There is no written contract. Workers can be fired arbitrarily and without notice. Many maquilas fire a worker before she becomes entitled to vacation time or the extra month's salary due in December. There is thus a constant movement from one employer to another. Few survive the unhealthy working conditions, poor ventilation, lint-heavy air and the harassment, verbal abuse, strip searches and sexual harassment for more than six or seven years.
Doctors say most common illnesses are allergies, abortions, depression and tuberculosis.
They report pronounced bronchial hyperactivity and asthma from the cloth dust. Newspapers in Honduras in June 1997 headlined a collective hysteria in a maquila in Choloma when a hundred women fainted. While the employers claimed that it was simply a trick by the workers to get more pay, doctors insisted it was caused by poor ventilation coupled with undernourishment. It said 40 percent of employees were physically punished by pushing, beatings, blows on the head, whipping and being made to wait under a burning sun. Fighting trade unions Governments make almost no effort to inspect for violations.