Workers Fight for Rights in Free Trade Zone

Jane Regan

PORT-AU-PRINCE (IPS) - When some 300 workers
lost their jobs at factories in northeast Haiti last
month, the two sides in the struggle pitting a
clothing maker against a young union only dug in
deeper.

The stakes are much higher than just one more boss
versus dissatisfied and low-paid workers. More and
more textile plants in North America are closing their
doors and shifting production to low-cost factories in
the South that labour activists call "sweatshops", and
Haiti’s minimum wage is the hemisphere’s lowest. A
union’s fight for higher wages calls into question the
"race to the bottom."

As accusations of union-busting fly, labour bodies
like the International Confederation of Free Trade
Unions (ICFTU) are protesting; Levi Strauss — which
closed its last U.S. plant last fall and whose jeans
are sewn at one Haitian factory — is taking heat; a
12-million-dollar World Bank loan is on the line; and
Haiti’s own factory owners and interim government are
scrambling to calm the situation as they strive to
attract international investors.

On Jun. 11, Dominican Republic clothing giant Grupo M
dismissed almost one-third of the 800 or so workers at
its two Haiti factories in the CODEVI (Industrial
Development Company) Free Trade Zone (FTZ), located
outside of Ouanaminthe on the Haitian-Dominican
border.

Grupo M, the largest employer in the Dominican
Republic, where it has 13,000 workers in 24 plants,
built the zone and the first two of a dozen projected
factories there with a 12 million-dollar loan from the
World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC).

Although international mobilising forced the IFC to
include language in the loan about respect for
workers’ rights, CODEVI has been the site of labour
strife almost since it opened.

Among those left jobless last month — the company
says they were laid off, the union says they were
fired — were seven of eight members of the executive
committee of the recently founded in-house union.
SOKOWA (Union of CODEVI Ouanaminthe Workers) said its
members and other workers were fired because of their
organising efforts. The massive move came after a
one-day strike that was almost universally respected
by workers.

"We want decent salaries, better working conditions
and collective bargaining," organiser Georges Augustin
told IPS. Augustin, a former solderer, works for Batay
Ouvriye (Worker’s Struggle), the labour group that
helped organise SOKOWA earlier this year.

It is not the first time SOKOWA members lost their
jobs. Last time around, on Mar. 1, only a few weeks
after the union registered with the government, 34
employees were summarily fired. A month of
international mobilising and a push from Levi got them
their jobs back and elicited promises that
negotiations would take place.

But as months went by, tenuous relations turned sour.
After several failed sessions and what SOKOWA says
were scare tactics by management, workers decided to
hold a one-day strike Jun. 7. When they showed up the
next day, they were locked out. Three days later, the
lay-offs were announced.

"The company refuses to negotiate," Augustin said
during an interview at Batay’s Cap-Haitien office, a
tiny hole-in-the-wall in a slum surrounded by fetid
open sewers. "Instead, they harass and beat people and
are threatening to close down completely unless
workers join a ’yellow union’ management is setting
up."

Grupo M denies the allegations and said it has
officially recognised SOKOWA. At the same time,
however, it blames Batay and the union for the
lay-offs.

"Excessive labour activism by radical groups" has
meant that Grupo M’s plants are not operating "with
the necessary efficiency," company spokesman Gonzalo
Parra told IPS in an e-mail interview Jul. 26. "Batay
Ouvriye has gone so far as to make all kinds of
threats against workers to make them quit or work
reluctantly, affecting our production pace."

On Jun. 11, the company moved five production lines
back to one of its Santiago plants, about two hours
away in the Dominican Republic.

The strike and lay-offs have had their effects.
Shortly after, Sara Lee — maker of Hanes, Wonderbra
and other clothing lines — cancelled its contract
with Grupo M’s Haiti facility, saying it wants
labour-management issues resolved.

Levi Strauss has not yet pulled its contract but "is
concerned," Jeff Beckman, the firm’s director of
worldwide communications, told IPS.

Beckman said productivity at the plant has dropped in
recent months and added that Levi "is encouraging
Grupo M management to engage in mediation with SOKOWA
representatives." In the meantime, Levi has reduced
its orders of jeans from the Haitian plant.

Grupo M said it respects Haitian labour laws, paying
workers at least minimum wage — 12 dollars (432
gourdes) for a six-day, 48-hour week. The average is
20 dollars, Parra said, and will rise as productivity
increases.

But SOKOWA and local rights groups say workers
regularly work a 55-hour week with no overtime pay,
and that most employees earn 12 and not 20 dollars.
Workers in Grupo M’s Dominican plants make on average
30 dollars a week.

Even if a Haitian worker is paid 20 dollars a week
(3.30 dollars per day), or one-third more than the
country’s minimum wage, that amount is only 30 cents
more per day than the three dollars a day minimum wage
set by dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier two decades ago.

Haiti’s current minimum wage of 70 gourdes per day
(two dollars) was established in 1995 by then
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, but was contested by
Haitian unions and human rights groups. Neither two
dollars nor three dollars is enough to live on, SOKOWA
notes.

