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Honduras Labor and Peasant Organizations
The organized labor movement of Honduras, traditionally
the
strongest in Central America, first began organizing in
the early
years of the twentieth century
(see Labor Unions
, ch. 3).
The
movement, however, gained momentum only with the great
banana
strike of 1954, at which point organized labor unions
became a
political force in the country, at times having an
important impact
on government policy. In that year, labor won the right to
form
unions legally and to engage in collective bargaining. In
addition,
the country's first national peasant organizations were
formed in
the mid-1950s, and later picked up momentum when an
Agrarian Reform
Law was enacted in 1962.
In the early 1990s, trade unions represented about 20
percent of
the Honduran labor force and exerted considerable economic
and
political influence. According to the United States
Department of
State's 1992 human rights report, unions frequently
participated in
public rallies against government policies and made use of
the
media. Unions also gained wage and other concessions from
employers
through collective bargaining and the use of the right to
strike.
For example, in May 1992, direct negotiations between
organized
labor and the private sector led to a 13.7 percent
increase in the
minimum wage, the third consecutive annual increase.
Nevertheless, organized unions and peasant
organizations still
experienced significant difficulties in the early 1990s.
Retribution against workers for trade union activity was
not
uncommon and the right to bargain collectively was not
always
guaranteed. Union activists at times were the target of
political
violence, including assassination, and workers were at
times
harassed or fired for their trade union activities.
Several peasant
leaders were killed for political reasons; and in a highly
publicized May 1991 massacre, five members of a peasant
organization were killed, reportedly by military members,
because
of a land dispute. The government also at times supported
pro-
government parallel unions over elected unions in an
attempt to
quiet labor unrest.
In 1993 Honduras had three major labor confederations:
the
Confederation of Honduran Workers (Confederación de
Trabajadores de
Honduras--CTH), claiming a membership of about 160,000
workers; the
General Workers' Central (Central General de
Trabajadores--CGT),
claiming to represent 120,000 members; and the Unitary
Confederation of Honduran Workers (Confederación Unitaria
de
Trabajadores de Honduras--CUTH), a new confederation
formed in May
1992, with an estimated membership of about 30,000. The
three
confederations included numerous trade union federations,
individual unions, and peasant organizations.
The CTH, the nation's largest trade confederation, was
formed in
1964 by the nation's largest peasant organization, the
National
Association of Honduran Peasants (Asociación Nacional de
Campesinos
de Honduras--Anach), and by Honduran unions affiliated
with the
Inter-American Regional Organization of Workers
(Organización
Regional Interamericana de Trabajadores--ORIT), a
hemispheric labor
organization with close ties to the American Federation of
Labor
and Congress of Industrial Organization (AFL-CIO). In the
early
1990s, the confederation had three major components, the
45,000-
member Federation of Unions of National Workers of
Honduras
(Federación Sindical de Trabajadores Nacionales de
Honduras--
Fesitranh), the 22,000-member Central Federation of
Honduran Free
Trade Unions (Federación Central de Sindicatos Libres de
Honduras),
and the 2,200-member Federation of National Maritime
Unions of
Honduras (Federación de Sindicales Marítimas Nacionales de
Honduras). In addition, Anach, claiming to represent
between
60,000-80,000 members, was affiliated with Fesitranh.
Fesitranh was
by far the country's most powerful labor federation, with
most of
its unions located in San Pedro Sula and the Puerto Cortés
Free
Zone. The unions of the United States-owned banana
companies and
the United States-owned petroleum refinery also were
affiliated
with Fesitranh. The CTH received support from foreign
labor
organizations, including ORIT; the American Institute for
Free
Labor Development (AIFLD); and Germany's Friedreich Ebert
Foundation. The CTH was an affiliate of the International
Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU).
The CGT, first formed in 1970, but not legally
recognized until
1982, was originally formed by the Christian Democrats and
received
external support from the World Confederation of Labor
(WCL) and
the Latin American Workers Central (Central
Latinoamericana de
Trabajadores--CLAT), a regional organization supported by
Christian
Democratic parties. In the late 1980s and early 1990s,
however, the
CGT leadership developed close ties to the PNH, and
several leaders
served in the Callejas government. Another national
peasant
organization, the National Union of Peasants (Unión
Nacional de
Campesinos--UNC), claiming a membership of 40,000, has
been
affiliated with the CGT for many years and is a principal
force
within the confederation.
