January 9, 2009

Labour legislation and strategies for regional regulation 

Many of the organizations attending the seminar are active in pushing national and local governments to improve labour regulations and their enforcement in order to protect worker rights. In recent years, there have been a number of initiatives both from the grassroots and from the international community to enhance labour ministries and their capacity to act on labour rights violations, many funded by US AID and linked to the DR-CAFTA trade agreement.

Maritza Paredes of the Honduran Independent Monitoring Team (EMIH) presented the results of EMIH's study on worker access to justice in labour rights cases in Honduras and the obstacles that stand in the way.

• EMIH: The state and access to justice in the labour sector (Power Point 617K) (in Spanish)
  
  
  

   Homero Fuentes, COVERCO

 

Homero Fuentes of the Guatemalan Commission for the Verification of Codes of Conduct (COVERCO) reflected on the process of implementing the recommendations of the "White Book" (Labor Dimension in Central America and the Dominican Republic: Compliance Reinforcement and Capacity Improvement) and assessed whether there was space within that process for unions to advance worker rights.

• COVERCO: Labour dimension in Central America and the Dominican Republic. Building for progress: Compliance reinforcement and capacity improvement (Power Point 6.8MB) (in Spanish)
  

 

Patricia Juan Pineda from Mexico's Authentic Labour Front (FAT) compared and evaluated the effectiveness of labour policies and regulations in various countries in the region, based on a study by Graciela Bensusan.

• Garciela Bensusán, UAM FLACSO, and Patricia Juan Pineda, FAT: The effectiveness of labour legislation in Latin America (Power Point 183K) (in Spanish)

 

Key documents:

• CAFTA-DR projects (PDF 105K)
• Publication of the ILO: The White Book (in Spanish)
  
  • Verification of comliance with the recommendations of the White Book (in Spanish)
    
• Case studies: Obstacles to justice in Central America and the Caribbean
  • Honduras (PDF 5.1MB) (produced by EMIH, in Spanish)
  • El Salvador (PDF 3.1MB) (produced by GMIES, in Spanish)
  • Costa Rica (PDF 9.7MB) (produced by ASEPROLA, in Spanish)

 

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MFA+3 Report navigation

• Introduction
• Panel I: Is there a future for garment production in the Americas?
• Panel II: The view from the ground
• Panel III: Role of the state
• Panel IV: Decent work
• Panel V: Brand leverage
• Panel VI: China
• Panel VII: A proactive international agenda for change in the industry
• Looking towards the future