Three Latin American garment workers touring universities in the United States exposed their continuous struggles to unionize the Third World in an event put on by the UW-Madison Student Labor Action Coalition Saturday.
The panel is pressuring administrations and brand-name companies to place orders with unionized factories alongside members of SLAC and the United Students Against Sweatshops.
Although Chancellor Wiley signed a code of conduct in December that requires companies who manufacture officially licensed UW-Madison apparel to purchase at least 25 percent of their goods from factories that allow unionization, both groups are issuing an effort to make sure this attempt is carried across the borders and into the factories.
In Latin America, where the majority of UW's apparel is made, codes of conduct and the unionization of workers may not be as progressive as they look through the lenses of US citizens.
'The El Salvador government doesn't make factory owners comply with codes of conduct,' said Joaquin Alas Salgvero, a worker for the Just Garments factory.
At Just Garments, a newly organized factory, there is an effort to create solidarity between the workers and management. The 'complete package' system the factory uses where they make, assemble, inspect and ship the apparel, gives the workers their own tasks and cuts down the need for a multitude of restrictions, Salgvero said.
Yet, the complete packaging process takes longer and is more expensive. The demand for items to be processed quickly is forcing the big brand names to cancel their orders and shatters hope for solidarity in the Third World.
'We have no orders. The future of our factory is in danger of closing,' Salgvero said.
Since the demand of orders in these smaller factories is diminishing and workers need their wages, they are taking work at any factory that will pay. As a result, 'people are losing fear of organizing,' said Josefina Hernandez Ponce, a union organizer from Mexico. 'Now there's a new problem: the fear of losing jobs.'
To ensure efforts like Just Garmets' are not lost, SLAC and USAS proposed the university place orders through a mega distributor that will then forward a large order to a smaller, unionized company like Just Garmets.
'We want brands to give stable, steady orders to unionized factories,' said Jessica Rutter, a national organizer for USAS. 'Together we can win with workers on the ground and students at college campuses.'
