WHICH SIDE ARE THEY ON?
Slaughter, Ane
Which Side Are They On? The AFL-CIO tames Guatemala's unions BY JANE SLAUGHTER If you read the newspapers in Guatemala City, you discover a union federation that criticizes the government...
...He says proudly that 70 per cent of CUSG's membership are campesinos, reflecting the Guatemalan population...
...CUSG provides them with a cover...
...The Guatemalan labor movement was in shambles at the time, with most of its leaders either in exile or dead—victims of government-sponsored death squads...
...Many of CUSG's member federations are mere shells, they say...
...CUSG boasts a membership of 151,000 workers...
...It would be almost impossible to do our work without the financial help of AIFLD...
...Afraid that Guatemala might become "another Cuba or Nicaragua," CUSG is "trying to stabilize the situation, to mediate," he says...
...Government pays 95 per cent of its budget, says Jack Heberle, AIFLD's press officer in Washington...
...His objective was that there not be a demonstration...
...AIFLD responded by sending money and Clemente Hernandez, a Cuban-American, to launch CUSG...
...AIFLD exerts extraordinary control over CUSG's budget...
...If you shake your fist at someone, he'll respond the same way...
...This seems plausible...
...Last April, he called on housewives to bang pots and urged motorists to stop their cars for five minutes as a protest against the rising cost of living...
...Rios Montt and his predecessor, General Romeo Lucas Garcia, had succeeded in silencing—through massacres, assassinations, and disappearances—almost all signs of a popular movement...
...Ambassador, Frederick Chapin, was also present...
...The new Christian Democratic president, Vinicio Cerezo, has assured the military and the landed oligarchy that agrarian reform is not on his agenda...
...They taught us advanced techniques of unionism, economics, the political economy of the U.S.A., pluralism in the U.S., about the United Nations...
...We must be civilized...
...Some people even went to the George Meany Center...
...Rios Montt, who came to power in a coup, appointed Juan Alfaro to represent workers on his Council of State...
...Similar failures occurred at a bakery in Quezaltenango and at the Sportex textile factory there in 1985, when union activists were fired and the company shut down the whole department where they had worked...
...The Confederation warned that if these measures didn't convince Cerezo to alter his economic package, it would call a general strike "as a final and desperate measure...
...CUSG is the offspring of the AFL-CIO's American Institute for Free Labor Development, which operates throughout Latin America...
...Not everyone is won over...
...De Dios says he finds it prudent not to criticize the MLN...
...Gomez says CUSG urged his union not to participate in the march...
...in June, when CUSG planned a campaign against Cerezo's economic package, fewer than 100 people showed up at his demonstration...
...We never got our jobs back," the worker says, and the shop remains non-unionized...
...Juan de Dios Hernandez was a soldier in the Guatemalan army for ten years...
...He sends the budget to Edwin Palenque, AIFLD's representative in Guatemala...
...Came the end of the two-week truce, and Cerezo was still favoring the economic policy of the Chamber of Commerce...
...We have faith in his government," Alfaro said of Rios Montt's administration...
...Asked his union's reason for being, the head of the Quezada union replied: "Fertilizer...
...But we broke with them...
...The AFL-CIO tames Guatemala's unions BY JANE SLAUGHTER If you read the newspapers in Guatemala City, you discover a union federation that criticizes the government harshly, calls protests over the high cost of living, and threatens general strikes...
...This was perhaps an odd choice of protests, since very few workers in Guatemala can afford cars...
...Juan Alfaro was our adviser...
...They're a pro-government organization that tries to trick the people and throw the union movement off track...
...These promoters also submit bills to headquarters, where they are reviewed by AIFLD before they are paid...
...Therefore people decided it was a good thing," says Ricardo Solio Flores, a CUSG promoter in Quezada, Jutiapa...
...An activist from United Unions recalls going to the western mountain city of Que-zaltenango to invite union members to the May Day 1986 march in the capital...
