Appendix F

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
BUREAU OF INTERNATIONAL LABOR AFFAIRS
PUBLIC FORUM
Tuesday, February 27, 1996
9:30 a.m.
Moderator: Joaquin F. Otero

Deputy Under Secretary of Labor
for International Labor Affairs
U.S. Department of Labor

 - - -

 Ana Hotel

50 Third Street
San Francisco, California

AGENDA

PAGE

Opening Remarks

Joaquin F. Otero 6

Deputy Under Secretary of Labor

for International Labor Affairs

U.S. Department of Labor

Luis Miguel Diaz 12

General Coordinator for International Affairs

Secretariat of Labor and Social Welfare, Mexico

Warren Edmondson 17

Director General, Federal Mediation

and Conciliation Service

Human Resources Development, Canada

Oral Presentations

Francisco Hernandez Juarez 26

President

Telephone Workers Union of the Republic of Mexico

Morton Bahr 31

President

Communications Workers of America (CWA), AFL-CIO

Robert L. Corrada 40

Assistant Professor of Law

University of Denver (speaking on behalf of Sprint)

Dora Vogel 50

Former employee of La Conexion Familiar (Sprint)

Federico Anaya 56

President, Law Firm of Anaya Valdepena

Management Attorneys and Consultants

Counsel to Confederation of Chambers of

commerce and Industry of Mexico

Maria Blanco 62

Associate Director

Women's Employment Rights Clinic

Golden Gate University, School of law

PAGE

Former employee of La Conexion Familiar (Sprint)

Sergio Tapia 76

Consultants Associates (Management Consultant)

Monterrey, Mexico

John Zucker 84

Legislative aide to the Honorable Tom Lantos

U.S. House of Representatives

Fernanda Recio 91

Former employee of La Conexion Familiar (Sprint)

Veronika Altmeyer 96

Managing Executive, Telecommunications

Deutsche Postgewerkschaft (German Post and

Telephone Workers)

Jose Luis Mendoza 104

Legal Counsel

Telephone Workers Union

of the Republic of Mexico

Lawrence Bertuzzi 110

Partner, Miller & Thompson

Philip C. Bowyer 123

General Secretary

Postal, Telephone and Telegraph International

Marie Malliett 134

President, Local 9410

Communications Workers of America

Frank Martin del Campo 141

President, San Francisco Chapter

Labor Council for Latin American Advancement

Dick Martin 146

Secretary-Treasurer

Canadian Labor Congress

Janice Wood 154

Vice President, District 9

Communications Workers of America, CWA, AFL-CIO

PAGE

Kate Brofenbrenner 161

Director of Labor Education Research

New York School of Industrial Labor Relations

Cornell University

Closing

PROCEEDINGS

9:40 a.m.

MR. ZEE: Before we have the formal start of today's program, I would like to make some comments on some procedural details which I hope will make the meeting go by a little more smoothly.

First, you will notice that there is interpretation equipment at all the tables. Channel 4 is English and Channel 3 is Spanish. Of course, if you don't understand English, you don't know that Channel 3 is Spanish, but Channel 4 is English, Channel 3 is Spanish.

There are a variety of materials at the table in the back as you come in. I think most people have taken those materials. They are for you and please feel free to take as many as you want.

If you need something, I will be around throughout the course of the meeting. Please let me know and I will help get those materials for you.

There is a section on the side here reserved for the media and I ask only that the reporters not do any interviews in this room during the course of the meeting. There will be plenty of opportunity during the break at lunchtime. And also if you have an interview scheduled with somebody during the course of this meeting, please just do it outside the room. And there's also a mult box set up if any reporters require the mult box and that's at the back of the room also.

All the speakers, by the way, will come up to this podium, there will be no speakers or questions or comments from the floor, so we do ask that the speakers sit at these first two tables up here to minimize the time traveling back and forth and to help us expedite today's program.

I believe that's all I have. If you have any questions, as I said, I will be around. And with that, I am going to turn the meeting over to Deputy Under Secretary for International Affairs Jack Otero and he will chair today's program.

Thank you.

MR. OTERO: Thank you, Bob.

Good morning ladies and gentlemen.

Muy buenos dias, senoras y senores. Bienvenidos a todos.

My task today is to chair this public forum on behalf of Secretary of Labor Robert Reich. I would like first of all to identify those at the head table with me for your benefit.

First, to my extreme right is Mr. Warren Edmondson, who represents the Human Resources Department in Canada and he is the leader of the tripartite Canadian delegation which involves government, unions and management representatives.

To his left is the representative of the Mexican Government, Dr. Luis Miguel Dias, from the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare of Mexico. He, too, is leading a tripartite delegation composed of union, management and government.

To my immediate right is Mrs. Irasema Garza, who is the Secretary of the United States National Administrative Office, which is the first line agency set up at each government's level for the purpose of implementing the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation.

And to my left is Mr. Bart Widom, who is from the Solicitor's Office of the Department of Labor. He is my legal advisor and both he and Mrs. Garza will be assisting me should there be any question for technical or legal questions which I may be not able to answer on my own.

I would like to thank all of you today for being here promptly and at the outset I should also say that I am delighted to see such a large number of people present as well as to see so many faces in the audience which are familiar to me.

We also have headsets for simultaneous interpretation. I ask each and every one of you to please not inadvertently take them out of the room, leave them in your place when you go out to lunch and when the meeting is concluded today because they do not belong to the Department of Labor, they have been rented for the purpose of this meeting.

The public forum that we are conducting today is being conducted pursuant to the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation which is in the vernacular known as the labor side agreement to the NAFTA trade agreement.

As you know, the NAFTA agreement itself is supplemented by an agreement on the protection for the environment and an agreement on the protection of workers' rights. But this forum is specifically conducted today as a result of a ministerial consultations implementation agreement on Case 95-01. This agreement was reached by Secretary of Labor Robert Reich and Mexican Secretary of Labor Javier Bonilla on December 15, 1995. And I would like to say in passing that the agreement was endorsed and signed by the government of Canada through the Labor Minister, Luzian Robilliar.

This public forum presents an opportunity for public debate on the freedom of association and the right to organize, principles on which the three NAFTA signatory countries place the highest of importance.

Ministerial consultations were held on Submission 95-01 under Article 22 of the Labor Supplemental Agreement following the Mexican National Administrative Office issuance of a public report on May 31, 1995. Submission 95-01 was filed with the Mexican NAO on February 9, 1995 by the Telephone Workers Union of Mexico. The submission alleged that the Sprint Corporation closed its facility known as La Conexion Familiar, a Spanish-language telemarketing subsidiary in San Francisco, in July of 1994 just one week prior to a scheduled union representation election, thereby dismissing over 200 employees and denying them the right to freedom of association and the right to organize.

Mexico's public report on this submission requested ministerial consultations to address the effect of sudden closure of a workplace on the workers' freedom of association and the right to organize in the United States of America.

The agreement negotiated by the United States and Mexico during these ministerial consultations recognizes the importance of this issue and provides several action items, one of which is, and I quote, "that within 120 days of the agreement the United States Department of Labor will organize and conduct a public forum in San Francisco, California to allow interested parties an opportunity convey to the public their concerns on the effect of the sudden closure of a plant on the principle of the freedom of association and the right of workers to organize."

That, ladies and gentlemen, is why we are all here today. Notice of today's forum was published in the Federal Register on January 25, 1996. In that notice, advance registration procedures for all presentations were outlined with the intent of ensuring an orderly process and allowing sufficient opportunity for all interested parties to participate within the time allowed each speaker.

This is a one-day event, scheduled to end today no later than six p.m. We will have a break for lunch at approximately 12:30 and we will return to work at two p.m.

The published guidelines allow me as chairman of this event today to allow each speaker no more than 10 minutes and I ask each speaker to be mindful of this requirement so as not to encroach on someone else's right to speak.

Only those people who have registered in advance with our office will be permitted to speak today. We have compiled a list with the names of persons who wish to speak and who registered timely with the United States Department of Labor. That list containing the names of persons speaking today is available at the table located at the rear of this room.

If you have registered to speak, please locate your name on the list because to the extent possible I will try to follow the order in that list and will call your name accordingly.

I request again your cooperation and assistance in conducting an orderly proceeding so that all those who have registered can make an oral presentation and have the opportunity to do so without any encumbrances. To this end, I request that all oral presentations be limited to the issue before us today, Submission 95-01, and the general objective of the forum is to analyze the effect of the sudden plant closures in the United States have on workers' rights to organize and on the freedom of association.

After each presentation, I will have the discretion to question the presenters if appropriate or necessary. There will be no questions from the audience to the presenters. At any time during the forum I will have the leeway of calling a recess if I deem it appropriate.

In addition to the recording of today's proceedings, written statements which have been submitted to the United States National Administrative Office will be included in the public record of this forum. The complete record of these proceedings will be available to the public upon request.

I would like to thank all of you in advance for your cooperation in ensuring the orderly process of these proceedings and I would like also to announce to the presenters that it is their choice to address this audience either in English or in Spanish as we have simultaneous interpretation provided for this event.

Having said that, it is my pleasure at this point, first of all, to recognize the leader of the Mexican delegation and invite him to make a few remarks, Dr. Luis Miguel Diaz from Mexico.

DR. DIAZ: First of all, I would like to thank the Department of Labor for organizing this event and I would like to express my appreciation to the local authorities for having us here.

(THROUGH TRANSLATOR)

My presentation will be a short one and it will focus on three points. They are, number one, a new way of focusing on the worker; number two, the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation as a venue for cooperation; and, third, I would like to highlight the situation of labor in the framework of labor relations between the United States, Mexico and Canada.

Regarding the first point, in recent years the subject of labor and labor conditions as opposed to the original approach taken has been focused in a more broad manner. Workers are approached as human beings and working conditions now take into account their economic situation, productivity of companies and the well being of nations. On the other hand, the worker is considered in the light of his environment and work environment. This theory focusing on the worker as an economic being and as a generator of wealth and environment is relatively new.

The topic is clearly identified as one of the typical topics in the globalization we are experiencing and has been dealt with by the ILO, the WTO, the Organization for Economic Development, OECD, and by the United States, Canada and Mexico within the Organization of American States. However, within this debate the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation seems to have taken the fore since it is an agreement which along with NAFTA and along with the environment cooperation agreement is an international agreement binding for the three countries.

