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Export processing zones (EPZs) are special industrial areas, often in developing countries, designed to attract foreign companies and capital investment. EPZs offer these companies various incentives including exemptions from some local laws—often labor and environmental regulations—and waivers of import/export duties, tax subsidies, and government-subsidized infrastructure. Labor leaders have found that many companies in EPZs take advantage of special low-wage and anti-union policies to exploit and abuse workers. The problems emerging in EPZs range from sexual harassment and illegal layoffs to political oppression and unsafe working conditions. In March, 2003, the AFL-CIO’s American Center for International Labor Solidarity (Solidarity Center) launched a program to identify and disseminate best practices in organizing as a strategy for addressing exploitation of workers in export-oriented industries. The Solidarity Center contracted with the UC Berkeley Labor Center to document organizing successes in EPZs around the world, and use those practices to produce training materials for rank-and-file union activists, organizers and NGO workers. The Labor Center sent researchers to nine countries to study how local labor leaders have tackled—and in some cases solved—problems with EPZs. Those countries are Cambodia, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Lesotho, Mexico, the Philippines, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Swaziland. During the conference in Thailand, labor leaders discussed some of the case studies from these countries, pilot-tested training materials developed by the Labor Center, and shared their own organizing experiences with each other. "We got workers from different continents, who actually have diverse experiences but fundamentally share the same goal of organizing and empowering the workforce," said Katie Quan, chair of the Labor Center, who also heads the EPZ research project. This assessment is backed up by Tos Anonuevo, a conference participant from the Philippines: "The mix of participants was excellent, country-wise, union-wise, and experience-wise. I learned that workers around the world face the same problems at the workplace, and the employers and the governments practically ‘deodorize’ the situation for the glory of the market and opportunities of globalization." Due to the success of the project thus far, the Solidarity Center has contracted
with the Labor Center to continue its research and training of workers in EPZs. This spring,
the Labor Center will test the toolkit in Bangledesh and the Dominican Republic.
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