UUSC Programs: Economic Justice

The Center for the Promotion and Defense of Human and Labor Rights (CEPRODEHL) in Mérida, Yucatán, México is a human and labor rights organization in the southeastern Mexican state of Yucatán. CEPRODEHL promotes travel throughout local rural communities to educate and train maquila workers in skills which help them defend their human rights as laborers. The organization also works to affect policy changes with regard to workers’ rights, occupational health, and the prevention of workplace violence against women.

This is a time of economic transition in Mexico. The clothing industry has been deeply affected by the end of the Multi-Fiber Agreement in 2005 (which removed per-country quotas for textile exports, enabling countries like China to take over the market). As a result, many factories are closing their doors, pushed by the race to the bottom to move across the globe to find the cheapest labor.

CEPRODEHL has served as an important watchdog for the Mexican maquila industry, reporting on unjust factory closings, providing legal assistance and support for those workers who have lost their jobs, and tracking the waning economy and consequential increase in poverty, exploitation, and joblessness in Yucatán.

In 2006-2007, CEPRODEHL and UUSC are working together to:

Extend CEPRODEHL’s outreach and training of maquila workers to the rural regions of Yucatán, focusing on the promotion and investigation of occupational health as an effective outreach issue.

Create a regional network of maquila workers, organizers, and promoters by establishing small base groups to train larger groups of workers in each municipality.

Develop a system of online communication that will help support and extend connection among the growing network of laborers and their allies in the region.

Participate in and facilitate national and international networking of maquila workers and activists to build solidarity and create a larger base from which policies that affect the informal economy/garment industry can be addressed.