Labour rights organizations call for action on murder of Guatemalan union leader

Jul 2, 2024 —

Photo: Nic McPhee Flickr

On June 15, 2024, Guatemalan union leader Anastacio Tzib Caal was murdered in Villa Canales, outside of Guatemala City. With a long trajectory of promoting worker rights in the garment industry, Mr. Tzib Caal had recently been elected general secretary of the SITRATEXPIA II union at SAE-A Trading Corporation’s Texpia II factory. The factory produces clothing for several well-known international brands, including Carhartt, Target and Walmart. Other major brands, including Gap and Polo Ralph Lauren, are major business partners of SAE-A in Guatemala and internationally.

MSN joins our Guatemalan and international labour rights allies in expressing our condolences to and solidarity with Tzib Caal’s family and union brothers and sisters. We join with the union, the Guatemala Network of Maquila Unions and wider community in calling for a thorough and transparent investigation of the murder.

Shortly after the murder, the Minister of Labour of the newly elected Guatemalan government publicly called for an “exhaustive, transparent and expeditious investigation.” The Special Prosecutor’s Office for Crimes against Trade Unionists, a special unit within the Public Prosecutor’s Office, is proceeding with the investigation, to which the union is a co-complainant. The company is supporting the investigation.

Since its founding in early 2022, SITRATEXPIA II union leaders and members have been the focus of violent attacks, including one incident in which an anti-union mob wielding metal pipes blocked workers from entering the factory, gathered everyone in the factory courtyard, and demanded to see the union leaders, while chanting “lynch them, kill them.”

Following the 2022 attacks, the union and management agreed on a remediation plan and set up an ongoing union-management dialogue table, and a new factory manager was brought in. Unfortunately, there were no negative consequences for the worker ‘mob leaders’, some of whom continue working at the factory.

In March 2024, death threats against union leaders began to appear on bathroom walls. The union reported these to factory management, who took some steps to address the issue, such as removing the messages from the bathrooms and regularly reading a statement in support of freedom of association to all factory workers.

In the two weeks prior to Tzib Caal’s murder, new messages calling for the killing of union leaders appeared, and factory management once again removed them. On June 12, the union met with a representative of the Solidarity Center and agreed to present a complaint to the Special Prosecutors Office the following Monday, June 17. Anastacio Tzib Caal was murdered on Saturday, June 14.

After the murder, the union, together with the Network of Maquila Unions of Guatemala (RSM-GT), urged factory management and the parent company SAE-A Trading Corporation to join the demand for a thorough investigation, which they have done, and to ensure the physical safety and free exercise of rights for workers and union members. The Solidarity Center is providing direct support to SITRATEXPA II in their ongoing negotiations with SAE-A management.

The Solidarity Center, Worker Rights Consortium and MSN are calling on the brand buyers to support the union’s proposed labour-management plan to counter the perception that union activism is synonymous with death. We are also calling on the brands to support a transparent investigation in order to ensure those responsible for the murder are brought to justice, to redouble their commitments to freedom of association and collective bargaining with all their Guatemalan suppliers, and to maintain their commitments to creating good jobs in Guatemala in partnership with SAE-A Trading.

For more information:

Area(s) of Work: 
Freedom of Association