By PLASIT, via Workers Struggle
April 19, 2016
Press Conference on April 14, 2016
Greetings to all our media friends, print as well as television, that come to provide coverage for the conference that PLASIT, which is Textile Plants Union Platform, to launch the mobilization for the minimum wage adjustment for the year 2015-2016. In PLASIT, we notice that 8 months following the beginning of the fiscal year, the Supreme Salary Council finally made recommendations to the government just as it did for the past 2 years. Thus, the Council has adopted a bad habit of not respecting what is stated in Article 4.1 in the Law of 2009 on the minimum wage.
In the Supreme Salary Council, it’s mainly delaying tactics and plots going on. Management and the two so-called union representatives in the Council are dragging their feet so that management may continue to steal several months of workers’ wages. So, management will have more leeway to continue to pay workers measly wages.[...]
Read full press release:
http://www.workersstruggle.org/textile-workers-mobilize-haiti-minimum-wage-adjustment/
Watch video (in Creole):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oka6qxkqSI
Showing posts with label Batay Ouvriye. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Batay Ouvriye. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 20, 2016
Thursday, April 14, 2016
Are Sanders and Fair Trade a Threat to the Global Poor?
By David L. Wilson, MRzine
April 13, 2016
On April 24, 2013, some 1,134 people died in the collapse of the Rana Plaza complex outside Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. The building housed factories where low-wage workers, largely women, stitched garments for the U.S. and European markets.
For several years before the disaster a number of U.S. opinion makers -- notably New York Times columnists Thomas Friedman and Nicholas Kristof -- had been arguing that assembly plants like those at Rana Plaza were crucial to the development of economies in the Global South and therefore a boon to the world's most impoverished. The media's efforts to promote sweatshops suddenly slowed down after the collapse in Bangladesh, but they seem to be reviving now, just as we approach the third anniversary of the disaster.
The occasion for the new pro-sweatshop campaign is Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders' opposition to trade pacts like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).[...]
Read the full article:
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2016/wilson130416.html
April 13, 2016
On April 24, 2013, some 1,134 people died in the collapse of the Rana Plaza complex outside Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. The building housed factories where low-wage workers, largely women, stitched garments for the U.S. and European markets.
For several years before the disaster a number of U.S. opinion makers -- notably New York Times columnists Thomas Friedman and Nicholas Kristof -- had been arguing that assembly plants like those at Rana Plaza were crucial to the development of economies in the Global South and therefore a boon to the world's most impoverished. The media's efforts to promote sweatshops suddenly slowed down after the collapse in Bangladesh, but they seem to be reviving now, just as we approach the third anniversary of the disaster.
The occasion for the new pro-sweatshop campaign is Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders' opposition to trade pacts like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).[...]
Read the full article:
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2016/wilson130416.html
Friday, June 20, 2014
Statements From Haiti and Bangladesh for Left Forum 2014
[These two statements from front-line labor organizations were read at the June 1 "Global Minimum Wage" forum at this year's Left Forum conference in New York City.]
In the name of Batay Ouvriye in Haiti, we salute all the workers, laborers and militants who are taking part in the 2014 Left Forum in the US. Also, we salute this initiative, particularly because it seeks to address a fundamental question: Reform or Revolution.
In the context of the organizational construction necessary to free all workers and all humanity, we are conscious of the need for well-coordinated linkage and relationships between vanguard organizations and the working masses, and with the popular masses in general, particularly in dominated countries. For this linkage to be effective, it must also enable us at the same time to advance toward our final objective. To achieve this, we must seek at all times to build the necessary capacity to go beyond and build the capacity to transcend. And this ability must be rooted in the very nature of what we are building, in its DNA. It is this intrinsic capacity that can ensure the necessary permanent surpassing of our struggles and organizations.
This is the only way we can struggle against the revisionism that naturally develops in struggles within the realm of bourgeois democratic rights. It is the surest way to always emerge onto the advancement that is needed each time. This is a key point.
