Mrs. Sonja Bata
BATA
Toronto, CANADA

Mrs. Bata:

I, Oscar Olivera, write to you today as an employee of the Manaco company since March 12, 1979. In 2003, I was deprived of my salaries as a reprisal for a series of denouncements made against the Manaco administration, at the time under the leadership of Mr. Arturo Blanco.

You may remember me, as I, together with several other workers, sent a letter regarding the situation. Those denouncements, wholly valid, must have then been recognized by the company because we later learned that BATA had chosen to let Mr. Blanco go.

Today, 21 workers from different factories all over Bolivia are on a hunger strike. One of them is Alejandro Saravia, a 55 year-old man who has spent the last 28 of those working for Manaco, and who was recently fired in what we see as an unjust and illegal move.

This dismissal has shed light on various things taking place within the factory. They include the following:

• New worker contracts in which workers are led to present documents falsifying information like, for example, a home address in order for the company to avoid paying a worker’s transport costs.
• These contracts also oblige workers to RELINQUISH THEIR RIGHTS established over 60 yeas ago, by agreement between the company and the workers’ union.
• Labor discrimination in which only one sector—the administration (who are not part of the union)—is given overtime pay consisting of double pay per extra hour worked, as prescribed by Bolivian law. In contrast, factory workers who are part of the union and who already earn much lower salaries are not given this overtime pay.
• Labor harassment consisting of police inspection of workers’ lockers as if they were
delinquents. This is absolutely illegal.
• The photographing of workers who receive information from our organization’s leadership, workers being obliged to hand over information about these acts and then brought in by their bosses. This is, in practice, a strategy to threaten the workers.
• It is evident that some of the company representatives are meddling in union activities. This is not only prohibited by Bolivian law, but also by ILO conventions.

With our hunger strike, we 10 Manaco employees and former employees are saying that these behaviors damage BATA’s image, contradict the philosophy of Mr. Tomas Bata and show disregard for the fact that, in the past, relationships between workers and management were woven jointly in order to bring about well-being for our families. For a long time now, beginning with the leadership of Arturo Blanco, these working conditions have considerably deteriorated.

For this reason, we invite someone to come listen to us directly. We extend an invitation for a senior BATA executive to come to Cochabamba, Bolivia to see all this for themselves, so that you all know that we are not lying and that those hurting this transnational’s image are those who are in charge of Manaco.

Sincerely,

Oscar Olivera Foronda