There was some change in Latin America last year - some evidence that it was becoming a marginally less dangerous place for trade union activists; but there was not enough to suggest a long-term trend. Many governments still showed little enthusiasm for tracking down those who murdered and tortured trade unionists, while being rigorous in enforcing unfair laws against unions involved in legitimate disputes.

Colombia still holds its position as the most dangerous place in the world to speak out for your rights at work - yet the police are always at hand to attack, injure and arrest union demonstrators. One woman was even detained with her small children for taking part in a union demonstration in the capital Bogota.

On the legislative front important labour reforms promised by the government as long ago as 1994 were shelved by congress.

What is needed to change the climate in the country is a wholesale determination to enforce the law, and to bring the murderers to justice, alongside a willingness to treat trade unionists as one of the social partners, rather than enemies of the state.

That seems a long way away in Bolivia, where workers went on hunger strike - not to press a particular case, but simply to get the government to negotiate with them on wages, and acknow-
ledge their concern about privatisation and pension funds.

The reaction of the government of El Salvador to the testimony of two trade unionists before a US Congressional hearing about the treatment of workers in Export Processing Zones was to brand them as "traitors" - missing completely the obvious point that if they had been listened to at home, they would have had no need to make their case abroad. And in Guatemala's maquiladoras union rights were still violated although the US saw fit to restore trade privileges under the Generalised System of Preferences.

In Argentina, President Menem persisted with his plans to impose more labour flexibility and bypassed congress to try and do so - all to make it possible for workers to be hired and fired on the cheap. Yet unemployment still went up. In Peru President Fujimori has long since stripped the country's workers of many union and employment rights

North America was safer, but there was still far too little respect for trade union rights in the United States.

The president had introduced sections of the package by decree at the end of 1996, after congress had postponed discussing them because of widespread opposition.

The labour reforms formed part of his "second reform of the state" introduced following an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The CGT national union centre and all other sections of the trade union movement had opposed the reforms, claiming that the government's austerity and restructuring policies had led to recession, job insecurity and record unemployment.

The flexibility package scrapped collective pay deals and provided for company-level contracts which allowed employers to alter contractual terms. It gave employers the right to increase working hours and change holiday periods. It also eliminated existing rules on severance pay and made it easier to hire and fire workers, as well as deregulating the health-care schemes run by trade unions ("obras sociales").

A court declared the decrees unconstitutional on 2 January 1997.

The government lodged an appeal and said that the decrees would remain in force until a higher court settled the matter. President Menem threatened to introduce further parts of the flexibility package by the same method.

Even some employers, though they strongly supported the flexibility measures, had reservations about the way the government had tried to bypass Congress.

Some days later, a second court ruled against the decrees, ordering the government not to apply them until a ruling had been handed down on the first judgement.

The government said it would abide by the second court judgement, and re-established the dialogue with the CGT which had broken down in 1996.

The government proposed the negotiation of a 'social pact' with unions and employers, although it said that it would not negotiate on the main pillars of its economic policy or on the core elements of the reforms.

In May, the CGT and the government reached an agreement on the flexibility plans, and the CGT called off a planned general strike. The agreement included key union demands that collective bargaining would be protected; the government would close the door on temporary employment contracts; and steps would be taken to prevent private companies from competing with the 'obras sociales'.

The employers rejected the agreement. President Menem again threatened to bring in the reforms by decree.

In July, President Menem tried again to get the labour reforms on the road by trying to bring unions and employers together. The employers refused to take part in negotiations which would weaken the reforms.

The president also threatened to submit a draft bill to congress, and in the event that it was not approved, to resort to decree. A few days later he submitted such a bill, which was opposed by employers because some aspects of it reflected the government's agreement with the unions.

Some sections of the union movement immediately staged a protest rally against the bill and announced a general strike for 8 August.

In the run-up to legislative elections in October, President Menem backed down on the labour reforms until after the elections. Opposition gains in the elections set back his plans further, although at the beginning of December he wrote a letter to the IMF committing Argentina to several economic targets, including approval by mid-1998 of the labour reform legislation.

The president has used emergency presidential powers to impose most of the economic reforms brought in over the last seven years. Labour flexibility and deregulation measures already include many legislative attacks on trade union rights. Successive decrees have undermined collective bargaining, and the establishment of an extensive list of essential services where strikes were banned has undermined the right to strike.

Decrees relating to public enterprises issued in 1990 fixed a maximum wage and allowed the authorities to cancel any clauses in collective agreements which they thought would damage productivity and efficiency. A 1991 decree made wage negotiations conditional upon increases in productivity. A 1992 decree suspended clauses in collective agreements and in legislation which established conditions of employment prejudicial to productivity in the ports and the merchant navy. This was amended by a subsequent 1992 decree suspending collective agreements in maritime, river and lake transport, and the ports.

Under the labour law, certain collective agreements concluded at enterprise level must be approved by the Ministry of Labour. The Ministry has to take into account whether the agreement infringes public order, as well as criteria for productivity, investment, the introduction of technology, vocational training, and other legal provisions.

The law also lays down excessive conditions for granting unions legal trade union status and provides that an enterprise union can only be granted legal status if another union does not operate within the geographical area or area of activity. Only associations which have union status enjoy trade union protection and can defend the individual and collective interests of workers.

The government's attempts to force its reforms onto the statute books took place against a growing background of violence and attacks on union rights.

At the end of March, workers at Editorial Atlantida were laid off even though the company was expanding and had many publications. The company was aiming to get rid of union representatives and scrap collective agreements.

High unemployment caused violent social protests in April and May, which spread to many parts of the country, including Buenos Aires. Thousands of jobs had been lost in the public sector. Social security cuts had affected the families of the poorest two and half million workers, and food subsidies, paid to some workers as part of their wages, had been taxed.

On 12 April, protester Theresa Rodriguez died when police attacked teachers, parents and students in the provinces of Neuquen and Jujuy during a demonstration organised by the CTERA education workers' confederation. They were protesting at a discriminatory and divisive education policy and asking for serious negotiations with the government. Several other protesters were injured and arrested.

The CGT called for a one-hour strike on 17 April in protest against the violence as well as the attacks on workers' rights, high unemployment and structural adjustment.

In the early morning of 15 May there was a bomb attack on the office of the CTA national union centre in Cutral-Co, Neuquen, which also houses the Human Rights Commission of Cutral-Co. It was believed that the bomb was aimed at the Human Rights Commission, which had been closely involved in the investigation into the death of Theresa Rodriguez.

In May, the government granted union registration to the CTA national union centre, more than three years after the union had made its application.

Between 20-23 May in Jujuy, 80 people needed hospital treatment after police used tear gas and rubber bullets against workers protesting over the loss of 4,000 jobs at the local sugar mill. Several children were among those injured.

At the end of May, police fired tear gas grenades and rubber bullets at members of the local power workers' union in the province of Mendoza, protesting against privatisation of the provincial power utility. Many were injured and more than 30 people were arrested.

There was more violence during the same period in La Plata, capital of Buenos Aires province, when police tried to clear the streets of informal street sellers.

After several months delay during 1997, the trial of Oscar Martinez, general secretary of the UOM metalworkers' union in Rio Grande, was announced for February 1998. Oscar Martinez is charged with incitement to riot, and if convicted, could face two and a half years in prison. The charges are in connection with protests in April 1995 over the closure and relocation the factory, La Continental Fueguina, in Usuahia, in Tierra del Fuego. Three thousand metalworkers had occupied their factory in protest at the closure and the lack of any compensation payments. On 12 April, when the workers had agreed to leave the factory peacefully, police and soldiers attacked them, killing one worker, Victor Choque.

When the workers and their families went to protest outside the provincial governor's residence, 14 more were injured by the police, and others were detained. The police also attacked a crowd protesting outside police headquarters, injuring over 80 people.

In 1996, Martinez and three other UOM officials were given suspended prison sentences and sentenced to community work, also in relation to the same event.

The six - Edgar Ramirez, executive secretary, Eduardo Calderson, organisation secretary, Felipe Flores, industry secretary, David Olivares, social security secretary, Martha Lazo, human rights secretary, and Ascencio Lazo, Conmerb delegate - were in danger of going into coma by 27 May.

The COB said it would call for a demonstration on the day of national elections, 1 June, although the national election commission warned that the police would prevent any protest.

During May, another 70 other union leaders around the country joined the hunger strike.

Teachers also went on strike in May over wage increases. Teachers' demonstrations blocked traffic and led to clashes with the security forces. Manufacturing workers held a one-day stoppage in sympathy with the teachers.

On 27 May, the hunger strike was called off and COB held a meeting with the government. Seven working groups were set up to discuss COB's demands.

Teachers' leader Wilma Plata was arrested on 1 June after an explosion that day, although there was no evidence of her being involved. She was detained for several days and beaten up. It was believed that the real reason for her arrest was her leading role in the teachers' strike and in a planned election boycott.

Later in the year, COB declared a general strike for 9 December after the newly-elected government led by a former military dictator ordered fuel price rises of up to 28 percent and said it was deregulating the fuel market. Police attacked many workers during the demonstration.

In December 1996, eight workers were killed and 40 injured after the police and the army intervened to put down a workers' protest at two goldmines in the south of the country, Capasirca and Amayapampa, owned by the Dacapo company, now Gold Corp.

The workers were protesting because the company said it was closing down the mines and sacking all the staff. It subsequently planned to take over nearby communal land and begin work on an open-cast mine taking on new workers employed at inferior conditions.

The Organisation of American States carried out an inquiry into the killings, known as the "Christmas massacre". Its recommendations were not implemented during 1997, and no-one involved in the massacre was brought to justice. The mines remained open during the year.

Bolivia's labour code prohibits public servants from joining unions, though in practice, public sector workers do belong to unions and go on strike.

Only one union is allowed per enterprise. Members of trade union executive boards have to be of Bolivian nationality and trade union officials must work in the relevant enterprise. The authorities have wide powers to supervise union affairs and can dissolve trade unions by administrative order.

Three-quarters of all employees have to vote in favour of a strike. Strikes are banned in all public services including banks; compulsory arbitration can be imposed to end strikes; and general and solidarity strikes are illegal and can be punished by imprisonment, although in practice general strikes take place.

The labour code does not cover agricultural workers. Only trade union leaders are protected against anti-union discrimination and there are no measures to protect unions from acts of interference by employers.

The unions and the government both rejected proposals from employers' organisations in March for flexible labour law which would make it cheaper and easier to hire and fire workers and change working conditions by increasing hours and cutting holidays.

The government had already warned in 1996 that Brazil's labour law would need to undergo "profound modifications". It said it wanted to reform the public sector, and introduce temporary work contracts, labour flexibility and deregulation measures. The unions said that the reforms would restrict organisation and collective bargaining rights.

