ABSTRACT
Unions face concerted employer resistance to their very existence. Despite a Labor Code ban on “any class of reprisals against workers with the purpose of impeding” the exercise of legally-guaranteed rights such as that of unionization, workers face a range of employer tactics designed to frustrate or punish organizing activity. Under Guatemalan law an employer may cease operations and permanently shut down a factory without notice to workers, unless a judicial emplazamiento order is in effect, in which case no alterations of existing contracts are allowed. Workers are vulnerable to illegal employer actions for which only partial compensation is available and only through costly and time-consuming legal battle. Labor Code provisions restrict most unionizing efforts to individual plants which employ at least 20 workers. Employers may thus limit organizing drives by dividing large, multi-faceted enterprises into several smaller legal units.
