Escalation of terror in tuna plant

Mass application of
“lie detector” in Calvo Conservas

If the antiunion methods employed by Calvo Conservas in El Salvador were one shade away from being fully equated to the “counterinsurgency tactics” deployed until the 1990s by Latin American armies under the command of generals trained in the infamous “School of the Americas,” the company has now found a way to fix that: by subjecting its workers to a “lie detector”

According to reports by the Calvo Conservas El Salvador S.A. de C.V. division of the General Union of Fishing and Related Industry Workers (SGTIPAC), several workers were subjected to interrogations in which the company used polygraphs, more commonly known as “lie detectors.”

Nobody ignores the fact that Latin Americans, especially social activists, are still smarting from the memory of the torture methods used during the repression orchestrated by the military and paramilitary forces that implemented the Doctrine of National Security. The most common form of those tortures was the application of electric shocks to the prisoners’ bodies while they were being interrogated. There’s nothing more evocative of these electric shock sessions than the enactment of “a polygraph interrogation,” which requires a number of electrodes to be placed directly on the skin of the person interrogated.

No doubt aware of that effect, Calvo officials decided to use this association with horror to give a new twist to the system of antiunion repression it has mounted.

The report filed with the Labor Inspection Bureau of El Salvador by the general secretary of SGTIPAC Calvo Conservas, Mariano Alexander Guerrero, contains an account that seems straight out of a testimony given by activists persecuted during the Cold War.

Guerrero describes how “On June 28, 2007, as I was doing my work as usual, at about 7 pm, Dora Lilián Cruz, the Chief of Production, informed me that several workers from my area would have to take a polygraph test, due to acts of sabotage that had apparently been committed against a forklift and a production belt. Both acts had allegedly occurred in a different area than the one where we normally perform our duties, which is why I was surprised by the measure. 

Later that day, the same chief paged the first worker to the Human Resources Department. When that worker came out, at about 9:15 pm, he was visibly altered and told everyone who worked with him, including me, that in the Human Resources Department he had been forced to take a polygraph test, and while he was told that it wasn’t ‘mandatory,’ refusing to take it was, according to Management, proof that he had been involved in these acts or knew something about them.

Next, Dora Cruz started calling the other workers. At 10:30 pm, I went to the Human Resources Department, accompanied by José Antonio Valladares (the Union’s Organization and Statistics Secretary), to find out what was going on and ask if there was a legal inquiry underway.

There we found Mr. Rafael Orlando Merino Hernández, who said he was with CEPPOL (a company that provides polygraph test services), and when I asked him what legal grounds they had for making the workers take these tests, he answered that the procedure was being conducted due to alleged sabotages against a forklift and a production belt leading to the mill. As none of us knew anything of these alleged acts, we asked him if a court or police warrant had been issued for the tests. Merino replied that he was acting on administrative orders from the company and that he was simply paid to conduct the tests, which were merely intended to gauge the workers’ “loyalty” to management. He immediately asked me to ‘collaborate’ and take the test. As my refusal would’ve been interpreted as a lack of loyalty to the company, I had to agree to take the polygraph test, even against my own will.”

So far, the account by the general secretary of SGTIPAC Calvo Conservas already reveals the utter atrocity that is being committed by employers with a mind more fitting for executioners than for corporate management. But there’s more.

“During the test –Guerrero continues– I was asked what I thought about it, if I saw any failures in the daily work, if my superior behaved well, if I had attended any meetings where sabotages were planned, if I had received any threats to dissuade me from turning in the person responsible for the sabotage, if I had witnessed the alleged sabotage, if I was loyal to the plant. Also, during the polygraph tests we were asked questions regarding union activities, participation and/or opinions, such as: Do you belong to the union? What do you think of the unionists in the plant? Do you think they are benefiting the workers in any way? Some 20 workers from the dayshift and the nightshift were forced to take these tests, between June 28 and 29, 2007.”

This episode perpetrated by Calvo Conservas, besides adding to the escalating repression waged against the union and the unionized workers, must be considered as psychological torture, harassment and extortion, and as such reported as a criminal offence, so that the company representatives that entrusted this action to a private company in the business of polygraph exams, and god knows what other “interrogation methods,” will be held legally accountable. Moreover, everyone in El Salvador knows that these companies are ran by military and police officers, for the most part retired. In Argentina, when the dictatorship ended, these characters were referred to as “redundant labor.”

In the report filed with the Labor Inspection Bureau, the union representative declares that “This situation violates Article 30.5 of the Labor Code, which stipulates that: Management shall not: ‘Discriminate, either directly or indirectly, against workers because of their union status, or penalize them for that same reason.’ 

The questions asked during the polygraphs –the report continues– also constitute a clear intimidation and violate the right to free unionization established under Article 47 of the National Constitution, as the company’s ultimate aim is to frighten its workers to stop them from joining our Union, thus contravening Article 30.4 of the Labor Code, which stipulates that: ‘Management shall refrain from: 4) Seeking to influence workers in the exercise of their right to association in the workplace.’

Lastly, it should be noted that the company’s conduct violates the union protection guarantees set forth in ILO conventions 87, 98 and 135, which were ratified by El Salvador in August 2006, and which are fully in force in the country, in accordance with both the ILO Constitution and the 1998 Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work.

For all of the above, we ask the Labor Inspection Bureau to:

·         Promptly conduct a special labor inspection to verify the discriminatory and antiunion intimidation practices that are being committed by the company and which constitute a violation of Calvo Conservas El Salvador S.A. de C.V. workers’ right to unionize;

·         Order the company to immediately cease all antiunion intimidation;

·         Notify us of the date the inspection will be conducted on so that we can witness it, as established under Article 47 of the Labor and Social Security Sector Organization and Functions Act (LOFSTPS);

• Issue us a certified copy of the inspection record.”

This despicable episode will be included in the complementary information attached to the complaint filed with the International Labor Organization (ILO), under case number 2571, on June 12, 2007, by SGTIPAC and the Trade Union Federation of Salvadorian Food, Beverage, Hotel, Restaurant and Agro-Industry Workers (FESTSSABHRA), with the support of Rel-UITA.

Lastly it must be noted that the use of polygraphs in the sphere of labor is an issue that is not addressed by El Salvador’s legislation. As we anticipate that Calvo Conservas will use this legal gap as an excuse to justify its offence, we’re defying it with the following dare: are Calvo executives willing to take the polygraph and answer our questions?

Carlos Amorín © Rel-UITA July 3, 2007

* With information provided by the Labor Studies and Support Center (CEAL) and own sources.