On 12 November union members joined street protests against the austerity measures. The measures included ten per cent tax increases, the ending of security of tenure for government employees, a ceiling on salaries and the loss of around 30,000 jobs in the sector, and social security reforms. These reforms had been pending for nearly three years.

The CUT national union centre said that legislation allowing employers to hire and fire at will had already brought about a huge expansion in the informal sector, in insecure and low-paid jobs, temporary working and sub-contracting.

The CUT and other groups called a mass protest rally on 5-6 December.

The government was expected to bring in a law in January creating temporary employment contracts and compensating overtime with time off instead of higher pay.

Clashes between landowners and landless rural workers continued. The MST rural workers' organisation occupied unproductive land to put pressure on the government to speed up and broaden its land reform programme. Hired gunmen helped state police to evict the workers.

These gunmen are hardly ever brought to justice. It is estimated that over 1,500 rural workers have been killed over the last ten years during land disputes

In January, gunmen hired by a landowner killed three landless rural workers in Ourilandia do Norte, Para. Security guards killed two others in the state of Parana. At least 20 other rural workers were killed during the year.

On 10 June, one of the leaders of the MST, Jose Rainha Junior was sentenced to 26 years in prison for the murder of a farm-owner and a landowner during a land occupation in 1989. It was reported that the prosecution had no material evidence and witnesses said that Rainha had been over one thousand miles away at the time.

In January, the Norberto Odebrech company sacked members of the FNTICM/CUT construction union who had downed tools after the setting-up of a company-sponsored union.

On 2 April, the union at a terminal owned by COSIPA, a Sao Paulo steel company, at Latin America's largest port, Santos, went on strike after the company unilaterally hired non-registered contract labour. The union also occupied two ships which tried to use the terminal. Three workers were injured during a clash with military police. The company obtained a court order authorising the army to clear the ships, but the army commander said that only the president could authorise military intervention.

The company paid for large advertisements in the press to put its case. By 16 April the whole port was on strike. A large deployment of military police invaded the occupied ships and 25 workers were arrested. They were later released. The company had obtained a court order to send the police in. Police marksmen were posted around the docks with long-range automatic weapons.

A national dock strike was declared and the company agreed to start talking to the union.

The law imposes a single trade union structure known as "unicidade". This allows only one union per occupational category in a given geographical area. It is strongly opposed by trade unions and widely ignored in practice.

The law also obliges all workers to pay a "union tax" to the Ministry of Labour, which redistributes the funds to national trade union federations according to their membership.

Collective agreements that had expired have been, or are in the process of being, re-negotiated for both Federal and provincial public employees.

Two provinces, Alberta and British Columbia, continue to restrict strikes by public employees. They provide arbitration to settle labour disputes, but also severely limit what can be arbitrated. Alberta law excludes: the organisation of work; the assignment of duties; the determination of the number of employees; job evaluations; job selection; appointment; promotion; training; transfers; and pensions. The law also prevents broad categories of public employees from exercising their trade union rights.

Excessively broad definitions concerning essential services are used to restrict the right to strike for some public employees in Newfoundland and in the Federal sector.

With respect to the private sector, Alberta's Labour Relations Code allows excessive government intervention in collective bargaining and provides ways for the employer to bypass the union as the collective bargaining agent.

Section 88 of the code presumes the use of strike-breakers by the employer and provides that strikers only be given "preference" over strike-breakers in getting their jobs back after a dispute. The strikers must apply in writing within restrictive time limits. The authorities also use injunctions against strikes and strikers, and make excessive use of police during strikes.

Throughout 1997, agricultural workers, domestic workers, architects, dentists, land surveyors, lawyers and doctors continued to be excluded from the legal framework protecting trade union rights. The Ontario Labour Relations and Employment Statute Law Amendments, 1995 excluded these categories of workers from the protections of the Ontario Labour Relations Act and from other statutes regulating collective bargaining for employees in specific sectors. The existing organising rights of these workers were terminated as a result of this law and collective agreements that were in force were nullified. The same legislation also removed existing protection of trade union recognition and collective agreements for contract service workers, such as cleaning crews, food service workers and security guards, in the event of a sale of business or of a change in contractor.

There is concern that employers may be unduly prolonging procedures in order to avoid union recognition. Throughout most of 1997 employees at one McDonald's restaurant in Quebec were unable to obtain union recognition because of delays in determining the appropriate bargaining unit.

The CUT says that the government's draft contains many deficiencies, and that in particular it does not seriously address the extension of collective bargaining.

Currently, public employees cannot form unions but can only join associations which cannot bargain collectively or strike. In practice, workers in some sectors do go on strike.

The labour code makes it difficult to organise in many sectors, and most workers are covered by individual employment contracts. Collective bargaining usually takes place at enterprise level. Industry-wide bargaining is rare and is at the discretion of the company.

Employers can include clauses in individual contracts barring some groups of employees from collective bargaining, although this applies only to supervisory personnel. Workers can appeal to the Ministry of Labour against such clauses.

Workers in agriculture, construction, ports, entertainment, and other sectors are defined in the labour code as temporary workers. While they can form unions, their collective bargaining rights are seriously restricted, and depend upon their employers' discretion.

Workers at around 30 utility companies cannot go on strike, and arbitration is compulsory.

Ministerial approval is required before unions and union officials can be legally registered.

The CUT said that anti-union practices by employers were increasing in 1997. Workers trying to form unions were more and more likely to be victimised by employers. Companies were broken down into separate units to weaken collective bargaining. Employers signed up workers to various front companies in order to prevent the workers from gaining the required quorum to form a union. Workers were twice as likely to be sacked immediately after taking part in collective bargaining.

On 13 May, the bank unions' confederation held a day of protest in the Senate building against a draft bill extending working hours to Saturday, Sunday and holidays. The police used force to disperse them and detained union leaders Luis Pereira, Nicolas Soto and Luis Mesina. The men were later released but in an unprecedented move, the senate charged them with a criminal offence of "contempt for authority".

On 29 July, the electricity company Rhona S.A. illegally sacked Eduardo Araos Herrera, the secretary of the national union of Rhona employees, and the treasurer of the FETEM metalworkers' federation. The unions took the matter to court and the labour ministry ordered his reinstatement - but the company ignored the ministry's rulings.

The Brinks company illegally sacked union leaders Sergio Cea Valenzuela, Sergio Silva Perez and Jorge Munoz Llanos, for trying to set-up a union.

The violence was rarely if ever investigated. Paramilitaries were mostly to blame; there were fewer reports of attacks by the security forces and guerrilla groups.

The number of murders was lower than the 1996 total of 253 because of the decline in violence in the Uraba region where paramilitary forces have consolidated themselves. The teachers' union, FECODE, suffered the most, followed by agricultural workers' unions. FECODE said that 61 teachers were killed in 1997 and four had disappeared. Almost half of the victims were from the department of Antioquia.

In January, the government declared a 20-day state of economic emergency that included a below-inflation ceiling on pay rises. The three national union centres responded by organising a public sector strike beginning on 11 February. The strikers' demands included an end to privatisation; action against violence; an end to the criminal punishment of strikers; collective bargaining in the public sector; and respect for trade union rights.

With the unions planning to bring workers from around the country to Bogota for a massive demonstration on 20 February, and private sector workers likely to join the strike, the government gave in to the unions' demands.

On 18 February, ministers agreed to pay higher wage increases.

They also agreed to set up a joint commission with trade union leaders to discuss privatisation, and to revive the Commission for the Revision of Penal standards which would study the penal procedures affecting union action.

There would be a Commission for the Protection of Workers' Human Rights on which the unions would be represented. The Commission would look in depth at the violence against trade unionists, and make recommendations to ensure that the situation changed and justice was done.

The government also said it would promote the bill on collective bargaining in the public sector which was already in the senate and make some amendments to it.

In March, the constitutional court ruled that the economic state of emergency was unjustified and told the government not to go ahead with its measures.

On 12 January, Felix Aviles Arroyo, a member of the teachers' union, FECODE, was murdered in Cienaga del Oro, Cordoba. Four days earlier on 8 January, Alvaro Taborda, a FECODE member, was abducted in Monteria, Cordoba. The authorities did nothing to investigate the disappearance. On 28 December, 1996, Pedro Fernando Acosta Uparela, a FECODE member, and his son were abducted in Galeras, Sucre. They have not been seen since the abduction and FECODE blamed paramilitary group.

The ANDAT union organised a day of protest in various parts of the city on 6 January after the mayor of Bogota said that the jobs of transit and transport workers would be taken over by the police. The police assaulted the union members, injuring Hector Moreno, Edgar Mendez, Cesar Castano, Luis Cruz, and Janeth Leguisamon. Luz Marina Diaz was detained for a short period of time together with her small children.

Between 11 February and 7 March, four members of the agricultural workers' union branch of SINTRAAGRIGOLAS, in Antioquia were murdered on the Monitos estate in Maceo, Antioquia - Gilberto Casas, Alcides Palacio Casas, Norbeto Casas and Argiro Betancur.

On 7 March, John Fredy Arboleda, Eladio Chaverra and William Suarez were murdered on the Monitos estate. They were leaders of the municipal branch of Antioquia, the agricultural workers' union in Maceo.

On 7 March, two unidentified men murdered the general secretary of the FENSUAGRO agricultural federation, Victor Julio Garzon, in his office in Bogota.

At the beginning of March, Jorge Eliecer Marin Trujillo, president of the SINTRAMCHINCHINA municipal workers' union in Chinchina, Caldas, received threatening telephone calls. On 8 March, the police repeatedly questioned workers about his whereabouts and a few days later the intelligence services were reported to looking for him. In December, 1996 he was forced to leave his home after receiving a written death threat was signed by MAS - Death to trade unionists.

On 12 March, Nazareno de Jesus Rivera, a trade unionist from Segovia, was murdered.

On 17 March, Yolanda Rios, an USO member at Ecopetrol in Sabena de Torres was murdered. USO said in April that around 200 union members had been forced to leave their homes because of threats; two union leaders were in exile; and 17 were in jail on terrorism charges, based on accusations by military intelligence.

On 26 March, the public prosecutor threatened to detain eight leaders of the union in the Tejicondor company, the third biggest textile company in Colombia, for falsifying documents and fraud. The company had begun persecuting the union in 1984 and finally managed to wipe it out. When the union started up again in 1995, the company brought criminal charges against the eight union leaders offering as evidence mistakes in the recording of dates in the union's minutes. The unionists finally proved their innocence.

The public prosecutor had ignored the case bought by the union against the company for unfair dismissal of 100 workers while the union was being formed.

