"Solidarismo"

Yet another obstacle to union organizing has been erected in a country which is already internationally notorious for its labor repression. Guatemala, where 134 union leaders were assassinated or disappeared between 1981 and 1985 and where a new round of political violence is intensifying, is now experiencing the growth of Solidarismo, a business-sponsored labor movement aimed at replacing traditional unions.

Solidarismo emphasizes cooperation between workers and employers, with membership open to both sides. It stresses economic incentives for workers rather than the traditional struggles over pay and working conditions. A Solidarismo organizer told Latinamerica Press, a Peru-based news agency, that "as solidarity members, we don't go out on strike." Solidarismo associations are funded by company funds and deductions from workers' paychecks. The associations grant loans to workers or provide the capital for credit unions and worker projects such as stores.

Union organizers, however, charge that Solidarismo is the latest effort to destroy their besieged movement. (Currently, less than 4 percent of the Guatemalan workforce is unionized.) Unionists note that employers control the associations and the funds they dispense. Remarks by government representatives seem to support their beliefs: the Minister of Labor in the union-hostile administration of outgoing President Vincent Cerezo stated that "in some cases � particularly on the banana plantations � Solidarismo has been imposed on workers to prevent the coming of unions."

Guatemala's trade unions consider Solidarismo to be such a serious threat that the country's three politically opposed labor federations � the Christian Democrat-affiliated CGTG, the AFL-CIO-sponsored CUSG and the independent UNSTTRAGUA -- have united in a campaign to expose it as a management-sponsored deception.

Multinational companies in the region have supported the Solidarismo movement. One of the national organizing offices in Guatemala is funded by the Del Monte Company, a subsidiary of the tobacco and food conglomerate RJR/Nabisco. In Costa Rica, where the movement began, organizers claim that over 90 percent of the U.S. multinationals have Solidarismo associations.

Global Justice

For the first time ever, a U.S. company will go to trial in the United States for breaking a labor agreement in another country. District Judge Thomas McAvoy agreed to hear the case of Labor Union of Pico Korea Ltd. vs. Pico Products Inc. in the late spring of 1991. The case stems from the February 1989-closing of a factory in South Korea [see "Plant Closings in Korea," Multinational Monitor, April 1990]. Almost 300 workers lost their jobs when the Syracuse, New York-based Pico Products, Inc., which manufactures control boxes for cable television reception, shut down without warning. The workers allege that they are owed over $1 million in back pay, severance pay and other contractual obligations. McAvoy agreed to hear the case under laws which allow the federal court to exercise jurisdiction over cases between U.S. and foreign citizens.

The Pico Workers Union is represented by the Center for Constitutional Rights, a public interest law firm in New York City. Frank Deale, legal director for the Center, claims the case "opens U.S. courts to contract enforcement suits for Third World employees of U.S. subsidiaries." Deale hopes the case "will encourage overseas workers to struggle to obtain such agreements and sue when they are violated."

Pico's chief executive officer, Bernard Hitchcock, maintains that the workers are violent criminals and terrorists. In a letter to striking Greyhound bus drivers who supported Pico strikers, Hitchcock called the Pico workers "Korean communists;" a criminal charge in South Korea. Hitchcock says the company has not been affected by the conflict and has maintained production levels by buying from sub-contractors in Taiwan and increasing production in its West Indies facilities.

Disconnecting Workers

In a move that would allow the company to employ a non-union, foreign crew, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) may choose to operate two new undersea cable-laying ships under foreign registration. AT&T is expected to decide this month if its new vessels, the Global Link and the Global Sentinel, will be registered under a foreign flag. The non-union workers could earn as little as one-tenth what the company would have to pay U.S. ship workers.

In recent years, U.S. shipping interests have increasingly registered in foreign countries in an attempt to cut costs associated with the U.S. shipping industry induding higher wages, a variety of taxes and more stringent safety rules that require the purchase of additional equipment.

AT&T's maritime workers have protested the company's plan, according to Jessica Smith, spokesperson for the Seafarers International Union, one of AT&T's two maritime unions. She says that the union was "stunned to learn this fall that [AT& was] considering foreign registration," since it has always enjoyed good working relations with the company.

�Jim Sugarman and Holley Knaus