REPORT ON THE CENTRAL AMERICA REGIONAL WORKSHOP:
"ETHICAL TRADING AND CODES OF CONDUCT"
3 - 5 May 1999, Las Mercedes Hotel, Managua, Nicaragua.

Dear Friends,

I would like to send solidarity on behalf of the Asian organisations working with Women Working Worldwide on codes of conduct. As you know we had a similar workshop in Sri Lanka last December. I was hoping to come to the Nicaraguan workshop but in the end it was impossible for me to attend, please accept my apologies.

I would like to congratulate all of you for your great work. We are full of admiration for the work involved in the ratification in Nicaragua of your Ethical Code. Although designing a code and having it approved is just the first step in the struggle, there is no doubt that a lot of determination and work went into this achievement.

I would like to share our experience of the codes' training programs in Pakistan as well as in the regional workshop in Sri Lanka. The workers especially women workers work in an environment of fear. Workers (women & men) face enormous hardships and uncertainty regarding their employment. These hardships include: temporary employment; job insecurity; increased working hours without wage increases; no pension; no maternity leave; no bonuses or provident fund; a ban on trade unionism & collective bargaining; maltreatment and sexual harassment by management; a work place environment that is a threat to health and increased use of the piece rate system.

Workers are unaware of their very basic rights and this makes day to day survival difficult for them, however, the work on codes of conduct gives us new hope.

During the Sri Lanka's workshop I learned that in the Southern Asian countries workers particularly women workers face quite similar problems. All the participants agreed that national and international workers solidarity is a vital element of our struggle. For codes of conduct to be effective there needs to be strong international solidarity links and unity.

On the behalf of Working Women Organization I would like to say how much we appreciate WWW's work on codes of conduct which has raised workers awareness, involved them in debates on codes and informed them of what is going on at an international level in the name of workers.

Finally I would like to express our solidarity with your struggle and assure you of our continue support.

Workers united will never be defeated.

In solidarity,

Simy Gulzar

The regional workshop in Sri Lanka brought the 6 women workers groups who participated in the project together for the first time. The aim was to share experience of the educational exercises and to discuss the value of company codes of conduct and initiatives like the ETI.

In Asia, workers had virtually no experience of codes of conduct. There was generally little awareness, even amongst activists. So all groups wanted to do more work after the initial research and consultation exercise.

The six workers groups in Asia who were involved in WWW's project:-
1) Women Workers Organisation in Pakistan
2) Karmojibi Nari in Bangladesh
3) Several organisations in Sri Lanka:
..a) Da Bindu
..b) the Women's Centre
..c) Kantha Madyasthanaya (Centre for Women)
4) Women Workers Programme in The Philippines
5) Labour Working Group in Indonesia
6) Union Research Group in India

All support women workers in industries such as garment production.

The workshop was also attended by additional Sri Lantern groups interested in taking up work on company codes of conduct. Representatives of Women working Worldwide, ETI and Labour Behind the Label (a UK network campaigning for improved conditions in the garment industry) attended the workshop.

The discussion sessions were often held in difficult circumstances; political turmoil in Indonesia; two thirds of Bangladesh under flood water; in all cases workers had little free time to hold discussions and many feared victimisation so that sessions had to be held in secret.

However, all the groups reported that it had been a positive and productive exercise. All the groups enjoyed coming to the workshop to share their experiences of doing the exercises.

The workers found the educational material very useful: all liked the session on sub contracting chains; all liked the story of the Nicaraguan Code; and all found the exercise with differing codes difficult. Through the educational materials, workers learnt more about their labour rights and more about the possibilities of organising.

Workers were very interested to hear that in different countries there were workers working for the same companies in the same conditions.