The national union centre, CUT, said in April that Belisario Restrepo and Oscar Toro, executive committee members of the FUTRAN union in Antioquia had been forced to leave their homes, along with many members of the FECODE union. Trade union leaders who had gone into exile included Fidel Castro Murillo. Oscar Amaury Aradila of the CUT national executive committee was detained in Barne jail in Tunja.

On 15 April, a gang of around ten armed men kidnapped Ramon Osorio, national education secretary of the SINTRAINAGRO agricultural union, and his son in Medellin, Antioquia. His son was abandoned in the village of Carmen de Viboral where he was found on 17 April. There had been previous attempts on Osorio's life.

On 19 April, the president of the CGTD union centre, Jose Leitos, was murdered when he and a member of the CGTD executive committee in the Cucuta region were attacked.

In April, paramilitary threats of a massacre drove members of the ASOAGROMISBOL miners' union in south Bolivar, out of their homes. On 25 April, the paramilitary group, Autodefensas de la Hacienda Bellacruz, killed Juan Camacho in front of sixty people, and asked about the whereabouts of various miners' leaders in Rioviejo, including Luis Orlando Camano Galvis. The group set up headquarters in a nearby farm.

On 20 July, Luis Orlando Camano Galvis was tortured and murdered in Aguachica, Cesar. In 1996, the army had branded him as a guerrilla sympathiser after he had negotiated with the government in favour of peasant workers.

Jose Cediel, president of ASOAGROMISBOL had to leave his home because of paramilitary threats, and Justo Pastor Quiroz, secretary, Roque Leon Salgado, treasurer, and Bersaly Hurtado were also threatened. The army commander in the region falsely claimed that guerrillas were behind recent union protests.

Frieleht Varon, a nurse at the Jose Rufino hospital in Dagua, Valle, and president of the hospital branch of the SINDESS union in the health and social security sector, was abducted on 3 May. She was found dead later that night.

On 4 May, the SINTAQUIN union in the chemical sector, said that Alberto Muneton, a member of the union's executive board, had been murdered. He had received telephone threats and there had been a previous attempt on his life.

On 3 June, Sabas Domingo Zocadagui Paredes, a teachers' union leader was murdered in Arauca after he had made an official complaint in May about harassment by the security forces.

At the beginning of June, the agricultural workers' union, FENSUAGRO, said that trade unionists, Pedro Nolasco Presiga, Jose Galvis, Luis Eduardo Loaiza, Saul Alirio Rincon, Huber Allesteros, Nelson Reina, Jose Luis Guette and Eberto Dia had received death threats.

On 24 June, there was a bomb attack on the headquarters of the workers' union of Leonisa, in Medellin. Several other unions, SINTRATELSA, SINTRATEXTIL, FEDETEX, as well as the association of families of detained and disappeared person, had offices in the building. No-one was injured.

In June, the paramilitary death squad, Colsingue - Colombia without guerrillas - issued a threat against thirteen leaders of the workers' union, SINTRAINCAPLA, at Goodyear, the US multinational, in Cali, Valle, on paper which bore the Colsingue logo and said "trade unions out of Colombia". Those threatened were: Hector Castro, Nelson Amaya, Jairo Gallego, Guillermo Dominguez, Ariel Vinasco, Dorian Perez, Jairo Munoz, Horacio Cabrera, Julio Perea, Jose Perdomo, Edgar Silvio, Julio Hernandez and Victor Ninco.

The union was also threatened by a paramilitary group called MUSIND - Death to Trade Unionists - which aims to wipe out all trade unionists.

Between May and July, five workers belonging to the agricultural union in Antioquia, some of them members of the executive committee in Salgar municipality were murdered. Nestor Correa was killed on the Guadalajara estate, and Orlando Alvarez, and Jose Araque were murdered on the La Margarita estate, in Salgar.

German Isaza was killed on 5 June on the La Mundial estate in Maceo, and Gilberto Casas was killed on the Monitos estate in Maceo. On 5 July, Aurelio Hernandez disappeared in Maceo, Antioquia.

The SINTRADEPARTAMENTO municipal workers' union in Antioquia said its leaders and members had been receiving death threats since the union had presented a list of claims for negotiation to the Governor of the province in November 1996. Gunmen had fired on the union's headquarters in Medellin using machine guns, and the union had received telephone death threats. Some of the union leaders were followed by unknown people - Martha Cecilia Cadavid, Jose Luis Jaramillo Galeano, Rangel Ramos Zapata, the union president, Hector de Jesus Giraldo, Jairo Humberto Gutierrez, Luis Norberto Restrepo, Jorge Humberto Franco, Horacio Berrio Castano, Alvaro Alberto Arango and Oscar Aguirre.

The union said that its office had been under surveillance in June and on 20 June the office and the workers had been filmed. On 26 June, management offered the union leaders two million Colombian pesos to withdraw their claims. In July, there were several attacks on union premises in Medellin, as well as threats and harassment.

On 20 April, Fredy Yesid Contreras, a member of the ANTHOC union at the Sarare Hospital, was murdered after having been threatened by the security forces.

Hundreds of workers in the department of Antioquia had to leave their homes during the year because of paramilitary groups. Some 460 of these trade unionists and workers held a 76 day protest meeting outside union headquarters in Medellin starting on 29 May. On 10 July some of the displaced workers went to the International Red Cross in Bogota to ask for protection.

The president of CUT, Luis Eduardo Garzon was threatened with death in July.

On 12 July, a paramilitary group abducted Misael Pinzon Granados in Puerto Wilches, Santander. The group, believed to be made up of FARC guerrillas, had a blacklist which included people from the SINTRAPALMA union in the palm oil sector. Its members interrupted a meeting between the SINTRAPALMA and SINTRAINAGRO unions in Puerto Wilches at Puerto Sogamoso and shouted that they would break up the unions.

On 16 July, the body of Orlando Quiceno Lopez was discovered in Fredonia, Antioquia, three days after he had been kidnapped. He belonged to the SUTIMAC union in the building sector, affiliated to CUT.

On 14 July, Eduardo Ramos, a SINTRAINAGRO member, was murdered on the El Chispero estate in Apartado, Uraba. He belonged to the union/management committee on the estate. It was the 22nd murder of workers in Uraba in 1997.

Mauricio Tapias Llerena and Camilo Suarez Ariza, leaders of FENSUAGRO were kidnapped by paramilitaries in Cienaga, Magdalena on 18 July. Their bodies were found on 21 July.

Abel Villa, a member of the mining union in Antioquia was murdered on 21 July in Amaga. He had been leading a strike which had lasted 128 days.

Guillermo Asprilla, a SINTRAINAGRO member, was killed on 23 July on the Navarra Villa Sol estate in Apartado, Uraba. He was on the estate management/union committee. Hired killers murdered Jesus Arley Posada Escobar, leader of the Cali INPEC association of national prison workers, on 18 July in Cali, Valle del Cauca. The association was in the middle of several days of protest in support of a wage claim.

On 18 July, Freddy Francisco Fuentes Paternina, a leader of the teachers' union in Cordoba, Ademacor was killed in Monteria, Cordoba. Other teachers to be murdered included: Arnold Sanchez Maza, whose body was found in the River Sinu on 13 July after being abducted; Abraham Figueroa Bolanos on 25 July; and Edgar Camacho Bolanos on 25 July.

Atilio Vasquez, disappeared on 28 July in San Juan de Nepomuceno. Wenceslao Varela Torrecilla in Penon, Bolivar was abducted on 29 July; his body turned up the next day in the River Magdalena.

On 23 July, Libardo Cuellar Navia, a FECODE member, was murdered in El Agrado, Huila.

Trade unionist, Magaly Penaranda was murdered on 27 July. He belonged to the public employees' union in the municipality of Ocana.

On 27 August, the UNEB banking union presented a list of claims to the bank management in respect of 30 different banks. The management refused to negotiate on behalf of all 30 banks and forced the union to negotiate individually with each bank. The union organised marches, demonstrations and meetings to back up its demands.

UNEB leaders and members were assaulted, locked in the lifts, and refused access to the workers and the union leader, Carlos Romero was briefly detained. Several union leaders received written and telephone death threats. In Citibank and Andino Bank, the management used the police to keep union officials out of the banks. Workers were threatened with dismissal if they listened to the union leaders.

Citibank also used riot police to throw union leaders out of the banks. Branches in Puente Aranda, Barrio Chico, Barrio Cedritos and were particularly repressive, with staff at Avenida Jimenez taking photographs of union leaders.

In September, the SINALTRABAVARIA union at Cerveceria Bavaria S.A., said that two union members had been detained and others had been beaten up by the police. The company had called the police after workers protested at the dismissals of 30 workers in a restructuring process which the company had refused to discuss with the union.

On 23 September, the woodworkers' union in Darien said that Arimateo Allin Gutierrez and Fabio Moreno Moreno had been abducted by an armed group in Uraba.

Domingo Rafael Tovar Arrieta and Jorge Ortega Garcia, members of the CUT national executive committee, received death threats, and on 27 May, Domingo Tovar Arrieta escaped a murder attempt and left the country. He returned to Colombia at the end of September and begin to receive death threats and harassment. On 8 October an unmarked car followed him, and on 10 October he received a telephone threat saying that he would die. On the same day, a receptionist at CUT offices got the same message, and on 14 October, his mother too was told he would die.

Members of the executive committee of FUTRAN the federation of workers in Antioquia, Amparo Chavarriaga, Jesus Ruiz, Guillermo Cardenas and Oswaldo Cuadrado received persistent threats.

Edulfo Zambrano president of the electrical workers' union, SINTRAELECOL was murdered on 27 October in Barranquilla. He was the second leader of the union to be killed in 1997. On the same day, a group of workers at Ecopetrol, the state oil company, was abducted by a group of armed men, including two members of the USO union, Emiliano Jimenez and Amadeo Jalave Diaz.

During an ICFTU-ORIT trade union mission to Colombia in October, the Attorney General's office promised to set up a joint committee with trade unions to follow the trials of unionists charged with sabotage. The Commander of the Armed Forces agreed to meet union leaders.

However, the violence went on. Jose Giraldo, secretary of the SINDICONS construction union was murdered in Medellin on 26 November. The union's offices had been bombed in 1996.

In December, CUT said that Luisa Fernanda Zaldua Barrantes, president of the SINTRAFAVIDI public service union, Guillermo Ernesto Tuta Alarcon, an adviser to the SINDISTRITALES, SINTRAENERGIA and SINTRAFAVIDI unions, and Jesus Maria Arias Velez, union leader of UNEB, were on Colsingue's list and their lives and those of their families were in danger.

