"We are at a Crossroads" - Yannick Etienne on Sweatshops as a Development Model

By Beverly Bell, Huffington Post
June 3, 2010

The U.S. and U.N. have based their plan for Haiti's redevelopment on the expansion of the assembly industry. Toward this end, the U.S. Congress passed legislation last month which would expand benefits and income for U.S. investors yet again. Haitian workers will continue to earn $3.09 a day.

Worker rights groups and other sectors of Haiti's social justice movements are adamant that a sweatshop-based development model cannot advance either the country or its workers. First, the investments are unstable, and companies can and do pull out at a moment's notice. Second, the work does not offer a living wage, benefits, possibilities for advancement, or skills training. Third, with the primary products and the machinery imported and the finished products exported, assembly does not stimulate Haiti's economy.

Here Yannick Etienne, an organizer with the labor rights group Batay Ouvriyè (Worker's Struggle), talks about the assembly sector and why it is neither a sustainable nor humane development model. [...]

Read the full interview:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/beverly-bell/we-are-at-a-crossroads_b_599485.html