US Approves Guatemalan Trade Preferences Despite Labor Abuses

  
Late last year, the United States Trade Representative ended its Generalized System of Preferences review of the labor rights situation in Guatemala. Despite complaints from local and international labor and human rights organizations, the process concluded that there was sufficient compliance with the norms expressed in the GSP, which grants preferential access of certain Guatemalan goods to the US market.

In response, the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) has released a scathing report condemning what it characterizes as governmental apathy and inaction in Guatemala. The report charges that trade unions and their members continue to be the victims of a worsening trend of harassment, violence and murder. One of its main criticisms concerns the government's failure to defend freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining. Despite some tentative moves by the government to relax some of the most severe restrictions on trade union rights (only after repeated criticism from various ILO committees), it is clear that violations of union rights, such as the provision prohibiting solidarity strikes, continue.

According to the ICFTU report, "while these legislative restrictions have played a major part in the oppression of workers and trade unions in Guatemala, the lack of implementation and enforcement of laws and the ineffective defense of rights mandated by these laws has been a far more serious problem." Proof of government indifference and negligence abounds: in the case of one hacienda alone, 67 court rulings to reinstate illegally fired workers were ignored. This climate of impunity is the real story behind the lack of labor rights as well as environmental protections throughout the hemisphere. It also explains the popular rejection of free market trade measures that many people have come to associate with cavalier attitudes toward basic labor and environmental standards.

The full ICFTU report is available at: http://www.icftu.org/displaydocument.asp?Language=EN&Index=991214567