Honduras - igb - overview - violations of trade union rights

The ITUC affiliates in Honduras are the Central General de Trabajadores (CGT), the Confederación de Trabajadores de Honduras (CTH) and the Confederación Unitaria de Trabajadores de Honduras (CUTH).

legal

Freedom of association / right of association

Anti-union discrimination

The law prohibits anti-union discrimination but does not provide adequate protection.

Legal barriers to organization creation

Restrictions on the right of workers to create and join organizations of their own choice

Restrictions on the right of unions to organize their administration

Groups of employees who, by law, are not allowed to form or join unions or to hold a trade union office, or only with restrictions

Collective bargaining rights

Restrictions or bans on collective bargaining in certain sectors

right to strike

Legal barriers to lawful strikes

see. General strike, interrupted strike, rolling strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike, slow strike required The employees of state-owned companies, which are also considered to be public utility services, have to announce a strike six months in advance according to the Labor Code or obtain government approval for the strike , (Article 558 of the Labor Code) Exaggerated provisions regarding the quorum required or the majority required for a strike vote According to the Labor Code, two thirds of all members of a union have to vote for a strike in order for it to take place. (Articles 495 and 563 of the Labor Code) Excessively long notice or cool-down periods Employees of state-owned companies must announce a strike six months in advance or seek government approval for the strike. (Article 558 of the Labor Code) Mandatory arbitration or lengthy arbitration and mediation procedures before a strike strike The most common form of industrial action; a collective stoppage of work by employees for a certain period of time; can take many forms.

see. General strike, interrupted strike, rolling strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike, slow strike strike Conflicting wages are also subject to mandatory arbitration according to labor law in public services that are not classified as essential. (Article 544, paragraphs 2 and 7, Articles 820 and 826 of the Labor Code)

Prohibition or restrictions on certain types of strikes

Excessive interference by the authorities or employers during a strike

see. General strike, interrupted strike, rolling strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike, unilateral ban, limit, suspend or end The Ministry of Labor and Social Security is authorized under labor law to resolve conflicts in the oil sector (production, refineries, transport and distribution ) to end. (Labor law, Article 555, paragraph 2)

practice

On July 7, 2017, the Honduran Institute of Social Security Workers ‘Union (SITRAIHSS) filed a complaint with the National Commissioner for Human Rights (CONADEH) against the IHSS Financial Control Commission requesting an investigation into violations of its members’ human rights. In the complaint, SITRAIHSS argues that the government has a strategy of union busting union busting attempts by an employer to prevent the formation of a union or to get rid of an existing union, for example by dismissing union members, bringing the union to justice or taking action Creation of a yellow union. and outsourcing of services through outsourcing outsourcing cf. Pursue contracting out and implement it with the privatization of institutions and the violation of workers’ rights.

The IHSS Financial Control Commission informed the union in the second half of May of the decision to reorganize the national security and surveillance system. The decision came into effect on July 1. The union rejected it both in direct talks and in writing. SITRAIHSS recalled that on June 30, 2017, more than 200 of its members working in the field of internal security and surveillance were fired.

The union also questioned whether the Financial Control Commission had not violated labor law against its members by failing to recognize the adjustment of the minimum wage for 2014 and 2015; in addition, they had not been paid for overtime in years.

US company Chiquita Honduras employees decided on December 26, 2017 to go on strike to protest non-compliance with the collective agreement. The strike strike The most common form of industrial action; a collective stoppage of work by employees for a certain period of time; can take many forms.

see. General strike, interrupted strike, rolling strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike, slow strike lasted 74 days. Then the company and the government forced them to return to work. Your concern remained unsolved. The crackdown began on Friday, March 9, 2018, when at 5:00 a.m. at least 300 military and police forces surprisingly arrived on the struck banana plantations and used violence against at least 400 workers who were gaining access to the banana plantations of La Lima in near the San José settlement as a picket picket people who draw attention to a labor conflict or strike at the gates of the companies concerned and try to get other workers not to enter the company or to prevent consumers from supporting the employer , The creation of pickets in front of a neutral company that is not directly involved in the conflict aims to indirectly exert pressure on the employer, who is the actual target of the action. were used. According to the workers, live ammunition was used during the police operation and more than 100 tear gas bombs were used. They also said several arrested people were tortured and some of their belongings were robbed. Another retaliation measure by Chiquita Honduras is the dismissal of 105 workers. 34 arrest warrants were issued against the leadership of the strike committee.

