My Visit to Nicaragua
The following report is an overview of the union meetings I attended in Nicaragua. The purpose of my trip was to find out how Nicaraguan trade unions were engaging with and developing young people in light of Unison’s funding in this area.
Saturday 23rd January
After arriving the night before I travelled with Julian from the NSC, my host and translator for the trip, to visit a Co-operative Pharmacy in Sandino City, one of the poorer barrios, owned and operated by the CTCP (informal workers union) where they sell basic medical products to members at a reduced rate.
Although the building was small and basic it enabled medicines to reach people who otherwise would have to live without. The pharmacy is wholly staffed by members on a voluntary basis.
The CTCP union does not have a direct equivalent in the UK although it does have some links with Unison through the funding of young member development throughout the country. Given that CTCP members are their own bosses and have no fixed workplace in many ways they can be difficult to organise. However informal workers who do become unionised are in a position to adopt a more interactive and community based approach to organising. They can have a visible presence that unions in the UK no longer seem to have within their local communities.
The union organises various activities in an attempt to establish their presence and engage with people in the community; ranging from cultural events, dances and food fairs through to the various types of training offered to people once they become members.
Their activities evoked stories of the important roles unions used to have in many communities throughout Britain. Although I am too young to have witnessed these days for myself I have certainly seen the first hands effects of life in northern communities bereft of a visible trade union presence; the lack of interaction between people and the reduction in the messages and ideals that trade unionism offers reaching out beyond the workplace.
Could we return to the days where trade unions once again take on a more prominent role within their local communities? Given the relatively larger size and wealth of unions in the UK then there is certainly the potential for this to happen. This would especially make sense in more deprived hollowed out communities like Burnley, Stoke, Salford etc where the public sector is the only major employer and Unison has a big presence in the area. The raft of problems that these communities face and the linked and rising presence of the BNP could be remedied in part by an increased trade union presence in everyday life.
Monday 25th January
After spending the Sunday comatose in bed from the travel and heat Monday started with a meeting with the General Secretary of UNE and members of its youth committee. In comparison to Unison’s youth forum where the positions extend to chair and vice chair, each member is allocated a specific role such as Women & Gender Issues Officer, Training and Communication Officer and International Relations Officer.
In a country where 54% of the population are under 30 years of age 30% of UNE’s membership are young members, and they claimed to be the best union for having young members in senior positions. (All the unions I went on to meet had very impressive levels of youth involvement however the vast majority of senior positions where held by middle aged men).
It has been a recent requirement that every ‘branch’ within UNE must have a young member ‘General Secretary’ (equivalent to the Young Members Officer position we have).
The particular focus of their young member work within UNE is to promote organisation and training amongst the membership with an emphasis on creating more labour rights advocates. To this end 44 young members were trained as labour advocates in 2009.
The first training session that all young members are given consists of an explanation of the role of unions, statues and information on the wider international union movement.
Subsequent young member training focuses on leadership, self-esteem, increasing awareness about Nicaraguan society and the consequences and causes of unemployment and poverty.
Each ‘branch’ organises their own training with their own resources; with their own training teams existing alongside national training teams.
The most popular training course that they have is ‘Youth Empowerment’ which explains the importance of being a union member and covers how they can participate in the union and wider society.
They also offer courses that offer young members practical assistance with regards their career. They have negotiated scholarships for accountancy, numeracy and English courses etc. For instance UNE’s Managua branch secures 30 scholarships a year where they pay 50% of the fees each time.
The committee said that they’d be happy to share details of their young member training courses with Unison, which I believe would be very useful given the lack of training we have that is targeted at young members.
They also expressed that they would be very interested in working together with young members throughout Unison.
In addition to the training they give they went on to explain what other activities they are involved in. At their 2009 Youth Congress they decided that they would send out brigades to rural areas in order to undertake educational work.
They create interest from young people through music, parties and sport in addition to social awareness issues. Volleyball, football and baseball leagues, parties and cultural events are open to all young people whereas training is only open to them if they become a member.
