A Hard Day’s Labor for $4.76: The Offshore Assembly Industry in Haiti

By Beverly Bell and Alexis Erkert, Other Worlds
April 25, 2013

As we mourn the deaths of nearly 200 people in yesterday’s garment factory collapse outside of Dhaka, Bangladesh, we publish this article about the very issue of garment labor exploitation on the other side of the world. Economist Paul Collier's 2009 report "Haiti: From Natural Catastrophe to Economic Security" recommends for Haiti the same model that in Bangladesh has resulted in a race towards lower pay, disastrous working conditions, and the deaths of more than 800 garment workers since 2006. This article begins to explore the implications of sweatshop labor as a model for development.

“Haiti offers a marvelous opportunity for American investment. The run-of-the-mill Haitian is handy, easily directed, and gives a hard day’s labor for 20 cents, while in Panama the same day’s work costs $3,” wrote Financial America in 1926.[i] That may be the most honest portrayal of the offshore industry in Haiti to date. Today, the US, the UN, multilateral lending institutions, corporate investors, and others are more creative in their characterizations. They spin Haiti’s high-profit labor as being in the interest of the laborer, and as a major vehicle for what they call “development.”

In the export assembly sector, the minimum wage is 200 gourdes, or US$4.76, a day. According to the Associated Press, the minimum wage in February 2010 was “approximately the same as the minimum wage in 1984 and worth less than half its previous purchasing power.” Three years later, the wage has only been raised by 75 gourdes (US$1.79). [...]

Read the full article:
http://www.otherworldsarepossible.org/another-haiti-possible/hard-day-s-labor-476-offshore-assembly-industry-haiti