CIMCAW: Advancing Social Dialogue and a Culture of Compliance in Central America

This document discusses the approaches and achievements of the Continuous Improvement in the Central American Workplace (CIMCAW) project. Its goal is to improve social dialogue among Central American apparel sector stakeholders - government, union, and the private sector. More specifically, the project sought to convene historically antagonistic actors on a regular basis to discuss concrete issues related to project implementation on the national level, create an enabling environment for capacity building at the factory level, and strengthen the culture of compliance around labour standards.

In order to bridge historically entrenched labour and management divides and to come together to discuss labour rights in a productive manner, the project held a series of meetings, initially bilaterally with the different sectors and then together. The outcome of this process was the formation of multi-stakeholder Consultative Committees in Nicaragua, Honduras, and the Dominican Republic that included the local private sector/industry association, unions, and the government. These Consultative Committees took ownership of the project and were active participants in guiding the adaptation of the CIMCAW model to the local context and in its implementation on the local level. As part of the process, they also "engendered rich social dialogue around labor standards and other issues of interest to the sector."

"At a national level these committees worked with the CIMCAW NGO [non-governmental organisation] Local Partners to develop a tailored training program that responded to the needs and context of each country. The Consultative Committees encouraged the, at times, skeptical local factories to participate in CIMCAW’s unique model of labor rights training, which brings together workers and managers to discuss conditions in their factory and jointly propose solutions."

Monthly meetings and consensus style decision-making were mechanisms for building partnership and trust to address not only the compliance challenge, but also to facilitate the ability of stakeholders to constructively address other serious challenges. Two regional meetings were held in El Salvador with the three committees and stakeholders from Guatemala and El Salvador in order, in part, to motivate those two countries to enter the consultative process of social dialogue. As stated here, "CIMCAW provided the space for these actors and organizations that didn’t previously have an opportunity to engage each other in a cordial and constructive climate and work together to solve an issue of common interest: improving working conditions and competitiveness of the apparel sector."