Socialist Action /February 2002
Interview with a Union Organizer in
Haiti
The following interview is with Paul Philome, a member of Batay Ouvriye,
which is organizing unions in Haiti. Batay Ouvriye, which means "worker's
fight" in Haitian Creole, has been active in five of the country's
nine departments, particularly in U.S. and other foreign-owned sweatshops.
Marty Goodman conducted the interview via email. Batay Ouvriye can
be contacted at batayouvriye@hotmail.com.
Socialist Action: Can you describe the conditions faced
by workers in Haiti today?
Philome: The general weakness of the bourgeoisie, with
regard to both imperialist and precapitalist forces in the country, makes
it extremely ferocious toward the working class, seeing it as merely a means
to extract the maximum profits. To do this the local bourgeoisie leans on
the imperialists who, as bandleaders, manipulate and organize the forces
of repression, still in the hands of the paramilitary Ton-tons Macoutes.
In order to have a social formation totally at its beck and call, imperialism,
with the U.S. at its head, has worked to wipe out local production, principally
agriculture and handicraft.
If we add to this the archaism of the rural pre-capitalist system and
its ever more ferocious exploitation of the peasants, we find a shattered
economy with millions of uprooted, destroyed workers and semi-proletarians
who have little value in the work market.
The U.S. and Haitian rulers realize this when they declare openly that
"Haiti's comparative advantage is its 'low-cost' labor"!
Salaries are not much more than $1.20 a day, which extreme inflation,
300 percent in the last five years, has rendered progressively lower. The
Haitian Labor code requires that salaries be raised each time the cost of
living rises by 10 percent, a legal requirement the Aristide regimes have
ignored.
This salary of misery permits the greedy elite to take full advantage
of this system of domination. They refuse workers any form of the historical
social gains long acquired by the working class internationally and established
by national legislation yet constantly violated by the bosses. By denying
sick leave, pensions, severance pay, and so on, the Haitian and foreign
capitalists can expect to receive super-profits in Haiti.
When workers decide to organize to fight the exploiters and reclaim a
few of their rights, repression falls upon them directly. Indeed, anti-union
repression is very ferocious under the Aristide government. The least association
with unions or any protests are followed by pure and simple firing.
The state always completely upholds the bosses. This is evident at the
Ministry of Social Affairs and in the Justice Department. Because of their
arrogance the bosses know they can exploit workers at will.
SA: What has been the response to Batay Ouvriye's (BO)
organizing efforts?
Philome: Batay Ouvriye's work has passed to a new level.
Given the limits of union organization and the unions' difficulties in broadening
their action, we have formed the Batay Ouvriye May First Union Federation
(Entèsendikal Premye Me Batay Ouvriye, ESPM-BO), in order to organize
the more advanced workers. This not only serves to coordinate the struggles,
but also directly attacks the capitalist state. In Haiti, battles are openly
political, even when they don't bear that name.
At the same time, our organizing extends to the neighborhoods, seeking
to convey a platform of struggle to the poorest sectors. In rural areas,
with the exploited peasantry, various forms of mobilization have been undertaken,
in alliance with urban and rural wage workers.
Finally, we seek out solidarity nationally and internationally. Various
movements support us by protesting the multinational corporations directly
within their countries.
SA: The U.S. led a United Nations military occupation in
1994, which reinstalled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Have conditions
improved for workers under the occupation?
Philome: With the return of Aristide and the new occupation,
a new framework has come to exist.
It is true that during the coup years, the situation was much harsher
in one way. It forced workers at the time to adopt different organizational
forms, generally clandestine. Mass mobilization was absolutely impossible
and organizational tasks quite difficult.
However, things have become harder now precisely because an illusion
has been created with all this talk of a "return to democracy."
Many workers believed that things were going to change and surfaced to claim
their rights. Then, repression fell upon them like a guillotine and that
is when workers came to realize that this "democracy" which was
being talked about was for the bourgeoisie alone. For the working class,
laborers, and masses in general, there was dictatorship.
SA: BO has been building international solidarity with
workers at the Guacimal and the Madeline processing plants in Haiti. Workers
there process orange extract for the luxury liqueur Remy Cointreau, earning,
on average, an incredible $1.50 a day. Can you describe this important struggle?
Philome: With the development of the various Batay Ouvriye
unions' struggles in the north of the country, the Union of Guacimal St.
Raphael came into existence as well. This plantation is one of oranges where,
each season, the workers pick them from the trees, put them in crates, and
then send them in trucks to Cap-Haitien.
The oranges are processed there (at the Guacimal factory, where a union
has also been set up), and the oil extracted. This is sent to France, where
the liqueur called Cointreau is produced.
In 1958, Cointreau bought 1100 acres of land from peasants in the north
at a very low cost. In exchange, they promised peasants that they would
always be the field workers and receive fair salaries and good working conditions.
During the break between seasons, peasants were promised the use of irrigated
lands. The owners promised a complete irrigation system, schools, health
centers and roads.
Of course, none of all of these promises were ever kept! Worse, workers
never had decent working conditions. Workers must pick oranges without ladders
or any form of protection, carry crates by foot to trucks, fix the crates
themselves, etc.