The CUTH was formed in May 1992 by two principal labor
federations, the Unitary Federation of Honduran Workers
(Federación
Unitaria de Trabajadores de Honduras--FUTH) and the
Independent
Federation of Honduran Workers (Federación Independiente
de
Trabajadores de Honduras--FITH), as well as several
smaller labor
groups, all critical of the Callejas government's strong
neoliberal
economic reform program. The Marxist FUTH, with an
estimated 16,000
members in the early 1990s, was first organized in 1980 by
three
communist-influenced unions, but did not receive legal
status until
1988. The federation had external ties with the World
Federation of
Trade Unions (WFTU), the Permanent Congress for Latin
American
Workers Trade Union Unity (Congreso Permanente de Unidad
Sindical
de Trabajadores de América Latina--CPUSTAL), and the
Central
American Committee of Trade Union Unity (Comité de Unidad
Sindical
de Centroamérica--CUSCA). Its affiliations included water
utility,
university, electricity company, brewery, and teacher
unions, as
well as several peasant organizations, including the
National
Central of Farm Workers (Central Nacional de Trabajadores
del
Campo--CNTC), formed in 1985 and active in land
occupations in the
early 1980s.
FUTH also became affiliated with a number of leftist
popular
organizations in a group known as the Coordinating
Committee of
Popular Organizations (Comité Coordinadora de las
Organizaciones
Populares--CCOP) that was formed in 1984. The FITH,
claiming about
13,000 members in the early 1990s, was granted legal
status in
1988. Originally formed by dissident FUTH members, the
federation
consisted of fourteen unions.
Many Honduran peasant organizations were affiliated
with the
three labor confederations in the early 1990s. Anach was
created
and received legal recognition in 1962 in order to counter
the
communist-influenced peasant movement of the National
Federation of
Honduran Peasants (Federación Nacional de Campesinos de
Honduras--
Fenach). In contrast, Fenach never received legal
recognition. Its
offices were destroyed following the 1963 military coup by
Colonel
Oswaldo López Arellano, and, in 1965, seven of Fenach's
leaders who
had taken up armed struggle against the government,
including
founder Lorenzo Zelaya, were killed by the military. Anach
became
the primary peasant organization and in 1967 became
affiliated with
the CTH.
The UNC, traditionally a principal rival of Anach and
traditionally more radical than Anach, was established in
1970 but
did not receive legal recognition until 1984. The UNC
traces its
roots to the community development organizations and
peasant
leagues established by the Roman Catholic Church in the
1960s. The
UNC was a founding member of the CGT and had ideological
ties to
the MDCH.
In addition to Anach and the UNC, another large peasant
organization in the 1990s was the Honduran Federation of
Agrarian
Reform Cooperatives (Federación de Cooperativas de la
Reforma
Agraria de Honduras--Fecorah). The federation was formed
in 1970
and received legal recognition in 1974. In the early
1990s, Fecorah
had about 22,000 members.
There were numerous attempts to unify the nation's
peasant
organizations in the 1970s and 1980s, but the sector was
characterized by numerous divisions, including ideological
divisions. For some peasant organizations, political
affiliation
changed with changes in the government. Disillusionment
with the
neglect of unions and peasant organizations under the PLH
administrations of the 1980s caused some groups to move
toward the
PNH. In 1988 the three major peasant organizations, Anach,
the UNC,
and Fecorah, along with smaller leftist peasant groupings,
united
under the banner of the Coordinating Council of Honduran
Peasant
Organizations (Consejo Coordinador de Organizaciones
Campesinas de
Honduras--Cocoh) to lobby for agrarian reform. Just four
years
later, however, in May 1992, the peasant movement was
split by
disagreement over the Callejas government's proposed
agricultural
modernization law. The three major peasant organizations
all left
Cocoh to form the National Peasants Council (Consejo
Nacional de
Campesinos--CNC), while leftist peasant organizations
remained in
Cocoh and actively demonstrated against the proposed
agricultural
modernization law.
From 1989 until 1992, the nation's major peasant
organizations
and labor federations, a confederation of cooperatives,
and several
professional organizations supported the "Platform of
Struggle for
the Democratization of Honduras." The objective of the
campaign was
to present far-reaching economic, social, and political
reform
proposals to the national government, which included
issuing
several documents and a manifesto. By 1993 however, this
initiative
had disappeared because of divisions among the disparate
groups
and, according to some observers, because of the Callejas
government's success in coopting several organizations.