On our side, within the necessary objective of seeking to surpass and to enable the struggles of sweatshop workers in general to move beyond their initial limits (the struggle of workers all over the world against this spreading blood-sucking form of capitalism), we are working to see how a global minimum wage can be established. This could be regional at first, maybe, taking into account the many different regional “Free Trade” agreements, but always toward the objective of achieving a comprehensive international minimum wage. This way, the working class would be able to battle, with strength, with a unity it would be building within the struggle itself. The ability to do this would enable the working class to become more and more conscious of its strength and potential, to struggle for more and to naturally enable its struggles to seek new levels, surpassing their previous objectives, developing new relationships and surpassing itself. That would once again be the role of the conscious vanguard that would emerge from the working class itself, to not only take hold of this possibility but to enact it and bring it to life.
The working class is the only class capable of moving this construction beyond and through the constant surpassing of its limits, without halting.
On the flip side, it is in the US that the upheaval we are seeking can take a shape and reach a level so high that it would project at once the emancipation we are all struggling for.
These two parameters highlight the importance of this 2014 Left Forum.
In this context, we salute once again this initiative to reflect on this necessary linkage, while the representative of our political tendency is bringing to you our vision on this ensemble of issues.
Long live the struggle of the popular masses, with laborers as their pillar, under the leadership of the working class!
Stay strong in struggle, always seeking to move beyond, and we will prevail!
Batay Ouvriye, Haiti
President of the Bangladesh Trade Union Federation
May 30, 2014
In Bangladesh, the garment workers are now very much class conscious. Especially, this has increased after the collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Savar, a suburb near the capital Dhaka last year, on 24th April 2013. In addition, the people of Bangladesh are also now concerned about garment workers’ conditions, like their wages, lifestyle, etc. The exception is the ruling class.
In 2013, the present Government declared wages for the garment workers through a Wage Commission. It was a farce. This commission declared the minimum basic wage for a garment worker to be 5,300 Bangladeshi Taka [BDT] (1 US dollar was equivalent to 80 BDT), where the basic wage is 3,200 BDT excluding house rent , medical allowance, transportation, education allowance, etc.
The trade unions linked with left parties demanded 8000 BDT as a total monthly wage. This is also the demand of SKOP, a organization of workers and employees. In contrast, we Bangladesh Trade Union Federation raised the demand of 18,000 BDT (where the basic wage is 10,000 BDT).
We also raised the question: on what basis did you people fix the wages. According to our calculation, one adult person needs 3200 calories per day, and according to this we can find the monthly food expenditure for a 4-member of a family in Bangladesh (especially in Dhaka) to be now around 10,000 BDT. Now we want to add house rent, transportation, medical allowance, allowance for children’s education, etc. It will be then 18,000 BDT (though house rent in the city is different from the periphery).
We have a marked difference from others. These trade union leaders have agreed on our point, but they ask: how could the garment owners give this money to the workers as wages? It is their position, and the reflection of the garment owners’ position also.
It is notable that when we were part of the state of Pakistan, they paid 155 Rupees as a minimum wage after a workers upsurge in 1969. Today it is equivalent to 18,000 BDT. This is basically the minimum real wage, not a humanitarian wage.
Many garment factory owners have not yet executed the minimum wage for workers of 5,300 BDT declared by the government. And the government is not interested in supervising this. Those who executed it, introduced new tactics. Suppose, before the wage declaration, that there were 20 workers working in a line of a factory. Now there are 15 workers. It means they terminated 5 workers, and now 15 workers are doing job which was finished before by 20. It creates pressure on the workers. It is important to mention here that the anti-labor law helps the owners.
After the mass killing of garment workers in the year of 2013 in Bangladesh, in the Rana Plaza building collapse, the Government of Bangladesh formed an investigation committee. That committee investigated, but the people of Bangladesh have not heard about their findings. But people do know that the victim’ families have not received real compensation yet—not from the government, not from the owners, and not from the foreign buyers. In addition, the factory buildings for garment production are ill-designed and life threatening.
