The Final Call

Demand for increased wages for Haitian workers grows

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(FinalCall.com) - As efforts to rebuild Haiti move forward and discussions turn to development strategies and the role of businesses, corporations, relief groups and international agencies, advocates for Haiti are demanding a major change: They want an end to the low wage exploitation of workers in the Black republic.

Author Peter Hallward, speaking on the nationally syndicated radio show Democracy Now, blamed international investors for pressuring Haitian governments since a 2004 coup to keep minimum wages low. The result has been a kind of systematic cycle of disempowerment and impoverishment for Haitian workers, Mr. Hallward said.

Mr. Hallward, author of “Damning the Flood: Haiti, Aristide, and the Politics of Containment” and a professor of modern European Philosophy at Middlesex University, said investors persuaded President René Preval not to raise the minimum wage for garment workers above $3 a day—though the Haitian Parliament voted to raise wages to $5 a day.

Last year, the Canadian Haiti Action Network and the International Trade Union Confederation concluded that there has been a refusal to address the blow Haitian workers' rights suffered after President Jean Bertrand Aristide was deposed in 2004. Some analysts say President Aristide's doubling of wages from $1 a day to $2.40 a day contributed to his removal from office. The battle against Mr. Aristide's efforts to raise the minimum wage goes as far back as 1991, when USAID launched a $26 million campaign to defeat raising the rate to 25 cents an hour, they said.

“During the period of the Duvalier's dictatorships, the international business community decided that Haiti would be the Taiwan of the Caribbean, where U.S. exporters could find cheap labor close to home,” explained Prof. Robert Maguire of Trinity Washington University during an interview with The Final Call. Prof. Maguire, an associate professor of international affairs and director of the university's Haiti Project, added, “Emphasis on cheap labor has taken away from the real strength of Haiti, its real economic base, which is its agriculture industry. Assembly plants are but a piece of Haiti's economic picture.”

Testifying before the U.S. Senate Feb. 4, he said Haiti had become a nation “out of balance” because the world only views the country “as a source of cheap labor,” not as a source of economic diversity.

Other voices joining the choir to change the low-wage paradigm in Haiti, include Robert Naiman of Justforeignpolicy.org, which is dedicated to reforming U.S. foreign policy; Charles Kernighan of the New York-based National Labor Committee, and Deborah James, director of international programs at the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research.

Mr. Naiman challenged a Feb. 21 Associated Press report that touted expansion of the Haitian low wage garment industry as a key to economic recovery. “I am arguing that the minimum wage for garment workers must be raised to $5 a day,” Mr. Naiman told The Final Call. He said that he was studying the UN Development Program's decision to pay Haitian workers 35 cents an hour for six hour work days in early clean ups after the deadly Jan. 12 earthquake.

“My understanding is that UNDP may be within Haiti's minimum wage law of $5 a day, but one would think that the UN would take a high road, and follow a generous interpretation of the law, rather than a miserly one,” Mr. Naiman said.

UNDP is not in Haiti as a permanent employer, therefore the cash-for-work program is a short-term way to “help people get out of poverty,” according to UNDP spokesman, Stephen Dujarric. Mr. Dujarric told The Final Call the United Nations “doesn't want to skew the labor market by paying people above the minimum wage.” The aim is to prime the economic pump by employing 35,000 people, about 40 percent who are women, Mr. Dujurric continued. UNDP has no control over who gets lucrative contracts for the reconstruction of Port-Au-Prince, he added.

Activists such as Brian Concannon, director of the pro-Haiti Institute for Democratic Justice and Brenda Stokely, eastern region coordinator for the Million Worker March and a labor consultant with Bail Out The People Not The Banks, say organized labor in the U.S. must speak out for Haitian workers.

“We are hearing from people on the ground in Haiti that food is there, but they cannot afford to buy it; and these are people who are working,” Mr. Concannon said. “Organized labor has been historically weak in speaking out for workers in Haiti, seemingly in denial that there is a problem.”

Ms. Stokely says it's “problematic” that American labor groups have not opposed Haiti's low-wage culture. “Haitian workers need international solidarity and support from workers. I have talked to workers here and they say they want to move forward in supporting their Haitian counterparts,” Ms. Stokely said.

The Final Call contacted the International Labor Organization, whose Better Work division organized a meeting last October to encourage foreign investment to increase jobs in Haiti's garment sector. Asked if the organization had a position on raising the wage standard in Haiti, there was no response.

The AFL-CIO, another major union in America, was contacted and asked the same question, but a media outreach specialist familiar with the unions work in Haiti had no comment.

The Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, which is affiliated with the AFL-CIO, told The Final Call it has been watching the wage issue in Haiti. “We are meeting soon to discuss this issue, and as soon as we have a consensus, we will announce the direction that our organization will take,” said CBTU President Mike Williams.