Maquiladoras have long become a fixture in the Central American landscape, with the largest textiles corporations settling their plants in Guatemala, where they benefit from a generous tax exemption regime that is often interpreted by management as a “free for all” that includes violating the human and labor rights of their workers. Choi & Shin’s Co. Ltd. and Cima Textiles are, in this sense, paradigmatic cases.

Both companies are owned by the same corporation, whose parent company is located in Korea. The representative and “sole administrator” of these maquiladoras set up in Guatemala is Myoung Jin Kim, who has been infamously featured in several articles in these same pages in connection with repeated violations of workers’ rights, instances of antiunion repression and manipulation, and attempts to intimidate and frighten members of union organizations. Today’s report is no different.

As the Choi Workers’ Union (SITRACHOI) and the Cima Workers’ Union (SITRACIMA) -both affiliates of the Trade Union Federation of Food, Agroindustry and Related Industry Workers of Guatemala (FESTRAS)- have been denouncing, the company is orchestrating the permanent closure of both plants, starting with Cima Textiles. This factory “clear out” coincides with the authorization of a new corporation, Modas Choi Shin, to which all the outstanding work would be transferred, with two key advantages for Kim and friends: companies enjoy fiscal exemptions during the first ten years they are in business, and in Cima’s case that ten-year period ends next December. A new company automatically opens another ten-year period under a privileged tax regime. Secondly, and not less importantly, this will allow Myoung Kim to get rid of all the employees currently on the payroll and hire all new personnel, which will surely not include any union members.

Although Kim has tried to muddle things, concealing the opening of the new company -not very imaginatively named “Modas Choi Shin”-, the unions have obtained detailed information, including documents to back it, which indicates that on August 23, 2006 the General Commercial Registry received an application for the Registration of a Trade Operator, under N° 106871, whereby Myoung Kim was registered as “sole administrator and legal representative of the corporation Modas Choi Shin Sociedad Anónima.” This company was incorporated on August 9, 2006 and entered in the Commercial Registry the following day, under N° 68440.

This means that the new company, established in the same facilities currently occupied by Cima and Choi, has full legal existence, an existence that is as real as the constant hints dropped on workers by Cima and Choi management, pointing to contract cancellations due to bad quality garments caused by “production deficiencies,” by which they mean to lay the blame on the (bad) workers. As has happened before, the company is starting to discontinue work and transfer it to another company. On Monday the 14^th, Kim finally took the first step towards the planned clear out: he requested a three-month suspension for the work contracts of the 400 operators of Cima Textiles, and announced that Choi, where another 600 workers are employed, only has enough work to operate until August.

The unions had already reacted to this by convening a meeting with the company, who unfortunately failed to attend the meeting. Workers went immediately before the General Labor Inspection Bureau, which issued an official warning to the company and summoned it to attend a tripartite meeting.

SITRACIMA and SITRACHOI have expressed great concern over the situation and declared a state of alert, as this confusing and devious process directly threatens the jobs of more than 1,000 families whose incomes depend exclusively on these companies.

Carlos Amorín © Rel-UITA May 16, 2007