...In 1986, the labor movement felt it finally had the opportunity to "reclaim the right to demonstrate publicly," as one activist put it...
...Juan Alfaro, himself educated at the George Meany Center, is a "neoliberal," says Angel Flores, a construction-firm owner who acts as an adviser to CUSG...
...He believes in capitalism and thinks it has to modernize...
...Alfaro called a press conference to announce that CUSG, "with the responsibility that characterizes the Confederation," was going to study the situation...
...We've had the problem before...
...Guatemala's largest newspaper headlined the event President Inaugurates Union Confederation...
...Promoters go instead to While trying to co-opt mass movements, the AFL-CIO is teaching peasants that workers are their brothers and big businessmen their enemies...
...A hungry people tends toward revolution," says Antonio Alfaro...
...Jane Slaughter is a staff writer for Labor Notes...
...He is implementing an economic program that could have been written by the Right, devaluing the quetzal, which will bring windfall profits to agribusiness exporters and a plummeting standard of living to workers and peasants...
...We believe we can direct the people to the road that stays within the framework of the law...
...At the ceremony, Alfaro shouted, "Viva our compafiero President Vinicio...
...the campesinos who rent or own a small portion of land and organize them on a community-by-community basis...
...There they attend seminars for AIFLD-sponsored unionists from throughout Latin America on such subjects as "comparative economic systems" and "democracy and development...
...Leaders of the union at U.S.-owned Adams Chiclets, for instance, say they were surprised to see their union on CUSG's list of affiliates in 1985...
...CUSG officials are trained at the George Meany Center run by the AFL-CIO outside Washington, D.C...
...Rios Montt dispatched the head of the Council, Jorge Serrano Elias, on a mission to the United States to drum up support for the federation...
...But CUSG does not try to organize the workers on the big coffee, sugar, and cotton plantations that provide most of Guatemala's exports...
...Antonio Alfaro draws up a budget for the union-education courses CUSG plans to give to members or prospective members each month...
...While there, Serrano conferred with AFL-CIO leaders, Celso says...
...Such lessons could help generate a level of militancy not to the AFL-CIO's liking...
...If it were not for him, no leftist critique of Cerezo's economic package would make it into the public discourse...
...Juan Alfaro thought at first that CUSG would call a demonstration and the others would follow, and it would look like all CUSG," says one United Unions activist...
...They formed a National Workers' Front and distributed leaflets—in the Christian Democrats' green and white—urging workers to vote for Cerezo...
...We're trying to help the people at the liquor factory organize now, and we warned them to be careful of those who come giving money...
...It gives one ongoing education class...
...We have gained a little," says the secretary general of the CUSG union of Las Minas, Jutiapa...
...That's the word they've used to manipulate you," he said...
...For this we're called everything—communists, pro-government, Yankees...
...Agency for International Development gave AIFLD an average of $267,000 per year between 1982 and 1986 for its work in Guatemala...
...Politics is a problem in Jutiapa, where unions have been virtually unknown...
...If this occurs, he will have some explaining to do to his American sponsors...
...Many of the unions in Guatemala were originally helped to be born by AIFLD...
...We know our proposals must be reasonable...
...Guatemala is such a poor country...
...The eastern part of the country is traditionally a stronghold of the right-wing Movement for National Liberation, which used to brag that it was "the party of organized violence...
...Some of us took literacy classes, and we got fertilizer at a low price, thanks to God and the secretary general of the Confederation...
...asked Mercedes Gomez, secretary general of the Coca-Cola workers' union...
...We want him to guarantee the right to organize unions, given the atmosphere of liberty that in reality his administration is providing...
...When he saw that we wanted to march as a coalition, he changed his mind...
...Cerezo was sworn in last January as Guatemala's first civilian president in sixteen years...
...The U.S...
...CUSG is new, but the Institute [AIFLD] is not," says an older leader of United Unions...