The SINTRAMINERGETICA mining and energy workers' union in Antioquia and the workers' union at Frontino Gold Mines in Segovia, Antioquia, SINTRAFROMINES, held collective bargaining negotiations with the Frontino mine management during the year. Three union leaders and one worker were murdered, and union members received repeated death threats from paramilitary groups. Ten members of the SINTRAFROMINES executive committee had to leave the region as well as 30 union members, and five members of the SINTRAMINERGETICA executive committee.

In 1996, the government drew up a bill to repeal or amend some provisions of the labour code and said it would submit them to congress in November, 1996. This resulted from the 1994 signing of a Social Pact on Productivity, Prices and Wages when the government had pledged to amend the laws on collective bargaining in the public sector, regulations relating to strikes and essential public services, and other aspects of the labour law.

The provisions of the law to be amended included: the prohibition on more than one union per workplace; the requirements that candidates for office in unions, federations or confederations must belong to the relevant trade or occupation; the stipulation that to form a union, two-thirds of the membership must be Colombian and a candidate for union office must be Colombian; the supervision of the internal management and meetings of trade unions by public servants; the presence of government officials at trade union assemblies called to vote on strikes; denying union officials responsible for the dissolution of their union trade union rights for three years; prohibitions on confederations and federations calling strikes; and the power of the ministry of labour to ballot all workers on going to arbitration after a strike has been called.

Although the government submitted the bill to congress, the congress shelved the bill and the Minister of Labour was reported to be looking at alternative strategies.

The government also drafted a bill guaranteeing the rights of collective bargaining to public employees - this too was shelved by congress.

Current law forbids certain public employees from bargaining collectively. They are not protected against acts of anti-union discrimination if they join union organisations which include workers in industrial and commercial state enterprises. The government said that this provision had been overturned by the Supreme Court in November, 1993, although there were no reports that the law had been repealed.

Industrial or branch unions must have a membership of at least 50 per cent of the workers in order to be able to bargain collectively. Federations and confederations cannot bargain collectively.

The government had also said in 1996 that it had drawn up a bill defining essential public services and regulating the right to strike in them but there were no reports that the bill was submitted to congress.

The right to strike is guaranteed in the constitution except in essential public services which are not specified. However, the labour law severely restricts strikes in a wide range of public services, which are not necessarily essential, and allows workers to be sacked for striking. The government can also make unilateral decisions about what constitutes an essential service, and can impose compulsory arbitration to end a strike which has lasted for 60 calendar days. Trade union officials involved in an unlawful strike can be dismissed. A constitutional court ruling said that the government had the right to end a strike when it affected the economy.

The authorities can use, and have used, the penal code to punish strikers. Strikes have been termed acts of "terrorism", "sabotage", "violations of the right to work", or "illegal restrictions", and carry prison sentences ranging between two and 20 years.

Colombian labour law was revised in 1990-91 as a result of the country's structural adjustment programme. The labour market was deregulated, making it easier to sack workers, and institutionalising temporary employment contracts. It became impossible in practice for many workers to belong to unions and to be covered by collective agreements.

Unionists in the private sector, including in the nine EPZs and on the banana plantations, risked being fired and blacklisted. Collective bargaining was almost unknown.

The unions maintained their view that changes made to the labour code in 1993 to protect trade unionists against discrimination were "a dead letter".

The CTRN union centre said that the labour ministry ignored union complaints about firings and harassment of union members and violation of the labour laws. Where complaints were heeded, it took an average of two to three years to settle them - during which time, unionists were out of a job and their unions were destroyed. Decisions in favour of the workers were often overruled by the National Labour Inspector. In the EPZs and in the banana zones, the ministry invariably found against the unions.

The labour ministry has admitted that it has one labour inspector for every 30,000 workers in the EPZs, which employ around 90,000 workers.

There are reports that companies in the EPZs employ homeworkers who are not covered by the labour law or by social security regulations, and who have no holidays.

The law on Solidarist associations was also changed in 1993. Their legal advantages were removed and they were prohibited from acting against trade unions in any way, or signing collective agreements.

But the number of associations continued to increase; employers still set them up and the Ministry of Labour still registered them. Employers provided savings plans and access to credit unions for association members in return for no-strike agreements.

While there were ten collective agreements signed in 1996, there were 45 direct agreements signed with Solidarist associations. Unions said that officials from the Ministry of Labour gave information about unions to employers who in turn encouraged Solidarist associations.

There was still no solution to the situation at ATFE, the fertiliser sector of the Central America Fertiliser Company, FERTICA, in Puntarenas, where the union had gone on strike in November 1995. The company sacked over 160 workers, including most of the union leaders, and set-up a Solidarist association. The authorities colluded with the company and sent in riot police to disperse a peaceful protest by the union. Although the labour ministry ruled in 1996 that the workers should be reinstated, the company refused. No-one else would give them jobs.

In Costa Rica's banana zone, the birthplace of Solidarismo, working conditions were particularly bad and dangerous because of the lack of protection for workers using chemicals. Women workers have given birth to genetically-deformed babies. Workers have become sterile and suffered ill health, and several have died.

Banana workers trying to form unions risked the sack if found out, and had to hold secret meetings after dark. Employers promoted Solidarismo and put trade unionists and their families on blacklists. They ignored labour regulations, employing most of their work force on three-month contracts at less than the minimum wage. The companies, Del Monte, Dole, and Chiquita refused to negotiate with trade unions. Unions singled out the banana estates owned by Chiquita in Sarapiqui and Sixaola as well as Corbana (Pais S.A.) in Sixaola as being particularly repressive.

In December, after international pressure, Del Monte signed an agreement allowing the SITRAP banana workers the right to organise in the industry.

Around the same time, government ministers threatened to take SITRAP to court for treason because it had revealed to the world what was happening on the banana plantations.

There is no collective bargaining in the public sector. A bill submitted to congress three years ago to rectify this is still being examined.

Thousands of workers have been laid off under 1995 laws privatising and restructuring public enterprises as part of Costa Rica's structural adjustment programme. Many union leaders were fired despite being legally protected against dismissal.

Strikes are banned in around 65 per cent of the manufacturing and service sectors which are designated as "public interest". These include: including insurance; banks; oil and related industries; electricity; water; communications; rail, maritime and air transport; ports; agricultural producers of seeds, fertilisers and insecticides; the cement industry; education; health care; sugar cane and coffee plantations, stock raising and forestry. Only two strikes were legal out of a total of 398 during the last two years.

The labour code does not allow non-nationals to hold union office.

The government said that it had submitted two bills to congress in August; one removed the restrictions on non-nationals holding union office and the other removed the strike ban in the stock-raising and forestry sectors.

Its tasks, according to the law, are to "mobilise workers to fulfil their tasks of constructing a new society, improving efficiency and productivity, strengthening labour discipline, and organising socialist emulation and voluntary work".

All wages are set by the state. The CTC can negotiate limited collective agreements which include some aspects of working conditions, but in the main, the agreements relate to discipline and productivity. Strikes are banned.

Although both the constitution and labour law permit freedom of association, the authorities have refused to grant legal status to the handful of small, independent trade unions that have emerged since 1991, and have harassed and threatened their members.

On 3 January, for the sixth consecutive year, the independent CTDC union applied for legal staatus. All previous applications had been ignored. In 1996 the government had said that the CTDC did not exist.

The CTDC reported harassment of its officials during the year. On 21 February, its president, Jose Orlando Gonzalez Bridon, was detained for 12 hours, re-arrested the following day and detained for three days. The general secretary, Gustavo Toirac Gonzalez, and union official, Rafael Garcia Suarez, were arrested on 23 February for two days. The CTDC had called for an independent workers' parliament.

Bridon was detained again on 1 May for four days and on 8 May. Suarez was detained again on 10 August and released the next day. On 8 September, Gustavo Toirac Gonzalez, and union officials Ana Maria Ortega Gimenez and Ramon Gonzalez Fonseca were detained. Bridon was held under house arrest.

On 24 September, Gonzalez and Fonseca were summoned to state security offices and held for 12 hours. The CTDC also reported harassment of other CTDC members by security agents

In the new private sector, state-controlled employment agencies provide contract workers to multinational corporations and other foreign-owned and joint-venture enterprises. While the investors pay the agencies in dollars, the agencies pay the workers in pesos. Workers are politically vetted before being selected for jobs in the private sector.

This system also applies in Cuba's free trade zones, two of which were opened in May at Wajay and Berroa, in Havana.

The Shenta company in the San Pedro de Macoris Free Trade Zone, which produces luggage for the Samsonite company, sacked its workers in December without proper severance pay. Agreement was reached on the amounts to be paid after interventions by Fenatrazonas, the union in the zones, and the labour ministry.

The company reneged on the agreement, and the workers staged a protest. The company had anticipated this and had called in the police as well as its own security guards who brutally attacked the workers and union leaders. Five workers were wounded, three from gunshots.

There were similar clashes in the Altagracia zone, and at the Sport Wear S.A. and Quisqueya Garment S.A. companies in the La Esperanza zone, where a warehouse and a goods van were set on fire. At the C&J company in La Romana zone, workers threw stones at the cars of company executives and at police vehicles, and the police opened fire on the crowd.

There had appeared to be some improvements in labour law enforcement in the country's 36 EPZs since the US threatened to suspend trade privileges in 1994. Most of the 470 enterprises in the zones, which employ 180,000 mainly women workers, make clothes and have contracts with, or are owned by, US companies.

A 1994 tripartite agreement set up a procedure whereby disputes in the zones would be mediated by the labour ministry. If this did not work, the dispute would be referred to the National Council of Free Trade Zones. The Council could suspend or cancel the export licences of companies that broke the law. The suspension of one company's export licence led to the signing of the first-ever collective agreement in the zones.

However, there were reports that the council was often deficient in processing cases, and labour courts were slow and often corrupt. The labour court system was being overhauled in 1997.

Employers continued to resist unions and collective bargaining. A union must represent at least half of the workers in an enterprise before it can be recognised for collective bargaining. Employers harass unionists and illegally fire them before they can recruit the target figure, even though the law guarantees the right to organise, and protects union officials against discrimination.

The government has told the ILO that if no union represents a majority of workers, a collective agreement can be concluded jointly by several unions as long as they represent over half the workforce.

On 3 February, at Undergarment Fashions in the San Pedro zone, Nieves Medina, the union general secretary was illegally sacked one day after informing the company about the union's new structure.

The CNTD national union centre picked out the Camstar and Balboak companies in the La Romana zone as particularly anti-union. The New Cary factory in the Bonao zone was dirty and unsafe and the rights of pregnant women workers were violated.

