“ Empleo si, pero con dignidad!”
The chant comes from a group of about 40 women in Choloma, Honduras, who have assembled outside the offices of Delta Apparel, a multinational garment company. Calling for “jobs, but with dignity,” they are demanding that the company reinstate three workers who were fired. The workers say the firings are illegal and discriminatory because they suffered from workplace injuries.
The sun is hot and a man stands beside the rally selling bags of water. The women pass a megaphone around and take turns leading chants.
The rally was coordinated by the Colectiva de Mujeres Hondureñas (CODEMUH), a grassroots women’s rights group that organizes women working in the maquiladora sector to defend themselves against workers’ rights violations, which are systemic across the industry.
Cheap labour and free trade zones form the backbone of the maquila business model. Maquilas are factories in Latin America where commodities are produced for export while being exempted from various taxes, duties, and tariffs. In Honduras, neoliberal policies – in particular, corporate, municipal, income, and fuel tax exemptions – have contributed to the underfunding of health and education systems, which the government is now working to privatize.
Mass protests are unrolling against a backdrop of rising costs for housing, electricity, and food that make it very difficult for many Hondurans to get by. Families making minimum wage can only afford 41 percent of the basic family food basket, according to studies by the Asociación de Consumidores de Honduras. The food basket – a list of 30 tax-exempted basic goods – is one of two measures in Honduras for calculating the cost of living.
This story is from the November/December 2019 edition of Briarpatch.
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This story is from the November/December 2019 edition of Briarpatch.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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