...And sometimes CUSG claims as members unions that have never belonged to it...
...Thanks to you guys, I learned what a democratic union is...
...How can he pretend to be the leader of all the workers now...
...Alfaro is the government's most prominent critic, frequently denouncing Cere-zo's economic policy...
...Fertilizer is de Dios's principal organizing weapon...
...The confederation includes some 200 unions, says Juan Alfaro, 120 of them organized by CUSG in 1985 and 1986...
...Now he is a CUSG promoter in the countryside...
...The United Unions of Guatemalan Workers, which comes out of a more militant tradition, must rely only on member-unions' dues...
...a burst of enthusiasm which, unfortunately for Alfaro, was televised, badly undermining Al-faro's credibility...
...some of his members belong to it...
...Unions are not the only popular organizations with which CUSG has had friction...
...On May 2, the daily newspaper El Grafico ran a story on page three under the headline, CUSG Presents Three Bills...
...We're looking for a peaceful way out...
...A Freedom of Information Act request revealed that the U.S...
...They don't trust us because of our link with the United States," says CUSG Secretary General Juan Alfaro...
...the May Day march was covered on page seven under the heading, Workers Divide...
...But the leaders of the Community in Jutiapa, with 45,000 members, deny having anything to do with unions...
...His every utterance (and he does a lot of uttering) is covered, while strikes go unnoticed...
...On the job, CUSG shies from militancy...
...It has an office with a manual typewriter and a telephone, but no staff...
...They had experience with CUSG," he says, "and the first thing they asked was, 'Who will pay for the bus and our food and lodging?' I told them, 'We aren't CUSG, you have to participate because of consciousness, not because of money.'" CUSG evidently makes a habit of throwing its money around...
...But our main problem is lack of land...
...Alfaro is very useful to the powers-that-be," agrees one United Unions leader...
...We took their conservative courses...
...We're not asking to be given land," de Dios says, "but to let us pay for it...
...Many people are going to turn their backs on him now...
...The word "union" is losing its scare power in an area where it has always been equated with "communist...
...We've found that it's easier in the communities than on the plantations," explains Alfaro, "because there's no boss to confront...
...We in CUSG are very mature people, with many years in the labor movement...
...Its own statutes, they say, prohibit it from being involved with unions...
...There is no love lost between CUSG and the Mutual Support Group, the outspoken association of families of the disappeared...
...And he had met with Cerezo, who promised to heed their demands...
...Before the union drive ended, fifteen employees had been fired...
...Juan de Dios Hernandez spent six weeks at George Meany in January and February of 1986—"thanks to the Confederation and to our maximum leader, Juan Alfaro...
...When workers ask for help from CUSG, the confederation often fails to deliver...
...Instead of marching on May Day, CUSG held a ceremony during which Alfaro presented Cerezo with the Confederation's proposed labor-law reforms...
...The people should know their rights but also their obligations, and should comply with their obligations...
...The 1986 May Day march was the first the Guatemalan unions had held since 1980, when ninety unionists were murdered or disappeared during or after the parade...
...The George Meany Center plays a very important role throughout Latin America," de Dios says...
...He also announced that CUSG would not participate in the upcoming May Day march...
...The National Federation of Agricultural and Indian Communities also appears on CUSG's list, accounting for 72,215 members—almost half of the Confederation's total...
...Sporadically they've tried to relate to us, but only to use us...
...Without it, we wouldn't know all the problems of Latin America...
...But when CUSG failed to organize some plants in the area, the beer workers went their own way...
...Antonio Alfaro recognizes the political role CUSG has assumed...
...The U.S...
...Palenque reviews the document, and if he approves, writes a check...
...Its leader is invited to confer with the president, and government ministers attend its meetings to ask for dialogue...
...Alfaro was afraid the protests would lead to "breaking the democratization process," he said later...
...It's not so easy for him to mobilize people, even with the money...