At every young member meeting, the first topic discussed is the latest news on trade unions throughout Nicaragua to help give them a broader view of what is happening across the whole of the movement.
The range of work that they are involved in and their enthusiasm, considering they have to manage on extremely meagre resources, was extremely heartening and impressive and certainly indicated that Unison’s funding was being put to good use.
Monday PM
In the afternoon we went to meet with young members from Managua’s local government, the ‘Leonel Rugama’ Committee. Out of a workforce of 4,500 people of whom only 1,500 are union members it was impressive to see that the committee alone consisted of 15 young members, an excellent level of young member involvement, all of whom were again allocated specific roles such as training coordinator, international officer etc.
Once again their training programme also involved focusing on aiding the careers of young people, courses such as benefit calculation, accountancy, along with scholarship opportunities which helps attract people into union membership.
During 2009 they held three training workshops that were each attended by 40-50 participants and one national workshop attended by one hundred people. Over the course of 4 months this one branch has had 200 young members go through some form of training.
We were then given a presentation outlining their mission & specific objectives (need to get presentation sent across).
After this we went along to meet the Youth Secretary of the Sandinista Party (who had been given the role of the director of recreation services for Managua’s Local Government) to talk about the role of young people in the party as the Sandinistas have the second highest level of young members of any party in Central America after Cuba.
Following this we visited the garbage truck depot, the single largest local government workplace with 450 workers, 350 of whom were UNE members, where we witnessed the inadequate protection for their roles, unsuitable masks. It was interesting to see that an Italian public sector trade union had actually sent garbage trucks across for the workers in Managua to use.
(Possible workplace link between Unison binmen and Managua binmen?)
Tuesday AM
We started the day by meeting with the General Secretary of the informal workers union, Adrian Martinez of the CTCP, and members of their youth committee. The meeting began with news that street workers had been evicted by local government workers (currently under Sandinista control) at various traffic lights, despite a previous understanding that they’d be left alone to try and earn a living.
The meeting began with an explanation of who the CTCP are and what they hope to achieve. CTCP members consist of money exchangers, taxi drivers, lottery ticket sellers, bus stop workers, street market dealers etc. Informal workers in Nicaragua make up 65% of the workforce and produce 60% of the GNP. Given their contribution they want to be recognised and given stable and decent work and included in the countries national budget. They are also calling for access to housing programs for their members.
The union came into being after a senior police officer was murdered at a traffic light in June 2002. Street workers were accused of the crime and 364 were rounded up and jailed. The efforts made to release them and increase the strength of street workers resulted in the union being born as the message spread that only through organising would they be able to improve their lot.
They offer access to training, school and university, social security, credit and mutual pharmacies.
The strategic objective of the union is to formalise their work and promote quality jobs that will end poverty. Not just material poverty but also intellectual poverty. The emphasis on tackling intellectual poverty was very interesting to note.
Their strategies to achieve this include advocacy and lobbying of government. They aim to secure permanent social mobilisation, social and economic development, and the reduction of inequality within the country.
They now have 45,000 members, of whom 48% are women, a great many of whom are single mothers.
Despite the growth in their numbers they still face numerous obstacles. They are excluded from public policy, they face high levels of harassment and eviction and there is a lack of proper infrastructure for their work.
They have prioritised strengthening their institutional capacity, gaining more training for their members so that they in turn can be empowered to change the system, improving working conditions and fighting for a Nicaraguan state which provides housing and social security.
They are working towards informal workers one day having access to benefits and becoming ‘official economic stakeholders’
They are pleased that the current Sandinista government has gone about getting more young people enrolled at school but many children still have to work instead, as not working will result in them not eating. In order to counter this, the union is providing evening and weekend classes to help members gain access to education.
This evening and weekend training is provided by the FNT which is Nicaragua’s equivalent of our TUC. 300 CTCP workers are currently taking these courses whilst 138 students are taking primary school classes. Programmes are also in operation to help people finish high school.
Although many children work on the street, they must be 16 before they can join the union, as to allow them would indicate a tolerance of child labour.
