http://lo-de-alla.org/2012/08/el-salvador-maquiladoras-women-and-reform/
El Salvador: Maquiladoras, women and reform<http://lo-de-alla.org/2012/08/el-salvador-maquiladoras-women-and-reform/> <http://lo-de-alla.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/maquila-2.jpg> ((ContraPunto photo)) *There are currently 81,000 maquiladora workers in the country* [Translation of an article from *ContraPunto* of San Salvador for July 30. See original here<http://www.contrapunto.com.sv/sociedad-civil/maquilas-mujeres-y-reformas> .] by Gloria Morán *San Salvador* She is a 43-year-old woman and she has worked in a maquiladora making clothing in San Marcos, San Salvador, for eight years. During that time her routine has been to get up at 4:00 in the morning. She is Marta (a fictitious name), she lives in Apopa and it takes her an hour to get to the factory. Marta is the single mother of three girls, 19, 13 and ten years of age, which makes her situation more difficult. For the past eight years she has had to get up early to make breakfast and lunch for herself and her daughters. Her salary is 187.40 dollars a month, minus the deductions required by law. Inside the factory, she makes sure to concentrate closely to get her work out. During working hours she wears a blue smock that she made herself in order not to ruin her clothes with the dust from the garments that pass through her hands. She says that in the absence of opportunities for decent jobs, she settles for working in this factory, a place where treatment depends on the mood of the supervisor, according to Marta. Marta said the restrictions they are subjected to seem like those of an authoritarian regime in which even how many times they can go to the bathroom is controlled. Going once is normal, twice is a desire to annoy and to waste time. Drinking water is a luxury that not all the workers in the maquiladora can afford. The more water we drink, the more we need to go to the bathroom, the bosses say, so in some places they dont supply water. She charged that they suffer mistreatment by the plant bosses; shouts, words like fool, loafer, useless are in their vocabularies, especially against those who are involved in the union. *Some relevant data* There are 81,000 people working in maquiladoras in El Salvador; according to ORMUSA (Organización de Mujeres Salvadoreñas Organization of Salvadoran Women), there are 17 free-trade zones, located in six of the 14 departments of the country. In these zones are more than 200 businesses involved in a range of activities, among them textiles, assembly, electronics and others. <http://lo-de-alla.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/maquila-1.jpg> ((ContraPunto photo)) According to data from the Fundación Salvadoreña para el Desarrollo Económico y Social (FUSADES Salvadoran Foundation for Economic and Social Development), published in the report Análisis de la Política de Inversión El Salvador 2010 (Analysis of Investment Policy in El Salvador 2010), 70 percent of the businesses that operate in free-trade zones for export are clothing manufacturers. FUSADES declares that the maquiladoras provide close to 74,000 jobs directly and more than 140,000 indirectly. According to the Banco Central de Reserva, it is estimated that as of 2010, at a national level 83.96 percent of those working in this sector are women; 80.69 percent work as operators, 0.54 percent are plant technicians, 1.31 are office personnel, 1.30 percent supervisors and 0.11 are managers. *Recognition of rights demanded* There are several organizations, among them Mujeres Transformando, as well as maquiladora unions working for the improvement of the job conditions for the maquiladora workers. Monserrate Arévalo, director of Mujeres Transformando, stated that currently the maquiladora is one of the few sources of formal work in the country and therefore many choose to go into it despite the low pay and the working conditions they have. Nevertheless, she stressed that unfortunately in El Salvador women between the ages of 35 and 40 are no longer considered to be of a productive age and it is at that point that they migrate or join the informal or domestic sector, enduring greater violations of their rights as workers and often other kinds of violence. Aracely Martínez, a maquiladora union activist, emphasized that the current struggle is for proposals made by the maquiladora workers for reform of the law on free trade zones to be taken into account and not just those of the businessmen. It seems that so far the maquiladoras have turned into modern slavery, which suits the government because it makes money for the state, with a cheap labor force obligated out of necessity, Martínez said. As of October, 2011, some 200 businesses operated under the scheme of free trade zones and warehousing for inward processing which, because of commitments made by El Salvador with the World Trade Organization (WTO), the law on free trade zones is to be changed before January 1, 2016. It is because of this arrangement that in October, 2011, the Salvadoran government introduced several reforms to the law on free trade zones. In accord with what was introduced at that time, the fiscal incentives will be kept but the focus will be on investment and on jobs and no longer on exports, which is what the WTO is opposed to. Free trade zones have been in El Salvador since the beginning of the 1970s, when the San Bartolo free trade zone was created, which