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Sweatshop
Workers Force
Agreement in
Haiti
by Marty Goodman / April 2005 issue of
Socialist Action
An unprecedented agreement has sweatshop organizers and workers in
Haiti cautiously optimistic that a milestone has been reached. The deal was
struck with the owners of two factories operated by the Grupo M (GM)
company in Haiti’s notorious “Free Trade Zone” (FTZ), which employs about
1200 workers. The organization Batay Ouvriye (“Workers’ Fight” in Kreyol)
says the accord signed on Feb. 5, following a year-long struggle, upholds
the right of the SOCOWA union to organize freely within the FTZ.
The deal also secured the reinstatement of 150 workers and five
union organizers fired last June for participating in a strike. The
factories, one of which makes jeans for Levi-Strauss and the other T-shirts
for Sara-Lee, said shrinking orders from U.S. companies were responsible—claims
proven to be lies. The fired workers
are now back on the job. The
protocol, which is not a contract, requires negotiating a contract with
SOCOWA by June [SOCOWA
means “The Ouanaminthe Codevi Labor Union.”
Ouanaminthe is the border region of Haiti next to the Dominican
Republic where the FTZ is located. The CODEVI company, owned by Grupo M,
runs the FTZ.] Batay Ouvriye (BO) warns that enforcing the agreement with
Grupo M, a Dominican Republic-based company with a history of violence, will
be the hardest part. BO is urging its members to stay mobilized. BO sees
the
agreement as having national impact on ongoing BO campaigns in
several cities, and particularly in Port au Prince assembly plants. BO also
organizes
agricultural workers and peasants.
When the FTZ opened in 2003, workers were told they would make about
US$35 a week. Workers received four months’ “training,” during which they
earned about $8.60 a week, below the minimum wage. GM soon
increased the quota from 1000 jeans a day per line to 1500-2000 per
day, but workers say they don’t receive their bonuses for exceeding the
quota. Typically, the workday is 11 hours or longer, often six days a week.
Workers receive a base salary of about $12.34 per week, about 1/3 of
what bosses promised!
GM employs Dominican Republic (DR) army soldiers in uniform, who
police the factory and beat workers for union activities. Before an
announced strike last June, workers were beaten, including pregnant
women. But the workers were not
intimidated; all 1200 walked off the job!
GM supervision also subjects women workers to sexual abuse. In 2004,
they received a series of unknown vaccinations, as did the Haitian men.
Four pregnant women who received injections lost their babies. But Dominican
bosses were not vaccinated.
The Dominican GM bosses reflect the long history of racism in their
country. In 1937, 35,000 Haitians in the DR were slaughtered in just one
day. Today,
Haitian sugar-cane cutters in the DR work under conditions described
as “modern day slavery.”
The FTZ was subsidized by a $20 million World Bank loan to GM as
part of a deal signed by former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide,
once a
self-described socialist. Aristide promoted the FTZ as a
job-creating bonanza, not brutal exploitation. The 200-acre FTZ site displaced
farmers, who protested losing their fertile land.
As background, Aristide returned to power in 1994 after a U.S.-led UN
intervention had displaced a CIA-backed military junta. In return, he
pledged to
follow a World Bank plan, which included foreign assembly sweatshops,
privatizing public utilities, cutting social services, and lowering tariffs
on U.S.
goods.
The U.S. firm Levi-Strauss says it adheres to “social responsibility
guidelines” that “respect workers’ rights to join organizations of their
choice.” The World Bank has similar guidelines on funding. Union and human
rights advocates, however, have presented GM’s record to Levi-Strauss and
World Bank
representatives—to no avail.
The struggle at GM took place under another U.S.-led UN occupation,
which accompanied Aristide’s exile in February 2004 as CIA-linked Haitian
ex-army and paramilitary thugs encircled Port au Prince.
The UN occupation was supported by both major U.S. parties,
including members of the Congressional Black Caucus. Aristide begged for
the intervention, just as he had in 1994. During the presidential campaign
the
Democratic Party leadership downplayed Bush’s criminal Haiti
policies with racist arrogance.
Currently, the UN occupation is led by Brazilian troops. Brazilian
Workers Party President “Lula” da Silva betrayed the international working
class by
violating Haiti’s sovereignty. Socialists say, “U.S., UN, and
Brazilian troops: Out of Haiti now!”
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