NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #16/NN_1992_16.iso/spool/misc/activism/progress/5285

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Subject: Multinationals & Human Rights Violations
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/** reg.guatemala: 161.0 **/
** Topic: Multinationals & Human Rights Viola **
** Written 12:53 pm  Jul 21, 1992 by hrcoord in cdp:reg.guatemala **
From: Human Rights Coordinator <hrcoord>
Subject: Multinationals & Human Rights Violations

/* Written 12:51 pm  Jul 21, 1992 by hrcoord in cdp:humanrights */
BRECHA (Bimonthly publication of the Commission for the Defense of
Human Rights in Central America [CODEHUCA])

April 1992

ECONOMIC, SOCIAL, CULTURAL RIGHTS: Multinational Companies & Human
Rights Violations

by Angelica Broman

As readers of the Brecha are aware, human rights violators are not
just governments and security forces (militaries and police
forces) which abuse their authority. Human rights violations are
much broader than the "traditional" political and civil rights,
but also include the denial of economic, social and cultural
rights.

This article attempts to look at how multi-national companies
(MNCs) can and do violate the economic and social rights of
persons living in the countries in which they operate. It also
suggests that these same companies should be made (through the use
of a variety of national and international human rights
instruments) fully accountable for their actions.

MNCs, of course, do not exist and act in a vacuum. They are a
major player in a world economic system that is increasingly
integrated.  It is a system that creates and distributes wealth in
an unequal manner across the planet - both within and between
nations - and in so doing violates basic economic and social
rights everywhere.  To understand the underlying causes of these
violations, it is important to examine the various parts of the
socioeconomic system which allows (and indeed relies on) the daily
abuse which permeates the lives of many.

While beyond the scope of this article, it is also important that
similar analyses continue to be made of the approach to human
rights of national governments, as well as the increasingly-
powerful international financial institutions such as the World
Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

The Power of the Multinationals:

It is a "given" in any society that the laws must reflect and
regulate all those actors in the society so that no sector is
allowed to act with impunity. Today, MNCs are close to being the
most powerful institutions on the planet. According to the Council
for International and Public Affairs, many of the largest MNCs
have gross incomes substantially larger than the domestic output
of goods and services of most nation states.

As the MNCs grow larger, they become increasingly disconnected
from the states in which they operate, especially in the under-
developed world. If a MNC decides that it is better for business
to move their operations elsewhere (cheaper labor costs, better
profit remittance laws, more accessible raw resources, fewer
environmental controls, etc.) they can simply move - without
considering the social and economic costs for the local people and
economy.

Unfortunately, many poor third world countries, for historical
reasons of skewed "development" (not to be discussed here), see
themselves as dependent on the MNCs and therefore bend over
backwards to offer the most inviting conditions so that the MNC
will set up its operation in their country. Often the `conditions'
offered do not consider the basic social and economic rights of
the local population.

The rest of this article will briefly look at a number of
different ways that MNCs contribute directly or indirectly to
violations of a wide range of human rights abuses.

The Extent of Multinational Operations:

Today the majority of industry in Central America is
foreign-owned.  The Guatemalan clothing industry is a good example
of the growth in foreign investment in the past 5 years. The
number of foreign-owned assembly plants (producing clothing) in
Guatemala has grown from 5 to 200 in that time period. The
industry employs more than 40,000 Guatemalan workers, 80% of whom
are women. Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea are increasingly
investing in the textile business throughout the Central American
region. The majority of the clothing produced is designated for
the United States; brand names include Levi's, Liz Claiborne,
Guess, van Heusen, Sears, K-Mart, Montgomery Ward, McKids, and
Ocean Pacific.

The Right to Work, To a Just Salary, and to Just Working
Conditions:

"Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to
just and favorable conditions of work and to protection against
unemployment...Everyone who works has the right to just and
favorable remuneration..."  Article 23, Universal Declaration of
Human Rights

The textile and clothing industry illustrates well some of the
multinationals' violations of human rights. The women working in
Guatemalan textile factories are underpaid, overworked, and denied
their basic rights. According to the Multinational Monitor,
workers are paid between $1 and $2 a day for a long and hard day
(16 hours a day, 6 days a week in not uncommon).

The workers are often subjected to forced overtime, along with
sexual and physical abuse. Physical conditions are often
appalling, with warehouse-like buildings having few windows, few
fans, no heat, and few exits. Workers are seldom given protection
against chemicals and dust which they are exposed to when dying
cloth.  These conditions also exist in textile factories in
neighboring countries in the region.

In the Central American agro-export industry, the conditions are
often close to slave-like. The countries in the region have often
been referred to as "banana republics". Today this traditional
crop has given way to other non-traditional cash crops such as
pineapple, cattle, palm oil, vegetables, and flowers. The
production of all these resources is controlled by United States
corporations such as United Brands (Chiquita), Castle and Cooke
(Standard Fruit, Dole Pineapple and Banana Antillana), R.J.
Reynolds (Bandequa, del Monte, and del Campo), Proctor and Gamble
(Folger's), General Foods (Maxwell House and Nescafe).