Education is undoubtedly the key to developing young members and they need assistance in this regard. Many young members demand access to education and technical training so they can develop personally and help the country.
Following this informative meeting we then went to visit La Chureca, Managua’s infamous city dump. This harrowing place is populated by around 200 families who try to make a living foraging through the rubbish and make around $1-2 a day. They have inadequate housing, contaminated drinking water and food and illness from the air quality and working through the rubbish is rife. Drug addiction is also a problem in addition to prostitution, including child prostitution.
The CTCP are trying to get their members and other people who live there to improve their own lot. A new power factory that will generate electricity from the garbage gas has just been begun being built. However as things currently stand the people of La Chureca currently won’t have the skills to get any jobs that it will create. Therefore they are working to get people to attend the training courses. We can only hope that they are successful in order to try and break this terrible way of life.
Tuesday PM
We were taken along with FNT (their TUC) young members to visit to Pumice Stone Mine in Masaya. A local indigenous miner who worked there with his family explained the process. The work is back-breaking and fraught with risks, such as working at heights of up to sixty feet and climbing down sheer rock faces with no safety equipment and the risks of landslides. 16 miners in the area (Artesanales) have died as a result of workplace accidents in recent years. The FNT recently did a study on the area and found 8 children working at the mines, 3 of whom were illiterate, with the youngest being only 9 years old.
Workers there suffer from recurrent skin infections and chronic respiratory problems from the dust. And the children do not develop as physically as they should do.
They also have to deal with poverty pay. One sack load of pumice stones that they have to lug out of the mines will only fetch them one dollar from a middleman who will sometimes only deliver payment once they themselves have sold it on. This can result in delays of up to two months. The stones will be used in the cosmetics industry or to help make products like stone-washed jeans.
On an environmental level land that could be used for food production is wasted whilst a great deal of damage is done to the natural flora and fauna.
Following the visit to the mines we briefly visited the town of Catarina where the FNT gave a presentation thanking UNISON for all the funding they have given and presented me with a request for some more, so that I could pass it on.
Wednesday AM
At Managua’s public university I met with the General Secretaries of FEPDES-ATD (the lecturers union) and FESITUN (the union for university administration workers), Freddy Franco and Maritza Espinales along with their young members.
95,000 students are currently enrolled at public universities across the country, where they pay a nominal $10 a term. At the university I visited alone they are looking to increase enrolment to 33,000 students next year from the current level of 26,000.
The roles of the two university unions are clearly defined so they don’t poach each other’s members for instance and consequently work very closely together.
At Managua’s main public university there are 2,500 full time staff and 2,000 part time staff. FEPDES only represent full time workers but they stated that part time workers benefit from any improvement they gain for their members. They have benefitted from a new labour code that means all universities must provide social benefits to lecturers. However within the private universities their impact is limited due to the hostile attitudes of the owners.
I was given a presentation outlining how they get young members involved in the union. They offer training on
i) the history of the union/struggle
ii) the organisation and structure of the union
iii) the role of the union
iv) planning for the future
v) a basic course on labour rights and the international dimension of trade unionism (ILO etc)
FEPDES youth work
These are the general courses that they have on offer (controlled by the FNT) but they also have courses chosen and defined by their own members. They study the country’s constitution, political ideas, international trade agreements, specific labour laws, gender and youth, the history of the country’s society and as well as that of the university (there has been an historic struggle to ensure that 6% of the country’s budget is spent on higher education). The final decisions are made by the executive committee’s of the union after talking to young members. They also have the aim to get 50% of the courses attended by women.
They have sport leagues for young university workers to encourage involvement and interaction. Beach volleyball tournaments, tournaments between other Central American universities. They organised a cultural festival in 2009 and next year’s focus will be on multiculturalism and national identity.
FEPDES focus on youth work because many lecturers are nearing the end of their careers and therefore they need to secure both the future of the profession and the union.
