As Puma runs out on Mexican workers:

Submitted by AWL on 8 February, 2003 - 10:35

Your letters can help

By the Workers’ Organising Centre (CAT), Puebla, Mexico

On Monday 13 January, after repeated violations of labour and human rights, 200 of the 250 workers employed by the Matamoros Garment factory decided to take a stand.

The workers, employed by a US-owned factory in the south-central Mexican state of Puebla complained: “We are forced to work mandatory overtime, the guard was given orders to lock the door, [and] wages are less than the [legal] minimum wage for the region. For example, the lowest wage is 39 pesos per day [approximately US$3.90]. When the customers do audits of the factory, the company forces us to lie.”

More than 160 of the workers decided to form their own independent union. The company responded, as is common in Mexico, by informing the workers that they already had a “union”. For the first time in four years, the so-called “union representatives” came to the factory amidst booing and whistling to inform the workers that they should return to work.

During a one-day strike, workers and their allies made efforts to contact Puma, the German sportswear manufacturer who is a major customer of the factory and whose Code of Conduct guarantees basic labour rights, including that to freedom of association. PUMA responded acknowledging the violations of its Code of Conduct and promising “immediate action” as well as an immediate presence in the factory.

Immediate action certainly came on Friday 17 January, when the plant manager, John Whittinghill, announced that, due to the workers’ complaints, PUMA was withdrawing its production from the factory and he would not be able to pay their back wages. Whittinghill proposed, however, that the workers sign blank pieces of paper so that he could create false statements of praise to send to PUMA. The workers refused.

PUMA was nowhere to be seen.

Undaunted the workers filed papers to gain legal recognition for their independent union. The next day, all PUMA’s tags were withdrawn from the factory. The independent union’s secretary general had her paycheck cut. PUMA continued to respond promising immediate action, and delivering none.

Finally, on Friday 24 January PUMA sent the company’s official response to the workers in the form of a letter. PUMA confirmed that it has moved its business from the factory.

What PUMA is saying is that they will take the money and leave the workers to fend for themselves.

Now is the time to let PUMA know that washing their hands clean of human rights violations, while still profiting from them, is unacceptable. PUMA must understand that the trouble they wanted to avoid has only begun.

Please write to:
Jochen Zeitz , Chief Executive Officer, Puma—jochen.zeitz@PUMA.com —and demand:
1. That Puma not cut and run, and instead intervene on behalf of the Matamoros Garment workers.
2. If Puma truly takes its Code of Conduct seriously they must intervene to support the workers’ right to an independent union.
3. Tell them that the international labour movement is planning protests at Puma stores and offices to demand respect for labour rights at Matamoros Garment.

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