As denounced by the Tela RailRoad Company (Sitraterco) union, banana producer Chiquita Honduras and the government are driving destructive strategies with the intention of eliminating the union. Against this background, the transnational company disregards the collective bargaining agreement, usually a written agreement that contains the results of collective / collective bargaining between employee and employer representatives.

see. Collective / collective bargaining regulated medical care for 2080 employees. The controversy arose in December 2017 when Chiquita Honduras, owner of the plantations on which those affected work, decided to discontinue medical care that had been offered in La Lima, Cortés for decades. Now the workers have to go to private clinics in San Pedro Sula.

On June 21, 2017, members of the union of the National Agricultural Institute (INA) protested the violation of the collective agreement and demanded that wages be paid back. Union leader Ramón Bulnes pointed out that the demand for outstanding payments related to the June salary and Christmas bonus. He explained that the payment would have been made up to three months late.

In July 2017, the beverage and related industrial workers union (STIBYS) condemned the intransigence of the Honduran brewer Cervecería Hondureña in the collective bargaining. The focus of criticism was the outsourcing of nearly 600 permanent jobs, the unwillingness of the company to deduct the union contributions of over 100 field workers directly from the wages bill – more than 200 employees work in this role across the country – and the refusal to agree on working conditions negotiate on the grounds that you can trust the company. The workers also complained that they had had no wage increases in the past three years and that the company refused to negotiate a retroactive increase from the start of the negotiations.

The union’s executive committee at Star (SitraStar) reported that in 2017 President Waldin Banegas was threatened, harassed, persecuted and observed within Star’s export processing facility and in his own home. The union also reported that the owner of the Zip El Porvenir business park, Nicolás Chain, had made public statements against the union.

In February 2018, Lino Hernandez, chairman of the union at Star (SitraStar), which organizes the workers of this Gildan export processing company, gave up his job and union membership because of alleged death threats and intimidation against him and his family. Lino Hernández had fought for employee rights and collective bargaining at the Gildan company.

On April 13, 2017, Moisés Sánchez, union leader of the Agro-Industry and Related Sectors Union (STAS), was kidnapped, beaten and threatened with death if he continued his union work. His brother, Misael Sánchez, was also attacked and seriously injured. Moisés Sánchez called for an improvement in the working conditions of workers at Fyffes. The two men were ambushed when they left the Choluteca county union office. Misael Sánchez suffered a severe cut from a bush knife on the face and had to be hospitalized for four days. Moisés was beaten for almost an hour and threatened that he would be killed if he continued to help melon plantation workers assert their rights through a union.

On May 1, 2017, an increase in the number of attacks and threats against trade unionists in Honduras was reported compared to 2017. SITRASEMCA president of the civil service union, Isela Juárez Jiménez, indicated that attempts had been made to kidnap her a few days earlier. Union leaders Nelson Núñez of the Union of Agro-Industry Unions (DESTAGRO) and Miguel Ángel López of the National Power Supply Union (STENEE) also reported that they were being persecuted and threatened with death.

The Agro-Industry and Related Sectors Union (STAS) learned that on June 2 and 30, 2017, a group of Suragroh and Melexsa workers belonging to the multinational Fyffes made an application to the Ministry of Labor in Tegucigalpa to establish two unions submitted: Sitrasuragroh and Sitramelexsa. The STAS received information that both unions were stimulated and supported by company executives so that working conditions could be introduced in parallel and real collective bargaining avoided.

In early October 2017, the Agro-Related Sectors Union (STAS) condemned an ongoing intimidation campaign against its members at Suragroh and Melexsa. The companies deployed a group of people, most of whom were not employees, to protest the union in front of the Choluteca Department of Labor regional office. Several company representatives went through the villages where union members live to warn them that if they did not take part in the demonstrations, they would no longer be employed in harvesting.

On October 9, 2017, 120 employees of the Agroguayan company from the Jaremar group organized a branch of the Agro-Industry and Related Sectors Union (STAS) in the Campo Buena Vista and Campo Naranjo Chino zones, but the company refused to recognize them. On October 21, the company introduced tough anti-union reprisals and fired 19 unionized workers. By November 4, 2017, the company had fired a total of 98 workers.

