<<previous  | index  |  next>>

Confecciones Ninos, S.A. de C.V.

In February 2001, Confecciones Ninos, a textile factory in the San Marcos Free Trade Zone, employed close to three hundred workers, most between the ages of eighteen and thirty and roughly 95 percent of whom were women.¹⁷⁰ Confecciones Ninos opened in April 1993 and was founded, owned, and operated by General Juan Orlando Zepeda, a retired army general.¹⁷¹

Confecciones Ninos workers began an organizing drive in March 2001, in response to alleged delays in salary payments; failure to pay overtime; failure to provide legally mandated annual paid vacations; “bad treatment in word and deed”; failure to grant permission for doctors’ visits; unattainable production goals; limited use of restroom facilities; and other alleged problems.¹⁷² As detailed below, the employer reportedly responded to organizing efforts with anti-union activity, including pressuring union members to deny they attended the union’s founding assembly, inaccurately describing a union member on maternity leave as no longer a company employee, and telephoning union leaders to demand they renounce union membership.

The company succeeded in thwarting workers’ efforts to organize, as the Labor Ministry accepted the employer’s account of events without independently investigating or soliciting worker responses. Workers’ attempts to gain legal redress for alleged labor law violations were also frustrated when the Labor Ministry refused to rule on the legality of employer suspensions, initiated in late September 2001, and a labor court failed to enforce a judgment rendered in workers’ favor.

Confecciones Ninos workers held a founding assembly for the Union of Confecciones Ninos Workers (SITRACON) on August 25, 2001, during which they adopted a founding document, setting forth members’ names and designating provisional leadership, and approved union governing statutes, in compliance with the relevant law.¹⁷³ Forty workers reportedly attended, five more than the mandatory minimum required for union formation, and signed the founding document and governing statutes, which were notarized.¹⁷⁴ On September 3, 2001, workers submitted to the Ministry of Labor their official request to register SITRACON.¹⁷⁵

As required by Salvadoran law, after receiving the workers’ union registration petition on September 3, 2001, and administrative corrections on September 10, 2001, the Ministry of Labor notified Confecciones Ninos. The factory had five days to certify whether the members of the new union were its employees. Under Salvadoran law, employer silence is to be construed as confirming workers’ employment.¹⁷⁶ Nonetheless, on October 12, relying largely on employer documents submitted on October 5, at least fourteen days past the due date, the Ministry of Labor rejected the union’s registration petition.¹⁷⁷ The Ministry of Labor concluded that one of the forty union members had resigned on August 17, prior to union formation, and that five others had signed notarized documents indicating that they never attended a union founding assembly.¹⁷⁸ The implication of excluding these six workers was clear—union membership dropped to thirty-four workers, one below the mandatory minimum for the establishment of a union. On October 18, the provisional vice-president of SITRACON requested copies of the five notarized worker statements on which the rejection of the union’s registration petition was primarily based.¹⁷⁹ The Labor Directorate reportedly refused, responding that they were confidential and could not be disclosed.¹⁸⁰

Confecciones Ninos workers claim that the Ministry of Labor arbitrarily accepted the employer’s submissions and that a proper investigation would have shown those submissions to be without merit. The provisional secretary of SITRACON explained to Human Rights Watch that during the afternoon of the same day on which SITRACON submitted its registration petition, the company owner, General Zepeda, began pressuring workers to resign from the union. She recounted that most of the forty workers listed on the union registration petition were summoned to Zepeda’s office, one by one, over roughly the next ten days, where Zepeda accused them of being ungrateful and betraying him. He threatened to fire them without severance pay unless they signed documents stating that they did not attend the union’s founding assembly.¹⁸¹ Under duress, the provisional secretary explained, five workers signed the statements. Moreover, according to union leaders, the worker who reportedly stopped working on August 17 was actually employed but on maternity leave during that time.¹⁸²

The provisional SITRACON secretary was among those called to Zepeda’s office. She recounted the experience:

[Zepeda said] that he had been good to me. He knew me well, and [he said] that he didn’t think I was like this. . . . [He asked], “Don’t you realize that because of you the company will close—because of the union?” [He said that] not only would I be without a job but over three hundred coworkers would be without jobs and would not be able to find work. . . . He even said to think of my daughter. . . . At the end, he got angry with me.¹⁸³

