Honduras’ government fined a U.S.-based firm for illegally hiring more than 300 Hondurans, Chileans, and Nicaraguans to serve as mercenaries in Iraq. “The act of being a mercenary is a form of violating labor rights in whatever country” said a Public Safety Department spokesman against the Honduran subsidiary of Your Solutions, which pays a minimum monthly salary of $990 to trainees that allegedly work as private security guards.
The hiring of Latin Americans by private firms to serve as security guards in Iraq has become an increasingly common practice, as we reported in August, but so have the complaints alleging illegal activity by recruiters.
Links- International Herald Tribune, The Latin Americanist (blog)
Image- photosfromiraq.revolutionweb.org (Honduran trainees of Your Solutions about to board a bus on their way to the airport and work in Iraq)
Tags- Iraq, Latin America, armed conflict
5 comments:
Brilliant. In a country where a worker earns $1 a day the government has essentially acted like a nanny-state and kept the people in poverty by refusing Honduran men an option to earn what to them is a incredible amount of money.
Mind you that all those dollars they earn will be brought back home and injected into the economy.
I'm afraid your missing the point. The problem is not that the government is preventing Honduran men from working abroad and gaining better wages. In fact the government encourages it since remittances from abroad help feed the Honduran economy.
The problem becomes when a private company tries to play against the rules and hire Hondurans (and others from latin America, for that matter) illegally. There is a notable difference between hiring someone as a "private security guard" versus being forced to work as a "mercenary." Thus, deceitful employment practices should be avoided and denounced if they arise.
I think you fail to realize what American contractors are doing in Iraq. They are there to provide security for VIP's and high value targets, not to engage in direct action.
However, even if they were tasked to perform in a direct action operation (i.e. raids, engagements, etc.), how many of these men are complaining? How many have refused to work in these roles? How many know this might be going on and are still willing to do the work?
The fact remains that the government is still stepping-in to "protect" these men, yet may instead be restricting them to $250 a day to stand in front of a two-bit casino with a shotgun (as I have seen in Comayagua), when they could be willing to accept the danger to earn far more for himself and his family?
I find it wrong to propose that a private company can't do with volunteers what the Honduran government can force a man to do at 1/4 the price?
It comes down to the right of a man to determine the course of his own life without a government hefe's approval.
Actually, I understand that American contractors are providing a valuable service in Iraq when they are hiring private security guards that are not working as mercenaries. It would be irresponsible to impugn all private contractors based on the unfair labor practices of 1 or 2 firms.
Once again, the problem is when a company like the one cited in this article breaks the law and engages in wrong and deceitful business practices. Certainly there are other private security firms working to hire Hondurans and they follow the law. In short, a few bad apples should not spoil the barrel, but governments ought to have the right to step in an make applesauce out of the bad apples. (Silly analogy, I know).
By the way, one of the links I included in this post cites a few news stories where some Latin Americans hired to do security in Iraq complained and had taken legal action against some firms. (That occurred a few months ago and unfortunately I don't know what resulted from that).
So, the government can define what is right and what is wrong by legislating a law against it? I disagree.
This is a civil contract dispute, in my opinion, the Honduran government nor the UN has the right to get involved.
Your links fail to provide justification as to the claims of the employees (though admittedly, I cannot read the Spanish links), as to what they were promised and what they recieved and how it violated their contracts.
Now it may be entirely possible that the employer did breach the contract. However, my point is that the Honduran government does not have the moral right to tell Honduran men they cannot willingly serve in Iraq for a private contractor.
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