The preamble of the NAFTA agreement says that one of its objectives is the well being of workers. The preamble of the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation in several ways insists on this purpose. And, finally, article first of the cooperation agreement refers to the objective of raising the standard of living of workers within an international context, within a context of creation of jobs and the expansion of workers' rights.

Now I'll turn to the second point and with your permission I would like to highlight five specific aspects of the cooperation agreement which brings us here.

The first aspect is that the agreement is based on a tenet which is a respect for labor legislation in each of our three countries. Article 2 says that all mechanisms set forth are based on this principle by virtue of which in each country the corresponding labor authorities are the only ones acting in the matter. This agreement does not aim to and, as Article 42nd would say, this agreement cannot be interpreted as substituting authorities from one country to the other.

The second point has to do with one of the objectives of Article 1 which says that the countries undertake to find transparency in the implementation of labor laws. The three countries want to discuss all matters openly and we want all elements of society to participate in this debate and this is why at this forum we are showing that we are taking seriously this obligation.

The other point has to do with the establishment of national administrative offices. Dr. Otero referred to this. And this means that in order to comply with the agreement the three countries established three offices which aim to serve as points of contact among themselves or with local and state organizations in the three countries and then to establish contact with a labor secretariat created by three countries. It is an institution created by the three countries with equal composition from Canada, Mexico and the United States. It is based in Dallas, Texas.

The other point I wanted to highlight is that the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation, breaking with an internationalist tradition, does not set forth new rights nor new obligations for the parties in a substantive way. The basic concern of the three countries was to seek ways to effectively implement our laws which result from our traditions, our idiosyncracies and our aspirations.

So the reason we are here, the specific reason we are here is to discuss the principle of freedom of association and organization which is contemplated in our national laws and which we have specified as common principles. This is not a new right. It is not a new right but we would like for this right to be more effective.

And, finally, on the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation, I wanted to say and underscore that this is an international instrument and if we are to analyze it in keeping with international law, it is a perfect law. It is a perfect law because the document itself sets forth a series of requirements so that sanctions may be applied and penalties maybe applied. It is not merely a declaration of principles of good will, of political will, it is a legal instrument which is binding and so non-compliance can be corrected through penalties.

The last point I wanted to make was that the area of labor is something which the United States and Mexico have focused on and have reached an understanding to address problems. It is a way to detect possible irregularities and problems, to analyze them and to expose them to the public so that our authorities can be more effective.

A second point that I wanted to underscore is that the composition of this forum breaking with the traditional patter is not just a forum of government entities. No. We have tripartite delegations with us representing different sectors of our societies, so the representation of what we are, what we want to be, is very broad to the extent that we are represented here in a tripartite way, and I would even say four parties because we have invited sectors of our society which are not representative of governments or companies or workers, they represent society at large.

And, finally, I wanted to end by saying that through me the Secretary of Labor of Mexico, Secretary Bonilla, believes that this forum is a demonstration of the fact that there is communication to address problems, there is political will present and we are expecting concrete results.

Thank you very much.

MR. OTERO: Thank you, Dr. Diaz.

I now would like to introduce Mr. Warren Edmondson, Director General of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Services, Human Resources Development, Canada, representing the government of Canada.

MR. EDMONDSON: Thanks very much, Jack. And it's always a pleasure when traveling from Canada to visit our neighbors in the south not only to renew acquaintances but also to escape some of the colder climates that we become exposed to at this time of year.

As a partner to this North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation, we're certainly pleased to be here to participate in this public forum dealing with a very important subject, the subject of freedom of association and rights of workers to organize. These issues, of course, and this process, the process for the resolution of complaints under the North American Agreement are of considerable importance to us in Canada, not only to the government of Canada and to the provincial governments but also to our trade unions and our employers, so we look forward to today's proceedings.

We certainly hope that our participation here in this forum will further contribute to improving the dialogue that exists between business, labor and government in our three countries and will further assist us in our efforts in achieving the objectives of the North American Agreement.

Accompanying me today from back east, northeast, are Mr. Dick Martin from the Canadian Labor Congress, which is the largest Canadian central labor organization in Canada, Dick is seated over here at the left, and Mr. Larry Bertuzzi, a practicing labor lawyer from Toronto who has had considerable experience in representing companies in many jurisdictions in Canada and also in the United States. Both of them are experienced labor relations practitioners and I understand that they have been scheduled to speak later on today on the subjects at hand and I look forward to hearing their views.

I can certainly assure you from my experience in dealing with them that neither one of them is shy and if they happen to agree or disagree with anything that I happen to say today that I'm sure they will do so and will certainly give you their perspective on the Canadian experience in dealing with labor law.

Those of you who are familiar with Canadian labor law know that the constitutional jurisdiction for labor law in our country is divided between the federal government and our provincial governments. Each jurisdiction has its own labor laws, protecting workers' health and safety, basic employment standards, equity laws and laws providing, of course, the right to organize unions and laws governing the process of collective bargaining.

Although there may be some differences, and some of them significant, between these respective laws in our country and also in the way in which they are administered, fundamentally they are all based on the U.S. Wagner Act model. And those of you, of course, in this room who are familiar with labor law will know the model well.

They all recognize in the statute, in the respective statutes, the fundamental right of workers to organize and become members of trade unions of their choice, whether they be local unions, national unions or international unions. This, of course, is consistent with the basic rights and freedoms of association found in our Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms as well as in Convention 87 of the International Labor Organization which has been ratified by Canada.

Our Federal Minister of Labor, Mr. Galiano, who asked me to bring his greetings to this group, is the minister responsible for the Federal Canada Labor Code. Part 1 of that code is the part that establishes a framework for collective bargaining for federally regulated industries and these industries include industries such as airlines, telecommunications, railroads, longshoring, grain handling and many of the major infrastructure industries in Canada. Although I think about 10 percent of the workforce is governed by the federal labor law, the law, as I said, applies to a number of significant industries.

This part of the code was recently reviewed by an independent task force which submitted its report to the minister on January 31st of this year. The report contains a number of important recommendations and underscores once again the value of our system of collective bargaining as an effective instrument in Canada of both social and economic policy, which is a particularly important statement, I think, as we move into the 21st century.

To quote from the report of the task force chaired by a Mr. Andrew Simms who was the former chair of the Alberta, one of our provinces, labor boards, he states, "Canada must continue to facilitate means by which individuals can express themselves through democratic intermediary groups. Free collective bargaining is an important example."

He goes on to add, "It is not only the absence of rights and freedoms that can lead to the growth of disorder, but also and perhaps more importantly the sense of injustice that results from the inability to secure these rights and freedoms."

It's worth noting that during that process of the task force process that with the assistance of government key labor and management representatives in the industries affected by this legislation met jointly to discuss a number of the issues included in the terms of reference of the task force. The fact that they were able to reach consensus on a significant number of points I believe is an indication of their mutual respect, their ability to work together and as well an indication of their faith in the system of collective bargaining and their mutual interest in designing a system that works for them. That's not all to say that there is peace and harmony between labor and management in every situation in Canada, but I think it's an important indication of their ability to work together.

I should point out that the percentage of unionized workers in Canada remains relatively constant at approximately 37 percent of our workforce, despite the significant impact of changes in government policies such as deregulation, privatization, and the pressures of worldwide competition on Canadian companies and workers in recent years.

Wage increases in Canada remain relatively low at an average of about 1.4 percent while inflation is running at 2.1 in an environment of, again, relatively high unemployment within our country of 9.6 percent.

Discussions at collective bargaining tables like here in the United States have generally focused on the need for concessions, as many companies attempt to remain competitive or to increase profits.

Companies have attempted to reduce labor costs by seeking lower wages, seeking reorganized and more flexible workforces, and attempting to increase productivity by introducing new technology.

Governments also who are faced with large debts and deficits are finding it necessary to adopt some of the strategies of the private sector in their efforts to balance their budgets.

And yet the number of work stoppages in Canada, perhaps understandably, are at an all-time low. Last year, 982,000 person days were lost due to work stoppages, compared to 3.5 million days in 1990.

However, in this difficult environment, organized labor in Canada has managed to hold its own. As I said, it remains at about 35 percent, 37 percent.

Canada's laws, and in particular its labor laws, and the efficiency of its arm's length labor boards which are responsible for determination of bargaining unit structures, for the investigation of unfair labor practice complaints, for the certification of trade unions and their respective jurisdictions, I believe may be in a large part accountable for the ability of trade unions in Canada to organize and maintain their membership in this complex environment.

For example, when we examine the experience of labor boards in our three largest jurisdictions, the provinces of Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia, the statistics are revealing.

In Ontario, in 1993-'94, the numbers indicate that there were 11,066 applications for union certification filed with the Ontario Labor Relations Board, of which 829 were granted, 102 were dismissed and 204 were withdrawn. Most importantly, the median time taken by the board to grant certification was 22 calendar days. During that same period, there were only 110 applications for decertification, 53 of which were granted and 26 were dismissed.

In the province of Quebec for the year '94-'95, relatively similar numbers: 854 applications with 555 granted, 87 dismissed.

Again, similar in the province of British Columbia. In the province of British Columbia, the average time taken to grant an application is 27 days.

I will confess that our federal labor board, those of you who want to take the time to read the report of the task force, will note that it is not quite as efficient. I'm sure that will probably improve as a result of the recommendations that Mr. Simms has made.

While certainly Canada's system of industrial relations is far from perfect, and we've seen the pendulum swing in various provinces on various occasions, I think both labor and management would not find too much argument with the fact that in general our labor laws are being enforced. Not only are they being enforced, but I think they might also agree that they are being enforced fairly, effectively and efficiently.

In a highly competitive global marketplace where the rate of technological change is accelerating at a breathtaking pace, there is much speculation about the future of work. We find apparently competing interests between the quest for corporate survival and profitability on one hand and the pursuit of meaningful work and improved standards of living for workers and the protection of worker rights on the part of trade unions on the other.

