[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 150 (Tuesday, November 19, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2111-E2112]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       LABOR VIOLATIONS UNDERMINE U.S.-ECUADOR TRADE RELATIONSHIP

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. GEORGE MILLER

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, November 19, 2002

  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, on October 29, the 
United States Trade Representative (USTR) recommended to the White 
House that Ecuador be designated a beneficiary country under the Andean 
Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act (ATPDEA). The White House 
issued a proclamation adopting the recommendation on October 31, one 
day before trade ministers met for a summit in Quito, Ecuador.
  The United States has once again chosen to extend special trading 
benefits to Ecuador despite blatant and rampant violations of worker 
rights in that country's banana industry.
  Our Administration had a golden opportunity to promote democratic 
ideals abroad by placing universal labor rights above economic self-
interest. It should have withheld trade benefits until Ecuador proved 
it was serious about eradicating child labor on its plantations, 
improving the hostile climate toward the right to organize, and 
bringing to justice those who attacked striking workers in February and 
May.
  In February 2002, hoodlums attacked striking workers on a banana 
plantation in the middle of the night. Soon thereafter, Human Rights 
Watch released a damning report which documented a long litany of labor 
abuses on Ecuadorian banana plantations. As concerned members of the 
International Worker Rights Caucus, we sent down staffers to 
investigate the situation. They were given few helpful answers.
  On September 23, we wrote to USTR Ambassador Zoellick and made the 
case that Ecuador did not deserve renewed trading benefits. Throughout 
the summer, the Ecuadorian government and much of the banana industry 
had continued to dismiss conclusions reached in the Human Rights Watch 
Report. It had become clear that the case of the attacked workers was 
nowhere near resolution. In short, the Ecuadorian government had shown 
little enthusiasm for instituting necessary labor reforms to keep trade 
beneficiary status.
  USTR took our letter and its recommendations seriously by conferring 
renewed trading benefits on Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia but withholding 
Ecuador's cause for further review. The recent decision to go ahead and 
renew Ecuador's status is dependent upon Ecuador fulfilling certain 
medium-term conditions at a later date.
  We believe those conditions would be satisfied earlier if our country 
held Ecuador to the labor standards that U.S. trading agreements 
demand. The truth is that Ecuador sells more bananas to the U.S. than 
it does to any other country. It enjoys a beneficial trading 
arrangement that is contingent upon a respect for basic human rights. 
It should be held accountable.
  We have included the September 23 letter we sent to the USTR. Under 
each of our recommendations, we have included an update of what the 
Ecuadorian government has done on this concern. We hope these measures 
will have been fully adopted by Ecuador when USTR revisits the issue in 
the future. Until then, we will continue to support rights for workers 
in Ecuador and elsewhere.

     Robert B. Zoellick,
     Ambassador, United States Trade Representative, Washington, 
         DC.
       Dear Ambassador Zoellick: As you know, in order for 
     countries to be eligible under the Andean Trade Promotion and 
     Drug Eradication Act (ATPDEA), they must provide for 
     internationally recognized worker rights. We are writing to 
     express our concern that Ecuador has not met this criteria. 
     We are particularly concerned about abuses in the banana 
     sector.
       Ecuador does not effectively enforce its laws governing the 
     worst forms of child labor in its banana sector nor do the 
     minimal penalties for violating those laws effectively deter 
     employers from employing children in hazardous conditions. In 
     Ecuador's banana sector, harmful child labor is widespread, 
     children work long hours, are exposed to toxic pesticides, 
     use sharp tools, haul heavy loads of bananas, lack sanitary 
     water and access to restroom facilities, and, in a few cases, 
     experience sexual harassment. Although the government of 
     Ecuador and the Ecuadorian banana industry have recently 
     pledged to take steps to address the problem, the promised 
     steps are insufficient, as they fail to address adequately 
     the problem of ineffective enforcement of child labor laws 
     and inadequate sanctions for their violation.
       Ecuadorian laws intended to protect freedom of association 
     are seriously deficient. Employers who fire workers for 
     organizing are not required to reinstate the workers and, if 
     caught, usually pay only a minimal fine. Employers are not 
     prohibited from interfering with unionization efforts or 
     attempting to control workers' organizations. And legal 
     loopholes allow employers to string together short-term 
     contracts to create a vulnerable ``permanent temporary'' 
     workforce. Subcontracted workers, also used widely in the 
     sector, lack job stability and can only bargain collectively 
     with their subcontractors, not with the companies that 
     actually control their employment terms. These factors create 
     a climate of fear among banana workers in Ecuador and have 
     largely prevented them from organizing, resulting in a banana 
     worker union affiliation rate of roughly 1 percent, far lower 
     than that of Colombia or any Central American banana-
     exporting country.
       Despite all the impediments to organizing, in February 
     2002, workers on the Los Alamos banana plantations, owned by 
     the Noboa Corporation, began the first serious banana worker 
     organizing drive in Ecuador in over five years. The Los 
     Alamos workers, whose

