Union Leader Calls For US Action on Honduras Labor Rights

Infringements on labor rights pervade Honduran industry, in violation of the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA), Communications Workers of America President Larry Cohen said on Oct. 15, after a trip to Honduras with a Democratic congressman and other union leaders. The trip focused on U.S. immigration policy and the poor Honduran economy, but Cohen stressed the need for the Labor Department to act on an AFL-CIO complaint on the labor rights violations, which include the murder of lawyers and weakened bargaining rights.

That complaint “has sat at the Labor Department for more than two years, just as the complaint of widespread abuse in Guatemala was held for six years before the U.S. Trade Representative finally raised it with the government there,” said Cohen in a statement. USTR in September announced the Obama administration would reopen a case against Guatemalan treatment of workers (see 14091902).

The 2012 AFL-CIO complaint asked the Obama administration to collaborate with the Honduran government to “take all measures necessary to address the legal and institutional obstacles to the effective enforcement of its labor law, as well as to remedy as fully as possible the individual claims,” said an AFL-CIO statement on the complaint (here).

Cohen also urged opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, as well as investor-state mechanisms in DR-CAFTA and a potential TPP agreement. The TPP will divert investment and sourcing from Central America to Vietnam, where the government allows a 27 cent minimum wage, said Cohen. “That minimum wage is about a third of the minimum in Honduras,” Cohen said. “How long will Hanes, Fruit of the Loom and other employers remain in Central America when competitors head to Vietnam with labor costs far lower and a government there that will agree to protect the profits from those lower wages?”