FESITUN youth work
They offer courses on labour rights, gender equality and professional training to help their members move up the career ladder. They have a focus on helping staff at the bottom, such as cleaners, progress further. They give their members the chance to enrol at universities as part of their collective bargaining agreement in addition to offering members the ability to finish high school at the FNT technical training school on Sundays.
They also have their own sport events and also an annual celebration of a young member killed in the struggle to have 6% of the budget spent on universities. They also have their own radio program aimed at young people and produce different e-media (see their website); manuals concerning sexual harassment and on how to achieve collective bargaining
FESITUN has 400 young members at this particular public university, a density of 100%. However they too have problems at getting young people involved citing issues which affect us in the UK, such as consumerism and individualism. But they stressed that the training system has been key to getting the youth involved.
I asked about their views on the FSLN and all 12 young members around the table were party members. They stated they had autonomy but many of their goals are the same and they channel energy into helping them. They gave me an example of differences such as when the FNT recently called for a higher minimum wage than the FSLN supported, and over the level of income at which people began to pay tax. They stated that all their leaders in the union are chosen independently by the members not the FSLN. Since the FSLN came into power negotiations have been preferred over strikes. The only protests that have been organised have been ones to support negotiations but these have been quite rare.
“Solidarity is the tenderness of the peoples”
Wednesday PM
I was then taken to Nicaragua’s Supreme Court to meet members of the judicial workers union. There are 5,500 judicial workers in the country of whom 4,100 are in the union, spread out amongst 16 branches. 500 workers are judges, 1,500 admin workers and the rest are made up of porters, cleaners, statisticians etc. 60% of the staff are under 30 which is a consequence of the country’s young demographic.
Within the Supreme Court itself 8 of the 16 judges are left aligned with the other half to the right. Nicaragua is apparently renowned throughout Central America for the quality of its legal services.
They have strong youth, health and safety, women’s, labour rights and national committees. The young members I met said they find it hard to attract other young people as resources are scant, but like every other group of young members I met they are very driven.
They too have organised training with the help of the FNT, encompassing technical, public speaking and media training. They also have their own sports teams to attract the young. They offered to share information on training courses and support Unison campaigns.
After leaving the Supreme Court we returned to the office of the FNT where Gustavo Porres, the head of the FNT, was holding his weekly meeting with the General Secretaries of the 9 main unions. In attendance at this particular meeting was the FSLN Housing Minister, which gives an indication of how close the union’s ties are to the FSLN.
He thanked Unison (and its forerunners NALGO and NUPE) for all their support and solidarity since the revolution and hoped that it would continue long into the future.
Thursday AM
I met with the CST-JBE’s General Secretary Miguel and their Youth Secretary Damaris Mesci. The CST-JBE is mostly private sector based taking in free trade zones, fishing, mining, food production, construction and energy companies.
They started off by giving me an overview of their union. The union has a bi annual youth assembly with a positive level of representation on all their committees. The factory we later visited had a branch dominated by young workers but this is hardly surprising given the makeup of the workforce.
The union’s main youth committee has reps for cultural recreation and education. The education reps main area of work is to try and get grants to enable young members to further their level of schooling. The JST-CBE has a statute whereby their executive committee must have a gender and youth balance (which the FNT currently does not have) which follows a big push a year ago to try and secure more youth participation and a fairer gender balance. They also elect all their officials whereas the FNT has most positions filled by appointment.
The union currently has no links with private sector unions in the UK (this is something that could be explored)
I was then given a briefing about the free trade zone factories in the country.
The free trade zone factory (maquila) we were soon to visit was American owned where they made jeans and trousers for Levi, Dockers and Nautica. This factory actually allowed and recognised the union and regularly met with them in contrast to many other maquilas which refuse to allow them to operate.
Companies operating in the Free Trade Zone are given a 10 year tax break as an incentive to operate in the country. However after this 10 year period is up they simply change their name and register as a new company and start another 10 year tax free period. This often involves bringing in a completely new workforce. The factory we visited was just about to reach the end of its 10 year period but whilst they were going to change their name they pledged that they would not be discarding their workforce.