On March 3, 2016, Berta Cáceres, founder of the Civil Council of grassroots and indigenous organizations in Honduras (COPINH) and winner of the Goldman 2015 environmental award for her efforts to protect the environment, was brought up by armed men at her home in La Esperanza in the Intibucá department murdered in the west of Honduras. The crime occurred despite the fact that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (CIDH) had taken security measures to protect it.

The international community has put pressure on the government to investigate the case and, according to prosecutors, seven suspects have been arrested, two of whom are linked to Desarrollos Energéticos SA (DESA), the company that built the Agua Zarca dam, the Berta and COPINH had categorically refused. The environmental activist had launched a successful campaign against the hydropower project, which started without consulting local indigenous communities.

Sergio Ramón Rodríguez, one of the detainees, is an engineer and works on the Agua Zarca dam project. Another, Douglas Geovanny Bustillo, is a retired soldier and former security officer at DESA. Two other detainees, Mariano Díaz Chávez and Edison Atilio Duarte Mesa, are former military personnel and a member of the armed forces who is still on duty.

Between 2014 and 2016, the Honduran government cut the budget of the Agricultural Institute Instituto Nacional Agrario (INA), which had an impact on the SITRAINA union. The cuts led to non-payment of vacation days (2013-2016) and delays in wage payments. Furthermore, in June 2016, fifty percent of all employees who were forced to accept reduced and deferred payments for their services should be fired.

With this in mind, those who accepted a deferral of payment for 5 years were guaranteed full payment of their benefits, while those who requested compliance with the collective agreement were paid only 70 percent of the total. Employees are pressured to accept these payment delays and cuts.

The union has sued the National Commissioner for Human Rights (CONADEH) and the Public Prosecutor for Human Rights for violations of human rights and coercion to terminate, restrict and violate workers’ rights. The INA was also accused of discrimination in the workplace, abuse of office and non-fulfillment of obligations towards employees.

In June 2016, the Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Agroindustria y Similares (STAS) protested against the fact that one year after the collective agreement had been signed with Finca Tropical, the agreements had not been met. On the contrary, the company began to persecute union members. The executives and members of the negotiating commission were fired. The remaining union members decided to keep a low profile so as not to lose their jobs.

In February 2016, Finca Tropical was the supplier of the transnational Chiquita Brands, has already been summoned by the Attorney General’s Office, demanding payment of a HNL 25,000 fine ($ 1,111.11) from the Department of Labor. 80% of the fine was charged for not recognizing the STAS union and the rest for not paying overtime.

see. Complete collective / collective bargaining and thus have evidence to re-certify Rainforest an organization that had withdrawn their certification seal due to violations of workers’ rights convicted by the STAS union. Due to non-compliance with the collective agreement, the STAS union has mediation with the Ministry of Labor A process between arbitration and arbitration, in which the mediator is neutral and helps the parties to an industrial conflict to reach an agreement by suggesting possible, non-binding solutions; is also called mediation.

see. Arbitration, arbitration requested to have the company explain why it failed to meet the agreement.

On July 6, 2016, Lesbia Yaneth Urquía Urquía, a community activist and member of the civil council of grassroots and indigenous organizations in Honduras (COPINH), was kidnapped and murdered by unknown people. Her body was found near the Marcala municipal landfill.

Urquía, like Berta Cáceres, another leading COPINH representative who had been murdered, had fought against the concession and privatization of the rivers in the La Paz administrative district and against the hydropower projects, of which there are more and more in Honduras. Urquía was particularly opposed to the construction of the Aurora I hydropower plant, which was to be built by a company owned by the partisan ruling party leader and vice-president of Congress, Gladys Aurora López, and her husband.

COPINH blamed the Honduran government and the leader of the ruling party PN and her husband for the activist’s death. Police sources, however, assert that the crime is related to a family dispute or extortion, even if the victim’s companions dispute this hypothesis.

The United Nations and various international organizations condemn the act and urge the authorities to investigate and convict the perpetrators and backers.

On July 15, 2016, a sympathizer of the ruling party Partido Nacional (PN) in the municipality of Azacualpa in the district of La Paz put stones and threatened Martín Gómez with stones from the Lenca community because he opposed the construction of the Los Encinos hydropower plant.