These competing interests are not irreconcilable, but rather need to be balanced, not only through a fair and effectively administered legislative framework but also through changing attitudes, I believe, on the part of labor and management in our countries, through cooperation, through good faith, mutual trust, which unfortunately we can't legislate.

While many companies and unions in Canada take their traditional adversarial stances and appear to want to do battle at almost every occasion, there are currently many Canadian success stories in industries such as telecommunications, steel, manufacturing and others where organized labor and management are working together to find innovative and creative ways to advance their mutual interests.

They have recognized the competitive advantage and the benefit to both social partners to be gained by tapping the resources of a well trained, well motivated, empowered and represented workforce.

I believe that effective labor laws efficiently administered will allow us to move to the next dimension and perhaps change the traditional paradigm and enable labor and management as we move into the 21st century to work more effectively together to the mutual benefit of all three countries and workers in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico.

In closing, let me simply say that we are here to listen. We are here to learn. And I look forward to the day's proceedings and hearing the views of the various speakers.

Thank you very much.

MR. OTERO: Thank you very much, Mr. Edmondson.

And now that we have completed the introductory statements by the three countries signatory to the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation, we will move on with the forum itself.

I would like to ask the presenters to please come to the podium to make their presentations. And, again, I ask all of the presenters to be mindful of the time allotted.

The first presenter this morning is Mr. Francisco Hernandez Juarez, President of the Telephone Workers Union of the Republic of Mexico.

Mr. Hernandez, please.

MR. HERNANDEZ: (THROUGH TRANSLATOR) Thank you very much. Good morning.

Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Francisco Hernandez Juarez, as you have just heard, Secretary General of the Telephone Workers Union.

I would like to point out that the organization that I represent has approximately 50,000 affiliates throughout the country. Actually, we are represented in 31 of the 32 states that make up the Mexican Republic.

First of all, I would like to express my great appreciation to the representatives of the Labor Department of the United States and Canada, as far as the Labor Department goes, for having hosted this meeting.

Secondly, I would like to point out that I am here not only because of the fact that the Telephone Workers Union of Mexico is responsible for having initiated this whole procedure within the framework of the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation, I am also here and above all because in my entity as a unionist, I believe and I trust in solidarity of workers and as a worker and as a union leader in a globalized and complex work of intertwined economies that are interdependent, I wish to trust in the aquitative dialogue, in bargaining, in negotiation, in justice and laws and institutions as being the best instruments to improve the relationship between management and workers and to conciliate their problems.

I would also like to point out that the decision to initiate these procedures to its ultimate consequences was not a coincidence, nor the result of a personal decision. It was the unanimous decision of our national congress celebrated in January of '95 in which we affirmed the commitment that we have with the alliance that we have with the workers union of telecommunications from the United States and Canada in February of 1992, as well as our participation in the international trade unions for postal workers and communication workers.

In the case of La Conexion Familiar, it was a particular concern for us, not only the fact that certain laws were being violated in such an obvious manner, but that there was also a racist aggression and also that this was not by just a small fraction of a systematic aggression towards labor organization on behalf of Sprint with whom Telefonos de Mexico has a strategic alliance.

I would like to make as a complementary observation the following. Through a high executive of Telefonos de Mexico, it was tried to convince me not to speak this day, precisely because it would demerit the presence of Sprint in its alliance with Telefonos de Mexico.

I pointed it out to this executive that that would mean that Sprint meant to change its attitude in the situation of La Conexion Familiar but he told me that he could not assure that it would happen. Therefore, I answered that I could not therefore not attend this meeting.

Since this violation of the rules were published, we want justice to be carried out towards the people from La Conexion Familiar but also we want to send a clear message, not only to Sprint but to all telecommunications companies in the region, the continent, throughout the world, about what workers and trade unions are willing to do if they stand together to defend each other and to make progress as far as our rights go, in spite of the aggressions and offenses that have taken place against workers rights. These affect not only the workers but the companies themselves, even though this might not seem too evident for the general public.

We wish that this is a message of the defense of basic human rights because labor rights and trade union rights are part of human rights. We would also like to appeal to the transnational companies, to multi-nationalist companies, that they should keep open this dialogue with trade workers, with trade unions all over the world regardless of their nationality.

We wish that the multi-national companies should understand that progress is not necessarily something that is in conflict with the right of workers, with the assurance of their working place. If companies such as Sprint are willing to do everything in their power in order to prevent trade unions to exist, then trade unions would have no other option than to carry out whatever is necessary to accomplish the contrary. And if we had the same despotic attitude the company has shown, then we would also have to plan our fight in a confrontational way.

This absurd confrontational scenario is not desirable for anybody, but should it happen, it would be a responsibility of the companies. It would be their responsibility. We wish also that through this we can appeal to our governments that through modernization and regional global integration some policies and strategies would be developed that would promote a more balanced working environment, a fair working environment and therefore better for everybody involved.

We trust that this North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation be an instrument that is sufficient and enough to comply with all these expectations but we also trust in the fact that for the same reason it could be the basis for a more specific and more functional regulation that could defend workers' rights.

Through the IPCTT, we have defended a code of behavior for multi-national companies. Through this code, companies should recognize trade unions and their representatives, depending on the country they come from. In the same way, they cannot wander from one place to the other trying to avoid the recognition of trade unions, nor will they be able to interfere in the initiatives of the workers, such as happened in La Conexion Familiar.

I am convinced that the colleague Morton Bahr is also going to talk about this and in advance I would like to express that we coincide with his opinions and we are willing and determined to go on in our joint struggle.

To conclude, I would like to make one final remark. It is definitely the first time in which a Mexican trade union initiates a legal action to support labor struggle for the American workers. This is for us an incredible engagement and commitment that we undertake. We believe that the conditions to act in such a manner will be more favorable in the future because within the Mexican labor movement, there are important changes taking place and in which we communication workers are taking part of.

This redefines the traditional patterns of international labor organization, in order to be able to believe in justice and that this is not only an idea but a real possibility, that it is based on unity and solidarity amongst all workers.

MR. OTERO: Thank you very much, Mr. Hernandez Juarez.

I now invite to the podium Mr. Morton Bahr, the president of the Communications Workers of America and a member of the Executive Council of the AFL-CIO.

MR. BAHR: Good morning.

MR. OTERO: Good morning.

MR. BAHR: I am Morton Bahr, the president of the Communications Workers of America. CWA represents about 600,000 workers, primarily in the telecommunications and information industries.

I want to commend the Secretaries of Labor of the United States, Mexico and Canada for their decision to hold this public forum on Sprint's sudden shutdown of La Conexion Familiar.

We were stunned when Sprint fired all of the workers within one week before they were scheduled to vote in a union election. This forum will help expose and we hope stop the use of sudden plant closing and other legal and illegal anti-union behavior which prevent workers from exercising their right to organize.

I also want to thank Deputy Under Secretary Jack Otero for presiding over this forum and giving the discharged Sprint workers the opportunity to finally be heard.

Finally, on behalf of the workers of LCF, I want to thank the Mexican Telephone Workers Union, STRM, and it's president, Francisco Hernandez Juarez, for taking up the cause of the LCF workers and filing a formal complaint under the provisions of the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation.

I will submit for the record my complete written statement and attached exhibits. In this testimony I lay out in greater detail CWA's relationship with Sprint, Sprint's anti-union philosophy and an overview of the events which occurred at LCF. Today, given our limited time, I will focus on the importance of this forum and the recommendations we wish to present to the governments which have convened it.

The decision to hold this forum is a breakthrough for workers in Canada, Mexico and the United States who want to improve their working conditions and their standard of living by joining together to form a union. The forum has focused public attention on one of the worst cases of corporate abuse of workers rights and on the use by companies of a sudden plant or office closing to prevent their workers from organizing. Sprint's action epitomizes decades of increased attacks by corporations on workers rights.

This forum has focused attention also on the inability of U.S. labor laws to protect workers rights and the inability of the United States Government enforce its own laws.

The National Labor Relations Act is broken and our enforcement mechanisms are ineffective. We must act now to fix them. We hope this forum will contribute to efforts here and abroad to educate the public and our elected officials that meaningful reforms are needed if we want workers to organize and to bargain for a better life.

This public forum is important too because it demonstrates that the NAFTA labor side agreements provide another vehicle to hold Sprint and other companies who violate workers rights accountable for their actions.

As our country's integration into global economy deepens, we must look to trade agreements to establish an international code of conduct towards workers and their elected representatives. Foreign companies want access to the lucrative U.S. market and U.S. companies want to leverage their financial, technological and managerial to penetrate markets outside the U.S.

Companies on all sides want to increase opportunities for international trade and investment. Governments must balance these opportunities with the responsibilities of creating good jobs and respecting the rights of workers to organize and bargain collectively.

The Preamble and Annex 1 of the NAALC contain all the necessary objectives: the right to organize, the right to collective bargaining, the need to create employment opportunities, improve working conditions and raise living standards and the need to "protect, enhance and enforce basic workers' rights."

What is missing are effective remedies for violations of these objectives and prompt enforcement of these remedies. Under the current provisions of the NAFTA labor agreement, companies do not face any risks for blatantly violating the agreement. Yet there is nothing that companies understand better than risk. They manage for it every day of the year.

In the current political environment, where trade agreements are drawing more criticism, the governments of the U.S., Mexico and Canada are in a unique position to tell these companies in no uncertain terms that more trade agreements will never fly unless there are improved protections for workers, their jobs and their rights. The agreements must provide meaningful penalties for violation of these rights.

Today we are recommending that the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation be amended to include an international code of conduct for enterprises operating in the three countries which are parties to the NAFTA agreement.

CWA together other telephone unions affiliated with our international trade secretariat, PTTI, propose a code of conduct which in summary would require companies:

(1) To disclose to employees and their elected representatives company plans for investment, employment levels, technological change and movement of work.

(2) To meet annually with all their unions to discuss organizational rights, equal employment opportunities, safety and health, and education and training.

(3) To not interfere in worker organizational efforts where they conduct business.

(4) To recognize a union when the workers show the appropriate level of support.

(5) To not shift work from one nation to another to avoid a union.

The full text of the code of conduct is in my written statement.

In my written statement, we also make three recommendations to the government of the United States. I will summarize them here.

