Reports of a Covid-19 outbreak in a Guatemalan garment factory last week have sent shockwaves across the region, fuelling calls for tougher action to ensure garment workers are provided with sufficient personal protective equipment (PPE).
Alejandro Ceballos, who leads apparel and textile industry association Vestex (Asociación de la industria del Vestuario y Textiles), says the 200 infected workers in the 900-strong facility were placed in quarantine while the site remains shut, possibly for up to three months.
How well do you really know your competitors?
Access the most comprehensive Company Profiles on the market, powered by GlobalData. Save hours of research. Gain competitive edge.
Thank you!
Your download email will arrive shortly
Not ready to buy yet? Download a free sample
We are confident about the unique quality of our Company Profiles. However, we want you to make the most beneficial decision for your business, so we offer a free sample that you can download by submitting the below form
By GlobalDataCeballos says the KP Textil site, located in the town of San Miguel Petapa – now a big focal point of Guatemala’s growing coronavirus outbreak – allowed several workers to return after they were found to be sick with the virus. As a result, they infected up to 200 operators.
Government records show the owners to be Korean citizen Kyoung Lee, Woo Lee and Dominican Republic citizen Rolando Reyes Crispin. The site makes garments for US-based brands and was also producing 70,000 masks a day for US customers.
Production before health
State health director Carlos Guerra Velasquez claimed the owners showed “little cooperation” to help health authorities inspect the site, quoted them as saying they had “no time to evaluate workers because it stops production,” and that workers with Covid-19 symptoms that later tested positive were observed working at the site.
For the company’s part, Reyes Crispin told Emisoras Unidas radio that the facility followed orders including distancing of 1.5m between sewers. Dismissing other reports that it failed to pay benefits and owed wages, he said workers are affiliated to the Institute of Social Security (IGSS.)
Reyes Crispin added the first infected worker arrived with fever on 8 May and was sent to the IGSS. The worker tested positive on 11 May, when all workers and health authorities were advised and authorities were allowed to carry inspections. The executive said the site decided to close and was not forced to shutter, contradicting government officials.
Whatever happened, the alleged violations came after Guatemala in late March ordered all manufacturers to provide PPE to workers and engage in other risk-prevention measures such as temperature tests or physical distancing.
The company’s apparent failure to meet those provisions has rattled the community and the country, where a recent surge in cases prompted it to declare a state of emergency.
On Friday (29 May), the government said it will likely extend lockdowns until late June. The country now has over 4,000 cases and 80 deaths.
Cases accelerating in Nicaragua
Cases are also accelerating in Nicaragua. According to a senior trades union official requesting anonymity, three garment workers recently became sick and are now under quarantine.
There have been 759 cases and 35 deaths in the country, which recently closed borders amid a collapsing health system.
The three workers are said to be employed by companies in Tipitapa, Nicaragua’s largest free-trade zones area.
Pedro Gonzalez, who leads the Central Sandinista de Trabajadores (CST) union in Nicaragua, says maquilas have enforced health and safety laws.
“We signed a [Covid-19] health and prevention protocol on 24 March under which the entire free-trade zones including 87 textile and apparel factories and 80,000 workers agreed to meet the provisions.
“They have given workers 8 to 9 masks and if they arrive without them, they get penalised. Screenings are done to ensure they don’t have a temperature of more than 37.5 degrees. We conduct regular inspections to check.”
Worker shortages?
In Mexico, workers’ health oversight has been lax in Latin America’s second economy, which started to lift its lockdown on 1 June.
On 18 May, the state ordered all manufacturers to follow strict health and hygiene protocols – a measure officials say should help cut factory and community spread in Latin America’s second economy where 9,000 have perished from Covid-19 and over 81,000 have become infected.
If worker sickness increases, will factories run out of workers in time for recovering orders?
Consultant Arturo Rodriguez says that’s unlikely. “Even if many factories shut, US demand for clothing is not going to suddenly accelerate. There are 38m unemployed so people are not going to suddenly buy three pairs of jeans for $300 each,” he notes.
A bigger problem stems from the fact that re-opening factories will now have to meet stricter physical distancing protocols, crippling their production capacity.
“I have a client in Tijuana who is having an issue with that right now, so instead of having 300 workers at its site, it will now have 150 and may have to give work to another factory.”
Ceballos agrees. “Our case curve would have come down by the time orders start resuming,” he says. But he concedes the industry will “see challenges from a scaled return to work in which shifts will have to split to enable half of the factory to produce one day and the other half another day and provide the required distance.”
