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Hello, my name is Pedro Ortega Mendez
I work for the Textile Federation
of the Sandinista Union of workers.
(About the working conditions in the Export processing zones in Nicaragua)
In some companies the temperature is very high,
some companies don't even provide workers
with the requisite protections,
but at least the wages are quite good.
Some companies don't allow
the free unionization of workers.
Pregant women also face some issues
when they come back from their maternity leave:
15 to 20 days after the childbirth
they are fired!
It's the kind of problems that we have to face
as many other South American companies.
We try to conduct some union campaigns
to organize the workers in unions.
It's a difficult task, as in many other countries.
We've already gone ahead
in the export processing zones
where 48 unions have already been organized
in the textile's as well as in the automotive's
and farming sectors.
We have to maintain the dialogue with companies
via the bipartite convention
and via the collective convention,
and improve the working conditions.
An example: the pregnant women.
Thanks to our union they can now benefit from
10 more minutes on lunchtime
so they go out at 11.50 am instead of 12
and they can have lunch earlier.
At the end of the day they can give up working 10 minutes earlier.
Those who breast-feed
can now make it
during 15 minutes every 3 hours.
Another advantage for the workers:
young people can study!
Young workers who want to study
don't make any overtime on Saturday.
We've also succeeded in improving the working conditions
for the workers who are on test:
they have the same rights and obligations
as every other workers.
The main obstacle that we face
is that there is no employment's stability.
The brands' orders
have dicreased
so they fired some workers.
Another problem:
the financial crisis and the weather conditions
(the floodings in Africa, Asia, ...)
have biased the coton's price.
Approximately 1000 contracts
from an American companies were cancelled
because there's no fabric.
Actually they are waiting for the price of fabric and coton to increase
(the speculation).
So in a summary these issues
are those that we face
currently.