(1) We need meaningful penalties to deter companies from illegally interfering with their workers' right to organize. In the Sprint case, the violations were astounding yet the remedy was a mere notice to employees who have already been thrown out of work that the company will not do it again. This only added insult to injury.

(2) We advocate a change in the law which would deter companies from using the subterfuge of alleged business considerations to close a plant to avoid a union and prevent a first contract. Under current law, injunctive relief is heavily weighted toward the employer and has been awarded by the courts in only a few cases. We recommend that if a union has filed for an election or if an election has been won by a union but a first contract has not been reached, a company which is considering a shutdown for business reasons (a) must open its books to the employees and the union representatives and (b) must prove its business case to an independent arbitrator before it can shut a facility down.

(3) The Federal Government can refrain from doing business with major labor law violators. Defense contractors who have defrauded the taxpayer have had their right to bid on new contracts suspended. The U.S. Government should extend this practice to companies which have been found to have committed major violations of labor law.

Above all else, this forum is very important because it gives the Sprint workers their first real opportunity to tell the story of what happened at LCF. This is a story of a company, the Sprint corporation, the third largest long distance telephone company in the United States, that tells its managers that their main job is not to provide for quality telephone service, but to keep the union out at all costs. It's in their handbook.

It is a story of more than 200 workers, mostly Latino women, who had the courage and determination to withstand the threats, the coercion and the spying by management to stand up for their rights. They got within one week of accomplishing the unprecedented feat of forming a union at Sprint's long distance division.

This is also the story of how a company used every trick in the book to try to stop these workers and in so doing committed over 50 violations of law.

It is also the story of a management which suddenly realized they were about to lose their first union election and decided to shut the place down.

It is the story of a senior Sprint executive, the vice president of labor relations, who fabricated evidence submitted to a government agency to make it appear that the closure was done for business reasons.

It is the case of a company which not only shut down a facility, suddenly and brutally in one day, to prevent these workers from voting in the union election, but did it in a way which sent a chilling message to all of its other employees that unionization is off limits.

You will hear today from the Sprint workers themselves who will describe for you in vivid detail the poor working conditions at this company, the energy and spirit of their organizing efforts, the anti-union campaign launched by Sprint against their drive, and the residual long-term effects of the shutdown on their lives.

You'll hear from many others about the international repercussions, the outrage in the Latino community, the concern among elected officials that current law is incapable of protecting workers in the public interest and the extent to which Sprint's actions have been commonplace in the private sector.

The workers of LCF are still waiting for a remedy in the legal case which is outstanding against Sprint. More than two years will have passed when the National Labor Relations Board finally issues its order. And it will be years more before all appeals are exhausted. This situation is simply unacceptable.

That is why this public forum is so important, not only to the workers of LCF but to others who will face similar circumstances in the future. Sprint must be reminded again and again that CWA and all those who have stood up for the rights of these workers will never give up this fight until Sprint provides them with meaningful remedies, including compensation and job opportunities at other Sprint locations.

We know that in spite of the chilling effect of the LCF closing on other Sprint workers and the continued fear and intimidation by Sprint management Sprint workers will again stand up and seek to be recognized.

These workers in Sprint need to know that when that time comes the world will be watching and fair minded people will be ready to act against any attempt by Sprint to interfere with its workers' rights.

This forum gives the Sprint workers new hope that when that time comes the Federal Government and their elected representatives will have fixed our system of labor laws and be ready to enforce them.

The workers are not asking for handouts or entitlements. They are simply asking the government to level the playing field so they can stand up for their rights without the fear of reprisals from their employers. They should be able to organize into a union without the fear of losing their jobs.

We hope the testimony presented in this forum and the six-month study by the international labor secretariat will cause the governments of Canada, Mexico and the United States to take the necessary measures to strengthen the NAFTA agreement to prevent the recurrence of the travesty suffered by the Sprint workers.

Thank you.

MR. OTERO: Thank you, Mr. Bahr.

I would like to now invite the next presenter, Professor Roberto L. Corrada, Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Denver, Denver, Colorado, who has registered to speak on behalf of Sprint Inc.

Professor Corrada, please.

PROFESSOR CORRADA: Good morning. My name is Roberto Corrada. I am an assistant professor of law at the University of Denver, College of Law, Denver Colorado. I have been teaching labor and employment law courses and courses in contract law and administrative law at the law school since 1990.

In December 1995, I was asked by Sprint Corporation to conduct an independent review of the regulatory activity undertaken and the two opinions that have been issued in a labor dispute involving La Conexion Familiar, LCF, a business entity that had been affiliated with Sprint. The questions posed to me were (1) whether the National Labor Relations Board's actions in this matter demonstrate enforcement of the National Labor Relations Act, NLRA, the United States labor law implicated by the dispute, and (2) whether the two opinions in this matter have applied the appropriate NLRA standard in deciding the dispute.

My conclusion based on a review of the decisions as well the enforcement activity undertaken by the NLRB in this matter is that United States labor laws involving the NLRA have been enforced and the proper standards applied.

In this testimony, I will first talk briefly about the origin and acceptability of the standard, the Right Line test applied by the district court judge deciding whether to issue a 10(j) injunction in the case and the administrative law judge deciding the merits of the case.

Next, I will assess the regulatory activity undertaken by the NLRB in this matter and finally I will discuss the two opinions, the district court opinion and the administrative law judge's opinion that have been issued in this case.

First, with respect to the standard applied, this matter implicates the NLRA, the United States labor law that governs relations between unions and management in the private sector.

MR. OTERO: Professor Corrada, they want you to slow down so that the translation can take place. Take your time.

PROFESSOR CORRADA: Excuse me. Maybe I had a little bit too much coffee this morning.

In particular, it involves a dispute under Section 8(a)(3) of the Act, which establishes at its core that it is an unfair labor practice for an employer to discriminate in regard to hire or tenure of employment or any term or condition of employment, to encourage or discourage membership in any labor organization.

Administrative Law Judge Wacknov and District Court Judge Walker both applied the NLRB's Right Line standard in deciding the claims of the parties involving Section 8(a)(3) of the Act. The NLRB general counsel also argued for application of the Right Line standard in this case.

The standard was announced by the National Labor Relations Board some 16 years ago in its 1980 decision in Right Line and was upheld by the United States Supreme Court in its 1983 decision in NLRB v. Transportation Management Corporation as a reasonable interpretation of the requirements of Section 8(a)(3).

The Right Line standard may well represent the best approach to deciding who should prevail when legitimate but competing interests of labor and management must be reconciled under Section 8(a)(3). According to the Board, a dual motive case is presented under Section 8(a)(3) when there is evidence of employer reaction to union organizing activity but there is also believable competing evidence that an employer has acted pursuant to a legitimate business reason. This existence of both a good and a bad reason for the employer's action requires further inquiry into the role played by each motive.

In Right Line, the NLRB adopted a standard that was used by the United States Supreme Court in Mt. Healthy v. Doyle to decide a constitutional rights dispute between a school board and a teacher. The Supreme Court stated that a rule of causation which focuses solely on whether protected conduct played a part, substantial or otherwise, in a decision not to rehire could place an employee in a better position as a result of the exercise of constitutionally protected conduct than he would have occupied had he done nothing.

Most importantly, according to the court, the constitutional principle at stake is sufficiently vindicated if such an employee is place in no worse position than if he had not engaged in the conduct.

Following the Supreme Court's analysis in Mt. Healthy, the Right Line test announced by the NLRB places the initial burden on the Board's general counsel to make a prima facie showing sufficient to support the inference that protected conduct was a motivating factor in the employer's decision. Once this is established, the burden will shift to the employer to demonstrate that the same action would have taken place even in the absence of protected conduct.

The Right Line test is a well reasoned standard for governing dual motive cases, is consistent with the legislative history of the NLRA and fairly accommodates the legitimate competing interests of labor and of management under the Act.

The Right Line standard has been broadly accepted and indeed has become a fixture in United States labor and employment law. Since the Supreme Court's affirmance of the Right Line standard in 1983, it has been faithfully applied in scores of Section 8(a)(3) cases, yielding results in favor of both unions as well as employers.

The NLRB has applied the Right Line standard to partial closing cases similar to the LCF case on a number of cases. For example, the C.M. Breyer Corporation case in 1993, Cub Branch Mining in 1990, and the Redwood Empire case in 1989.

Moreover, the test has been used in cases involving employer action impinging constitutional rights, as in the Mt. Healthy case, and in non-employment cases involving dual motives where constitutional freedoms are implicated, as in the Arlington Heights case.

The test has also become an important standard in employment discrimination law in the United States. In 1989, the Supreme Court issued its decision in Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins in which it applied the Mt. Healthy Right Line test to dual motive cases brought under Title 7 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which protects against discrimination based on race, color, sex, national origin and religion.

Let me now turn to the application of the Right Line standard in the matter involving La Conexion Familiar, LCF. I will discuses first the NLRB's enforcement activity in the case, then the district court decision involving the 10(j) injunction and, finally, the administrative law judge's decision on the merits of the case.

In conducting my review of the NLRB's enforcement activity and the decisions by District Court Judge Walker and ALJ Wacknov, I have examined the written opinions as well as the briefs filed by both parties. This opinion is limited to a review of the written materials in this matter. I have not personally reviewed the documents filed with the ALJ or the district court and have relied on the characterizations made of them in the written ALJ and district court decisions and in the briefs filed by the parties. In addition, there can be no effective review of ALJ credibility determinations by persons like myself who have not personally listened to witness testimony.

Given all of that, with respect to the NLRB's enforcement activity, it is my considered opinion that the level of enforcement activity undertaken by the Board in this matter has been extraordinary. It is not common, for example, for the NLRB to seek a Section 10(j) injunction in a labor dispute. General Counsel Fred Feinstein stated in October of 1995 that, "The Board is filing more 10(j) cases although they still represent only about 3 percent of the total number of unfair labor practice complaints issued."

In addition to the NLRB 10(j) filing, the NLRB's general counsel's office has proceeded aggressively to enforce the NLRA in this matter. The NLRB general counsel's brief in this case filed with the ALJ is in excess of 250 pages in length, detailing a large amount of evidence and testimony. The brief is impressive with respect to the way it has organized the evidence and with respect to the way that it argues that the evidence should be assessed under the Right Line standard.