The Jose Blanco, de Herrera, 3MT, Caribena Shoe and Denis Fashions companies in the San Pedro de Macoris zone, refused to bargain with the unions even though the unions had complied with all the legal requirements and had recruited a majority of the workers. In the Toscana and Alfa Lent companies in the San Pedro de Macoris zone, and at Tortoni manufacturing in the La Romana zone, workers who wanted to join unions were threatened and intimidated. The CNTD-affiliated Fenatrazonas union said there had been no reaction from the National Council of Free Trade Zones or the employers' organisation.

At Euro Import International, in the Santiago zone, armed bands with clubs, knifes, and sometimes with guns, were used to threaten workers, find out who the union leaders were, and ban them from company premises.

Outside the zones, in November, the Plaza Lama shop sacked union leaders, and set-up a fight that led to the detention of the union general secretary, Victor Manuel Mateo. The Caribbean Telephone Company sacked dozens of workers and intimidated union leaders following demands for overtime payments, payment of the minimum salary, social security, and holidays.

On the sugar plantations, the three unions, Sinatraplasi, Sipicaiba, and Sitraplasib continued to complain about the State Sugar Board's refusal to negotiate with them over basic rights.

Union representatives were banned from moving around the fields or meeting workers, and anyone taking part in union activities was threatened.

Haitians employed as sugar cane cutters continued to work in conditions which have been described as near slavery.

The FUT grouping of national union centres strongly opposed the ban and organised a major protest campaign against the measures.

Under the labour law, public servants, and certain public sector workers, cannot form trade unions. Workers in the public sector who can form unions can only negotiate collective agreements if the union represents more than half the workforce. In practice, many public sector workers do join unions and go on strike.

A 1991 law increasing the minimum number of workers required to form unions and works councils from 15 to 30 remains in force. The law was meant to obstruct unionisation in small companies. A works council can be dissolved if membership falls to less than 25 per cent of the workforce. Members of the executive committee of works councils must be Ecuadorian nationals.

Unions are not allowed to take part in political or religious activities. Workers are not fully protected against acts of anti-union discrimination at the time of recruitment. The law also allows strikers to be imprisoned.

Ecuador's 1990 EPZ law allows a company to have EPZ status wherever it is located, The enterprises can hire temporary workers, who are not covered by the labour code, and are more difficult to organise.

At the beginning of the year, the FUT and other sectors of society held a two-day general strike against austerity measures, including massive price rises, introduced by the then President Bucaram in breach of a social pact agreed with the unions. The CEOSL union centre accused the president of wanting to dismantle the public sector and abolish collective agreements. It said that trade unionists had been the first to be sacked in the wave of public sector dismissals.

During 1995-96, exposure of violations of trade union rights and in particular violence against workers, led several US retailers to impose voluntary codes of conducts on their suppliers or in some cases to even cancel contracts following the public outcry over what was happening in the zones.

The government introduced a new law in January 1996 to protect the rights of the 84,000 workers. It obliged multinational companies in the zones to make severance payments to workers if they shut down. This aimed at stopping companies closing down and relocating to get rid of unions, without paying the workers any compensation.

Companies breaking the labour laws could be fined, and their tax and duty-free privileges suspended and eventually cancelled. A tripartite committee was set-up to deal with labour conflicts in the zones.

Later in 1996, the labour ministry was reorganised and the number of inspectors were increased. The ministry opened offices in two of the free trade zones.

Towards the end of 1996, union officials Ana Maria Romero, from the Gabo workers' union and Wilmer Erroa Argueta, from the telecom union, ASTTEL, took part in a US congressional hearing sponsored by the Congressional Human Rights Caucus looking into working conditions in the maquiladoras.

Ana Romero spoke of twelve-hour days, with forced and unpaid overtime of up to five more hours, two to three times a week. She described insults and blows from supervisors, which made her and other women have miscarriages. She said that her supervisor had shown her a blacklist of names and photos of trade unionists, which was sold to him by officials of the Ministry of Labour.

Immediately after the hearings, the president of El Salvador went on television to denounce the two unionists as "traitors and inhuman". His statement was published in the leading national newspaper, Diario de Hoy. The Salvadorean press falsely claimed that they were calling for a boycott of goods from the country.

Yet in February, a report by El Salvador's Human Rights Ombudswoman's office found that harassment, pay levels, health and safety risks, and anti-union pressures remained serious problems in the free trade zones.

There are still very few unions. Employer harassment prevents unions from recruiting the 50 per cent of members needed to gain recognition for collective bargaining.

In April, loss of contracts led the Salvadoran clothing manufacturers' association to set up its own code of conduct for companies in the sector to "eliminate the effects of international campaigns". The code was established without union input and sought to protect workers' rights.

The Transglobal Apparel S.A. de C.V. factory in Colonia Santa Lucia de Ilopango closed down illegally in March and refused to pay the 460 workers compensation. After the intervention of the Attorney General, the Human Rights prosecutor, and the Commission for the prevention of conflicts in the maquiladoras, the company said it would pay the workers by the end of April.

However, it reneged on the agreement. On 13 May, the workers, represented by the CTD national union centre met the Minister of Labour to ask him to intervene.

In May, independent monitors said that several sacked workers had been reinstated at the Mandarin International factory in the San Marcos free trade zone. Agreements in 1995 and 1996 between US NGOs and The Gap, a US retailer, had provided for the independent monitoring of the company to ensure that its operations were in compliance with the labour law as well as The Gap's guidelines. Workers at the company had been brutally assaulted and sacked for trying to organise a union.

On 11 November, 87 women workers at the Dindex garment factory were poisoned because of carbon monoxide poisoning. When the workers were taken for medical treatment, they found the employer not been paying their social security contributions. The company had threatened to fire any workers forming a union.

The ASTTEL union in the state telecommunications company, ANTEL, said that a bill passed in parliament on 24 July to privatise the company would destroy union organisation because it changed the company's trading name and allowed for the staff to be made redundant. The new company could take on new workers on eighteen month employment contracts.

The labour code bans unions in the public sector and bans strikes in nine autonomous government agencies. Disputes are settled by mandatory arbitration. Public sector workers can form associations which, in practice, bargain collectively and go on strike.

The code prevents party political activities by trade unions.

Over 70,000 mainly women workers are employed in the maquiladoras, mostly in clothing factories which produce for export to the US.

In 1996, the government introduced an agreement through which sanctions, including the temporary cancellation of export licences, could be applied against owners of maquilas who violated the law. The agreement has only been applied once - to a company which was already closing down.

A tripartite commission set up in 1996 to deal with disputes in the zones is reported to have settled none at all.

The government said it had doubled the number of labour inspectors, but enforcement of the labour code remained poor. Several new labour courts were created at the end of 1996 but the system was still inefficient, inadequate and often corrupt. Labour ministry officials collude with employers, and there have been reports that the labour ministry warned companies in advance of "surprise inspections".

Unions are destroyed through sustained threats and pressure, firings, and plant closures. There is only one collective agreement in the maquiladoras. Working conditions are poor and workers are forced to work long hours.

While violence against union activists has decreased, there are still reports that factory owners and employers hire thugs and gunmen to intimidate workers. They are rarely prosecuted.

An amendment to the labour code in 1992 made it illegal to sack workers for organising unions, but the unions said that the amendment was ignored or misapplied. The law says that illegally sacked workers must be reinstated within 24 hours, but the labour ministry has no power to enforce this.

The labour code allows strict government supervision of union activities. Workers must be Guatemalan to found a trade union or to stand for union office. Union officials must work in the enterprise they represent.

A minimum of two-thirds of the workplace, as well as of the union, must vote in favour of a strike. Agricultural workers cannot strike at harvest time and the government can ban strikes which it thinks would seriously affect the national economy. Workers can be arrested for calling an illegal strike and the police can be called in to ensure that work goes on.

Two thirds of the union membership must vote to approve a collective agreement.

A 1996 decree (approved, say the unions, in record time) banned state workers from striking. It established a list of strike-free essential services, including transport, post and telecommunications, and restricted collective bargaining. The unions said that it prevented them from taking action against privatisation.

On 24 February, the workers at the Hidrotecnica S.A. company, assisted by an advisor from the CUSG national union centre, obtained a labour court order prohibiting the company from sacking workers who were organising a union. As soon as the company found out about this, it issued letters of dismissal dated four days before the court ruling. The letters bore the seal of the labour inspector's office.

As the workers had not received the letters, they asked the labour inspector to issue a statement clarifying what the company had done to sack the workers and confirming that the letters and seal were false. The inspector complied with the union's demand.

Later on the inspector issued another statement saying that the letters and the seal were genuine and he had a record of both. The company then sacked the workers.

On 7 March, the CUSG and other national union centres, held a protest march against the economic situation, including privatisation and dismissal of public sector workers as well as the government's lack of progress in the peace agreements. The government began a campaign to undermine the unions, projecting them as trying to destabilise the government, the peace process and democracy.

At the Korean-owned S&L Produccion (formerly M.J. & L& Modas) 17 workers including union leaders had not been given any work since November 1996, so as to force them into resigning to break the union.

On 13 March, three workers at the Mi Kwang S.A. maquiladora in Canton Najarito, Villa Nueva, were abducted and tortured. Four armed men abducted Eswin Rocael Ruiz Zacarias, Edwin Tulio Enriquez Garcia, and Belarnino Gonzalez de Leon. They were driven to the police station in Villa Nueva where they were beaten, kicked and interrogated about whether they had stolen a dress a week before. Shortly afterwards they were freed and warned not to tell anyone about what had happened Their abductors remained inside the police station. Other workers had been questioned at the factory. The factory management had threatened and sacked members of the UNSITRAGUA-affiliated union in 1996.

Although the authorities began to investigate this incident, one of the investigators was reported to have told the workers that if they continued to pursue the case it would get them killed.

Later in the year, in October, the Mi-Kwang company locked the workers inside the factory and forced them to finish their work at gunpoint.

In March, a five-year organising struggle was won when Philips-Van-Heusen (PVH) agreed to negotiate with the STE-CAMOSA union at the Camosa shirt factory in the maquiladoras. The company had tried to break the union throughout 1996. The authorities had colluded with the company and had refused to register the union for collective bargaining although it had the required 25 per cent support of the workforce. Union members had been threatened with violence.

The company's chief executive officer reversed PVH's long-standing opposition to the union after he had read a report by the campaign group, Human Rights Watch, on anti-union discrimination and intimidation of union members by company officials. A collective agreement was concluded later in the year.

On 11 April, an unknown person threatened Ruben Escalante Bolanos, of the Social, Communication and Journalists Workers' Union after he had covered a teachers' strike. His wife was threatened the same day by armed men who inquired about her husband. She received intimidating messages by telephone. On 7 March, Jose Pedro Lopez Rosales from the same union disappeared; his body was found on 4 April.