She added that shortly thereafter, her mother received an anonymous threatening telephone call and the provisional union president received two calls, ordering each of them to renounce their union membership.¹⁸⁴

Not only did the Ministry of Labor accept the company’s version of events without further investigation, but it also ordered that the case be transferred to the Section of Professional Investigation of the Supreme Court to investigate the notary who notarized the union’s founding documents.¹⁸⁵ According to union leaders, notaries are reluctant to provide services for unions and charge unions more money for their services because they fear negative repercussions, such as the aforementioned investigation. “When we want to certify things, it’s hard. It’s hard to find a [notary] that will get involved in union matters,” one union leader told Human Rights Watch.¹⁸⁶

The company temporarily suspended all production on September 26, 2001, shortly after the union submitted its union registration petition.¹⁸⁷ Zepeda justified the suspension by citing lack of raw materials due to suspension of subcontracted orders from Industrias Lenor, S.A. de C.V. (Lenor Industries).¹⁸⁸ Workers, however, complained to the Human Rights Ombudsman’s Office that the factory had been closed in response to union organizing.¹⁸⁹

On October 23, 2001, twenty days after the workers reportedly requested a workplace inspection to investigate the legality of the suspension, an inspector visited Confecciones Ninos.¹⁹⁰ The labor inspection report stated that the factory had suspended operations and did not have raw materials, but it never determined whether the employer was at fault for the lack of materials and, therefore, never ruled on the legality of the suspension.¹⁹¹ Instead, the report said that the Labor Inspectorate would await a judicial resolution of the matter.¹⁹²

Confecciones Ninos remained closed for roughly three months, during which time workers checked frequently to ask when the factory would reopen. Reportedly, an employer representative and/or a security guard would meet them at the gates and explain that Zepeda had said that the factory would reopen in January and that the workers would be recalled then.¹⁹³ The plant opened again in mid-November, however, and reportedly remained open for less than three weeks, employing roughly forty workers, most of whom were new employees and none of whom were trade unionists. The provisional secretary of SITRACON commented, “He said he would recall us. . . . It was a lie.”¹⁹⁴ Instead, according to a union organizer, “With the [black]list in hand on the day the company opened, they were saying [which of the suspended employees] could work and who could not. . . . Some [trade unionists] presented themselves to be reinstated, but they were not allowed to enter and were told that because they were trade unionists, they could not work.”¹⁹⁵ The plant reopened again in March 2002, with roughly sixty workers—mostly new employees—but closed again after roughly fifteen days.¹⁹⁶ At this writing, the factory remains closed.

By December 2001, roughly three months after the suspensions commenced, a majority of workers had reportedly tendered their resignations in exchange for severance pay because they were reportedly told that if they did not accept it at that time, they would lose it. The pay was individually negotiated and reportedly ranged from 30 to 40 percent of the full amount due for dismissal without cause. According to a union organizer, as well as SITRACON’s provisional secretary, however, the trade unionists were offered nothing because they had “betrayed the General.”¹⁹⁷ Many union members, along with a few non-union coworkers, subsequently filed claims before the labor courts to recover their severance pay. In most cases, these workers accepted the company’s offer of 50 percent of full severance, made during the judicial conciliation process, in exchange for their resignations.¹⁹⁸

Five workers, however, rejected the settlement offer and went forward with their cases before the labor courts, despite threats from Zepeda that they would receive nothing if they refused his offer.¹⁹⁹ In the fall of 2002, the workers reportedly won their cases. Zepeda has allegedly argued, however, that he has no money with which to pay the judgments, and the judge, therefore, has reportedly impounded twelve machines from the factory to be sold in order to make the payments owed.²⁰⁰ As of this writing, the machines have not been sold. SITRACON’s provisional secretary—one of the five workers who rejected the company’s offer during judicial conciliation—explained that, according to the workers’ attorney, no buyers have been found for the machines. She concluded, “They haven’t given us the machines or the severance.”²⁰¹ Thus, the judgment reportedly has yet to be enforced.

Human Rights Watch mailed inquiries regarding the above-described labor conflict to the personal residence of Zepeda in San Salvador on June 30. At this writing, we have received no response.