Guatemalan workers organize despite government repression

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"Leading and inspiring other Guatemalan workers are the members of STEGAC, the labor union at the Coca-Cola plant."

GUATEMALA CITY — Ronald Reagan praised Guatemala's elections to a Constituent Assembly in July as a step toward democracy in Central America. But to become a labor union official is still "to sign one's death warrant" according to a leader of STICAVSA, the union at the CAVISA glass factory. Fernando Garcia, a member of that union's executive board "disappeared" in February and can be presumed murdered by the military.

"You should understand that there's no real change in the level of repression, said a member of the executive board of STUSC, the union at the University of San Carlos. 'In 1970 they were killing 509 people per month-in 1984 they're killing 485 per month.

"But what has changed is the form. Now they don't murder us on the street in broad daylight-instead they kidnap whole families from their homes at night."

Liberal laws, repressive reality The Guatemalan labor movement exists in strange and frightening circumstances. On the one hand its labor laws are liberal, a legacy of the period of the 'Democratic Revolution" of 1944 and the 10 years thereafter. On the other hand the reality of labor relations is determined by the bloody military counterrevolution which has gone on now for 30 years since the CIA coup in 1954.

Union organizing and collective bargaining go on, and even strikes take place. But at the same time there is close surveillance over union leaders and activists and their friends and families, and at any time one of them may be snatched away from home or job and disappear.

Yet, though the kidnapping, torture, and murder continue, incredibly workers in private industry and the public sector are trying to take some small steps forward.

Recently food and metal workers have occupied factories to stop plant closings. The university workers' union is going to seek a wage increase in the contract which expires soon. A union reform movement has taken power in the country's largest union, the municipal workers in Guatemala City. And a militant labor coalition is being rebuilt-though only four years ago 25 leaders of a similar coalition were arrested by the national police, disappeared, and are presumed murdered.

Coke workers inspire others Leading and inspiring other Guatemalan workers are the members of STEGAC, the labor union at the Coca-Cola bottling plant. Since the union was organized in 1975 the workers have GLOSSARY STICAVSA- Sindicato de Trabajadores de Industria Centroamericana de Vidrio, Sociedad Anonima (Union of Workers of the Central American Glass Industry)

STUSC-Sindicato de Trabajadores Universidad de San Carlos (Union of Workers of San Carlos University)

STEGAC - Sindicato de Trabajadores de Embotelladora Guate.

malteca, Sociedad Anonima, Anexas y Conexos (Union of Workers of the Guatemalan Bottling Plant and its Subsidiaries)

SCMP-- Sindicato Central Municipal de Trabajadores (Central Union of Municipal Workers)

CONUS-Coordinadora Nacional de Unidad Sindical (National Steering Committee of Labor Unity)

SOCIALIST ACTION faced every conceivable kind of terror. At various times the plant was occupied by the army. Special counterinsurgency forces, the Kaibiles, were stationed in the plant to intimidate the workers, and between 1978 and 1980 eight union activists disappeared or were murdered outright.

But despite the terror, the union survived, and when on February 17 of this year the owners of the franchise announced that they had gone bankrupt and would close the plant, the 460 workers immediately occupied it. Workers were assigned to guard duty. Soccer, volleyball, and track teams were organized. Literacy and labor education classes were set up. And union meetings were held twice a week to keep the members informed of latest developments and to read letters of support from every corner of the world. May Day was celebrated with a march and a mass in the plant.

International solidarity With help from other Guatemalan unions and from the International Union of Food and Allied Workers Associations (IUF), the workers held out in the plant for three months, and on May 26, Coca-Cola Interamerican Corporation agreed to keep the plant open. The agreement specified that the workers would be paid 252,150 quetzales for maintaining the plant from the day production stopped until a new owner was found. (Q1 = $1 official rate; Q1 = $1.40 black market)

"This was the most important part of the pact, according to Rodolfo Robles, general secretary of the union, because Coca-Cola was recognizing that the workers were still employees, still had a union and a contract, and that the company still had an obligation to them.

In addition, Coca-Cola agreed to pay 12,000 quetzales as a "humanitarian gesture" to the widows and orphans of the Coca-Cola workers murdered before June of 1980.

And, finally, Coca-Cola agreed to find new owners for the franchise. "The Coca Gota 36 workers. The union occupied the plant, imitating the Coke workers.

Other Guatemalan unions gave economic aid and sent statements to the press in support of the ALINSA workers, and about 25 unions sent telegrams to both management and the Ministry of Labor. There was also support from the IUF.

The result of the occupation was a qualified victory or a limited defeat, depending on your point of view. The company agreed not to close the plant— but refused to rehire the 17 laid-off workers, thus destroying the union since a work place must have 20 workers to have a union, according to Guatemalan labor law. Twenty jobs were saved, but the union was destroyed. In any case, the Coca-Cola victory had given the workers the courage to fight back.

The Coca-Cola victory seems also to have had its effect on the public sector-or perhaps both private and public sector workers are responding to the same deepening crisis in Latin America.

"A step forward"

In January, a new executive committee assumed office in STUSC, the labor union of some 1800 nonacademic workers at the University of San Carlos in Guatemala City.

"The old union leadership had been attempting simply to preserve the union in the repressive conditions, said a woman member of the executive committee, "but we thought it was time to attempt a step forward."

This union too has its martyrs: In the last several years a total of eight people, including several union officers, a union attorney, and rank-and-file members have been disappeared or killed. In 1982, for example, Graciela de Samayoa, a worker in the economics department, and her two children disappeared. Trucks pulled up in front of her house, emptied all of her belongings, and the mother and her two children were kidnapped.

"No one knows what happened to this day,' says one of the union officers. "It can happen to anyone who speaks up."

Yet, in spite of the repression, the union executive committee wants not only to preserve the union, but to try to move ahead. One of the issues is wages, which range between a minimum of 240 quetzales per month for a cleaning worker and a maximum of 454 quetzales per month for a foreman.

To win a wage increase will mean a fight with management-immediately with the University Superior Council and the rector, but ultimately with the military government, which controls the national budget. The union is ready to make that fight.

"Our union was once a very important part of the Guatemalan labor movement," says the woman on the executive board. "We think it should play that role again."

But if the union is to play that role it will mean danger. "To be a union leader,' says, "is a life issue."

There is also a new more militant leadership in another public employees' union, and the largest union in the country, the SCMT, the municipal workers' union.

"The previous leadership had held office for about 10 years. Every two years, when there was a union election, they would just rotate offices," says Silverio Pineda Ramirez, general secretary of the union. "We defeated them on February 7 and took office on June 29 after our credentials were approved by the Ministry of Labor."

For Pineda Ramirez it is the culmination of a 14-year-long fight to rebuild the union. A small, thin, older man who dresses in neat work clothes and whose deeply lined face is shaded by his cowboy hat, he explains the history of the The SCMT was founded in 1947 during the years of the "Democratic (continued