All maquilas have low wages, poor working conditions and many have no collective bargaining agreements.
However the Sandinista government has brokered a new agreement between themselves, the factory owners and the unions whereby an 8-10% wage increase for the workforce will occur year on year. The agreement also states that recreation areas for the workers will be created, cheaper food will be available for the workers, credit and saving co-operatives would be established and 1,000 social houses would be built for maquila workers.
This agreement (which I have a copy of) will come into effect later this year and has yet to be tested.
There are 75,000 workers in Maquilas spread out amongst 80 factories in 30 industrial parks in the country. 70% of the workers are under 30 years of ages with between 50-60% being women.
80% of the maquilas are textile based with the remaining ones being call centres or concerning tobacco, shoe or agricultural production.
Of the 80 maquilas only 12 accept trade union presence.
At the factory we were given a tour by the HR manager who told us that workers earned around £70 a month and just 36 pence an hour. They work from 7am-5pm with breaks of 10 minutes for breakfast and 25 minutes for lunch. If they buy lunch from the factory canteen it will cost them a quarter of their daily wage. They can leave the factory to buy lunch but of course this eats into their short break. Workers are searched by security guards on entry and exit from the factory and are set high production targets. Out of the 1,900 workers at the factory 560 were union members. The workforce was mostly female who were more likely to be too scared to join the union. Conditions were consistently hot, humid and unpleasant.
We met members of the union there which has been functioning for 4 years and out of the membership they had 9 activists. Their best technique to attract new members has been via education grants where they can attend school on Saturdays. It was very sobering to learn that 90% of the workforce have not yet finished high school...
Furthermore despite their lack of money to afford basic kit for participants they also have active sports teams to further encourage involvement in the union.
Thursday PM
After the maquila we then went across to Managua’s General Hospital (which had been donated by East Germany after the revolution) to sit in on a FETSALUD/Sandinista Youth meeting. Out of 781 staff at the hospital 387 are in the union. Under neoliberal rule 45% of the hospital was privatised however it has now been reversed by the Sandinistas and now only the security guards are private employees.
Members of FETSALUD gave us a presentation on some of their youth work in District 6 & 7 of Managua. They wanted to organise all youth workers in the health centres of these districts, providing training to enable their greater participation. They aim to organise 1,280 workers by 2010-11 and have currently reached 380 young people. They offer cultural activities, dance groups, poetry, football, handball and softball in addition to training.
They are looking to educate the young in these areas on a range of topics; the rights they have within the country’s constitution, greater awareness of the causes of the country’s social conditions, reproductive health, economics and politics. The youth requested these topics themselves choosing for instance the course of HIV & STDs because few knew about the issues. In this regard they gave the impression of being generally more asserted and empowered in comparison to young members in the UK. For example in one barrio where there is no roads and paving, they got together and sorted it out themselves.
They have also taken courses that are linked to career advancement such as accountancy and computer programming.
Costs are expensive though and their resources are limited. A two day course run by the union for 35 participants will cost approximately $1,100 with 6 seminars in a year costing around $7,200.
The General Secretary of the FETSALUD branch at the hospital (the Karl Marx branch) then spoke of her pride to be part of a union which was looking to further youth involvement and thanked Unison for helping in this regard. The FNT youth committee, which has driven young member development across the union movement in Nicaragua, was hard work to establish but now that they have got going they are reaping dividends and are in a better position to train and advance the poor youth.
I was then presented with a certificate recognising my support and solidarity.
Friday AM
We were invited along to Managua’s Dermatological Hospital to meet more members of FETSALUD. Within this particular hospital 85 of the 102 staff members are in the union with a high level of participation in union activities. Mariela the youth coordinator from the union gave a presentation on her work within PSI (Public Services International) as the vice-coordinator for their Central American youth committee. Nicaragua is well advanced in respect of youth participation compared to other Central American countries.