[[Page E2112]]

     three unions were recognized by the Ministry of Labor in 
     April and who began a legal strike on May 6 in an effort to 
     get their employers to engage in good-faith negotiations, 
     have been the victims of alleged anti-union dismissals; anti-
     union violence, including shootings on May 16; government 
     failure to investigate the violence and prosecute the 
     perpetrators; employer interference with Special Committees 
     representing the workers before government-convened 
     arbitration panels; and the unlawful use of strikebreakers. 
     If the Los Alamos workers' right to organize is not fully 
     protected, other banana workers will likely be deterred from 
     organizing for fear of suffering similar consequences, 
     creating a chilling effect on the exercising of fundamental 
     worker rights. labor abuses in Ecuador's banana sector were 
     extensively documented earlier this year in Human Rights 
     Watch's report, Tainted Harvest: Child Labor and Obstacles to 
     Organizing on Ecuador's Banana Plantations, and have also 
     been widely reported in U.S. and foreign media, including the 
     New York Times, Washington Post, Financial Times, and 
     Economist.
       Because Ecuador has failed to fulfill its commitments to 
     eliminate the worst forms of child labor and to protect 
     workers' right to organize, the country should be denied 
     ATPDEA designation until benchmarks addressing the 
     enforcement of child labor laws and the abuses suffered by 
     Los Alamos workers are met. We urge the United States Trade 
     Representative (USTR) to send a delegation to Ecuador to 
     verify compliance with the benchmarks. If the benchmarks are 
     met, ATPDEA designation should be granted on a provisional 
     basis for six months, on the condition that reforms to bring 
     labor laws into compliance with international standards be 
     made within that time frame.
       We also recommend that Ecuador be asked to take the 
     following measures to address urgent labor rights problems 
     prior to ATPDEA designation:


                          The Los Alamos Case

       Undertake a comprehensive investigation of the violence 
     against the striking banana workers and effectively prosecute 
     those responsible, including any parties who may have hired 
     the perpetrators.
       Not only was this condition not fulfilled prior to granting 
     Ecuador ATPDEA beneficiary status, but Ecuador committed to 
     the United States only, generally, that it would continue to 
     investigate and take further action in the Los Alamos case, 
     failing to address specifically any of the very serious 
     concerns, detailed below, with regards to the investigation 
     undertaken.
       At approximately 2:00 a.m. on May 16, 2002, some two 
     hundred armed individuals attacked striking workers on Los 
     Alamos, looting their homes, beating many of them, and 
     shooting at least one. Around 6:00 p.m. that same day, the 
     armed men allegedly shot eight more workers and a policeman. 
     In October 2002, Ecuador concluded a sorely inadequate 
     investigation of this case. According to a report by the 
     prosecutor handling the case, only sixteen of the assailants 
     were charged with any crime. The events of 2:00 a.m. were 
     never investigated. No attempt was made to identify who hired 
     the armed individuals, nor were any workers interviewed. The 
     investigation examined only the case of the injured 
     policeman, mentioning only that a local newspaper had 
     reported that one worker was also shot. The Los Alamos case 
     is now before a criminal judge, Even if the case proceeds to 
     trial, as the prosecutor has requested, and further 
     investigation is undertaken at that stage, the trial will 
     focus solely on the incidents and charges set forth in the 
     prosecutor's report, which forms the basis for the case. 
     Thus, unless another case is opened and a new investigation 
     undertaken, those who may have contracted the roughly two 
     hundred perpetrators of the violence and all but sixteen of 
     the perpetrators will enjoy impunity, and the sixteen accused 
     will face charges for only a fraction of the illegal 
     activities of May 16, also enjoying impunity with respect to 
     the others.
       Investigate whether replacement workers were hired 
     illegally and whether employers attempted to place workers' 
     Special Committees under employer control, violating the 
     right of workers' associations to function free of employer 
     interference. If so determined, these violations should cease 
     and the employers should face appropriate penalties, adequate 
     to deter future abuses. This condition was also not fulfilled 
     prior to granting Ecuador ATPDEA beneficiary status, and, 
     instead, Ecuador committed to the United States, generally 
     that it would establish a ``high level commission'' to 
     investigate this and other issues related to the Los Alamos 
     case and report back to the United States with findings and 
     recommendations for improvements. Ecuador did not, however, 
     commit that this ``high level commission'' nor any other 
     government body would punish the employers if guilty of 
     violating Ecuadorian law governing the use of replacement 
     workers or if guilty of violating workers' right to freedom 
     of association by interfering with workers' organizations.