We, the Bangladesh Trade Union Federation, are trying to build our units in garments area. We are discussing among the workers about the government, the state, and the global imperialistic and capitalistic system. We are going with political questions, which are to prepare to capture state power by a working class movement—not by the present election system but by people's political insurrection. We are also raise workers’ demands: trade union rights, 8 hours working time, appointment letters, no compulsory overtime, 6-month maternity leave with wages, etc.
The wage struggle of garments workers is not a local phenomenon—it is global. So we think it is the time to establish workers’ unity all over the world, which will enhance the working class movement throughout the world. It is our duty to expose capitalism-imperialism in front of the working class and people.
By abolishing the capitalistic-imperialistic system through people's struggle, we will enter again into socialism, a humanitarian society which will save our planet.
Statement From Batay Ouvriye ("Workers' Struggle"), Haiti
To the comrades in attendance at the Left Forum this year:In the name of Batay Ouvriye in Haiti, we salute all the workers, laborers and militants who are taking part in the 2014 Left Forum in the US. Also, we salute this initiative, particularly because it seeks to address a fundamental question: Reform or Revolution.
In the context of the organizational construction necessary to free all workers and all humanity, we are conscious of the need for well-coordinated linkage and relationships between vanguard organizations and the working masses, and with the popular masses in general, particularly in dominated countries. For this linkage to be effective, it must also enable us at the same time to advance toward our final objective. To achieve this, we must seek at all times to build the necessary capacity to go beyond and build the capacity to transcend. And this ability must be rooted in the very nature of what we are building, in its DNA. It is this intrinsic capacity that can ensure the necessary permanent surpassing of our struggles and organizations.This is the only way we can struggle against the revisionism that naturally develops in struggles within the realm of bourgeois democratic rights. It is the surest way to always emerge onto the advancement that is needed each time. This is a key point.
On our side, within the necessary objective of seeking to surpass and to enable the struggles of sweatshop workers in general to move beyond their initial limits (the struggle of workers all over the world against this spreading blood-sucking form of capitalism), we are working to see how a global minimum wage can be established. This could be regional at first, maybe, taking into account the many different regional “Free Trade” agreements, but always toward the objective of achieving a comprehensive international minimum wage. This way, the working class would be able to battle, with strength, with a unity it would be building within the struggle itself. The ability to do this would enable the working class to become more and more conscious of its strength and potential, to struggle for more and to naturally enable its struggles to seek new levels, surpassing their previous objectives, developing new relationships and surpassing itself. That would once again be the role of the conscious vanguard that would emerge from the working class itself, to not only take hold of this possibility but to enact it and bring it to life.
The working class is the only class capable of moving this construction beyond and through the constant surpassing of its limits, without halting.
On the flip side, it is in the US that the upheaval we are seeking can take a shape and reach a level so high that it would project at once the emancipation we are all struggling for.
These two parameters highlight the importance of this 2014 Left Forum.
In this context, we salute once again this initiative to reflect on this necessary linkage, while the representative of our political tendency is bringing to you our vision on this ensemble of issues.
Long live the struggle of the popular masses, with laborers as their pillar, under the leadership of the working class!
Stay strong in struggle, always seeking to move beyond, and we will prevail!
Batay Ouvriye, Haiti
The Wage Struggle of Garment Workers in Bangladesh
Statement from Faiezul Hakim,President of the Bangladesh Trade Union Federation
May 30, 2014
In 2013, the present Government declared wages for the garment workers through a Wage Commission. It was a farce. This commission declared the minimum basic wage for a garment worker to be 5,300 Bangladeshi Taka [BDT] (1 US dollar was equivalent to 80 BDT), where the basic wage is 3,200 BDT excluding house rent , medical allowance, transportation, education allowance, etc.
The trade unions linked with left parties demanded 8000 BDT as a total monthly wage. This is also the demand of SKOP, a organization of workers and employees. In contrast, we Bangladesh Trade Union Federation raised the demand of 18,000 BDT (where the basic wage is 10,000 BDT).
