Top

La Prensa Honduras

August 8, 2010 by · Comments Off on La Prensa Honduras 

La Prensa Honduras, July 26 Nike, Inc. and General Confederation of Workers (CGT), one of the three main labor federations Honduras announced that the sportswear giant based in Oregon and was paying about 1.54 million workers laid off in 1600 the end of last year’s Nike subcontractors in the region two Choloma the northwestern department of Cortés. The package also includes one year of medical coverage through the Social Security system of Honduras, a training program and priority for recruitment in other factories that Nike can use at home. The fund will be administered by the CGT, the Solidarity Center, AFL-CIO, the largest U.S. federation Work and Workers Rights Consortium (WRC), a labor rights-based monitoring group.

The two clothing assembly plants Tex-Vision, the Korean capital employed, and Hugger in Honduras, owned by Donaldo Reyes Villeda, son of a legislative deputy for the center-right National Party (PN), Donaldo Reyes closed without prior Avelar notice in January 2009. The only workers compensation was received for the sale of machinery and office equipment. This came to 21% of the compensation required by law for workers Hugger and 26% for workers Tex Vision. advocates for workers say the total package offered by Nike and has a value of 2 million, the amount of compensation still owed to workers.

Nike said it was not responsible for the failure of subcontractors to compensate their workers. In the fall of 2009, the United Students based in the U.S. Against Sweatshops (USAS) launched a campaign to pressure Nike to pay, on a model the group used to get Russell Athletic Atlanta to rehire 1,200 workers laid off in January 2009, when it closed its unionized Russell Jerzees installation [see Update # 1013 Honduras]. With the slogan “You just have to pay,” USAS and affiliated groups organized tourist trips by two Honduran workers fired in over 40 U.S. Campus that contract with Nike sportswear.

In mid-July, Cornell University has decided to end his contract with Nike, and the pressure was increasing Pennsylvania State University and the University of Washington to do the same. According to the coordinator of the CGT Choloma, Evangelina Argueta, Nike signed the settlement agreement on 20 July. (La Prensa, San Pedro Sula, July 26, some of AP, The New York Times, July 27; Revistazo.com, Honduras, July 28, In These Times, 28 July)

In a press conference in Tegucigalpa on July 28, representatives of the People’s National Resistance Front (FNRP) reported that the economic policies of President Porfirio (Pepe) Lobo Sosa, a leader of the National Party, were the creation of a paradise Tax and labor for the import and export companies. The FNRP, which was formed to resist the coup that ousted then President, José Manuel (Mel) Zelaya Rosales in June 2009, before new taxes that he said penalized the poor, a plan to legalize temporary work for hours, cancellation of the labor rights of teachers, and delays in increasing the minimum wage.

“President de facto [Wolf] knows that the minimum wage is directly related to the price at which employers sell the basket,” said FNRP, referring to the “basket” of basic consumer goods that American governments America used to measure the cost of living. Currently, the basket is 6,500 lempiras (ones and 344) a month, according to the FNRP, which is calling for a protest meeting on August 18 to demand a minimum wage increase and to reject a plan to devalue the currency or impose a temporary law. The protest also require respect for human rights and the dismantling of the regime established by the coup of 2009. (Vos The Sovereign, Honduras, July 28 Defensoresenlínea.com)

Bottom