Gómez, a member of the Movimiento Indígena Lenca de La Paz (Milpah) indigenous movement, escaped and reported his attackers, one of whom was sentenced to eight months in prison. After his release, provisional measures were taken to keep him away from Gómez. Milpah, who submitted an application for recognition in 2010 The determination of a union by the responsible state body to the collective bargaining party for the employees in a given tariff unit or the acceptance of the collective representation of the employees by a union on the part of the employer. Los Encinos, owned by the investment company Encinos S.A., rejects its traditional areas because it poses a threat to their land and water.

In October 2016, Miguel Lόpez, chairman of the Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Empresa Nacional de Energía Eléctrica (STENEE) union, who had received death threats, reported that, despite taking all possible precautions, he had twice been given a black motorcycle twice during the week followed and his wife was also persecuted. López lives and works in Tocoa, Colόn, in the same area where several leading figures from the MUCA peasant movement were murdered.

The Movimiento Unificado Campesino del Aguán (MUCA) peasant movement, which is part of the Confederación Unitaria de Trabajadores de Honduras (CUTH), is a member of the 2014 network to combat impunity and document and combat increasing violence and threats against union activists.

On October 18, 2016, their chairman, José Ángel Flores, and another MUCA activist, Silmer Dionisio George, were shot dead by four strangers when they left a session they had attended in the Colon department in northern Honduras. Flores was subject to special protective measures that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (CIDH) initiated in May 2014. Both had been placed under police protection.

The two murders are part of a strategy of violence against activists who defend human rights in Honduras as part of the agricultural conflict in El Valle del Aguán. Flores had left a letter to his family with the names of his murderers. Thanks to this information, it was known that the peasant leader and his comrade-in-arms were murdered by a criminal cell led by paramilitaries and allegedly headed by the fugitive Celio Rodríguez, former head of the La Confianza settlement.

The Attorney General issued an arrest warrant against Osvin Nahún Caballero Santamaría and Wilmer Giovanni Fuentes as suspected criminals through the Unidad de Muertes Violentas del Bajo Aguán (UMVIBA) on November 21, 2016. Various human rights groups, NGOs and the international community are urging the authorities to ensure that the perpetrators are brought to justice.

In December 2016, 28 lecturers from the Universidad Nacional de Agricultura (UNA), located in the city of Catacamas in the department of Olancho in the east of Honduras, were unjustly dismissed. This incident goes hand in hand with the criminalization of lecturers who do not represent the opinion of Rector Marlon Escoto.

The university’s rector is also Minister of Education. The workers criticize the fact that the rector violated the statutes of the university, because in order to be elected, the rector would have had to teach at the university in the past 3 years, but the current rector has not done so. on the other hand is a allowed one-time re-election, which he has already used. The dismissed lecturers had pointed out these irregularities, so it is assumed that the layoffs are a reaction to this criticism.

A group of UNA lecturers has filed a complaint with the Human Rights Organization Committee on the Relatives of Disappeared and Prisoners in Honduras (COFADEH) for violating union protection against dismissal, workers’ rights and bullying at work and has documented this accordingly. The lawsuit includes unjustified layoffs, forced hours outside of normal working hours at night or on weekends without compensation, and the need for unionists to leave the organization.

In June 2016, Azucarera del Norte S.A. (AZUNOSA), a Honduran subsidiary of the British transnational company Sabmiller, through its subcontractors SURCO, ARAME and SODEMEM launched an anti-union discrimination campaign against the members of the Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Agroindustria y Similares (STAS).

In 2016, the company discontinued benefits such as bonuses and vacation days for STATS members, while workers who belonged to another union that existed at the same time and were close to the interests of the company continued to receive these benefits. At the same time, SURCO and ARAME signed a collective agreement. A usually written agreement that contains the results of collective / collective bargaining between employee and employer representatives.

see. Collective bargaining in any company that was not followed. Workers affirm that these companies followed the same discriminatory strategy when it came to distributing material for occupational safety and health.

On November 30, 2016, SURCO unlawfully dismissed several STAS members and executives, including Jorge Luis Alas, Secretary of Agriculture and Farmers of the STAS Central Executive, who are subject to union protection. The workers affirm that it is retaliation for union membership.

The STAS has been trying to gain access to the company’s facilities with an inspector for years to prove the violations and systematic anti-union behavior, but this was denied from the start.

The Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Agroindustria y Similares (STAS) reported that anti-union layoffs, blacklisting and death threats by Multi Fyffes continued over the course of 2016 as a result of their union activities. A new case occurred on February 16, 2017 with the dismissal of unionized plantation security personnel.

In addition, members of the company’s private security team threatened the sub-office heads with threats to force them to leave the union. Union leaders Nelson Núñez and Patricia Riera received anonymous messages with death threats. Several organizations, such as the Union of General and Municipal Workers (GMB), have tried to pressure the multinational to improve the working conditions of plantation workers and to stop systematically persecuting unionists.

The farmers of el Valle del Bajo Aguán denounced that they were the victims of attacks, killings and actions by the private security forces of Dinant Agroindustria, a company that has large palm oil plantations in the north of the country. This company receives funding from the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC), which is why farmers sued the international organization.

The plaintiffs are seeking compensation for murders, torture, raids, attacks, violations, unlawful enrichment and other attacks, all of which are part of a systematic corporate persecution aimed at intimidating and forcing farmers to refuse Dinant the rights to transfer the country that the company wants to control.

Farmers have filed human rights lawsuits with international organizations and lawsuits in Honduras. Miguel Facussé Barjum, owner of the Dinant company, was also accused of being associated with drug-trafficking organizations and that his lands had been used as a landing site for airplanes.

In January 2016, the Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Agroindustria y Similares (STAS) agricultural workers ‘union informed the employer that a branch had been established at Sur Agrícola de Honduras SA (Suragroh), one of Fyffes’ three branches in Honduras. She has also provided a list of claims for collective bargaining.

The multinational met with board members in less than 24 hours and forced them to leave the union. After a second unsuccessful attempt in April, the STAS founded another local association, this time at Melon Export SA (Melexsa), which resulted in the dismissal of 21 workers, including the union’s leading representatives, who had been on permanent contracts. The layoffs took place before they had time to inform the employer about the formation of the union.

However, the union did not give up. A new board was elected and investigations into employee rights violations began. After there was sufficient evidence, 92 employees decided to sue the company for not paying their remuneration.

The STAS local branch has condemned the creation of blacklists and feared that none of the three Fyffes branches will hire employees who are linked to the union.

The company also takes advantage of the temporary nature of the activities to put pressure on the women employed there. The working days are extremely long, overtime is not paid and there is no entitlement to vacation. The length of service is not taken into account in the payment and no social security contributions are paid.

Some women have been working on the melon plantations for 25 years or longer. Others have already reached retirement age, but are still working because they know that they will never get a pension or the benefits they are entitled to. Others were released when they became pregnant or injured at work.

Occupational safety is also inadequate. In December 2015, around 100 women suffered poisoning after using a herbicide / chlorine mixture on an adjacent piece of land.

On June 17, 2015, Héctor Orlando Martínez, chair of Section No. 6 of the Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Universidad Autónoma de Honduras (SITRAUNAH), was at the regional university center CURLP-UNAH (Centro Universitario Regional del Litoral Pacífico) in the city of Choluteca murdered.

The unionist was on his way home from work at the university. He was reportedly attacked by two people on a motorcycle, who fired shots at his vehicle and hit him 12 times. The incident reportedly occurred following an investigation that a human rights commission had begun in connection with complaints filed by Héctor Orlando Martínez.

On May 19, 2015, in view of the threats and intimidation against him as a direct result of his work as a SITRAUNAH representative, the Inter-American Human Rights Commission requested protective measures for Héctor Orlando Martínez and his family.

The Honduras government holds consultations but ultimately makes its decisions on its own, without taking into account the contributions of the unions.

From 2014 to March 2015, the judiciary continued to side with the government and ruled to the detriment of workers, such as in cases where trade unionists were detained without charge. The courts also failed to order the reinstatement of unjustly dismissed workers from the National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH), the state-owned telecommunications company Hondutel, and the local authorities of Danlí and Comayagua.

Other violations:

Violations of the rights of Honduran emigrants Children and young people:
Between October 2013 and September 2014, more than 18,000 unaccompanied Honduran minors were detained in the United States. In June 2014, over 13,000 Honduran children were detained in U.S. detention centers. The Honduran state then declared a humanitarian emergency in July 2014, as well as national and international collaboration Priority to find an acceptable solution. The newly established Child, Youth and Family Authority (DINAF) was commissioned to provide support and protection for children and families in the case of repatriation and reintegration. However, social organizations have pointed to the weakness of the institutions and the inadequacy of the state’s response to this problem.

