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Our Producers
Maquiladora Dignidad y Justicia
Piedras Negras, MexicoThe Project
Maquiladora Dignidad y Justicia (Dignity and Justice Assembly Shop) is a start up clothing production business, co-sponsored by North Country Fair Trade and the Comite Fronterizo de Obrer@as, (Border Committee of Workers), a Mexican non-profit corporation.
The business is being established to provide employment to sewers who lost their jobs in the border city of Piedras Negras, Mexico when large assembly plants operated by Levi’s and Dickies closed and moved their plants to locations where wages were lower. Dignidad y Justicia is a pilot project established to create a model for worker management and ownership of production businesses operated by dismissed employees.
Our Sponsor
Comite Fronterizo de Obrer@s, (CFO) has been a successful organizer and advocate for workers rights in assembly plants for the past 24 years, in seven Mexican cities along the U.S. Mexican border. It has taken the struggle for workers rights to corporate shareholder meetings in the United States, to the offices of corporate executives where maquila workers have expressed their grievances in person, and to the press both in Mexico and the United States.
In 2002, the CFO supported the creation of an independent democratic union in an Alcoa assembly plant in Piedras Negras with 1,600 employees and last year backed employees who won a settlement of over $100,000 in court when 14 workers were fired by Delphi Delco in Reynosa.
While the CFO has succeeded in increasing wages, supporting union organizing, and protecting workers rights in the Mexican court system; it has limited ability to respond to plant closings except to secure severance payments for workers.
Dignidad y Justicia is a first step in a strategy to create of a network of worker owned and managed shops that provide employment to CFO members who have lost their jobs because of activism to demand their rights, or because the plants they work at have been closed.
Our Marketing Partner
The CFO and the employee group from Dignidad y Justicia have formed a partnership with North Country Fair Trade to provide a market in the United States for clothing production, and to acquire financing and technical assistance in the business start-up process.
North Country Fair Trade is a 30% owner of Dignidad y Justicia based on its agreement to provide the production equipment needed by the workshop, and NCFT’s financial investment of working capital for start-up costs. The employee group is a 40% owner of the business initially based on their investment of sweat equity. The CFO is a 30% owner based on its sponsorship and administrative support for the business.
Our Products
Maquiladora Dignidad y Justicia expects to begin production of conventional cotton T-shirts and grocery tote bags in June of 2004 to be distributed by North Country Fair Trade.
Plans are in place for initial production of sweat shirts by Fall of 2004. Our goal is to produce school uniforms after we have established our production process and we look forward to the day when we are ready to produce Fair Trade blue jeans under the label Justicia!
Our Expansion Strategy
After the initial worker group is established as a successful business, it will incorporate independently, while maintaining an ownership stake in Dignidad y Justicia. The initial start-up investment will be repaid into a revolving investment pool administered by the CFO for the business.
Dignidad y Justicia will continue to function as an export entity, contracting for production with the worker owned business; as a provider of technical assistance, and as a source of financing. But the focus of the business will turn to the creation of new employee owned workshops in Piedras Negras, Ciudad Acuna or Reynosa where the CFO also has a strong membership base. Production may complement the clothing production of workshop #1 or may produce other consumer goods.
Comite Fronterizo de Obrer@as Website: www.cfomaquiladoras.org
Link to our other partner Comamnuvi
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