-At first, when I started working at the factory, the relationship with management was pretty good. But some five years ago, they hired a new Human Resource manager, Ana Isabel, and everything changed completely. They started treating the workers badly, and they discriminated harshly against us women. Even though I was prepared to take on a different task, I was never assigned to it; they preferred to have people from outside the plant that would answer to them. It was a very good company, but it was ruined by these people –like Mrs. Isabel-, which they started bringing in from the free trade zones.

-Of course. If you were in the union, they discriminated against you. And those who had not joined the union yet were told by management that they would be much better off if they didn’t join, because they would be given more benefits. Unionized workers were not contemplated at all.

-It was terrible for me, because it was totally unexpected. I found out I was pregnant three days before the plant shut down. That morning, when we arrived at work, we were not allowed into the factory and we were told to go wait in the parking lot. There, we were informed that the plant had shut down. It was awful, because the country’s economic situation is in really bad shape, and it’s getting worse and worse every day, and to find out that we were out of a job … It was terrible!

Then, when they gave me my dismissal papers, I told them I was pregnant and demanded that they pay me my maternity benefits to cover the breast-feeding period, but they told me that they would only pay my insurance for six more months. I felt really distressed about the future, because of the situation the country is going through and because, after working for them all these years, I didn’t deserve to be treated out of the blue like that. All of this really depressed me. Four days after the plant shut down, I started hemorrhaging and miscarried.

-Yes, a girl and two boys. But, as you can imagine, when something like this happens, you’re left with nothing, and the situation here is really bad. All of this builds up in your head and really brings you down. Sometimes you can’t sleep at night, turning thing over in your head, trying to figure out how to solve your problems, because, right now, finding a job here is no easy feat. They didn’t take any of that into account. We gave years of our life working for Nestlé, and they just turned their back on us and did something this terrible, treating us like criminals.

The day the factory was shut down it was crawling with police officers. They had locked up our lockers and wouldn’t let us through. They fenced us out, like we were criminals. And all that hostility felt really awful. I believe I miscarried because of all this, because I was perfectly fine before, I felt really well. Now we’re hearing rumors that it was all a scheme designed by management to get rid of the union, and that the factory is going to reopen with non-unionized workers.

-Yes, I see them often. None of them has found a new job yet. I was told that Nestlé organized a meeting and that many attended thinking that they would be rehired, but they were just there to talk. It was merely a ploy to calm people down. They’re very bad people. They give a certain image to the public, to make everyone think they’re so big-hearted, and they’re everything but kind! They have no compassion for the people that work for them.

-I hope the Lord will show me the way, because things are very difficult right now. I have hardly any money left over from the severance payment, because when you have kids to support, the money just… evaporates…

-Yes. My daughter, the eldest of the three, is already 18, the oldest boy is 16, and the youngest one is almost 2.

-It’s a company that dresses everything up. Nestlé is inhumane. Nestlé could care less if its workers suffer. Some of the workers had been with the company for ten or 14 years, others came out of there with health problems. I remember the case of a fellow worker who had knee problems and, since we had to work on our feet, she suffered. But the company fired her. Later, thanks to the union, we were able to get chairs; but once the chairs broke they were never replaced. They used us, and when they realized they couldn’t squeeze anything more out of us, when we were no longer any good to them, they got rid of us, like garbage. That’s what Nestlé is like.

- Yes, in addition to the woman I mentioned, there were other women who suffered from pain in their legs and knees. One of these women could no longer stay on her feet, the veins on her legs were so swollen and she was in so much pain. There were also workers suffering from pain in their arms. I remember that when we were laid off, Mrs. Dominga, a fellow worker, said to me: “I’m out of a job and I’m no longer fit for anything else.” They know all that, but they just don’t care. All they want is for us to do our job, and that’s all they care about. Proof that they don’t care is that once we were no longer any good to them, they discarded us!

-Wages improved enormously after we formed the union. When I started working there, we were paid 1,800 pesos a month (53 dollars), and Nestlé would give us raises of 50 pesos a year! At the end we were getting paid almost 9,000 pesos (265 dollars). But they started to raise our wages under pressure from the union. We didn’t have work uniforms or shoes. All the benefits we gained were obtained thanks to the union, because management wouldn’t give us anything. In order to get a loan we had to invent an illness for a relative, because otherwise they refused to give us the loan, but Ana Isabel, the Human Resource manager, after only two months in the company, received a loan big enough to purchase a car.

-I’d like to urge them to resist and not allow Nestlé to exploit them, to fight for their rights. And I’d warn them not to trust Nestlé, as the company is only out to use its workers.

-That they become aware of the sacrifice of the people who manufacture those products. I used to tell the women I worked with that I believed that if mothers knew how the company treated their workers, they wouldn’t buy Nestlé ice cream for their children.