Dangerous working conditions of around 2,000 seafood divers in La Mosquitia:
The workers live in extreme poverty and isolation and work under abusive conditions without any state supervision. In addition, the health facilities do not have a hyperbaric chamber for the treatment of decompression sickness, which in connection with the complete lack of rehabilitation offers leads to permanent disabilities or deaths every year.

Precarious working conditions in the maquilas:
Working conditions in the maquilas did not improve in 2014 either. The majority of the workers there are women who work monotonously 12 hours a day in uncomfortable positions. They have no access to adequate health care or medical treatment in the event of work-related illness.

Donatilo Jiménez Euceda, former chair of Section 3 of the Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Honduras (SITRAUNAH), disappeared on April 8, 2015 while working at the CURLA (Centro Universitario Regional Litoral Atlántico) university center in La Ceiba , The trade unionist was responsible for organizing the upcoming elections at SITRAUNAH.

Petralex is a clothing company in the Búfalo Free Export Zone on the edge of the San Pedro Sula Industrial Park. On March 2, 2015, the company targeted the recently elected union representatives and offered them almost three times as much as the legally required redundancy payment for their termination.

Five representatives of the local Sitrapetralex union rejected the company’s offer and were immediately fired. One of them only accepted the offer when he was threatened with dismissing his sister. No agreement was reached between Sitrapetralex and Petralex at a meeting scheduled by the labor authority on March 24.

The company had already dismissed union representatives in June, July and August 2007 and in January 2008. Between 2007 and 2008, at least 180 union members were fired.

The education secretariat suspended five teachers from the Cortés department for two months because they attended an information meeting of the Honduran teachers’ association FOMH (Federación de Organizaciones Magisteriales de Honduras) on July 4, 2014 during class time.

José Carballo, director of the Instituto José Trinidad Reyes, José Alas, director of the Instituto Técnico en Administración de Empresas (INTAE), Wilson Mejía, director of the Instituto Unión y Esfuerzo, Reinaldo Inestroza of the Escuela Leopoldo Aguilar, and the director of the Centro were suspended Básico Eusebio Fiallos.

In June 2014, the ITUC was informed that the collective agreements of the unions SITRAINCHSA, SITRAIHNFA, SITRAEPSOTRAVI and SITRAHONDUCOR had been frozen by decree.

see. Tripartite, ITUC Guide to International Trade Union Rights asked to contact the Honduran government immediately to intensify the persecution of unions in the country.

The ITUC had been informed of the following measures by the Honduran government:

Intervention in the affairs of several union organizations, including Sindicato Municipal de San Pedro Sula, SIDEYTMP, SITRADEI, SITRAUNAH, SIEHPE, PRICMA, SINPRODO and COLPROSUMA.

Suspension of provisions protecting leading union representatives, including Araceli Granados Sosa, Marco Antonio Saravia and Jorge Topilzhin Aguilar.

In June 2014, the union of employees at the tax authority DEI (Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Dirección Ejecutiva de Ingresos – SITRADEI), which has 1,300 members nationwide, criticized the authorities for refusing their members an exemption for visits to the doctor and for refusing to allow employees to attend for two hours due to the fact that it was held for two hours Warned and suspended information sessions. Legal proceedings are also underway to disqualify the members of the union board.

SITRADEI human rights secretary Jorge Chavarría reports that the harassment stems from the union’s opposition to the establishment of the Commission for the Promotion of Public-Private Partnerships, which it believes is a first step towards privatizing the agency.

In September 2014, employees of the Honduran Child and Family Institute (IHNFA) condemned its closure and replacement by the child and family authority DINAF.

The IHNFA Workers’ Union (SITRAIHFA) believes that the government’s primary goal with this measure is to get rid of the union since 1,100 workers have been made redundant, 70 percent of whom are main earners of their families with between three and five children.

On March 14, 2014, the SITRAENP (Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Empresa Nacional Portuaria) union reported that 80 employees had been laid off during the port privatization in Honduras by the multinational port handling company ICTSI and its Honduran subsidiary, Operadora Portuaria Centroamericana (OPC) are all members or former officials of SITRAENP.