When the brief is considered alongside the NLRB's decision to seek a 10(j) injunction in the case it is more than fair to conclude that the Board's efforts in LCF have been above average in quality and extensive in scope.

As I mentioned before, the NLRB regional director, as part of its enforcement of the NLRA in this case, filed a petition in federal district court for the issuance of a 10(j) injunction. In the 9th Circuit, district courts must weigh the likelihood of success on the merits against the possibility of irreparable injury, mindful both of public interest and a federal court deference to NLRB decisions.

In assessing whether the Board was likely to prevail or merely had a fair chance of success on the merits, the district court properly chose to apply the Right Line test. The district court first analyzed the Board's evidence to determine whether a prima facie case had been presented. Based on the hearsay nature of the Board's evidence as well as the position of the persons making the allegations against respondent and the context in which alleged threatening statements were made, the district court characterized the Board's chances at a prima facie case as fair at best.

The district court nevertheless and in line with the Right Line requirements shifted its focus to analyze the quality of the respondent's evidence supporting its action as motivated by legitimate business reasons. Ultimately the district court was persuaded by the extent of the evidence presented by the employer that showed substantial losses by LCF. Rather than a projected profit of 7.9 million, LCF's actual earnings in January and February of '94 projected a year-end loss of 3.9 million.

In addition, between January and March 1994, the evidence showed that LCF lost 10,000 customers and that the churn rate, which is the percentage loss of customer base, was greater than 20 percent higher than projected.

The district court went on to weigh the hardships of an injunction on the parties and found that since the facility had already been closed for a time, the hardship of reopening would fall squarely on Sprint without much gain to the workers involved, many of whom were by that time unreachable or had already secured new employment. Thus, having failed to meet the burdens for a 10(j) injunction, the district court refused to grant preliminary relief.

Although the circumstances are certainly unfortunate, in my opinion it is hard to find fault with the district court's opinion. The court followed the standards for 10(j) injunctions in the 9th Circuit to the letter, engaging in a step-by-step approach to each requirement. Thus, in my opinion, the district court evaluated the evidence on both sides and applied the burden shifting analysis of Right Line in an appropriate manner.

A hearing was held on the merits of the LCF case in San Francisco during November and December of 1994. The hearing was presided by Gerald Wacknov, an administrative law judge in the NLRB's division of judges. At the outset, I find it striking and significant that both the district court deciding the Section 10(j) matter and the ALJ deciding the merits of the case both viewed the evidence in a similar fashion. The fact that two independent decisionmakers reviewing much of the same general evidence have reached similar conclusions with respect to such evidence tends to corroborate and lend credence to the view that the Right Line standard was properly invoked and appropriately applied.

The ALJ applied the Right Line standard in deciding the dispute between management and labor. In my view, this standard was appropriately applied given the quality of the evidence presented by both management and labor. It is precisely when there is good evidence on both sides of a dispute that the Right Line standard is appropriate invoked. There is nothing in the opinion that is unusual or remarkable compared with other ALJ decisions that I have reviewed that apply the Right Line standard in a dispute of this nature.

A review of the record evidence shows a sufficient amount of evidence to make out a prima facie case under a Right Line analysis. However, the record also shows substantial evidence to conclude that the employer met its burden of proving that LCF would have been closed for legitimate financial reasons.

The employer's evidence concerning a $12 million variance in forecasts versus outlook for LCF in 1994 and the employer's evidence concerning the future of LCF given competition by MCI and AT&T was persuasive, tending to support the ALJ's conclusion that the employer's burden under Right Line was met.

Based on the very detailed findings of facts set out in over 30 pages of the ALJ's decision, I can fairly conclude that the ALJ reached a reasonable decision under the Right Line approach.

Thank you.

MR. OTERO: Thank you, Professor Corrada.

The chair is advised that one of the registered speakers, Mr. Calvin McDaniels, is unable to be present with us this morning. Should Mr. McDaniels appear in the hall later today, we will allow him the opportunity to make his presentation.

At this time, we will call the next person that registered in sequence.

I would like to invite to the podium Ms. Dora Vogel, who is a former employee of La Conexion Familiar.

MS. VOGEL: Buenos Dias.

MR. OTERO: Good morning.

MS. VOGEL: (UNTRANSLATED TESTIMONY IN SPANISH.)

(THROUGH TRANSLATOR) ... terrible conditions under which we had to work. I had to know how to sell the service and I could reach my quota that we had to fulfill. The manager told us that we would fill our quota, we would get a commission and continuously we were being reminded how much more we could make with this commission. Sometimes the sales quota would go up. If we would manage to sell 15 sales, then the quota immediately went up to 18. It was never important to see how many sales we made. We never got the commission, even though we would ask when are we going to get this commission. They always had a reason or an excuse why we were not being paid that commission for our quota.

We could not speak amongst ourselves. We were told to continue working, that we had to keep making call after call after call. The pressure to sell was enormous and constantly we were being watched to see what we were doing. We were allowed to go to the bathroom at lunchtime or during our rest periods. We had to ask for a special permission to go to the bathroom if it wasn't done during our rest period. Sometimes we would ask for permission and they would tell us that we would have to wait until the regular time to go to the toilet.

Whenever we had the meetings with our supervisors, we were told that we should not drink too much water so that we didn't have to go to the bathroom all the time. Since we were on the phone constantly, we got very thirsty, but we didn't have any water to drink. There was a water fountain for everybody, for the 130 telemarketers, and this was broken. It didn't work. Most of us would bring our own water.

About the first of May, the manager announced that the work schedule was going to change. That very same day we were told what was going to be our next schedule. We had two schedules. Monday to Fridays we worked from 12:30 to 9:00 and Tuesdays and Saturdays we worked from 10:00 to 5:00 p.m. My schedule was changed for Tuesday and for Saturday. I was very frightened because I could not work on Saturdays because I had to take care of the children. My mother-in-law would look after my two children during the week. My baby was barely four months old and I knew that my mother-in-law could not take care of them on Saturdays because she worked on Saturdays.

So therefore other workers and myself went to talk to the manager about this problem, but we were told that this schedule would not be changed, that we had to work according to the days that were given to us. For me, this meant more expenses because I had to pay somebody to baby sit my children on Saturdays.

Also, besides the tensions that we felt all the time because we had to make so many calls to make our quota, we also had the tension that we were going to be fired any moment.

One day, one of the colleagues was called to the manager's office. She's here. I saw her. She used to sit in front of me. All of us who sat around here were waiting anxiously to find out what had happened to her, what had the manager said to her. A while later, she came back with the manager. The manager was shouting at her, saying that she couldn't take anything out of her desk and that she had to leave immediately. The manager told her that he was going to call the security guard so that he would see and escort her out of the office. This is what they would do always with any worker who was being dismissed.

My colleague said that the guard would have to bodily carry her out because she was not going to be escorted out. All this was going on around me. I got very nervous but I looked around and then I broke out in tears. I started to cry. Others started to cry also. I just could not hold back my tears. Somebody came and helped me to the bathroom. They gave me a little bit of water. And I couldn't believe that somebody could be so shabbily treated in front of all the colleagues and all the other workers. Everybody heard and saw what was going on.

When I found out about the union, I felt a little better. I was a little calmer. I felt that we needed a union in order to improve our working conditions. When somebody asked me to sign up, I did so immediately and I even asked around and took the petition around for others to sign to.

At the beginning of June, we all used union T-shirts to show our solidarity. And even though we were also nervous because we didn't want to so openly show our support of the union, nevertheless we felt pretty good about wearing our T-shirts because we saw that the majority was supporting the union.

Then I heard rumors that if I went into the union the office would close, but I didn't believe it because why on earth would they close? They were selling very well. We knew that the business was going very well because we were the ones that were making the calls that were bringing in the sales. I felt that many of the workers were in unions and I figured that Sprint would then pay us better.

The supervisors tried to show us that sales were very low. During a meeting they had different graphs where they showed us that sales were off, but we knew better than that.

On the 14th of July, the day that they announced the closing down of the facility, I heard somebody saying that the office would be closed and I saw that there was a lot going on and I suspected that something was up.

When they made the announcement, we were all taken by surprise. I thought that I would call my husband, but then I figured how upset he was going to be because I was really being the only breadwinner in my family. My husband could not work. He had hurt his wrist. There was no money. How were we going to pay our rent? How were we going to purchase food? What was going to happen to the children?

After the office closed down, it was very tough. My husband went back to work even though he still was in pain. His wrist had not healed completely. And to this day, he hurts because it was never healed properly.

We borrowed from other members of the family in order to continue living. Catholic Charities paid our rent one month. The food that we got from the union helped us to put some food on the table. It took us one year in order to be able to get on our feet economically once again.

I will never be able to forget the way they made us work, the promises they gave us that they never came through and all the pain and suffering that was brought about only because they did not want a union.

Thank you.

MR. OTERO: Thank you, Ms. Vogel.

Mr. Federico Anaya, president of the Law Firm of Anaya Valdepena, Management Attorneys and Consultants, who are also counsel to the Confederation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry of Mexico.

Mr. Anaya.

MR. ANAYA: (THROUGH TRANSLATOR) Thank you very much. Good morning.

I would like to complement Mrs. Vogel for her outstanding presentation. Certainly we are all fired up after listening to her so that we can look after and try to resolve these type of problems that affect humanity.

I would like to divide my talk in three parts. First of all, I would like to talk about some legal aspects. Number two, I want to talk about some commercial aspects and the third part will talk about the labor relations.

In the first place, I would like to tell you that the world is full of contracts. The contracts are accords and agreements of goodwill. Let's give an example. Let's say I come out of the university. I have just graduated as a lawyer and I don't have any clientele. I don't have any clients. I must have clients. In order to have the clients, I must be able to demonstrate that I am capable and I am professional. The title alone is not going to bring me clients.

We can also say that if I open up a business or a store the fact that I am just opened up for business is not going to bring clients to buy my wares and we can think the same about a union.

A union has to be formed because the laws of international says so. This is laws all over the world. But setting up a union per se does not mean that it is automatically a collective automatization and I am not trying to justify in any way the attitude of certain companies. I am not justifying it. But as I was saying, we need the goodwill of the person who is going to make a collective contract with workers. We cannot do anything against anybody's will.