On 16 May, the management of the Industria Harinera S.A. flour mill in Guatemala City invited some 100 workers to lunch in a restaurant. During the lunch the owners of the company, who had at least 15 armed bodyguards, asked the workers to collaborate with the restructuring of the enterprise. On 19 May, when the workers arrived at the factory they found that it had closed down and was protected by armed and uniformed security guards. The workers went on a demonstration outside the factory and set up a permanent vigil.

On 21 May, one of the workers, Armando Mejia y Mejia was abducted by two armed men. They interrogated him to find out the names of the workers who were taking part in the vigil. When he refused to say anything they threatened to shoot him and said they could kill all the others. They said that they had photos of all the workers outside the factory. He was then released.

In early May, Jose Luis Mendia Flores, an employee at the Guatemalan subsidiary of the US company, Wackenhut, was fired from the company for trying to organise a union. Some of the other workers persisted in their attempts to form a union and filed a case in the labour court. Although the court ruled that Jose Luis Mendia Flores should be reinstated, the company refused to comply. He began to receive threatening phone calls and his family was harassed.

On 8 June, an executive committee member of the woodworkers' union, SUCHILMA, in El Peten was murdered. Carlos Catalan was shot while guarding a wood storage warehouse in Carmelita, San Andres, El Peten. The circumstances of the murder were not clear but it appeared to be related to the granting of forestry concessions in the Mayan Biosphere, a protected forestry area managed by the government institution, CONAP.

On July 15, the management of Embotelladora Mariposa, S.A. (EMSA), the Pepsi bottling plant in Guatemala City, illegally fired 28 members of the union SITRAEMSA, affiliated to the FESTRAS foodworkers' union. Several of those fired were involved in union negotiations over a collective agreement.

The owners of the plant replaced the fired workers by hiring 25 new workers and raising their salaries by over $50 a month - a massive increase in Guatemala. The labour ministry agreed with the company's statement that it was downsizing, even though it replaced all the sacked union members.

On July 31, the SITRAEMSA union held a rally outside the Pepsi plant which was supported by other unions. As soon as the crowd had assembled and a spokesperson read out a list of SITRAEMSA's grievances with a megaphone, the Pepsi managers played loud music from a promotional van so that nothing could be heard. The union saw someone videotaping the meeting from a window of the office building.

It was believed that the company had begun to attack the union again because of the restoration of Guatemala's s trade privileges under the US GSP. The company had agreed to recognise the union when the privileges had been suspended. Unions feared other employers would react to GSP penalties in the same way.

In June, the Quetzal port company illegally sacked Juan Jose Morales Moscoso, general secretary and Everildo Revolorio Torres, officials of the union at the company, and members of the CUSG executive committee. The company said Torres' dismissal was because of an administrative re-organisation. Due to the inefficiency of the labour courts he was not reinstated and the company ignored the labour ministry's attempts to have him reinstated.

Morales Moscoso was charged with not performing his duties and abandoning his responsibilities. He had attended the congress of the ICFTU-ORIT as a delegate. The company falsely said he had not had permission to go. They said that if he resigned from his job they would withdraw the charges against him.

In July, leaders of the STINDE union at the national electrification board were illegally sacked and the collective agreement was suspended.

On 2 August, the SINTAINTEXSA union at the INEXPORT company said that the owner of the company had tried to take some of the machinery, raw materials and other equipment out of the factory, without the required agreement of the authorities. The company had closed down illegally in 1996 without paying the workers wages and benefits owed since the end of 1995.

The workers tried to stop the owner from taking the machinery. He had already tried to convince them that they could have it instead of the money he owed them, even though this was illegal, and the machinery was not worth as much as he owed them.

In the early hours of the following morning the workers were threatened and moved away from the factory at gunpoint after trying to persuade the factory owner to pay what he owed, in the presence of the police and members of the special forces, the FRI.

Around October, a confidential document written for the Wackenhut multinational, came to light. It revealed a secret plan to neutralise and wipe out trade unions. The memo was written in 1995 for a local officer of Wackenhut by a former inspector in the labour ministry under the military dictatorship and a lawyer in labour matters.

The memo recommended recruiting spies among workers to inform management of any protest movement; creating bogus unions or solidarist associations; firing trade union delegates as soon as a union appeared; setting up satellite companies to divide the workers; and discrediting "agitators". The document noted that over 200 solidarist associations existed in Guatemala, and that where they were established, trade unionism died.

It dates from the Duvalier era, and does not recognise public sector workers' right to organise, although public sector unions exist in practice.

A 1983 decree gives the government wide powers to supervise unions and to intervene in the preparation of collective agreements. The law does not adequately protect workers against anti-union discrimination and the labour code imposes restrictions on strikes.

The penal code requires the government to give prior approval before an association of more than 20 people can be formed.

There were again violations of trade union rights in Haiti's sub-contracting factories or maquiladoras, which employ around 17,000 people.

Workers in the maquiladoras reported being physically and verbally abused, and paid well below the legal minimum wage. Factory management imposed high production quotas. Women workers were sexually-harassed and workers who complained were fired.

Factories producing for the Disney Corporation were particularly repressive.

Textile factories in the maquiladoras produce under contract for US manufacturers including L.V. Myles, H.H. Cutler, and others who in turn produce under licence for the Walt Disney Corporation. The clothing is sold by leading US retailers such as Wal-Mart, KMart, J.C. Penney, Sears, and others.

On 12 May, the L.V. Myles plant 30, fired four workers after a pamphlet had been distributed in the factories complaining about wages and working conditions, and encouraging workers to organise to defend their rights. Management sacked three more workers and threatened to fire another 40.

In June, another 20 were fired and taken on as trainees. This meant that they could be paid less and were exempted from holiday and sick pay,

Fifteen more workers were fired in October after they had complained about their wages and working conditions to a team of US investigators. Dozens more were fired before the end of the year.

In September, the union president, secretary and treasurer were fired at B.V.F. Apparel Manufacturing in the capital, Port-au-Prince. B.V.F is a clothing sub-contractor for the Waterbury Corporation, which also produces under licence for the Disney Corporation. The management intimidated union members and threatened to sack them.

Also in September, H.H. Cutler said it was pulling out of Haiti and moving production to China. It was believed the company wanted to escape international scrutiny of its labour practices and to avoid unions.

Previous governments had lured investors into the free trade zones by promising that the labour code would not be strictly applied and unions would not be tolerated. Violations of trade union rights increased and working conditions deteriorated.

Many of the factories in the zones are owned by foreign employers producing clothes for the US market. There were limited improvements in enforcing the law in the privately-owned zones after the 1995 signing of an agreement between Honduras the US - but enforcement remains inadequate.

Many foreign investors continued to ignore the law. Workers were sacked, and physically abused and conditions were degrading and unsafe. Employers set up Solidarist associations and other forms of company-controlled unions, and maintained blacklists of sacked unionists.

On 28 February, the general manager of the Korean-owned Yu-Hwa garment company assaulted the president of the union in the factory, Rosalia Lainez. He threatened her with death in front of the labour inspector and tore pages out of the inspector's copy of the labour code.

The labour inspector's response was to ask the manager to pay for a new copy of the labour code.

On 6 March, the president of the Federacion Sindical de Trabajadores Democraticos de Honduras, Suyapa Salgado, was arrested after the owners of the 3H garment factory in the Puerto Cortes free trade zone claimed she had damaged property and had threatened them. She was held for six hours.

The union had been trying to organise workers at 3H for over a year. Although a union had been formed in 1996, the company had fired seven of its leaders and had tried to impose a company-sponsored union.

On 26 November, over 800 workers at the Korean-owned Transpacific garment factory in the Puerto Cortes zone went on strike to demand implementation of the collective agreement. The company had signed an undertaking on November 11 to respect the agreement, but went back on its word and began an anti-union campaign.

The Vice-Minister of Labour intervened on the part of the workers, but on 4 December, the public prosecutor ordered the striking workers to be removed from the front of the factory. He threatened to bring charges against the six union leaders as well as leaders of the Fesitradeh, the federation in the zones to which the union was affiliated, and which supported the strike.

The workers occupied the factory and closed the whole zone. They were supported by 4,000 workers in other factories incensed at their treatment in the zones.

One women worker complained of sexual harassment by factory management, and said she was forced to work long hours without compensation. The factory refused maternity leave to pregnant workers nor allowed them time for medical treatment. The workers said they also had to work at weekends.

After the intervention of the labour ministry, both sides agreed to negotiate a new agreement in January 1998. On 23 December after a 13-hour shift, 144 workers were sacked. Most of them were thrown out of the factory and were paid through the wire fence.

The labour code does not cover certain agricultural workers and allows only one union per enterprise or establishment. The Civil Service Code, bans workers in the public sector, excluding state-owned enter-prises, from going on strike.

Trade union officials must be Honduran and must be employed in the sector the union represents.

Workers can only strike if two-thirds of union members vote in favour; federations and confederations cannot call strikes; and compulsory arbitration can be imposed on disputes in non-essential public services. The government must give permission for strikes in public services which do not depend directly or indirectly on the state, and the Ministry of Labour can end strikes in the oil sector.

The government has told the ILO that its draft labour code of December, 1995, which was prepared after tripartite discussions would repeal most of the above provisions.

However, the government's draft did not remove the ban on more than one union in an enterprise, or establishment. It continued to define the oil industry as an essential service in which compulsory arbitration can be imposed, and retained other restrictions on the right to strike in the public sector.

On 12 February, the government called out troops as some 14,000 hospital workers went on strike in the capital city, Tegucigalpa, and other cities, to call for a wage increase. At the same time three national union centres began a protest march calling for price stability on basic goods and to protest at high transport and fuel prices. Other public sector workers on strike called for higher wages.

In September, the CTH union centre said that its treasurer, Efrain Figueroa, a member of the SITRAMEDHYS union in the ministry of health, was sacked after denouncing corruption in the ministry.

In October, three union officials and members of the SINTRABANTRAL union in the banking sector were illegally sacked.

Independent unions denied registration cannot bargain or call strikes, and are excluded from tripartite organisations.

The CABs also have the power to declare strikes "legally non-existent" leaving strikers vulnerable to being fired, and to suppression of work stoppages by force. Peaceful labour protests are frequently dispersed by the police.

Employers' collusion with local officials to resist union organising attempts remains a cause for concern at Mexico's maquiladoras plants. Working conditions, and health and safety standards in the maquiladoras are particularly bad. Employers require women workers to be tested for pregnancy at the time of recruitment. Workers who become pregnant are intimidated into resigning or illegally sacked.

