Mexico: Manufacturing poverty for women

A group of workers in Honduras managed to prevent the closure of an assembly plant manufacturing sportswear for the U.S.-based sports apparel maker Russell Athletic, thereby saving 1,200 jobs. But workers at the Vaqueros Navarra firm in the southern Mexican state of Puebla, which produces garments for several U.S. labels, were not so lucky: the owners decided to close the factory when the employees tried to form an independent union. These cases represent the warp and weft of the textile sector in Mexico and Central America, which has been hit hard by the economic recession in the United States, the source of its largest orders for clothing. The frontline victims here, however, are women workers. "Disregard for labour rights has worsened in the economic crisis. The companies take advantage of young people, by taking them on without contracts and without social security for an initial trial period, and when that time is up they fire them," Rosa Galicia, of the Guatemalan Association of Employed and Unemployed Women United against Violence, told IPS.