We also raised the question: on what basis did you people fix the wages. According to our calculation, one adult person needs 3200 calories per day, and according to this we can find the monthly food expenditure for a 4-member of a family in Bangladesh (especially in Dhaka) to be now around 10,000 BDT. Now we want to add house rent, transportation, medical allowance, allowance for children’s education, etc. It will be then 18,000 BDT (though house rent in the city is different from the periphery).
We have a marked difference from others. These trade union leaders have agreed on our point, but they ask: how could the garment owners give this money to the workers as wages? It is their position, and the reflection of the garment owners’ position also.
It is notable that when we were part of the state of Pakistan, they paid 155 Rupees as a minimum wage after a workers upsurge in 1969. Today it is equivalent to 18,000 BDT. This is basically the minimum real wage, not a humanitarian wage.
Many garment factory owners have not yet executed the minimum wage for workers of 5,300 BDT declared by the government. And the government is not interested in supervising this. Those who executed it, introduced new tactics. Suppose, before the wage declaration, that there were 20 workers working in a line of a factory. Now there are 15 workers. It means they terminated 5 workers, and now 15 workers are doing job which was finished before by 20. It creates pressure on the workers. It is important to mention here that the anti-labor law helps the owners.
After the mass killing of garment workers in the year of 2013 in Bangladesh, in the Rana Plaza building collapse, the Government of Bangladesh formed an investigation committee. That committee investigated, but the people of Bangladesh have not heard about their findings. But people do know that the victim’ families have not received real compensation yet—not from the government, not from the owners, and not from the foreign buyers. In addition, the factory buildings for garment production are ill-designed and life threatening.
We, the Bangladesh Trade Union Federation, are trying to build our units in garments area. We are discussing among the workers about the government, the state, and the global imperialistic and capitalistic system. We are going with political questions, which are to prepare to capture state power by a working class movement—not by the present election system but by people's political insurrection. We are also raise workers’ demands: trade union rights, 8 hours working time, appointment letters, no compulsory overtime, 6-month maternity leave with wages, etc.
The wage struggle of garments workers is not a local phenomenon—it is global. So we think it is the time to establish workers’ unity all over the world, which will enhance the working class movement throughout the world. It is our duty to expose capitalism-imperialism in front of the working class and people.
By abolishing the capitalistic-imperialistic system through people's struggle, we will enter again into socialism, a humanitarian society which will save our planet.
Friday, May 30, 2014
NYC, June 1: “The Global Minimum Wage Struggle,” at Left Forum
The Global Minimum Wage Struggle
Global capital’s “race to the bottom” in imposing ever-lower—even sub-survival—wages is generating resistance around the world. With a focus on the garment industry in Bangladesh and Haiti, the speakers will discuss the importance of working class internationalism. This includes not only building solidarity, but also coordination of struggles.
Panel at Left Forum
Noon - 1:50 p.m.
Sunday, June 1
Room 1.109
• David L. Wilson, Weekly News Update on the Americas
• Kiki Makandal, Batay Ouvriye Solidarity Network, One Struggle NY
• Stephanie McMillan, political cartonist, Proletarian Alternative, One Struggle FL
Recommended reading:
Stephanie McMillan: “A Garment Worker in Bangladesh Speaks Out”
Kiki Makandal: “Ten Years of UN Military Occupation of Haiti: Background and Current Effects”
Jan Makandal: “Wage Struggles: Reformist or Revolutionary?”
David L. Wilson: “Thinking Big: The Global Minimum Wage”Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Wage Hike in Haiti Doesn’t Address Factory Abuses
By Jane Regan, IPS
December 3, 2013
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Dec 3 2013 (IPS) - Haiti’s minimum wage will nudge up 12 percent on Jan. 1, from 4.65 to 5.23 dollars (or 200 to 225 gourdes) per day. Calculated hourly, it will go from 58 to 65 cents, before taxes.