came to take in a significant group of businesses involved in the assembly of different products, from textiles to electronic devices. Free trade zones offer great advantages for foreign investors, of which the most significant are the exemption from taxes on the transfer of goods, profit, the transfer of properties, as well as municipal taxes, stated Luis Romano in a publication by the Universidad José Simeón Cañas (UCA). The workers at the maquiladoras ask that the strengthening of collective bargaining contracts be allowed, but so far the response has been negative, in a subtle way. They also ask for the construction of day-care centers near the factories for their children. If our children are nearby we will be able to concentrate better and it would give us an emotional stability that would allow us to work better, Martínez declared. They are also asking for better salaries. As part of actions to make visible the work of people in the maquiladoras, a march of women maquiladora workers was held in Santo Tomás, San Salvador, a place known as the maquiladora capital. The women used the day to publicize their demands: that July 5 be recognized as Día Nacional de la Mujer Trabajadora de la Maquila (National Day for Women Maquiladora Workers); that their job rights be respected and that they be included in the reform of the law on free trade zones. Santo Tomás is the only municipality to designate this day in recognition of women who work in the maquiladoras of the country. Throughout history women have been involved in the manufacture of clothing and therefore the maquiladora industry adapts precisely to that social idea, which continues to this day. ----------------- http://luterano.blogspot.com/2012/08/government-proposes-law-suspending.html Sunday, August 12, 2012 Government proposes law suspending mining activity<http://luterano.blogspot.com/2012/08/government-proposes-law-suspending.html> This week El Salvador's Ministers of the Environment and of the Economy announced that they have sent a draft law<http://www.marn.gob.sv/phocadownload/Iniciativa_Ley_Especial_Suspension_Explotacion_Metalica.pdf>to the National Assembly which would suspend all metallic mining activity in the country. The law is intended to suspend all such activity until El Salvador has the necessary structures in place to control the environmental and social impacts of mining. This suspension will apply to existing exploration and exploitation permits as well as putting a hold on any new applications. A Monitoring Committee would be created to determine when conditions have changed such that mining activity might resume. This draft law is the outcome of the Strategic Environmental Evaluation prepared by the Spanish consulting firm, the Tau Group. I provided an overview of that report in this blog in March which you can read here<http://luterano.blogspot.com/2012/03/strategic-environmental-evaluation-of.html>, and that entire report is available at this link<http://www.marn.gob.sv/phocadownload/EAE_minero_metalico.pdf> . The National Roundtable Against Metallic Mining condemned the draft law as not going far enough. The Roundtable calls for a permanent mining ban and not just the suspension called for in the draft. Here is an excerpt from the statement of the Roundtable<http://www.stopesmining.org/j25/index.php/component/content/article/14-sample-data-articles/184-the-salvadoran-government-proposes-suspending-mining-in-el-salvador> : The suspension of metallic mining exploration and exploitation projects proposed by the Ministries of the Economy and Environment, does not eliminate the threat metallic mining poses to the country, it only postpones it. The bill, in its very nature, is temporary, superficial and does not contain any scientific basis. It shows that the government is not interested in banning metallic mining, even when we have scientifically demonstrated with technical arguments that metal extraction from Salvadoran soil is irrational because it would contaminate and destroy the environment, as well as break down the social fabric in communities, as well as violate the fundamental rights of the population. We reiterate that the grave environmental degradation our country suffers is incompatible with such a predatory industry, like metallic mining. The grave contamination that has affected 98% of our rivers, the chronic scarcity of potable water that population faces, as well as the fact that El Salvador is one of the most deforested and densely populated countries in Latin America and one of the most vulnerable countries in the world, where 98% of the population lives in areas that prone to natural disasters, should all be reason enough to close the doors on mining companies in El Salvador. As the National Roundtable against Metallic Mining we consider the proposed Law to Suspend Mining presented by the government as a demagogic and false solution to the threats posed by vicious transnational companies from the extractive industry. If Funes government really cares about guaranteeing sustainability and improving the quality of life for the population, instead of looking for a superficial solution that has been calculated to save the administration itself, they should promote a ban on metallic mining through a new Mining Law that explicitly reflects the profound socio-environmental crisis we are suffering and which is currently rapidly deeping. 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