A recent PSI campaign has been launched to promote youth involvement in unions as they see it as key to achieving social justice and for assuring the future of the union. They want to ensure youth committees and structure exist in all unions across Central America. They also have another campaign “The Youth Role” which focuses on youth empowerment and fighting youth discrimination. This action plan has been adopted by the FNT and has involved media training for their members.
We were then given a tour by the director of the hospital to get an idea of the difficulties they have to face. There is currently a nurse shortage as the country’s training school was closed for a number of years by the neoliberal government (it has just been re-opened). They currently have enough doctors in the country and to illustrate this have actually started to reduce the number of students they send to Cuba to be trained as doctors.
The hospital used to house 100 lepers in a small cluster of houses in the days when the illness meant expulsion from their communities for the victim but now only 12 people live there.
Improvements have come about since 2006 despite the ongoing problems such as shortages and having to work with basic equipment. The hospital used to have a public/private split during the neoliberal era which led to most doctors working in the private part in order to make more money. This no longer happens, all surgery and diagnosis is now free. Priority is given to people from the countryside, to pregnant women, children and to people with HIV. Waiting time for surgery has dropped; for instance mole removal used to take a year whereas the waiting time is now only a month. The hospital has been refurbished in parts with the training centre being improved.
Patients no longer nominally have to pay the hospital for their own medicine as they did under the neoliberal governments, however due to the shortages they will often have to pay for their own drugs as the pharmacy was extremely small and depleted, lacking even the most basic medicines like ibuprofen. The hospital sees 450 people a day and they accept people from all across the country. Patients here don’t need a reference in order to be accepted which some other hospitals insist on. This can lead to a very bureaucratic and time consuming process.
It was apparent that equipment in British hospitals that is discarded for being too outdated would still be far advanced than what the Nicaraguans hospitals have to work with. It was suggested that a possible act of practical solidarity would be to try and get unions from British hospitals to get old equipment donated.
It would also be a good idea, if at all possible, to get basic medicines shipped across (see pharmacy pictures) such as skin creams in order to boost their pharmacy stock.
Monday AM
An expected visit to see UNE young members at the country’s main tax office was transformed into a visit to a political rally/cultural celebration in honour of my visit which as well as being very humbling gave a real indication of the pride and vibrancy of their national traditions. Traditional songs and dances from staff at the tax office were accompanied with speeches by veterans of the country’s civil war and from the head of the tax centre.
It was a rather surreal end to my round of meetings with young members in Nicaragua but also served to illustrate the use of their culture within their union activities.
Throughout my trip I was struck with the high levels of enthusiasm and commitment shown by young trade unionists over there. I found young members to be more assertive within their union structure and noted that they spent more time with young people from other unions rather than being overly focused on their own particular sector. It also appeared that unions have greater societal focus over there, rather than more a narrower workplace one, and had thrown their collective weight behind the Sandinista movement. Indeed it was sometimes hard to see where the unions started and where the Sandinista party ended.
I came away with a firm belief that Unison’s money was being well spent over there and that in return for funding of young member work in Nicaragua, that Unison can learn many lessons from them in order to better develop our own young members. To this end I am writing a separate paper focusing in more detail on the training they specifically offer to young members and how it might serve Unison in our own work.
Nicaragua facts for those not familiar with it
Nicaragua has a population of just over 5 and a half million people; of whom 80% of live in poverty.
2.1 million people are available to actively work but only 1.2 million have jobs.
Out of the £6bn GDP £1bn comes from remittances.
Local Government workers have an average wage of $300 per month which only meets 60% of their basic needs (cost of a basket of average goods and services).
It was interesting to note that the vast majority of the young members were FSLN (Sandinista party) members. The FSLN currently has an emphasis on youth participation within Nicaraguan society which obviously assists the unions. This stands as a marked contrast to the 16 years of neoliberal rule where young people were encouraged to focus on consumerism and were afraid to join unions.
Undoubtedly Nicaragua’s society is far more politicised which leads to more young people being receptive to the ideas of trade unions, but they have come through incredibly tough neoliberal times and have come through the other side and manage their impressive work with meagre resources.
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