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The Current Situation

Ecuador continues to fail to protect workers’ rights to freedom of association and to organize and bargain collectively and to fail to take adequate measures to address the worst forms of child labor.  Human Rights Watch believes that Ecuador continues to fall short of meeting the ATPDEA eligibility criteria, as it does not uphold internationally recognized workers’ rights.  Human Rights Watch further believes that Ecuador has not adequately demonstrated good-faith intention to take the steps necessary to satisfy the criteria.  Most significantly, Ecuador has failed to fully implement the labor rights provisions of agreements it reached with the United States in October 2002, prior to receiving ATPDEA beneficiary status. These agreements addressed Ecuador’s inadequate legislation on freedom of association and its failure to effectively enforce existing laws governing child labor and the right to organize.

Specifically, Ecuador has failed to propose effective reforms to address any of the important deficiencies in its labor laws governing workers’ right to organize, described at length in our September 2004 ATPA petition.  Ecuadorian employers who engage in anti-union discrimination still face only the threat of minimal fines for violating the law.²  Workers dismissed for union activity have no right to reinstatement; anti-union hiring discrimination and employer interference with workers’ organizations are not explicitly prohibited; the right to form industry- and sector-wide unions is not clearly guaranteed; and a minimum of thirty workers is still required to form a union, despite ILO Committee recommendations that the number be lowered.  In practice, employers continue to take advantage of these shortcomings in the law to violate workers’ human rights by retaliating against workers for engaging in union activity, erecting often insurmountable obstacles to the formation of workers’ organizations, and generally creating a climate of fear that deters workers from exercising their right to freedom of association. 

Although Ecuador issued an executive decree on subcontractors in October 2004, as discussed below, the decree is so weak that it falls far short of meeting its goal of establishing a regulatory framework to prevent subcontractors from being used to violate workers’ right to organize.  The Labor Code still contains legal loopholes that allow employers to impede workers’ right to freedom of association through the unlimited use of subcontracted labor to perform employers’ normal, everyday work activities.   

In addition, while Ecuador has also taken the laudable step of selecting at least twenty-two child labor inspectors as required by law, as detailed below, the inspectors are unable to effectively perform their duties and Ecuador continues to demonstrate a lack of commitment to the elimination of harmful child labor.  Ecuador has yet to issue implementing regulations, as required by law, for its new Code for Children and Adolescents, adopted over two years ago, and has failed to amend the Labor Code to conform with the Code for Children and Adolescents’ child labor provisions.  Ecuador also continues to fail to adequately fund and implement meaningful social protection measure to prevent child labor and effective rehabilitate former child workers.

Furthermore, as discussed in our September 2004 ATPA petition, Ecuador has also yet to fully investigate either the May 2002 anti-union violence on the Los Alamos banana plantations or the police response to that violence, failing to prosecute the perpetrators or sanction those police officers who may have responded inappropriately.