The organized peasant movement in Honduras was an
important, if
not determinant, factor in implementing an agrarian reform
program.
In the early 1960s, because of increasing pressure on the
government from landless peasants and external pressure
from the
United States through the Alliance for Progress, the PLH
government
of Ramón Villeda Morales took significant steps toward
implementing
a land reform program. He established the National
Agrarian
Institute (Instituto Nacional Agrario--INA) in 1961 and
the
following year approved an agrarian reform law that
especially was
aimed at the uncultivated lands of the United States-owned
fruit
companies
(see Aborted Reform
, ch. 1). The 1963 military
coup and
subsequent repressive rule of General López Arellano
brought an
abrupt halt to land redistribution. By the late 1960s,
however,
peasant organizations were again increasing pressure on
the
government, and under a director who was sympathetic to
the peasant
movement, the INA began to adjudicate land claims in favor
of
peasants.
The election of conservative Ramón Ernesto Cruz as
president in
1971 once again shifted the government's agrarian policy
to one
favoring the large landholders, but with the 1972 coup,
again led
by General López Arellano, the government instituted a
far-reaching
agrarian reform program
(see Military Rule and Reform
, ch.
1). The
program was all the more significant because it was driven
by López
Arellano, who had crushed land reform efforts in the
1960s. This
time around, however, the general allied himself with
peasant
organizations. He issued an emergency land reform decree
in 1972
and in 1975 issued another agrarian reform measure that
promised to
distribute 600,000 hectares to 120,000 families over a
period of
approximately five years.
In 1975, however, a conservative countercoup by General
Juan
Melgar Castro ended these high expectations for land
redistribution. After 1977 land redistribution continued,
but at
lower levels. According to a study by Charles Brockett,
from 1962
through 1984, a little more than 293,000 hectares were
distributed,
benefiting about 52,000 families countrywide. Brockett
observed,
however, that most of the land distributed was public land
rather
than idle or underutilized private land. In the 1980s,
land
redistribution slowed while peasant land takeovers of
underused
land continued unabated. The government's reaction to the
takeovers
was mixed. At times, the military reversed them by force,
and, on
other occasions, the government did nothing to stop the
occupations.
In 1992 the Callejas government enacted a new
agricultural
modernization law that some observers claim essentially
ended
prospects for additional land distribution. The law,
approved by
the National Congress in March 1992, limited
expropriations and
augmented guarantees for private ownership of land. The
United
States Department of State observed that the law improved
the
environment for increases in investment, production, and
agricultural exports. The law was actively opposed by some
peasant
organizations, who waged a campaign of land occupations
and claimed
that those peasant organizations that supported the law
were linked
to PNH or were bought by the government.
In the early 1990s, the government increasingly
intervened in
the affairs of labor unions and peasant organizations
through
parallel unions. For example, in July 1992, the Callejas
government
gave legal recognition to two parallel unions in the
telecommunications workers union and to a second union
representing
road, airport, and terminal maintenance employees. In
October 1992,
the government recognized a faction of Anach that favored
the
Callejas government's proposed agricultural modernization
law even
though another faction had won a union election.
Unions in Honduras have strongly opposed the growth of
solidarity (solidarismo) associations, which
emphasize
labor-management harmony. These associations, which
consist of
representatives of both labor and management, provide a
variety of
services by utilizing a joint worker/employer capital
fund.
Solidarity associations began in the late 1940s in Costa
Rica and
have thrived there, accounting for almost 16 percent of
the work
force. In Honduras solidarity associations first appeared
in 1985
and, although the government had not granted the
associations legal
status, by the early 1990s they accounted for about 10,000
workers
in a variety of companies. Organized labor, including
Honduran
unions and international labor affiliations, strongly
opposes
solidarity associations on the grounds that they do not
permit the
right to strike and that they do not include appropriate
grievance
procedures. Unions contend that the associations are
management-
controlled mechanisms that undermine unionism. In 1991 a
bitter
strike at El Mochito mine was reportedly begun by unions
who
opposed management's attempt to impose a solidarity
association
there.
Data as of December 1993
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