...He told us to draw up a list of demands...
...These setbacks don't deter Juan Alfaro, who says it is more important to organize in the country than in the city...
...To improve Guatemala's image abroad, Rios Montt encouraged the founding of the labor federation, says Julio Celso de Leon, a labor-movement veteran in Guatemala and now head of a rival union group...
...He also enjoyed side trips to New York City, Cape Canaveral, Disney World, and Miami...
...De Dios also speaks of getting land, but neither he nor any of his members know how to obtain it...
...Voting and elections are important to Alfaro, however...
...As far as the Guatemalan press is concerned, CUSG is the labor movement...
...Also, we are more practical...
...Local union leaders are adamant that the union should not get involved in politics...
...Last year the Confederation sold fertilizer at a good price...
...AIFLD aims to thwart the establishment of militant worker and peasant organizations...
...Demonstrations did occur in several towns, but after a week, Alfaro called them off, giving the government a two-week truce...
...He was afraid of being shown up by the other unions...
...Rios Montt himself spoke at CUSG's founding convention, addressing the delegates as compaheros...
...Alfaro and AIFLD are playing with a force that could outdistance them...
...It's like before: AIFLD was nothing when the labor movement was strong...
...The boss isn't necessarily our enemy," says Edgar Flores, head of CUSG's municipal-workers' federation...
...CUSG was founded on May Day, 1983, during the government of General Efrain Rios Montt...
...CUSG members and organizers have been called in to explain themselves to the local military authority in Jutiapa and neighboring Jalapa...
...We used to have relations with the Institute [AIFLD]," says the beer workers' official in Quezaltenango...
...But other unionists say these figures are wildly inflated...
...AIFLD provides CUSG with "supervision and financing," says Antonio Alfaro, Juan's brother and director of CUSG's education and organizing center...
...AIFLD's financial assistance gives CUSG an obvious advantage over other confederations...
...He leans toward social democracy but he's not there yet...
...The day we were to present them to management, the three people from the ad-hoc committee were fired...
...When beer workers in Quezaltenango and Guatemala City formed a federation, Juan Alfaro offered to pay for a headquarters building if the federation joined CUSG...
...The beer workers declined...
...The thing is that the strength of the Institute depends on the strength of the rest of the labor movement...
...At least they were in the fall of 1985, when he and other CUSG leaders actively supported Vinicio Cerezo...
...Alfaro's bent for publicity does play one positive role, however...
...Hernandez later became AIFLD's director in El Salvador...
...This exposure could help to generate a level of activism and militancy that Alfaro won't be able to channel "within the framework of law...
...CUSG has a phantom federation here in Quezaltenango that they wanted us to affiliate to, but we don't want to work with them," says an officer of the beer workers...
...We had twenty people signed up and we went to CUSG because one of the companeros had heard about it," recalls a former worker at an RC Cola plant...
...The fundamental purpose of CUSG is "to struggle for a democratic government and a democratic way of life," says Alfaro, "understanding that democracy is not only voting and elections but also economic and social...
...They are organizing campesinos, in some areas of the country for the first time, and teaching them—although it's abstract for the moment—that the workers are their brothers and the big businessmen are their enemies...
...By 1976 nothing remained of AIFLD in Guatemala because the unions refused it...
...CUSG has twenty-three full-time union organizers or "promoters" working in fifteen departments besides the capital...
...That work is to co-opt the labor and peasant movements...
...And the United Unions and other groups turned out 5,000 workers...
...If you look a little harder at this labor organization, the Confederation of Union Unity (CUSG), you will notice it includes none of the unions that led the militant Guatemalan labor movement of the 1970s—not the Coca-Cola workers, not the glass workers, not the university workers...
...We don't have relations with CUSG, and we don't want relations with CUSG," says Isabel de Castanon, a member of the Support Group's executive committee...
Vol. 51 • January 1987 • No. 1
