SEPTEMBER 1995 · VOLUME 16 · NUMBER 9
B E H I N D T H E L I N E S
SEPTEMBER 1995 · VOLUME 16 · NUMBER 9
B E H I N D T H E L I N E S
A Taiwanese garment supplier to The Gap, Eddie Bauer, JCPenney, Dayton-Hudson, Wal-Mart and Fruit of the Loom subsidiary Gitano, fired 186 workers at its El Salvador plant in late June 1995 for belonging to a union.
Workers at Mandarin International have been subject to excessive overtime and have been punished for going to the bathroom more than twice a shift, says 18-year-old Judith Viera, a former Mandarin worker on a U.S. tour with members of the New York-based National Labor Committee Education Fund in Support of Worker and Human Rights in Central America.
Viera says supervisors struck workers when they produced skirts that did not meet quality standards.
Around the time of the mass firing, the secretary-general of the union at Mandarin was kidnapped and tortured by assailants seeking the names of union members.
The National Labor Committee contends that Mandarin pays "starvation wages" to its 900 workers, most of whom are female, some as young as 13. Their average total annual income is $1,397, or 18 percent of the cost of living for a Salvadoran family of four.
In January 1995, Mandarin workers became the first in El Salvador's San Marcos Free Trade Zone (FTZ) to organize a union. The FTZ, founded by former Salvadoran army colonel Mario Guerrero, was partially financed by the U.S. Agency for International Development.
In late July, San Francisco-based The Gap announced it would meet with National Labor Committee members to discuss the Mandarin situation. The Gap has not placed any new orders with the plant since March 1995, pending an investigation.
Tainted Milk
Drinking milk from cows treated with recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH) could stimulate cancer and render chemotherapy useless, says cancer researcher Dr. George Tritsch in a statement by Marshfield, Vermont-based Food & Water. St. Louis-based Monsanto produces rBGH .
Tritsch's conclusions stem from a study published by university researchers in the June 1995 issue of Cancer Research. The study found that even minute increases of insulin growth factor (IGF-1) protect tumor cells from chemotherapy, while decreases in IGF-1 levels prompt massive cell death of several kinds of tumor cells, including human melanoma. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recognizes that milk produced using rBGH leads to increased levels of IGF-1, prompting Tritsch to question the safety of the hormone.
"The widespread consumption of BGH-supplemented milk is an experiment on an unsuspecting population that could have horrendous consequences," says Tritsch. "The experiment would take one to three decades when it would be difficult to dismantle a well-entrenched [growth hormone] industry. The risk-to-benefit ratio of this experiment is clearly not in favor of the consumer."
"Monsanto's paid scientists may want to wish away the possible link between BGH and cancer, but objective scientists obviously have real concerns," says Food & Water Executive Director Michael Colby.
The bovine growth hormone has been associated with other health hazards, including allergic reactions in people and increased rates of cow infections [see "Monkeying with the Milk," Multinational Monitor, June 1994]. Canada and a number of European countries have placed moratoriums on use of the hormone.
Monsanto spokesperson Gary Barton questions Tritsch's analysis. "It's amazing that Food & Water Inc. is going around doing press releases on other people's studies without talking to the authors," says Barton, citing cancer researchers who dispute the cancer-IGF-1 link.
Top Banana
Honduran security forces used tear gas, clubs and rubber bullets in late July 1995 to evict 600 villagers and workers from land owned by Cincinnati-based Chiquita Brands. Villagers resisted with machetes, rocks, sticks and slingshots. Thirty people were injured and 10 were arrested in the eviction, which follows the collapse of relocation negotiations between the Tacamiche villagers, the government and Chiquita.
Tacamiche lies on one of four banana farms that Chiquita Brands closed in 1994 during a strike over wages and plantation closures. Company officials claimed that the farms were unprofitable. After the shutdown, 800 permanent workers were asked to choose between relocation or severance pay. Some 1,200 casual laborers were laid off.
Tacamiche residents resisted relocation. On July 21, leaders of the Tacamiche Community Council turned down a government mediator's proposal to move the residents to far eastern Honduras.
Tacamiche's 460 residents, joined by more than 100 workers, have challenged Chiquita's ownership of the 3,300 hectare plantation. They say that the company "fraudulently obtained the land" in a $1 concession from the government. Moreover, after the Tacamiche finca was closed down, its general manager informed the Honduran Ministry of Labor that the land was being abandoned, according to the Honduran Committee of the Detained and Disappeared (COFADEH), a Tegucigalpa-based human rights group.
Honduran security forces told reporters that resettlement negotiations will resume, now that villagers have been evicted.
Chiquita Brands did not respond to Multinational Monitor requests for comments.
- Craig Forcese