The company claims that the layoffs were in accordance with Honduran law because the workers were at the end of their 60-day trial period.

The International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) reported on January 28, 2014 that the father of Víctor Crespo (the Honduran union leader who received death threats for his work in Puerto Cortés) died after an attack on him and other family members. An armed attacker had hit her in a stolen car.

After an attempted murder in September 2013, Víctor Crespo had been moved to another country to continue his work as President of the ITF affiliate Sindicato Gremial de Trabajadores del Muelle (SGTM). The assassins at that time are now obviously targeting his father Víctor Manuel Crespo Puerto, who was initially declared brain dead after the attack. The life support systems were turned off in the afternoon.

In addition to Crespo, other members of the top management of the SGTM have now received death threats. The ITF and SGTM believe these threats are linked to the union’s legitimate request for a collective agreement. A commonly written agreement that contains the results of collective bargaining between employee and employer representatives.

see. Collective bargaining for workers in the port of Puerto Cortés and recognition Recognition The determination of a union by the competent state body to be the collective bargaining party for the employees in a given tariff unit or the acceptance of the collective representation of the employees by a union on the part of the employer. statutory benefits that had not been paid to employees. The license to operate the container terminal was recently granted to ICTSI, which in turn has contracted a cargo handling company. When the SGTM tried to enforce the rights of its members in court, new death threats were issued immediately.

In a communication dated October 30, 2013, the Central Executive Committee of the Union of Employees of the National Agricultural Institute (Sindicato de Trabajadores del Instituto Nacional Agrario (SITRAINA)) denounced the employers ‘association’s strategy, "aimed at dividing the farmers’ movement and eliminating the union "Is aligned.

In their letter denouncing these conditions, the union organization once again referred to the employers’ association’s delayed tactics regarding the negotiation of a new collective agreement, the unlawful withholding of union membership fees, and the negotiation of paid leave permits for union activities.

On the other hand, the union emphasized that the INA had not paid pension contributions to the Instituto Nacional de Jubilaciones y Pensiones de los Empleados Públicos (INJUPEMP) for months, and no social security contributions to the Instituto Hondureño de Seguridad Social (IHSS), which caused great uncertainty and Uncertainty among employees and their families.

When workers formed a union a year ago in response to abusive treatment by the company, which among other things does not pay the minimum wage, carton maker 3j and Fénix, based in Villanueva Cortés, made life difficult for them. He had union leaders moved to extremely hot places where they were exposed to the sun without access to water. He also forced them to unload containers, although this was not part of their job under their employment contracts, and left them in front of the factory gates if they arrived even one minute after 7:00 a.m. día, i.e. the vacation day counted for six working days, lost.

In protest against the company’s unfair treatment, the workers decided not to start work until 7.15 a.m. in the morning to show that they could no longer put up with it.

The company closed the gates and in the days that followed it dismissed around 70 workers without any social benefits. The members of the board were suspended by the company with continued payment of wages while it submitted an application to the labor court for approval of their dismissal.

With these facts in mind, IndustriALL Global Union sent a letter to the Honduras government, specifically the Labor Minister, requesting that he try again to get the parties to the negotiating table to resolve the conflict.

see. Collective bargaining between the Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Industria de la Bebida y Similares (STIBYS) and the bottling company La Reyna S.A. (CABCorp-PepsiCo), the transnational company categorically declined to negotiate the main points of the contract.

To protect their rights, the employees of the Chiquita banana supplier Tres Hermanas founded the SITRAINBA union, which was officially recognized on August 15, 2012 by the Honduras Ministry of Labor. But instead of recognizing and negotiating with SITRAINBA, as required by the Honduras Labor Code, Tres Hermanas management launched a bullying campaign against the union, which included the dismissal of four women who were known to support the union.

The Ministry of Education has intervened directly in the union’s internal affairs by calling for the term of office of leading union representatives to be limited to two terms.

Since 2009, 57 farm workers have been murdered in the Bajo Aguán valley because they have resisted their forced displacement by large landowners who wanted to grow palm trees there. Every popular uprising is brutally suppressed against the backdrop of impunity and the increasing criminalization of protests and social unrest.