It is so much so that at least in my country there is a very clear standard that determines the following. When a union tries to have a collective contract, they have to follow a certain procedure and this procedure is a document has to be written, officially sent to the National Board of Arbitration and the threat by the union is that they will shut down the company if this contract is not signed. What does the company do? What is the defense of the company?

The company either signs the contract or it doesn't want to sign the contract for other reasons and does not go before -- what can happen is that they will have to pay off the workers. But if these workers are fired unduly, the law protects the workers that belong to a union and when there is a dismissal of such grand magnitude, the companies also have to pay indemnization, which means paying three months salary if the conflict is not resolved.

Therefore, it is very clearly set forth that when the companies make use of their right not to have this collective contract they have to then pay damages and severance pay. In other words, they get penalized and they have to pay off all of the workers that are dismissed.

When a company is made up this company has a whole series of factors that are very specific to them and the company has to select vendors, personnel, the bank they are going to work with and also, why not say so, the company has the right to, let's say, lean toward certain factors that are going to make the company successful and to make things easier for the company. When there are great dark clouds in the sky, the company takes evasive action, just like a pilot does when he goes to a higher altitude or a lower altitude to avoid the bad weather that lies ahead. This, I think, occurs to everybody who is head of any company.

Now, regarding the third point that I mentioned, I would like to say to all of you that in my modest opinion nobody can discuss the fact that the workers don't have a right to unionize and nobody has to say anything against -- nobody can say anything against that the companies can also do something to protect themselves. Nobody can do that. So the value of the union value is parallel to the company whether it's going to select or not select or sign or not sign a contract with this or that union, which maybe will bring on problems later on.

I would like to insist on the fact that at this forum we are not just addressing an individual case. We are talking about the prospects for understanding between unionized employees and a group of companies which also have the right to carry out their program and I say this because there are assembly lines, there are organized services, financial services, commercial services, there are systems such as these, so the workers have the need to continue their associations. They exist as a need to defend the needs of organized employees.

What are these interests or needs? There are basically two: just wages and also just and fair working conditions that have to do with benefits and hygiene conditions and so on.

The businessman invests capital for a profit and when the economic conditions are adverse, for example, the price of materials does not allow him to be competitive in the market or when banks withdraw financial support, fear regarding a new and unknown trade union, and this happens to everybody when we don't know what's happening, a trade union which is coming about of which you know only that it is being created, it is sending a red flag regarding a risk. You don't know what will happen with a nascent or new trade union. You don't know the intentions of this group. It's not the same thing with a trade union that has been in existence for a time and the businessman knows what this trade union does day by day.

So you have to see what's happening. There are trade unions that would increase the risk factor for companies. This is not a problem regarding the law but a problem regarding attitudes and as Warren Edmondson said when he addressed the forum, you cannot legislate attitude, you cannot legislate goodwill, the desire to understand each other. This comes out of the quality of human beings and the quality of trade unions and companies. When companies seek only profits and they forget, as I told a son of mine, the best thing you have in your company is your workers and you should deal with them as though they were your best customers, when you forget this, problems crop up.

This social phenomenon, the establishment of a new trade union, makes every businessman think whether it is not better not to deal with this trade union because he doesn't know whether this trade union will be something he cannot control. He ignores whether his authority will be undermined. There is this fear installed. You don't know whether there will be a lack of discipline, a lack of respect and whether down the road this will mean that the company will go bankrupt or that productivity will go down, that you don't work so hard because in any event the employee will feel exploited, whether the trade union would be an enemy of the company or whether the trade union leaders are going to ask for special perks and benefits.

That is why if the trade union is known, is a known quantity, if it is famous for being a professional and authentic, an objective and a modern trade union, these risk factors go down to the extent that the trade union has shown that it has goodwill, that it wants to get involved in the company's decisionmaking, that it shows respect for management, that it promotes order and hygiene and good working conditions, and that it has concerns in terms of reducing waste for the company, that it wants to participate to increase productivity through training of workers, that it seeks friendly resolution of conflict without resorting to strikes, that it wants to improve the environment, the overall working environment, in the company and that it wants to bring up ideas that may lead to higher competitiveness for the company and increase profits which may be distributed among workers.

This is a good quality merchandise which you always buy. When companies and trade unions change their positions radically and get, closer collective bargaining will always be an instrument of goodwill and peace and you will have balance and justice in labor relations.

MR. OTERO: Thank you.

The chair wishes to correct the record. I failed upon introducing Mr. Anaya to underscore that he represents part of the tripartite delegation from Mexico, representing the employers' side.

At this juncture in the proceedings, I think it is fair that the chair express deep appreciation to all the presenters for the extraordinary discipline that you have shown in observing my admonition. Some of you have not used the 10 minutes that is allocated to you and in balance, we are doing very well on time. I want to thank you very much for this. We have also had a presenter that did not appear this morning, so we are doing well time-wise, but I want to signify my appreciation for your discipline and for your cooperation with the chair in ensuring the orderly process of these proceedings.

I would like to ask also if Mr. John Zucker from Congressman Tom Lantos' office is in the audience. If he is, please stand up. Okay. Thank you very much. I don't see Mr. Zucker.

Now, I will like to call to the podium the next presenter, Maria Blanco, Associate Director of the Women's Employment Rights Clinic at Golden Gate University School of Law.

Ms. Blanco.

MS. BLANCO: Thank you.

MR. OTERO: Thank you. Good morning.

MS. BLANCO: Good morning. Good morning. My name is Maria Blanco and, as indicated, I am an associate professor of law at Golden Gate University School of Law here in San Francisco, a couple of blocks over.

Together with the director of the clinic, Marcy Seville, who is also here, and our clinic students, our clinic represents currently over 60 La Conexion Familiar employees who were denied California unemployment benefits after they were fired from La Conexion Familiar. Our lawsuit is a challenge to the California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board decision that workers who had received offset payments, in other words, payments because Sprint closed it's plant in violation of the notification law, the Board decided that they could not simultaneously receive unemployment benefits.

I am very honored to be here at this forum which is really historic and one of a kind and I think that given the globalization of labor and capital that others have talked about today it's no coincidence that the first case of this kind brought in the United States under the labor agreement is one in California involving Latino workers.

It brings together many of the elements that many of us working in the labor movement and unemployment issues and immigrant worker issues in California have been seeing develop over the years.

The purpose of my testimony here today is to describe how the sector of the United States workforce represented by the more than 200 employees fired from La Conexion Familiar is often unable to enjoy or assert the labor rights they are entitled to theoretically under state and federal labor laws. When I say this sector of the workforce, I am referring to fairly recent immigrant workers who are at the bottom of the economic ladder here in California and other parts of the country.

As you will hear today and have already heard, the workers at La Conexion Familiar were primarily Latinas, non-English speaking and, for the most part, unskilled. For many, this was their first full-time permanent job. Many of us in San Francisco thought a company like La Conexion Familiar represented the welcome possibility that the very consumers targeted by companies attempting to capture the Spanish-speaking market might also result in good jobs for those consumers. This would have been a welcome change from the concentration of immigrant workers in low paying, dead end jobs which in spite of the anti-immigrant clamor heard in many quarters these days few other workers are willing to perform.

Initially, the employees, and you will probably hear this today, of La Conexion Familiar felt fortunate beyond all their dreams when they got their jobs. With Sprint, they thought they had the unique opportunity to work at above the minimum wage and to be employed at jobs where their native language was an asset and not a drawback.

Yet the job also had problems. Very big problems. The hours, the speed-up, as Ms. Vogel testified today, the lack of breaks. Non-payment of wages. Non-payment of commissions. So the workers who felt so fortunate to have this job had the courage, or some would say the nerve, to assert their right to decent working conditions through seeking to join a union, their right under United States labor laws.

Unfortunately, as highlighted by the complaint filed by Mexico, United States labor relations law has failed them and for these highly vulnerable workers, the failure has occurred on several fronts, not just the National Labor Relations Act that we have heard about today.

For example, and I'll start with the National Labor Relations Act. You will hear substantial testimony today about the circumstances surrounding Sprint's closure, how the company sales were growing, how employees told that the workforce was going to grow. That is until over 50 percent of the workers indicated their support for representation by the Communications Workers of America.

Despite the decision by the National Labor Relations Board judge that Sprint's transfer was purely economic, the workers, the Union, many experts and non-experts and many people here today who followed this case very closely are convinced and know that the company's move was nothing but good old time illegal union busting.

To the workers of La Conexion Familiar, the protections of Section 8 and Section 8(a)(3) of the National Labor Relations Act proved meaningless. And the fact remains that La Conexion Familiar ex-employees will never see a remedy for Sprint's illegal actions and this forum is not a remedy. We are glad we are here, but it is not. Even if back pay were ever awarded, this would not compensate for the lost jobs, for the havoc created for the workers who faced this job loss, and for their then having to be thrust in a labor market where they face the triple barrier of being unskilled immigrant women of color with very few chances of employment in a city like San Francisco.

Violation of federal plant closure laws. La Conexion Familiar employees were also treated to a clear violation of federal law that required Sprint to give 60 days notice to its employees before plant closure. This protection is set forth in the Worker Adjustment Retraining and Notification Act, known as WARN by many of us, which was passed in Congress in 1989. Thus, Sprint compounded its unfair labor practice with a violation of the WARN Act. The purpose of this long fought for provision is to give employees time to retrain, adjust and seek work when informed that their place of employment is about to close. No workers have ever needed notice to retrain and prepare more than those of La Conexion Familiar.

Often knowing minimal English and with few economic resources, the sudden closure threw their lives and that of their families into complete turmoil. I know you are going to hear more about that this afternoon.

Denial of California unemployment benefits, perhaps the part of this that I am the most familiar with. The process of applying and obtaining unemployment benefits should have been relatively simple for the ex-employees of La Conexion Familiar. Instead, their attempt to obtain this basic safety net turned out to be a nightmare. As a result of the California Department of Unemployment's decision that any penalties paid by Sprint for its violation of the WARN Act made the workers ineligible for unemployment benefits, the fired workers went months without unemployment. Even more incredible, the fired employees had penalties imposed upon them by the Unemployment Insurance Department that accused them of lying on their application when they stated that the plant closure fines they received were not wages. Thus the fired employees face two sets of unemployment hearings: one to determine their eligibility to benefits and another to prove that they had not made false statements and not be assessed penalties.

