4 Gildan Union Leaders Die in Honduras Shooting

Four garment union leaders were among 13 people killed in the Honduran manufacturing city of Choloma on Saturday after heavily armed men fired into a pool hall during a birthday celebration.

All four of them—​​Xiomara Cocas, Delmer Garcia, Lesther Almendarez and José Rufino Ortiz—belonged to Sindicato de Trabajadores de Gildan San Miguel, which represents workers at Gildan Activewear’s San Miguel plant. Cocas was the union’s president. Her son, Eduardo Melendez, also died in the shooting.

More from Sourcing Journal

• Teamsters President: UPS Worker Strike 'Inevitable'

• Boss Denies Factory 'Hired Goons' Who Beat Bangladeshi Union Leader to Death

• What's Going on With Amazon's Last-Mile Supply Chain?

President Xiomara Castro on Sunday described the incident as a “brutal and ruthless terrorist attack.” She declared a 15-day curfew in Choloma from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m., effective immediately, as well as in nearby San Pedro Sula, effective July 4.

She blamed the deaths on hired killers “trained and directed by drug lords” in the northern Sula Valley, adding that “multiple operations, raids, captures and checkpoints are initiated.” The government has offered a reward of 800,000 Lempiras ($32,325) to identify and capture the assailants.

Police investigating the shooting said there was a possibility that the incident was connected to the gang-related slaughter of 46 inmates at a women’s prison in Tamara, far north of Choloma. Some of the victims were killed by gunfire, and others were hacked to death by machetes. Still more with doused with a flammable liquid, locked in their cells and set alight.

Choloma is said to be the home turf of Barrio 18, the organization believed to be responsible for the massacre.

“We do not rule out these crimes could be some sort of revenge for what happened in the women’s prison,” said national police commissioner Miguel Pérez Suazo, noting that authorities have detained one suspect and are on the hunt for others. But “we also do not rule out that it could have been some type of revenge by criminals against civilians,” he added.

Buoyed by the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement, and a post-Covid desire to increase nearshore production, Honduras has become the beneficiary of significant textile and apparel investment, with some $1 billion manifesting in 2022 alone.

But the Fair Labor Association, the multistakeholder organization whose roster includes Gildan, told its members on Wednesday that the country’s recent escalation of violence warranted additional measures to ensure the safety of workers and union representatives.

The shooting took place just as Gildan announced the closure of its San Miguel factory. Sindicato de Trabajadores de Gildan San Miguel, according to Solidarity Center, an international workers’ rights organization, was in initial talks with management about the move, which will leave 2,700 workers unemployed. Gildan, unlike most brands, owns many of its own factories, which are concentrated in Central America and the Caribbean.

The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), the world’s largest trade union federation, suggested that the deaths could be linked to “false rumors” that the union was responsible for the plant’s shuttering. But it also noted that Choloma is a “flashpoint” for hostilities against efforts by the government to rein in organized crime, including suspending parts of its constitution in December to do so.

“There must be a full and credible investigation to bring the perpetrators of this atrocity to justice without delay,” said Luc Triangle, acting general secretary of ITUC, which rates Hondruas a 5 in its Global Rights Index, meaning “no guarantee of rights.” “Honduras has an appalling record of killings, intimidation and violence against workers and their unions, with hundreds of murders remaining unsolved over several years.”

The Solidarity Center urged Gildan, which did not respond to a request for comment, to recognize the impact of the murders on the union and its general workforce and to “take stronger measures to ensure the safety and security of Gildan San Miguel workers as they return to work following this tragic event.”

“We urge the government of Honduras to immediately carry out a thorough investigation that manages to identify and bring to justice the perpetrators of this heinous act, and to take all necessary measures to ensure that unions and their representatives can act without intimidation or violence in their role as elected representatives of the workers,” wrote Atle Høie, secretary general of IndustriALL Global Union, a Geneva-based global union federation, in a letter to President Castro.

“We hope that these murders do not go unpunished, that the relatives of the victims receive the necessary compensation, and that the government of Honduras achieves absolute respect for human rights and fundamental trade union rights, as reflected in Convention 87 on the freedom of the protection of the right of indication and Convention 98 on the right of unionization and collective bargaining of the International Labour Organization,” he added.

Other union organizations expressed their sorrow over the loss of lives, which occurred just a day before the murder of Bangladeshi campaigner Shahidul Islam. The father of two had been trying to negotiate the payment of outstanding wages and Eid-ul-Azha bonuses on behalf of workers at Prince Jacquard Sweater in the Satai area of Gazipur when he was beaten to death.

“We join Honduran civil society in denouncing this violence and stand with you in this difficult time,” the Worker Rights Consortium, a Washington, D.C. watchdog group, wrote on Facebook. “This shocking act of violence is indescribably tragic.”

Click here to read the full article.