administration) violations.