"A plate of food outside the plant costs 25 gourdes
(almost one dollar). If you eat twice, that’s most of
your salary," Augustin said.

SOKOWA wants higher wages now, and also wants what it
says is intimidation of union organisers to end.

The CODEVI conflict once again raises questions about
FTZs and whom they benefit. With 43 million workers in
the centres worldwide, the model is not going away any
time soon and has been embraced by unlikely leaders.

Former President Aristide, once known as a "radical
fire-brand," was a strong promoter. He promised to
open 14 FTZs by 2006.

"Haiti has an extraordinary potential to transform
herself into a pole of attraction," he said in his
inaugural speech Feb. 7, 2001.

Despite strong opposition to the CODEVI project,
Aristide pushed the initiative and bussed in his own
supporters for the groundbreaking with Dominican
President Hippolito Mejia 26 months ago.

The Haitian government has investigated the Grupo M
conflict and should have trained labour inspectors in
the region by Aug. 15, said an official from the
ministry of social affairs. No wrongdoing has been
found yet, he added.

"We don’t want to move too quickly; we want to promote
dialogue," Jean-Yves Georges, general director of the
ministry, told IPS.

As far as the lay-offs, "a boss has the right to fire
people," he said. If the union thinks the lay-offs
were a union-busting move, it can file legal
complaints and let a judge decide, Georges added.

Haitian factory owners, while head-on competitors with
Grupo M, side with the company, according to Charles
Henri Baker, vice president of the Association of
Haitian Industrialists (ADIH). He blames the lay-offs
on the union organising.

"I’m very disturbed because as a Haitian, I’m trying
to create jobs," he told IPS. "These people (Batay
Ouvriye and its international supporters) are
spreading lies on the Internet. This kind of thing
kills our business here."

Baker runs PB Apparel and was also a main leader of
the opposition movement against Aristide. When he was
arrested and jailed for a few weeks late last year he
lost all his contracts.

The entrepreneur is hoping to get back in business
soon. He predicts that if the U.S. Congress approves
the pending Haitian Economic Recovery Opportunity
(HERO) Act, which will eliminate duties and tariffs on
Haitian-sewed clothing, the number of jobs in the
assembly sector could rise from the present 30,000 to
over 200,000.

That benefit will come on top of other advantages
Haiti has due to its impoverished state. In fact,
saving labour costs is perhaps just one reason Grupo M
shifted stitching operations to its neighbour’s soil.

With 52 free trade zones and 200,000 workers producing
4.7 billion dollars worth of textiles (2002 figures),
the Dominican Republic has reached the limit of its
U.S. textile import quota. But if the final stitch is
sewed in Haiti, a Dominican company can send clothes
to the United States with a "Made in Haiti" tag, thus
taking advantage of that country’s largely unused
quota.

Baker feels strongly that Haiti should take advantage
of what it can, including its low wages.

"Our job as Haitians is to create jobs, even if it’s
at 70 gourdes (about two dollars) a day," he said.
"That is, by far, more than workers make farming."

The businessman was a promoter of the "social
contract" put forward by the Group of 184 coalition
during the anti-Aristide mobilisation last year. The
contract calls for universal education, a "fight
against poverty," environmental protection and other
measures, but it does not call for an increase in the
minimum wage.

IFC Officer Mark Constantine told IPS he blames both
the bosses and the union for the impasse at CODEVI. In
his 20 years at IFC, he said, he has never seen a more
complex case.

Grupo M is in a "learning curve" as far as working
with and respecting unions is concerned, Constantine
noted, but while some of the union’s claims are
exaggerated, "there is a kernel of truth in all of
them."

The IFC plans to send a professional labour arbitrator
to Haiti within the next two weeks to help SOKOWA and
Grupo M negotiate a contract and working conditions
acceptable to all parties, he said.

"We don’t have a lot of time," Constantine added,
saying Grupo M is losing money in Haiti. With a
12-million-dollar debt staring it in the face, the
company might give up and go home. Worse, it might
declare bankruptcy, he said.

"We are going to try like hell to save this project.
The interim government is trying to gain some
traction. To have this fail would send a horrible
message."

In the meantime, labour activists remain mobilized. A
large coalition of British unions and the "No Sweat"
campaign are planning a protest Thursday at Levi’s
London store.

Back in Cap-Haitien and Ouanaminthe, Batay Ouvriye and
SOKOWA are not backing down. They know that by
continuing to demand that the union’s members and
other workers are rehired, and by struggling for
higher wages and better conditions, they are taking
the risk that the factory will close down altogether.

"We were opposed to the FTZ, but now that it is here,
we are fighting for the workers’ rights," Augustin
said. "When you are trying to make people do what’s
right, you have to go all the way." (END/2004)

Batay Ouvriye (Worker’s Struggle)
Clean Clothes Campaign
International Confederation of Free Trade Unions
World Bank International Finance Corporation

http://www.nosweat.org.uk/article.php?sid=1004&mode=thread&order=0