The colonel has been removed from the factory. The locks have been taken off the bathroom doors, and the women don't have to sign up to go to the bathroom. The company has put in proper water coolers. Women aren't required to present pregnancy tests, nor are they forced to work overtime. Local factories producing under contract for big US retailers like the GAP or Eddie Bauer have set deadlines they have to meet to fulfill their orders.
Profit margins are very low.
For the maquiladora owners to survive under this system, they try to keep the pace of production up. They keep a small workforce and demand a lot of overtime when orders are heavy. The next great challenge is to see to it that all the companies are feeling the same pressure to improve conditions. If the GAP begins to source from other maquilas in El Salvador, the monitoring groups hopes to be able to negotiate the right to monitor conditions in those factories. A major issue of debate at the San Salvador conference was the relationship between the role of unions and monitoring groups.