Workers on these plantations work in monotonous and harsh
conditions.  They often suffer from extreme fatigue. A study done
in Costa Rica revealed that a plantation worker swings his machete
as many as 5000 times a day, often in close proximity to
co-workers. There is an average of one occupational accident per
worker every year at one Standard plantation in Costa Rica. The
heavy use of pesticides by the banana companies has led to skin
problems for banana workers.  Thousands of Costa Rican banana
workers and their families have beewn poisoned by pesticides; many
have been sterilized as a result.

The Right to Association:

"Everyone has the right to form and join trade unions..."  Article
23, Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Attempts to organize unions in the Guatemalan textile industry
have often been severely repressed. Workers trying to organize are
fired, given death threats, physically intimidated, and even
murdered and "disappeared". The situation is similar in other
industries, especially in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. In
Guatemala, for example, it has been widely alleged since the
1970's that Coca-Cola used its connections with the military to
threaten workers who wanted to start a union. Pedro Querado, the
union's financial secretary was assassinated while making
deliveries in a Coca-Cola truck. Israel Marquez, the union's
secretary, was attacked by machine gun fire, but managed to escape
into exile.  His replacement Manual Balan was beheaded. Similar
incidents are not unheard of in the rest of the region.

The Right to a Healthy Environment:

The cotton industry has been indentified as another abuser of
pesticides. "We treat 30 or 40 people a day for pesticide
poisoning," one nurse at a clinic in Guatemala's cotton-growing
region told the authors of "Dollars and Dictators". "The farmers
often tell the peasants to give another reason for their sickness,
but you can smell the pesticides on their clothes." According to
the American Research Institute for Industry, the average DDT
content in human blood in Guatemala's cotton regions is 520.6
parts per billion contrasted with 46.5 in Dade Country, Florida. A
study carried out by the Central American Nutritional Institute
found that the amount of DDT in mothers' milk in Guatemala was the
highest in the Western World and over 185 times higher than the
safety limit.

Pesticides for the agro-export industry in Central American are
produced in and exported from the United States and other northern
countries. Common pesticides exported to the region are DDT,
Toxaphene, and Parathion, all of which are banned or severely
restricted in the United States. The multinationals operate within
(and derive profits from) a system with a dangerous double
standard. What is unhealthy for and therefore banned in the
developed world is used in abundance and with great
unaccountability by multinationals in the underdeveloped world.

It is a rare multinational company which bothers itself with the
environmental or health impact of its operations. Banana
plantations in Costa Rica, for example, not only pose a great
threat to workers' health and safety, but also represent a major
environmental hazard.  The pesticides and fertilizers used pollute
both surface and ground water, killing fish, and other living
species. Eventually they pour into the ocean, contributing to the
death of marine life and the destruction of the coral reefs. (It
is ironic that some of the pesticides banned in the United States,
which are used on Central American agro-export plantations,
actually find their way back to the US in the contaminated
produce.)

The rapid expansion of the cattle industry in Central America to
meet the demand for hamburgers in North America has contributed to
the destruction of two-thirds of the region's tropical forest.
90% of beef exports from Central America are shipped to the United
States. Meanwhile, the average house cat in the United States
consumes more beef than the average Central American.

Whose Responsibility?

The position taken here is not to argue that all abuses of
economic and social rights are caused by the MNCs. They are not.
But multinationals do play a very powerful and important role in
the global economy, and therefore in the lives of many who work
for them or live in the communities in which they operate. Along
with this immense power must come a great accountability for the
effects of their actions. The responsiblity for human rights
abuses should be apportioned to those forces which control the
very socio- economic system allowing such abuses. Local
governments, although traditionally held legally responsible,
cannot alone act to prevent abuses within their borders.

Ultimately the issue of responsibility is not just a legal
question.  After the Exxon oil spill off the coast of Alaska,
Greenpeace stated, in a paid advertisement, "It would be easy to
blame the oil spill on one man. Or one company. Or even one
industry. Too easy. Because the truth is the spill was caused by a
nation drunk on oil".

While it is important to begin to focus on the responsibility of
MNCs to uphold human rights when carrying out their operations,
greater attention must also be given to the huge phenomena of
consumerism in the developed world, which only propels the MNCs
forward to produce more goods at less cost. Such over-consumption
prevents the development of a much-needed "human rights culture"
(in which consumers would be aware of and would take
responsibility for how the products they purchase are actually
produced).

The Council on International and Public Affairs argues that the
same international human rights standards and norms should be
applied to the MNCs as are applied to nation states. MNCs are
increasingly being questioned about and held accountable for the
environmental impact of their operations. The challenge placed
before MNCs, governments and consumers to take responsibility for
our actions and their impact on human rights is only growing
louder.

(Sources used in this article are available from BRECHA.)
** End of text from cdp:reg.guatemala **