| Since the workers of the Kukdong apparel factory
(now called "Mexmode") in Atlixco, Mexico went on
strike in January of 2001, the site has become the focus of
international scrutiny and has served as a test case for international
labor rights enforcement. The plant was the target of massive
student protest in the US in support of worker demands, several
large-scale investigations by apparel factory monitoring agencies,
and an unprecedented intervention by brand name manufacturers
that outsource to the factory. Two years later, the situation
in Kukdong has improved dramatically. Workers have been able
to establish the first indendent union for garment workers in
Mexico that holds a collective bargaining agreement and wages
have risen more than 40%. |
Kukdong: A Case of Effective Labor Standards
Enforcement
By Jeremy Blasi
Henning Center for International Labor Relations
UC Berkeley
On January 9 of 2001, the workers of Kukdong International
(now called "Mexmode"), an apparel contractor in the town
of Atlixco, Mexico, seized control of their factory. Fed up with
the factory's rancid cafeteria food, corrupt company-allied union,
and the firing of five workers for demanding better treatment, approximately
800 workers, mostly young women in their teens and early 20s, left
their stations at midday and went on wildcat strike. For the next
three days, they camped in protest in factory's front patio, enduring
nights of drizzling rain with little or no cover. Late on the third
night, a battalion of riot police, led by the existing union's secretary
general, marched into the area wielding clubs and guns. By sunrise,
17 workers needed medical attention. Several were struck unconscious.
This is, of course, not an uncommon story in Mexico. In fact, many
of Kukdong's workers were joined in protest by parents and relatives
who themselves had gone on strike and been attacked just months
before in the neighboring city of Matamoros. Nor is it unusual in
Mexico for government backed "unions" to sign sweetheart
protection contracts with employers, as was the case at Kukdong,
that ensure for the union a constant influx of dues while obstructing
genuine organizing - the vast majority of Mexico's maquiladora workers
suffer from this kind of representation.
What was unusual about Kukdong was the tremendous outpouring of
international support, primarily from American students, that the
strike generated. News of the uprising and violent dispersal, and
the fact that Kukdong was a major producer for Nike and dozens of
universities, zipped quickly through the internet to student anti-sweatshop
activists in the US. Spying another bout with the mammoth apparel
firm, students organized support rallies at Nike stores across the
country. Meanwhile, a wave of new factory monitoring organizations
descended on Atlixco to conduct investigations. Within weeks the
story had made it to the pages of the New York Times. By late February
the factory had reinstated the majority of the fired workers, including
several of the leaders originally terminated for organizing - a
virtually unprecedented scenario in Mexican maquiladoras. And by
mid September, the workers of Kukdong had successfully launched
the only independent union for garment workers in all of Mexico
with a collective bargaining agreement. They have since won improvements
in almost every aspect of factory life.
The surprising turn of events might not have been possible just
several years ago. In the past three years, students at nearly 200
universities have launched "sweat free campus" campaigns,
demanding that their administrations adopt anti-sweatshop policies
for their schools' licensed products. Many of these policies included
a provision requiring that licensees publicly disclose the names
and locations of the contractors they hire to make their products.
Before the policies were enacted it was virtually impossible for
a concerned citizen or researcher to identify the factory where
a particular garment was made - such information was concealed by
companies as a trade secret. But in the Spring of 2000, after refusing
for years, companies began to post lists of factory addresses on
the internet. Kukdong was on a list disclosed by Nike. A student
researcher, wielding this information, happened to be in the area
when the Kukdong workers went on strike. He relayed the story to
the student activist community in the U.S. and the campaign took
off from there. Without the university policies, Kukdong might have
faded, like so many other worker uprisings, into obscurity.
Another crucial development was the emergence of a crop of agencies
designed to inspect garment factories against anti-sweatshop policies.
Several of these organizations, the Worker Rights Consortium, Verite,
and the International Labor Rights Fund, traveled to Atlixco shortly
after the strike to investigate alleged abuses. Their findings,
circulated widely among university and apparel industry personnel
and the media, verified the workers' claims of rancid food, physical
abuse, and sub-poverty wages, and helped move Nike and other licensees
to intervene. Much debate has recently arisen over what role U.S.
based garment factory monitoring agencies can and should play. Kukdong
has shown clearly that one of these roles can be supporting worker
organizing.
Of course, this sort of international support can easily fall into
paternalism or irrelevance without a genuine alliance with workers
inside the plant. In this case, the workers themselves spearheaded
the campaign and established a remarkably strong base of support.
The conditions for organizing are daunting. The factory's workforce
lives scattered across 64 small rural towns surrounding the factory,
some located as far as two hours away. Most workers cannot be reached
by phone, so to keep workers informed one has to drive deep into
rural areas and simply hope the workers will be around when you
arrive. There is always a threat of violence from the CROC union
and their "gulpeodores" (literally "hitters").
In the months following the strike, one worker-leader was stalked
and threatened in her home and another was attacked in front of
the factory. In addition to all this, the workers have had to contend
with a local government with long historical ties to the CROC. The
local election board, for instance, blocked the union's bid for
formal recognition for two months based on obscure technicalities.
Yet, despite these obstacles, the workers of Kukdong managed to
build overwhelming support for an independent union among the factory's
workers - so much so that in September of 2001 the Kukdong management
voluntarily revoked its previous contract with the CROC and granted
workers the right to form their own independent union and negotiate
a contract. The workers are now in their second contract with the
company and have won raises of more than 40%.
Beyond a historic victory in one of Mexico's 3,400 foreign-owned
assembly plants, Kukdong may represent the first successful implementation
of a new model for achieving basic labor rights on an international
level. In the new era of globalization, the need for such universally
observed rights has never been greater. But global governance institutions,
like the United Nations and World Trade Organization, have either
lacked sufficient enforcement mechanisms or declined to include
labor standards at all. In the absence of such formal agreements,
first world activists have chosen to bypass government and international
organizations and call directly upon transnational corporations
to adopt socially responsible business practices. Corporate and
university anti-sweatshop policies are one result of these campaigns.
But until now, consumer-based anti-sweatshop projects have generally
not been connected to the workers themselves so their policies have
not been available to workers as tools to change the power relations
in which they work and live. The Kukdong struggle represents a crucial
transcending of scales between third and first world activists.
Until labor rights are enacted meaningfully on a global level, this
sort of alliance may be the most promising model internationally-minded
activists have for challenging unregulated global business practices.
Reports on Kukdong
The Worker Rights Consortium
Preliminary
Report
Informe
Preliminar (In Spanish)
Second
Report
Informe
Segundo (In Spanish)
International Labor Rights Fund
Report by Arturo Alcalde Justiniani
Verite
Report
commissioned by Nike
Articles and Other documents on Kukdong
Mexican Labor Protest Gets Results
By Ginger Thompson
New York Times
Wednesday, October 3, 2001
Business as usual - Mexico's
president ignores old-style labor repression
By Wendy Patterson
San Francisco Chronicle
Thursday, July 19, 2001
La Lucha Sigue: Stories
from the People of the Kukdong Factory
Centro de Apoyo al Trajador
Collegiate Apparel Research Initiative - Mexico
July 2001
Monitoring Agencies and Advocacy Groups
Worker Rights
Consortium
International
Labor Rights Fund
Fair Labor Association
United Students Against Sweatshops
Sweatshop
Watch
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