                              Child Labor

       Designate, as required by Ecuadorian law, at least one 
     labor inspector for children in each province-a total of 
     twenty-two inspectors-and provide them with sufficient 
     resources to effectively implement child labor laws. These 
     inspectors should be in addition to, not in lieu of, existing 
     labor inspectors.
       Ecuador's Minister of Labor issued a decree addressing 
     enforcement of child labor laws that blatantly fails to meet 
     this condition. On October 4, 2002, Ecuador's Minister of 
     Labor decreed a new ``System for the Inspection and 
     Monitoring of Child Labor.'' However, this initiative is 
     insufficient to address the country's egregious failure to 
     enforce its child labor laws. The new system does not provide 
     for new labor inspectors, but explicitly states that existing 
     inspectors charged with enforcing other labor laws shall be 
     shifted to this new bureaucracy. Furthermore, although the 
     decree states that the Ministry of Labor will ensure that the 
     system is provided with sufficient financial and human 
     resources to complete its functions, there is no guarantee 
     that additional funding will be provided to the Ministry of 
     labor for these purposes.
       Ecuador has committed to the United States, generally, to 
     improve enforcement of child labor laws and comply with 
     International labor Organization (ILO) convention 182 
     concerning the prohibition and Immediate Elimination of the 
     Worst Forms of Child Labor. Ecuador did not specifically 
     commit, however, to fully fund the system created to uphold 
     these commitments nor to address that system's significant 
     inadequacies.
       Ecuador should be required to commit, prior to ATPDEA 
     designation, to make the following labor law reforms within 
     six months, as a condition for continued designation:
       Increase the penalty for violating child labor laws and 
     require a portion of punitive fine to be dedicated to the 
     rehabilitation of displaced child workers.
       Explicitly prohibit employers from interfering in the 
     establishment or functioning of workers' organizations and 
     attempting to dominate or control workers' organizations.
       Require reinstatement of workers fired for engaging in 
     union activity and payment of lost wages during the period 
     when they were wrongfully dismissed.
       Prohibit explicitly employer failure to hire workers due to 
     organizing activity and establish adequate penalties to deter 
     employers from engaging in this or other anti-union 
     discrimination.
       Allow subcontracted workers to organize and bargain 
     collectively with the person or company for whose benefit 
     work is realized if that person or company has the power to 
     dictate workers' terms and conditions of employment.
       Reduce the minimum number of workers required to form a 
     union.
       Ecuador has not explicitly made any of these commitments. 
     Instead, Ecuador committed to look seriously at the 
     consistency of its labor laws with ILO obligations. This 
     falls significantly short of promising to submit labor law 
     reforms to congress to address specifically the areas, 
     highlighted above, in which Ecuadorian labor laws fail to 
     meet international standards on freedom of association and 
     child labor.
       Ecuador also agreed to send seven labor rights-related 
     international law instruments to its congress for future 
     ratification. Of these seven, however, two- the U.N. Protocol 
     to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, 
     Especially Women and Children and ILO Convention 138, the 
     Minimum Age Convention-were already ratified by Ecuador. One- 
     the Inter-American Convention on the Elimination of All Forms 
     of Discrimination for Reasons of Gender and Age-does not even 
     exist. Therefore, only four of the instruments could, in 
     practice, be submitted for ratification, none of which 
     address the concerns highlighted above.
       After these essential measures have been taken and reforms 
     adopted, Ecuador should be required to commit to continuing 
     to reform labor legislation and improve labor law enforcement 
     until internationally recognized worker rights are fully 
     respected throughout the country.
       We thank you for your consideration of this very important 
     matter and would be happy to discuss it with you further. We 
     look forward to your response.
           Sincerely,
     George Miller,
       Member of Congress.
     Janice D. Schakowsky,
       Member of Congress.

       

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