Multi‐fiber agreement 15 years later: Degraded working conditions in the Honduran Garment Maquiladora Industry †

Abstract

Fifteen years after the end of the Multi-Fiber Agreement (2005) that deregulated global apparel trade, the effects on exportled underdeveloped economies have been devastating. This article shows that the increase in global capitalist competition due to the conquest of the most dynamic apparel markets has led to a deepening of precarious working conditions in the garment and textile manufacturing industry in Central America. Using the specific case of Honduras, I show that, since the mid-2000s, there have been significant transformations in the labor processes and in wage policies that have put the working class against the wall, reducing wages as well as intensifying and prolonging working days. As a result, the population of garment maquiladora workers is experiencing a generalized social emergency scenario, marked by deep and chronic damages to their physical and mental health caused by working conditions that remain unrectified and ignored by the state and corporate policies.