Evening star., 1950-01-15

international air commerce, has
been carried out and will remain
so until proven unsafe and un-
sound.
TomIinson
Continued From Page CID
could talk openly on the radio.
Newspapers could print what they
wanted and editors could say what
they pleased. Freedom, impris-
oned for so long, became, in effect,
license, and. of course, consider
ably abused.
Foreigners, and especially large
American-owned business firms,
became targets for criticism and
condemnation, because they were
large and obvious. Anybody who
had dealt with the dictator was
suspect. 1t was easy for the un-
initiated to think that no large.
foreign business organization could
have prospered without the con-
nivance of the ousted ruler and
his henchmen.
Wrote Labor Code
Although nobody in the country
had had much experience in writ
ing legislation of any kind, espe-
cially laws governing economics,
business and labor, they drew up
most elaborate labor code, about
the most advanced in all Latin
America. AS first applied it af-
fected all alike. natives and for
| eigners.
1t provided for minimum wages,
different for each type of business,
one rate for industrial workers,
another for employees of COM
mercial firms and still another
for those engaged in agriculture.
Business firms were placed in
various categories, according to
the number of employees working
for them, as well as according to
their activities. For instance, a
coffee plantation which employs
only 499 workers is an agricultural
enterprise and therefore pays
lower wages than a banana plan
tation which employs sol persons,
which is placed in the category of
an industrial firm. In other words,
any firm employing as many as
5000 people, whether it grows
coffee, cattle, corn or bananas, is
an industrial firm. Curiously
enough a railroad company is
considered a commercial firm and
therefore pays still another rate
Of wages.
The code fixed hours of work,
provided for overtime, all types
Of social insurance and elaborate
labor courts. From time to time
innovations are demanded. To-
day the minimum wage of a
common laborer in a city ranges
from 81 to $1.75 a day with time
and a half for overtime. II, ac-
cording to our standards, this
seems very low. it should be meas
ured in terms of previous wages
and conditions within the country,
especially in the rural districts.
Wages on many of the coffee
f1ncas are still as low at Is cents
a day and seldom over so cents.
This applies to the great govern
ment-owned coffee plantations,
which were taken over from the
Germans during the war.
All employees are paid for seven
days week, but work only six.
There are 10 official holidays in
a year on which no one works,
but for which every one is paid.
Each gets is days vacation a
year with full pay. The average
businessman figures that there are
104 days a year for which en-
ployes get paid. but during which
they do not work. In addition,
the worker is entitled to sick
leave or disqualification with pay
for as long as three months. If
he is discharged, he receives one
months salary for each year he
has worked.
Reasons for Concern
But none of these things seem
as serious to Guatemalan busi-
nessmen and many others as the
fact that the extremists in the
labor movement dominate prac-
tically all Of the unions. One of
the most prominent, perhaps the
most influential today Of all these
labor czars, is Manuel Pinto
Usaga, Secretary General of the
Federation Sindical Guatemala,
or the Esq. According to news
papermen In Guatemala City,
Usaga has the run of government
Offices and departments. He
writes some Of the leading ar
ticles in the official government
newspapers, as well as for the Of
fetal labor press. He is one Of
the bitterest among all the critics
of foreign business and enter
prise.
There is no way of proving
whether such men as Pinto Usage,
Guerra Borges or Manuel Cutter
rez are Communists. but they have
continually associated themselves
with Communist movements.
A