"Protection contracts" are common, particularly in the maquiladoras and are encouraged by both the authorities and employers. The unions which sign the contracts are paid to avert strikes and independent union organising.

Mexican labour law makes little provision for the rights of individual union members. Workers can be denied access to their own collective agreements and even to internal union rules, which means they can do little when procedures are violated in union elections. Registration requirements and election procedures have been used to stop workers forming new unions where such abuses lead to employer-domin-ated unions.

Although the law protects workers against anti-union discrimination, the provisions are inadequately enforced and there are still reports that employers are blacklisting union activists. Workers fired for union activity are pressured to sign voluntary resignation papers giving up their reinstatement rights. Should they choose not to sign and to seek redress instead, they face a lengthy and expensive procedure with little confidence in the neutrality of the government. They also risk losing their statutory redundancy pay.

In July, workers at ITAPSA outside Mexico City, a subsidiary of Echlin Inc. which produces auto parts, were intimidated before and during elections for union representation to prevent their voting to join a branch of the independent union, STIMAHCS. The union is affiliated to the independent metalworkers' union belonging to the FAT union centre. The authorities did nothing, and may have even been involved in the intimidation.

Employees were placed under surveillance, and threatened with dismissals, beatings and rape. Fifty workers suspected of being union supporters were fired.

On the evening before election day, 9 September, management brought 170 armed thugs into the plant. The thugs kept the plant going, and threatened workers during the elections, which are conducted publicly, to stop them from voting for STIMAHCS. It was not possible to verify whether those voting were eligible to vote. A union representative was beaten-up.

Despite the threats, the local labour authorities who were present, refused to suspend the election. STIMAHCS lost, although over half the workforce had previously supported it.

Most of the workers who had been fired accepted "voluntary departure" with redundancy pay. Although the labour board ordered the company to reinstate the rest, they were fired again when they went back to work.

In December, workers and union organisers were attacked while distributing leaflets outside another Echlin plant, American Brakebloc. One worker was seriously injured and a van belonging to the FAT was vandalised. The injured worker filed a criminal complaint, accusing company management of being responsible for his injury. He was fired.

Workers at the plant also said that there were serious breaches of health and safety standards, including exposure to asbestos, which were not being addressed.

In September, Mexican workers who visited the United Steelworkers of America in Canada to discuss working conditions in the maquiladoras received death threats on their return. During the visit, they also protested against the firings of workers who had gone on strike in May at the Mexican subsidiary of the Canadian company, Custom Trim Ltd., which produces parts for Ford, Chrysler and General Motors in the US and Canada. Unidentified men paid repeated visits to the home of Salvador Bravo, and threatened him and his family if he spoke out against the company. The family were forced to move to another area.

Workers at the Han Young maquiladora which produces parts for Hyundai, in Tijuana, went on strike in June, over wages, health and safety conditions, and union representation rights. Three union officials were subsequently fired in August. Others were bribed to quit the union. On 9 September, four more unionists were fired.

After delays by management, elections for union representation were held on 6 October. Officials of the labour board allowed ineligible voters, such as company supervisors, to take part. Even so, the independent union won. Plant management had told the workers that the plant would be closed down if this happened. Six unionists were fired after the elections.

On 10 November, the Tijuana CAB refused to register the union, despite the fact that it had won by a clear majority. On 20 November the workers went on hunger strike. One had to go to hospital. A work-stoppage was held on 2-3 December.

After the dispute received international attention, particularly in the US, the CAB agreed that if workers voted for the independent union in a second election, it would certify the results, the company would bargain with the union, and the sacked workers would be reinstated.

Management started bribing workers not to vote for the union. On 16 December, it won the elections again, and the results were certified. However the company refused to deal with the union. There was no resolution to the issue at the end of the year.

While the law does not restrict employees in the private sector from forming more than one union, federal law covering public employees provides for trade union monopolies. This includes the banking sector. While the Supreme Court ruled in 1996 that laws covering public servants in the states of Jalisco and Oaxaca establishing trade union monopolies were unconstitutional, there have been no changes to law or practice.

Other restrictions on freedom of association in the public service are: the prohibition against re-election of trade union officers; excessive limitations on public employees' right to strike; and the ban on trade unionists leaving the union to which they belong. Freedom of association is also restricted to the kinds of trade unions that public employees may form. Public sector unions are by law forced to belong to the FSTSE confederation which is not allowed to join other trade union organisations.

There were reports at the end of the year that the Mexican Congress was expected to begin discussing new federal labour law in 1998.

The Ministry is alleged to have told companies that a union was being formed at the early stages of the legal recognition process, so that the company could fire the unionists before the union had legal status.

Many of the factories in the two zones are South Korean- and Taiwanese-owned and export clothing to the US market. Although the labour law applies in the zones, it is rarely enforced. In the government-run Las Mercedes Zone, outside the capital city, Managua, the factories are ringed by barbed wire and guarded by armed personnel. The working conditions are appalling. Production quotas are strictly applied and regularly increased. Employers generally pay below the minimum wage and make no social security payments for their workers. There are reports of verbal and physical abuse of workers, and sexual harassment of the women workers.

At the end of 1996, the first union in the zones, at the Taiwanese-owned Fortex International got legal recognition and signed a collective agreement with a foreign company. During 1996 the company had refused to recognise the union saying that it would only allow for the creation of a "technical committee" which would not have legal status for collective bargaining. After international union pressure, the company recognised the union. In May, trade union leaders were dismissed.

On 3 February, the management at the Taiwanese-owned Nien Shing International, which makes clothing for the US retailer J.C. Penney, and other companies, sacked ten workers for organising a union, along with other union members. It refused to re-hire ten of them, despite an order from the Ministry of Labour. In May, after pressure from the company, the Ministry cancelled the legal recognition of the union.

In the same month, the management at the Italian-owned Ecco company, a shoe manufacturer, sacked trade union leaders.

At the Cupid Foundation factory, which makes underwear for the US market, the management intimidated the workers and fired union leaders to try and destroy a newly-formed union. Even before the union was formed, the workers said they were forced to work overtime, were harassed and were not always allowed to go to the toilet.

The union was registered in January. On 20 April, three union leaders were fired for being "bad workers". The management held a meeting and invited the workers, the Mayor and the local police chief. Several workers stood up and said they were pressurised into joining the union. They said that didn't want a union and everything was fine in the factory.

They later said that they had been threatened with being fired unless they made those speeches. The management then went round and collected signatures from workers saying that they did not want a union in their factory.

At the request of the company, the Minister of Labour cancelled the legal registration of the executive committee of the union in June, although the union itself remained registered.

In November, several companies in the zones sacked workers who had spoken out in a television programme shown in the US about abuses in the Managua free trade zone. They spoke of verbal abuse, forced overtime without proper compensation, and exposure to chemicals.

The sacked workers included Jose Efrain Miranda, Julieta Antonia Alonso Lopez, and Mao Sheling Ramos Rugama of the Chentex company, Celia des Carmen Reyes Centeno of the Rocedes company, and Karla Guerreo of the Nicseda company.

Outside the zones, workers at the national electricity company, ENEL, belonging to the FESTEN union went on strike in May over mass dismissals in the state sector, trade union rights and compliance with its collective agreement. The authorities responded by sacking many of the workers. On 4 June, a group of striking workers, including several union leaders, who were peacefully demonstrating outside the central office of ENEL, were brutally beaten by anti-riot police on government orders. Fifty-seven workers were detained. They were held for several days and charged with offences such as damage to property.

The 1997 law permitted collective bargaining. A tripartite committee was established to mediate in a lengthy dispute-solving procedure, at the end of which workers could go on strike. The law said that workers could be sacked or fined for instigating a strike without following the pre-strike procedures - making legal strikes virtually impossible.

The law retained the provision that workers could be sacked if fluctuations in the international market reduced demand.

Panama's 1995 labour law reforms made it easier to register unions and reduced the number of workers required to from a union from 50 to 40. They also introduced new labour market flexibility measures, in line with structural adjustment requirements, which made it easier to sack workers.

A 1994 law allowed public servants to join associations which can bargain collectively and have limited strike rights. But only one association can exist per institution and only one branch can exist in each region.

Under the code, employers can be fined for sacking union leaders for union activities. However, the fines are too low to deter offenders, and the code does not protect workers or union members.

A union must have at least 300 members before it can be set up. Candidates for union office must work in the enterprise and be active union members before they can stand. The free election of union representatives is restricted by detailed regulations. The Supreme Court has ruled these regulations unconstitutional, but they have not yet been repealed.

Strikes can be referred to compulsory arbitration. Employers can sack workers who strike before conciliation and compulsory arbitration procedures have been exhausted. The government has said that these provisions no longer apply because, according to the constitution, arbitration is voluntary; however, they have not yet been repealed.

The Industrial Relations Act of 1992 was adopted by decree at a time when President Fujimori had dissolved the national parliament, suspended the constitution, and assumed emergency powers.

The law requires a minimum of 100 workers to form a professionally or occupationally based union. It allows the labour ministry to cancel a union's registration, and obliges unions to wait for six months to re-apply after remedying the cause of de-registration. Unions have to compile reports when requested by the ministry and cannot take part in political activities.

The law restricts the free election of union officials, and workers' eligibility for union membership - staff on probationary periods, for example, are no longer allowed to join unions. Public servants' federations or confederations cannot join organisations representing other categories of workers.

Workers are not allowed to strike over general economic and social policy issues. The law contains a broad definition of "essential" services, including health, electricity, water, gas, energy, sanitation, communication and telecommunications, and public transport, where arbitration is compulsory and strikes are virtually impossible. A majority of all workers in the workplace must vote in favour of a strike, and a full list of workers' names who attended the meeting must be submitted to management.

The law does not adequately protect workers against acts of anti-union discrimination; there is no protection at the time of recruitment, and employers can interfere in workers' organisations. Court procedures for reinstating workers sacked for union activities are very slow and rulings in favour of workers are often ignored by employers.

The law requires that a majority of both workers in an enterprise, and enterprises in a sector are necessary to conclude a collective agreement for a branch of activity or occupation. Employers can make changes to agreed working conditions.

The government has told the ILO that it has drafted a new Industrial Relations Bill which will delete several of these provisions.

Peru's 1993 constitution, as well as decrees issued in 1992, introduced labour market flexibility and deregulation. These measures sped up the privatisation programme, and made it easier to lay workers off and hire workers on temporary contracts - usually with no union rights.

The CGT-P said that some 700,000 workers had lost their jobs over the last seven years: 400,000 in the state sector and 300,000 in the private sector, with trade union leaders among the first to go.

Many young workers were employed under a new law on training programmes without basic employment rights and without the right to join unions.