Worker's salaries today are even lower than the minimum wage of $1.50
(U.S.) per day. Their wages were never adjusted to the rising cost of living
in violation of the Haitian Labor Code. Guacimal workers never received
the slightest gains most other workers take for granted, such as sick leave,
severance pay, paid vacations, pensions, and medical care as required by
law.
Cointreau orange cutters in Madeline, Cap-Haitien, work from dawn to
nightfall during peak season, often over 12 hours a day, and have even been
forbidden in the past from returning home until all arrivals had been finished.
Because of the industry's seasonal production cycle, employees work long,
hard hours in one period, only to be laid off for long stretches later the
same year. In response, plantation and factory workers set up their own
union to demand their rights. But that was without counting on the reaction
of the bosses-Haitian and foreign.
The case of the plantation workers is the most dramatic. Since the union
was formed, the company has refused to meet with workers' delegations and
has refused to recognize the very existence of the union, despite its legal
affidavit. All of which was to avoid satisfying even the slightest of the
workers' claims.
At this point we mobilized for a strike and made our demands. The bosses
answered with unprecedented violence. Haitian management attacked the workers
at their meeting, wounding them with machetes. And when they saw that the
mobilization remained firmer than ever, they got the mayor of the town of
St. Raphael who, under escort of the police and paramilitary thugs, illegally
arrested four members of the union executive committee.
On the day of the trial, over 200 workers came from Guacimal, Cap Haitien,
and St. Michel-a neighboring village also organized by Batay Ouvriye. The
mobilization forced the authorities to release the workers despite the fact
that the judge was bribed and ready to fine the workers and keep them in
jail.
The bosses then declared that they would stop the peasants from working
the land during the break between seasons. This decision meant the death
of over 400 families. The workers decided to occupy the land and work it
anyway which is where the situation is today-a stalemate.
Throughout, the union has maintained its mobilization. At one point a
delegation of Cointreau workers tried to meet with President Aristide but
were stopped by the Minister of Social Affairs, who remained loyal to the
capitalist class she serves.
Meanwhile, the struggle was taken to the international arena. The most
active solidarity groups are New York-based Batay Ouvriye Solidarity Network,
Haiti Support Group in England, and Réseau Solidarité, Peuples
Solidaires in France. Pressure has been put on management through letter-writing
campaigns and pickets at Cointreau offices.
A Batay Ouvriye delegate met with a Cointreau authority in France, who
said that Cointreau was open to recognizing the union and immediate negotiations
but that the Haitian management continued to refuse any contact.
In January 2002, Cointreau management wrote to Batay Ouvriye informing
it of their decision to cease purchasing from Guacimal S.A. They state in
this letter that they are doing this after having communicated many times
with that management to improve worker conditions, but that they have no
control on what actually goes on with Guacimal. They also say they feel
all the more comfortable with the decision that Guacimal has many other
buyers for their oils, so that this won't signify layoffs.
The unions, however, are dubious: they have pointed out that Cointreau
was not only a major buyer from Guacimal but also a stockholder and that,
as such, for instance, it was able in 2001 to force Guacimal to eliminate
long-holding debts workers had been paying. They thus feel this is but another
maneuver by Cointreau along with the Guacimal company, destined to fool
international supporters of this struggle.
In spite of the convergence of forces of the national and international
bourgeoisie, landlords, and the Lavalas authorities, the Guacimal workers-with
support from progressives around the world-remain mobilized. They know that
mobilization is the only weapon that will succeed against the exploiting
classes. They continue this battle without rest.
SOME BACKGROUND ON HAITI
Haiti today remains one of the most unequal and impoverished nations.
Life expectancy is just 53 and the average yearly income is $460. Merely
1% owns 44% of Haiti's wealth and 60% of the best land.
In 1990 a charismatic priest, Father Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a self-described
socialist, won 67.5 percent of the vote for president. Aristide headed the
populist but middle-class-led movement known as the "Lavalas,"
which means "the torrential flood" in Haitian Creole.
However, Aristide's radical image, promoted by the middle-class U.S.
left, proved shallow. Beginning with his first term, Aristide was compromised
with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), whose objectives
in Haiti were derisively nicknamed the "American Plan." The plan
emphasizes an economy based on assembly industry and large-scale agribusiness.
The plan consigned Haiti to be "the Taiwan of the Caribbean,"
as an U.S. official once put it.
Aristide was overthrown on Sept. 30, 1991, in a bloody military coup
led by the U.S.-trained General Raoul Cedras, long on the CIA's payroll.
Despite his vast following, Aristide refused to organize a movement to resist
the coup and, after pledging never to do so, summoned a U.S.-led United
Nations intervention.
In exchange for reinstalling Aristide in 1994, the United States pressured
the compliant president to accept an even deeper commitment to the World
Bank/IMF agenda.
In November 2000 Aristide was elected president for yet a third term.
Keeping the pressure on, Washington demanded a recount of the May 2000 parliamentary
election, thus echoing the demands of the U.S.-backed "Democratic Convergence,"
an amalgam of tiny anti-Aristide Haitian parties with little support.
Because of Washington's intransigence, the U.S. is blocking some $500
million in promised aid, including $145.9 million in loans from the Inter-American
Development Bank (IDB). The loans were to improve health care, schools,
water systems and roads. According to Haiti Progres newspaper, the IDB is
already charging interest on the blocked loans!
- MARTY GOODMAN
Socialist Action /February 2002 |