Failure to receive wages under California wage and hour laws. Among the working conditions at Sprint La Conexion Familiar which fueled the unionization drive was the employer's failure to consistently pay overtime penalties and commissions, as required by California law and regulations. To resolve this breach in the law, the workers turned to traditional federal labor law remedies, the National Labor Relations Act and the Section 7 right to join unions and pursue collective bargaining.

When the plant closure effectively eliminated that avenue of resolution for the wage claims, the employees were left to individually file wage claims. Next month, more than a year and a half after La Conexion Familiar closed, many of the claims for unpaid wages will finally go to a hearing before California's labor commissioner. With no union to help them, the ex-employees, many of them non-English speaking and from countries with no comparable laws, face this complex wage claim process alone. Fortunately, here in San Francisco La Rasa Central Legal has stepped forward to help with the wage claim and is representing many of the workers.

Thus, two years after Sprint's sudden closure of La Conexion Familiar in order to avoid collective bargaining, the majority of the workers are still unemployed, still engaged in complex legal proceedings to recover partial unemployment benefits, still trying to recover unpaid wages which Sprint owes them, and the NLRA case is winding its way through the legal process.

It should come as no surprise, then, that in the eyes of many of La Conexion Familiar workers the United States system of labor laws has not worked. Wage laws, unemployment laws, labor relations law, plant closure notification laws, all failed in this case example. It is not an exaggeration to say that many believe that their attempt at unionization and collective bargaining fared no better here in the United States' system of labor relations than in other countries where labor rights are considered to be notably less than in the United States.

For now, they are left with serious doubts about the true right to freely associate and it may be a long time before they recover their faith in our legal system.

Thank you.

MR. OTERO: Ms. Blanco, before you depart, first of all, would it be possible for us to have a copy of your statement?

MS. BLANCO: Yes. I brought some copies.

MR. OTERO: And, secondly, I did not quite follow the sequence of your presentation. I was distracted, so I apologize.

MS. BLANCO: Perhaps it was me.

MR. OTERO: From the sequence of the WARN Act and the role of the California state unemployment insurance, would you please repeat that for the record, please?

MS. BLANCO: Sure. Do you want me to explain or to read it?

When Sprint closed without giving the 60 days notice required under the law, what it did was it gave he employees what are called offset payments. What an employee is allowed to do when a plant closes without notice is take the employer to court. That's the remedy. You take the employer to court for violation of the notice requirement and then you can get 60 days salary because you didn't have the advance notice.

Some employers rather than go to court anticipate that they're going to lose in court and they offset that and they give it to the fired employees at the time that they fire them.

The employees in this case received those offset payments and as a result when they applied for unemployment benefits and they filled out the section that says have you received any wages they said no because these are not wages. This is a penalty which actually you have to normally go to court to obtain. And the unemployment appeals board in California has decided that they are wages and we are currently appealing that decision and arguing that those payments are really a fine meant to enforce the plant closure law and they should not be considered wages.

MR. OTERO: The California state board has interpreted that that 60-day payment was wages.

MS. BLANCO: Exactly.

MR. OTERO: I see. Okay. That's the portion that I had not quite understood before.

MS. BLANCO: Okay. Thank you.

MR. OTERO: Thank you very much, Ms. Blanco.

The chair now calls to the podium Ms. Liliette Jiron, a former employee of La Conexion Familiar.

Ms. Jiron?

MS. JIRON: Good morning.

MR. OTERO: Good morning.

MS. JIRON: Hello. My name is Liliette Jiron.

MR. OTERO: Do you want a glass of water?

MS. JIRON: A tissue would do.

MR. OTERO: A tissue? I don't have a tissue.

(Pause)

MS. JIRON: Thank you.

My introduction to Sprint's anti-union tactics of threats and intimidation began on my job interview. I applied for a telemarketer position at Sprint La Conexion Familiar in the spring of 1994. During my interview, I was told the Union was trying to organize at LCF but the troublemakers would get fired eventually. I was told I should have no part of them. I was told that some people who worked at LCF were ungrateful. My interviewer said that these people don't deserve a job this good because they don't speak any English. He continued to say they should be happy to have this job.

Although the tension in the workplace frightened me, I desperately needed the job so when it was offered I said yes.

I had been out of work for six months. My fiance was our sole supporter. Our bills were piling up and we were unable to pay rent --

MR. OTERO: Take your time, Ms. Jiron\. Take your time to compose yourself. There is no hurry.

MS. JIRON: We were unable to pay rent on our apartment. We had to move with my two children into a studio apartment. This job was an opportunity to make some money to help pay the rent, buy food, diapers and clothing for my children.

Within three weeks of arriving at LCF, I was asked to spy on my co-workers. As I was on probation for my first 90 days, I felt I had no choice but to do as asked. I couldn't lose this job. My supervisor asked me to search through my co-workers drawers after hours to see if anyone in my group was hiding union materials in their desks. I was also asked to talk with my co-workers and find out who was the leader of union supporters in my group.

During break, my supervisor would ask me what I had learned about my co-workers' involvement with CWA. I was hired along with four other women. Two of them signed their names to the union petition. My group supervisor told me to talk with them and try to get them to take their names off the petition. I was told they would find a reason to fire any new person who signed the petition. They said it would be easy as we were still on probation. There was a constant fear that we would be fired if we supported the Union.

About ten days after I started working at Sprint, they fired someone at her workstation right in front of everyone. They told her to get her things and get out. I don't know why she was fired but I felt even more threatened. I couldn't believe that they would fire someone like that in front of everyone. It made me want to stay away from the union supporters.

But I understood why my co-workers wanted to form a union. We had problems getting paid. Also we had a commission program. I never received a commission check. They kept changing the rules on the number of sales we needed. Every supervisor had a different quota. At one group meeting I asked about the commission program. I was yelled at and made to feel stupid for asking the question.

We were not allowed to go to the bathroom until our break time. Also, we were on the phone all day and our throats got dry and sore. They told us not to drink a lot of water so we wouldn't need the bathroom breaks.

On payday, we had to wait until our supervisor wanted to give us the paychecks. She said she didn't want to give them to us at lunchtime because we would go to the bank and take longer lunch. We were under such tight control all the time. They just didn't respect us.

One day when they were remodeling the floor above us, horrible fumes came through the vents. People were coughing. I got a rash on my arms, but they wouldn't let us leave. Finally, after two hours we were told we could go home.

We all knew we needed a union but the frightened and intimidated many of us. We were too afraid to say it publicly. They kept telling us if we voted for the Union, the office would close down and their threats to close the office came true.

A week before our chance to vote in the union election we were called in the conference room. It was just before lunch. They locked all the doors. There were security guards at each exit. They told us LCF was closing that day. They said we had until four p.m. to clear our stuff. As we left, we were each personally searched and they went through our belongings.

For me, everything fell apart that day. I couldn't face being out of work. I started abusing alcohol. I was so depressed. I fought with my fiance and I yelled at my children. It was hard for me to get out of bed. I didn't want to do anything. I felt so helpless.

Financially, we were having a hard time. I was too depressed to look for work and the bills were piling up. I was unable to pay for my car insurance, so it was eventually canceled but I still had to drive so I did and I got caught. I had to spend five hours in jail for driving without insurance and a license.

It took me a year to finally make sense of everything and to start to get myself together. I thank my fiance for seeing me through this. I got another job through the unemployment with an Internet provider. Next month I celebrate my year anniversary at this job.

After a very tough year, I am happy. My fiance and I are still saving money hoping to buy a home.

But my experience at Sprint changed everything for me. I will always carry around the fear of being fired and I will remember the threats to close if we voted for the Union. And I will remember the day that they did what they said. And to think all we wanted was a union.

Thank you.

MR. OTERO: Thank you, Ms. Jiron.

We had two no-shows this morning which added to the cooperation of all the presenters have made the morning session go faster than we had anticipated.

I wonder if I could perhaps call someone who is scheduled to be here this afternoon, have one more speaker, and then we will recess until the afternoon session to allow the interpreters an opportunity to have a longer rest. They have been doing an excellent job and we have not given them the opportunity to rest.

So I wonder if Mr. Sergio Tapia is in the audience and I wonder if he would mind speaking now rather than later. Is that okay?

Let me introduce formally Mr. Sergio Tapia, who is with the Consultants Associates in Monterrey, Mexico. Mr. Tapia is a management consultant and we invite him to come to the podium.

MR. TAPIA: (THROUGH TRANSLATOR) Thank you very much, Mr. Otero. I thank you for this opportunity to speak to you.

Actually, I had brought with me the paper I wanted to submit to this forum this afternoon. However, I believe it's not worthwhile. I think that I will present in a somewhat different format and I am modifying it or I am adapting it to what I have heard so far.

With due respect, I think it sounds like an encounter between the good guys and the bad guys. Naturally, the presentation of working conditions in such a dramatic manner under which -- or the dramatic way in which the workers have presented how they were working at Sprint make us believe that they are the good ones and also the presentation or the introduction that was given to this forum recognizing, of course, the sacred right to unionization of workers not only in this country but in the three countries represented here and also in most parts of the world and, of course, that leads us to admit it is a real situation. The press, the media, are present and this also gives recognition to the good guys, only the poor management I think in this case is very poorly represented. The manager of the company, I think, was under shock and did not want to attend. The attorney who submitted the case and who explained the legal resolutions already left -- I can see that he already returned but, I mean, he only received applause by three people, I counted them very discretely.

Mr. Anaya, who represents an important section of the Mexican management, also received only very little recognition on behalf of the forum but, of course, I believe this is rather natural considering this intense participation and attendance on behalf of representatives of the workers.

