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Introduction

In March 2003 and again in September 2003, Human Rights Watch submitted comments summarizing Ecuador’s shortcomings in these areas and providing recommendations to help bring Ecuador into compliance.  This petition updates the September 2003 submission by describing Ecuador’s continued failure to protect workers’ rights to freedom of association and to organize and bargain collectively and by highlighting the inadequacy of measures taken to address violations of these rights as well as the worst forms of child labor.  

Human Rights Watch believes that Ecuador continues to fall short of meeting the ATPA and ATPDEA eligibility criteria, as it fails to 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 almost two years ago, in October 2002, prior to receiving ATPDEA beneficiary status.  These agreements address both 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, let alone enact, reforms to address the important deficiencies in its labor laws governing workers’ right to organize.  It has failed to provide adequate training or resources for its newly hired child labor inspectors, has not yet hired the full complement of twenty-two such inspectors required by law, and has failed to fund programs to address the needs of recently fired child workers.  Ecuador has also not fully investigated 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.  

Ecuador’s broken promises should not be rewarded with continued ATPA and ATPDEA beneficiary status.  Instead, we believe that the U.S. government should make Ecuador’s continued designation as an ATPA and ATPDEA beneficiary country conditional upon its immediate fulfillment of the workers’ rights benchmarks and recommendations articulated below.  Ecuador’s failure to meet these conditions should result in total or partial suspension of ATPA and ATPDEA benefits.