Other laws abolished job security and removed workers' protection against arbitrary dismissal. Employers no longer had to reinstate workers even if they were found to have been unfairly dismissed.

Law 26093 allows municipal administrations to evaluate a worker's performance every six months. A worker can be sacked for failing the evaluation. In March, 1996, the CUT union centre said that massive numbers of workers were being sacked in this way.

A 1996 law took away guaranteed rights such as annual paid holidays and bonuses, and industrial accident compensation, making them subject to bargaining. Another law introduced flexibility for workers in the shrinking state sector.

On 5 June, the CGT-P national union centre organised the biggest demonstration in Peru for many years in the capital Lima, in protest at the government's economic policies. Riot police used clubs and tear gas on the demonstrators.

As a result of the privatisation of the electricity sector, new companies were created from the assets of the former state-owned company. The FTLEP federation of light and power workers said that one of these companies, Electro Ucayali S.A. was trying to destroy the union through various anti-union acts and interference, and obstruction of collective bargaining. The company would only offer permanent jobs to non-union workers.

It also dismissed 19 union members including two members of the union's negotiating committee through mass lay-offs. The union said the company was trying to make sure there were fewer than the legal number of workers required to have a union.

The SUTREL union of electricity workers of Lima and Callao said in April that following the privation of the state-owned Electrolima, one of the newly-created companies, Luz del Sur Servicios, had refused to recognise the union, and had signed a collective agreement with non-union members instead.

The CGT-P reported that several trade union officials had been illegally dismissed during the year.

The procedures of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the body which governs industrial relations in much of the private sector, do not provide workers with effective redress in the face of abuses by employers. Many workers, including those fired illegally, do not use available legal procedures because they take too long and fail to provide adequate compensation, or redress the wrong done to them. It takes an average of 557 days for the NLRB to settle a case.

In 1994, the U.S. based telecommunications company, Sprint, concluded its anti-union campaign eight days before a scheduled union election by notifying the 235 employees of its La Connexion Familiar subsidiary in San Francisco that it would permanently close the facility.

In late December, 1996, two-and-a-half years after the doors were shut, the NLRB ruled the closing illegal and ordered the company to rehire the workers with full back pay. The company appealed against the decision and in November 1997, the U.S. Appeals Court backed their claim that the facility was closed for financial reasons. The Court did mention a company official who backdated documents to show that the decision to close the facility was made before union activity began, but it considered the evidence circumstantial. Sprint, which has not disputed over 50 violations of labour law during its anti-union campaign at this facility, has a long-standing company policy of remaining "union-free."

At least one in ten union supporters campaigning to form a union is illegally fired. For every thirty people who vote for a union in elections in any one year, one will be illegally fired. At least one worker will be illegally fired in 25 per cent of all union-organising campaigns. A poll conducted in 1994 found that 79 per cent of Americans believe workers are likely to get fired if they try to organise a union at their workplace. The NLRB is estimated to have a backlog of 25,000 cases of alleged illegal dismissals.

A study released in 1997 found that employers threaten to close their plants in half of all organising campaigns and in 18 per cent of situations where collective agreements are negotiated for the first time. Twelve per cent of these threats are carried out. In manufacturing, management threatens to close plants in over 60% of union organising campaigns and where a company is forced to bargain with a union, companies close all or part of the plant 15% of the time. In an organising drive at three auto-parts plants during the period under review, management brought in workers from Mexico to film the American workers as they went about their jobs. An assembly line was then shut down and the equipment shrink-wrapped and stacked onto flatbed trailers marked "Mexico Transfer Job."

US labour legislation allows for double standards with respect to the rights of employers and of workers. Employers regularly use meetings conducted on their own property during work to campaign aggressively against collective bargaining and trade unions. Supervisors not eligible to be represented by the trade union may have to participate in a vicious and intimidating campaign against the union. Employees who support trade unions are identified and often isolated from other workers.

Except in rare circumstances, trade union representatives are denied access to the employer's property to meet employees during non-working time. During organising campaigns, threats of arrest against union representatives and their expulsion from the employer's property deny workers any reasonable opportunity to consider freely the advantages of union membership. The government-conducted election used to determine if workers want union representation is usually held on the employer's premises - the place where most anti-union intimidation has occurred.

Throughout the period under review, the management of the New Otani Hotel and Garden in Los Angeles continued its anti-union campaign in an effort to halt a six-year union organising drive.

The National Labor Relations Act requires the NLRB to seek injunctions in a federal court against trade unions committing certain kinds of unfair labour practices. There is no corresponding obligation when the unfair labour practices are committed by employers. Unlawful acts by employers who deny union rights to their employees often accomplish their intended goal before any proceedings are concluded.

Because trade union organising in the United States often involves excessive and costly litigation, the right to join trade unions and participate in collective bargaining is in practice denied to large segments of the American workforce. In 1997 the Denver Federation of Nurses resolved a 16-year-dispute with two hospitals that had unilaterally imposed new policies that were subject to collective bargaining.

Employers regularly challenge the results when the union wins a representation vote, regardless of the margin of victory. The government will spend months, and sometimes years, examining what are often minor or frivolous charges before ordering a company to bargain with the union. In the meantime, union supporters quit or are fired, and new workers are hired, often after the employer has screened out potential union supporters.

Throughout 1997, 5,000 workers at the Avondale Shipyard in New Orleans were denied their right to collective bargaining as their employer appealed against an NLRB ruling that it must bargain with its employees who voted for union representation in 1993. The employer had succeeded in delaying the vote count in this election for 44 months until February 1997. Since the election, the NLRB has issued approximately 400 complaints against the company including discriminatory dismissals, demotions, transfers and redundancies as well as unlawful surveillance and intimidation of union supporters. Some Avondale sacked employees for refusing to sign documents repudiating the union, and had them arrested when they returned to collect their property.

The options available to employers to discourage workers from exercising their trade union rights do not end if a union is certified. It is estimated that approximately one third of employers engaged in bad faith or "surface" bargaining with newly-certified unions. Forty per cent of negotiations for a first collective agreement fail. One study showed that in a quarter of the remaining cases where a first collective agreement was achieved, the union was unable to negotiate a subsequent agreement.

The law, and various administrative and judicial decisions, place a variety of restrictions on the ability of workers to engage in "concerted activity" including restrictions on intermittent strikes, secondary boycotts and other forms of mutual aid as well as on various kinds of "on-the-job" activity.

However, the law gives employers the "free play of economic force". If employers cannot get what they want through collective bargaining, they can unilaterally impose their terms, lock out their employees, and transfer work to another location, or even to another legal entity.

In the construction industry, it is a common and legal practice for employers to create separate non-union companies and thereby avoid negotiated commitments. In 1997, Knight-Ridder, the second largest newspaper company in the US, acquired a unionised newspaper, the Monterey County Herald, and a non-unionised newspaper, the San Luis Obispo Telegram-Tribune. The employees at the unionised paper were sacked and then forced to reapply for their jobs without a union contract. No one in the non-union newspaper was sacked.

Also in 1997, the employees of the Sir Francis Drake Hotel voted to be represented by a union after a four-year campaign. They had previously been represented by the same union but this relationship was destroyed when, as a condition of the sale of the hotel, 200 long-term union employees were sacked in 1993. Although over 70% of the employees voted for union representation, the management is appealing against the result.

Recent surveys of employers with impending negotiations have found that upwards of 80 per cent are committed to, or contemplating, replacing workers if they can't get a deal they like. Under the law, employers can hire replacement workers during an economic strike. Although the dismissal of strikers is banned - the use of permanent replacements is, in practice, virtually indistinguishable from dismissal.

More and more employers have deliberately provoked strikes to get rid of trade unions. Unacceptable demands are made of workers and are often accompanied by arrangements for the recruiting and training of strike-breakers. Replacement workers can vote in a decertification election to eliminate union recognition. Should a contract be negotiated during a strike, the right of strikers to return to their jobs which have been filled by permanent replacement workers is often subject to negotiation.

Throughout 1997, employees of the Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, and employees of the walnut producer co-operative Diamond Walnut, in Stockton, California, continued strikes that began in 1991. These strikes were provoked by employers - whose enterprises were successful - demanding big cuts in existing wages, working conditions and benefits in contracts established through collective bargaining. (The Frontier Hotel dispute was settled in 1998).

In June 1997 an Administrative Law Judge found that Detroit News and Knight-Ridder had unlawfully provoked a strike which began on 13 July, 1995, involving 2,600 employees of the Detroit News, owned by media conglomerate Knight-Ridder, and the Detroit Free Press, owned by media conglomerate Gannett. The newspapers were ordered to reinstate the striking workers but have appealed to the NLRB. So far, fewer than 25% of the workers have got their jobs back. In 1997, after more than ten years of litigation, workers employed by Outboard Marine Corporation in Georgia won a financial settlement after they were locked out by their employer following a brief legal strike in 1986.

The duration of these strikes, and the corresponding hardship for the striking workers, was caused by the legal use of strike-breakers by the employers. In the case of the Diamond Walnut dispute, the employer even required workers to train their replacements. These strikes, although among the longest, were not the only cases in which employers used replacement workers in violation of the right to strike.

An under-funded labour inspectorate and inadequate penalties for employers who violate the law mean that legally established labour standards covering wages and hours, child labour and workplace safety are inadequately enforced. This, together with the failure of US law to protect trade union rights, has led to an increasing number of instances of extreme exploitation.

National labour legislation does not cover agricultural and domestic workers, and certain kinds of supervisory workers. Moreover, the concept of "employee" as used in the law does not accord protection to "independent contractors" even where they have no separate economic identity independent of a particular employer.

Throughout 1997 a campaign by agricultural workers in the strawberry industry has resulted in an anti-union campaign marked by dismissals, intimidation and violence. This dispute is taking place in one of the few states that permits collective bargaining for agricultural workers.

The inadequacy of laws is not limited to the private sector. Approximately 40 per cent of all public sector workers, nearly seven million people, are still denied basic collective bargaining rights. At the national level, only postal workers enjoy such rights and 94 per cent of the postal workers are represented by trade unions. Over two million employees of the federal government are governed by the 1978 Federal Labor Relations Act which outlaws strikes, proscribes collective bargaining over hours, wages and economic benefits, and imposes an excessive definition of management rights which further limits the scope of collective bargaining rights.

While the situation varies from state to state, the absence of proper legal protection of trade union rights in the public sector is reflected in bans on strikes, bans on collective agreements, provisions for their invalidation, limitations on the scope of collective bargaining and discrimination against national trade union organisations. Thirteen states only allow collective bargaining for certain public employees and 14 states do not allow it at all. Nearly seven million of the total of 14.9 million state and local government employees in the United States are denied the right to bargain collectively.