One from the Bekle >Collective Agreement Collective Agreement A usually written agreement that contains the results of collective bargaining between employee and employer representatives.

see. Collective bargaining, which provided for the reinstatement of unjustly dismissed workers, was disregarded by the company, and several union members were even fired shortly after the contract was signed.

see. Collective bargaining. The layoffs had refused to accept their transfer to another company location. These measures were clearly aimed at destabilizing the union.

Shortly after the Canadian company Gildan Activewear acquired the Star clothing factory in El Progreso, union members were reportedly harassed and threatened by management. Non-union workers were encouraged to spread rumors of the impending closure due to the union’s presence.

Leading education unionists have also received phone threats and have been followed by unmarked vehicles.

The Ministry of Education forced leading union union representatives in education (COLPROSHUMAH, COPRUMH, PRICPHMA, COLPEDAGOGOSH) to return to work during 2013 and denied them their right to exemption for union activities.

The violations of the right to strike found a high point in the conflict between teachers, who were threatened with the dissolution of union organizations in the education sector. This threat went hand in hand with the order given to the police to use force against the strikers, violating the right to demonstrate and endangering the physical integrity of the teachers.

The government has enacted an hourly law on temporary work that deregulates the labor market and effectively overrides the labor law. This illustrates the control that entrepreneurs have over the state. Collective bargaining on the labor market continues to exist only to a small extent. The number of union members in the private sector is lower than in the public sector.

Discrimination based on gender, disability and ethnicity is prohibited by law. Nevertheless, there are a larger proportion of women in certain low-skilled jobs who receive less wages than their male colleagues for equivalent work. For unionization Organizing The process of creating or joining a union or trying to get other workers to form or join a union. by women this is a real and serious obstacle. Indigenous peoples face discrimination in access to employment. Child labor is widespread in the country, especially in the areas of agriculture, mining, workshops and household chores.
Only a few controls are carried out to monitor compliance with labor laws, such as the Child Labor Act.

Labor law also applies to the free export zones, where organizing trade unions proves to be very difficult.

The process of re-hiring an employee after an unjustified dismissal is slow, time-consuming, and financially expensive. Although the courts have ordered redundant workers to be reinstated because of their past activities, employers often refuse to implement these court decisions. To undermine unions, employers have reportedly used a variety of techniques that are partly legal (such as a judicial lawsuit to dissolve the union) and partly illegal (such as retaliation and threats against union leaders and members). The Department of Labor is not committed to protecting workers’ rights and claims to have a policy of non-interference in corporate internal affairs.

One of the entrepreneurial practices that prevent the right to collective bargaining in practice is the establishment of a competitive union that represents employers’ interests and is legitimized for the conclusion of an employer-friendly collective agreement. In this way, the pressure from the workers is avoided and the trade union action loses its effect.

Corruption is widespread among labor inspectors and even goes so far as to sell lists of union members to management. Along with the fact that the government’s Labor Inspectorate Labor Inspectorate is an authority responsible for complying with labor laws and labor protection legislation and performing operational inspections for this purpose. does not allocate sufficient funds, this at least partially explains the ineffectiveness of state protection.

Despite legal recognition Recognition The determination of a trade union by the competent state authority to be the collective bargaining party for the employees in a given tariff unit or the acceptance of the collective representation of the employees by a trade union on the part of the employer. Protection against dismissal of union members is the main strategy used by employers to smash the union organization through massive layoffs of union executive members, often at union formation, to prevent their consolidation and growth. Since the reinstatement process is very slow, these union representatives have had to work in other companies to make a living. And even if a reinstatement has been ordered, the prerequisites for starting a union in this company have changed in practice, the staff has changed and the start-up process has to start practically from scratch.

The entrepreneurs do not miss any other way to hinder the unions in their work with all possible means; this also includes constitutional complaints aimed at dissolving the union. When there is a union in a company, management doesn’t get tired of using tactics like arbitrary orders, threats of punishment, reprisals, and ill-treatment against its members.

Workers have practically no law that could adequately protect them from anti-union discrimination. They are harassed and even fired for their union activities. In the Free Export Zones, workers trying to form a union are sacked and blacklisted. They are persecuted, isolated from their colleagues, and psychologically, in some cases physically, harassed. The legal process is lengthy, and if a judgment is given in favor of reinstating workers, this is generally not followed by companies because the state does not adequately follow up on these cases

After the coup, all unions restricted their activities for fear of violent consequences when union meetings are organized. All union leaders have been threatened.