Considering all these circumstances, I can only adhere to the good guys and recognize, of course, the sacred right of workers to form a union. I don't think that any rational person in this day and age denies that. Of course I recognize the success Mr. Hernandez Juarez has had in directing his trade union and the success he has had achieved for his union. It is very impressive what successes have been achieved also on behalf of other union leaders throughout the world. This dramatic representation of the Sprint case really motivates us, really fills us with emotion, feelings of empathy towards workers. I can think of other dramatic and emotional cases that have been shown on the big screen. For example, the case of Norma Rae, there's a great movie by Depardeau called "Termination" about the workers in Europe and simply the kind of epilogue I would like to talk about in the last part of my presentation.

I want to make the following reflection. Social justice traditionally tends to create a balance between opposed rights or opposing rights. Also traditionally workers rights have been considered weaker or more vulnerable than the rights of its counterpart or the complement which is the employer, the management. However, in recent years, this situation has tended to revert and has created situations in which workers rights exceed sometimes those of the management, recognizing that these circumstances, of course, vary from one region to the other or from one industrial sector to the other. For example, we could say that labor rights of the agricultural worker in California are weaker than those of the steelworker in Pittsburgh or that the labor rights of the workers, for example, in the state Chiapas are weaker than those of the workers in general in the State of California.

Therefore, we need to be very cautious in studying case by case and not making generalizations and saying that the workers rights are in general more vulnerable or weaker.

I believe that workers have the right to unionize if they so wish, but I also defend the right of the employer to close a plant if its not cost efficient or if it's strategically convenient for his business. I also believe that this forum in a certain way cannot really resolve the controversy that is being presented here. It is a controversy that the United States through its legitimately represented agencies and through its laws that have also been approved in this country have resolved.

Unfortunately in this case, for the employer -- of course I believe that the workers have the right to unionize, that is something that the forum needs to recognize, but also the forum needs to recognize that the employer has the right to create successful businesses.

I believe that by recognizing these rights this forum will have fulfilled its commitment with specific cases with such as Sprint's case in this country or Sony which will soon be admitted to Mr. Otero and maybe some other people of this forum in Monterrey, my hometown, will be resolved according to the laws of each country and according to the circumstances of each specific case.

Thank you very much and I know that I will not get a lot of applause.

MR. OTERO: Thank you, Mr. Tapia.

Your presentation gives the chair the opportunity to wrap up this morning's session by underscoring two or three points that I think are germane.

The intent of this forum was never to put in question the process of law that has been pursued through the National Labor Relations Board. That is a process that speaks for itself. A decision was made by the judge. The Union is appealing. The general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board is appealing that process. It's there on its own.

The reason we are here today is because we have a duty under the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation to examine the question of labor law and its application in the three NAFTA countries. Mexico, the United States, and Canada pay the greatest of importance to the principle of freedom of association and the right to strike and we want to underscore by this forum and by a number of other activities how sacred we, the three countries, the three governments, believe that such freedom is.

We had hoped through this forum, and we still have this afternoon plus a number of other activities, to try to examine in more detail and an in-depth analysis of the impact that the sudden closure of plants and factories have on that very principle of freedom of association.

Naturally the forum is generated as a result of the case that was filed with the Mexico NAO pursuant to the Sprint case and that's what gave rise to this forum, but we hope that in the process of this discussion, as well as in the study that we have commissioned through the Labor Secretariat in Dallas that we will be able to examine cases other than just the case of Sprint, other instances in the United States, in Mexico and in Canada where similar sudden closures may have an impact on that very basic freedom which is embodied in Convention 98 of the ILO.

And so it is in that context that we hope that these discussions as well as the study of the Labor Secretariat will enable us to examine in more detail what impact the incidents have on that freedom of association which is one of the main components of our labor agreement on cooperation between the three countries.

So I thank you, Mr. Tapia, for giving me the opportunity to make this clarification just before we break for lunch.

Let me suggest that we will have a little longer period of recess than we had anticipated. We will not come back here until 2:00 this afternoon, but I will ask you if you will kindly be here before 2:00 so that we can proceed on time precisely at 2:00.

This forum is now recessed for lunch. Thank you very much.

(Whereupon, the forum was recessed, to be reconvened this same day, Tuesday, February 27, 1996, at 2:00 p.m.)

   AFTERNOON SESSION

2:00 p.m.

MR. OTERO: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

Muy buenos tardes a todos, senoras y senores.

I ask that you take your seats, as we are about to begin the second session of this public forum today.

I would like to announce that in view of the fact that we have received word that some of the registered speakers are unable to come to present the testimony, we are going to have a little more time this afternoon than I had anticipated and I also have a special request from the interpreters.

This morning, some of the speakers because of the pressure of having to give their speech in 10 minutes, they spoke too rapidly, thereby making it difficult for the interpreters to properly translate and enunciate every word.

So this afternoon, I am taking the liberty as chair to expand the period of each speaker from 10 to 12 minutes, given the fact that we have some vacancies in the speaker slots.

But I will ask the speakers if you already have a 10-minute speech, try to give it in 12 minutes, all right? Let us not be running far afield, but you can speak slower so that you can allow the interpreters to do their job very well.

And I would like to say parenthetically that I have been listening to the speakers from time to time and the interpreters are doing an excellent job of accurately and properly doing both English to Spanish.

(Applause.)

Very well. The program this afternoon calls for the first speaker to be the Honorable Mayor of the City of San Francisco, Mr. Willie Brown, but we have not heard whether he is on his way or not, so we are not going to prolong the meeting any longer.

We do know, however, that Congressman Tom Lantos, who is from this district is unable to be here, but we are very fortunate that Mr. Lantos has asked one of his key collaborators in the Congress, Mr. John Zucker, who is a member of his staff, he is a legislative assistant, and he is here with us to deliver a presentation on behalf of Congressman Lantos.

So I would like to ask Mr. Zucker to come forward to the podium.

Please proceed.

MR. ZUCKER: Thank you, Mr. Otero.

Thank you to the Bureau of International Labor Affairs. And I have timed this speech, it's only about eight minutes.

My name is John Zucker. I am a legislative aide to Congressman Tom Lantos in his Washington office.

Congressman Lantos wishes to express his profound gratitude for being invited to participate in this important public forum and his sincerest regrets at not being able to attend. As you may know, the Congress is now back in session and several important votes were scheduled for today. He was therefore compelled to return to Washington. Nevertheless, he feels very strongly about the purpose and importance of this forum, and so he asked me to deliver his address to you exactly as he wrote it, so I will begin.

STATEMENT OF CONGRESSMAN TOM LANTOS: I would first like to commend you for holding this hearing which is the first of its kind under the terms of the NAFTA agreement on a case involving violations of workers rights in the United States.

As you know, I was strongly opposed to NAFTA, but it is now the law of the land and we must live by its provisions. I will be the first one to make sure that the spirit and intent of the principles contained in NAFTA's side agreement on labor cooperation are given maximum attention in the enforcement of NAFTA's provisions.

The North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation states plainly that every effort will be made to guarantee to all workers the right of freedom of association and the right to union representation. The Sprint workers who are the subject of today's hearing were clearly denied these rights.

Sprint's shutdown of La Conexion Familiar demonstrated that reality falls well short of the goals of the NAFTA agreement on labor cooperation. This is the case of a company which willfully violated our labor law and which was cited with more than 50 violations. It is also a case of human pain and suffering.

As you know, on July 14, 1994, 235 individuals were thrown out of work by Sprint. Many of these workers live in my congressional district. Today we heard and will hear from several of these workers who have told us in their own words the turmoil they have had to endure. I have heard their pain from the beginning of this tragic situation and I have observed firsthand the wrenching consequences of Sprint's behavior on these workers' lives.

In a split second, these workers were unemployed. Their families were in disarray and the promise of the American dream was destroyed.

"How could this happen?" they asked, "After all, this is America where laws as supposed to mean what they say and are supposed to be enforced to the letter."

When Sprint abruptly shut it's La Conexion Familiar facility one week before an organizing election, we had a classic case of U.S. labor law not adequately protecting American workers. Two hundred thirty-five workers lost their jobs, victims of an illegal campaign against workers rights.

More than a year and a half after losing their jobs, the workers at La Conexion Familiar are still struggling and awaiting justice. Out of the 177 workers who were scheduled to vote in the union election, fewer than half are working. The rest are still out of work.

The National Labor Relations Board moved as quickly as current law permitted, but in spite of their efforts it took over four months until the case was heard and well over a year until a decision was issued and the process is far from over. As of today, this case is 593 days old and it will take many more months before the Board issues a final decision, even as they expedite the case.

It will take years before all parties exhaust available appeals. In the meantime, the workers are the ones paying the price for the inability of our system to provide prompt and effective remedies for this obvious and egregious violation of the law.

The Sprint case is not atypical. The latest data available from the NLRB show that by the end of 1994 the median number of days it took for an unfair labor practice case to reach a decision by an Administrative Law Judge was 360 days and the median number of days to reach a Board decision was 601 days. What this means is that half of all these cases took even longer.

The average age of cases pending before the Board as of September 30, 1994 was 758 days. After that, years of appeals through the courts and we have to recognize that our current system of labor law is in fact an easy and inexpensive tool for companies to use to break the law rather than abide by it.

It is simply unjust for workers who have lost their jobs as a result of unfair labor practices by their employers to have to wait so long for a remedy. Our labor laws and their enforcement mechanisms must be strengthened.

Under these circumstances, I admire the courage of the workers at La Conexion Familiar. They stepped up to the plate and took a swing at their rights. They did not know that the game was rigged against them and that Sprint was throwing a spitball.

What would you do if you were a worker in a plant or a facility such as La Conexion Familiar and you were told by your supervisor or your manager, look, don't even try to organize because we'll shut the plant down and it will take you four to five years to prove that the company did anything wrong? In the meantime, you'll be out of work.

Under these circumstances, would anyone try to organize? There's no question that the average worker would say no.

This is want's so admirable about the Sprint workers at La Conexion Familiar. In spite of all the threats, the coercion and the spying, they still tried. They demonstrated that the importance of organizing a union is not from a bygone era but that organizing a union is more relevant than ever.

It is our system of labor law and its enforcement which must be brought into the 21st century. This is why I am testifying today in support of Sprint workers and all workers who want to organize. I will continue to do everything I can to seek a remedy in this case and will continue to push for labor law reform which provides prompt and effective penalties against labor law violators.

Workers must feel secure in their belief that they can exercise their right to org