But the raise will not affect Haiti’s 30,000 assembly factory workers, who are supposed to already be receiving about seven dollars for an eight-hour day – about 87 cents per hour. Recent studies have found rampant wage theft at almost two dozen of the factories that stitch clothing for companies like Gap and Walmart.[...]
Read the full article:
http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/12/wage-hike-haiti-doesnt-address-factory-abuses/
December 3, 2013
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Dec 3 2013 (IPS) - Haiti’s minimum wage will nudge up 12 percent on Jan. 1, from 4.65 to 5.23 dollars (or 200 to 225 gourdes) per day. Calculated hourly, it will go from 58 to 65 cents, before taxes.
But the raise will not affect Haiti’s 30,000 assembly factory workers, who are supposed to already be receiving about seven dollars for an eight-hour day – about 87 cents per hour. Recent studies have found rampant wage theft at almost two dozen of the factories that stitch clothing for companies like Gap and Walmart.[...]
Read the full article:
http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/12/wage-hike-haiti-doesnt-address-factory-abuses/
Sunday, November 17, 2013
Stand With Haitian Workers for a Living Wage!
On November 29th, after years of delay and wage theft, a minimum wage increase will be announced in Haiti. Batay Ouvriye (Workers' Struggle), an autonomous workers' organization, is mobilizing around the country to demand an increase to 500 gourdes (approximately $11.50)--the minimum for a family to survive.
The current minimum wage is only 300 gourdes (85 cents/hour), and even that is not being paid by the factories. Most receive only 200 gourdes (57 cents/hour).
Batay Ouvriye is mobilizing around the country for workers to voice their demands, what they say they actually need for a minimum wage. This takes money to travel, print thousands of flyers, host trainings and protests.
The US-based organization One Struggle has set up an indiegogo campaign to raise $3,200 to help pay for the mobilization in Haiti. To learn more and to contribute, go to:
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/stand-with-haitian-workers-for-a-living-wage
For more information on the minimum wage situation, go to:
http://inthesetimes.org/working/entry/14391/7_per_day_haiti_anti-sweatshop_revival/
http://inthesetimes.com/uprising/entry/14685/surveillance_beatings_firings_how_apparel_companies_suppress_the_minimum_wa/
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/16/world/americas/group-says-haitian-garment-workers-are-shortchanged-on-pay.html
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
An Interview with an Organizer for Batay Ouvriye (Workers Struggle)
By One Struggle
May 1, 2013
[Batay Ouvriye is the main labor group working in Haiti's assembly sector. They organized the assembly workers union in the northeastern city of Ouanaminthe, the union in the sector with a contract.]
One Struggle: Can you give me a brief description of what Batay Ouvriye* is and a little bit of the history of it?
Batay Ouvriye: Batay Ouvriye is part of a whole current that had roots in Europe and the United States where many of the resistance, many of the leftist people, or many of the progressive militants were exiled from the country. So we organized a kind of line against Duvalier1 which was not the classical front. It was a class line against Duvalier.
They called us sectarian much of the time, but we weren’t sectarian, it’s a line. And we participated with many of those people. But we didn’t enter an organizational front, you see? But if they had a demonstration we were always there.\\
Read the full article:
http://onestruggle.net/2013/05/01/interview-with-batay-ouvriye/
May 1, 2013
[Batay Ouvriye is the main labor group working in Haiti's assembly sector. They organized the assembly workers union in the northeastern city of Ouanaminthe, the union in the sector with a contract.]
One Struggle: Can you give me a brief description of what Batay Ouvriye* is and a little bit of the history of it?
Batay Ouvriye: Batay Ouvriye is part of a whole current that had roots in Europe and the United States where many of the resistance, many of the leftist people, or many of the progressive militants were exiled from the country. So we organized a kind of line against Duvalier1 which was not the classical front. It was a class line against Duvalier.
They called us sectarian much of the time, but we weren’t sectarian, it’s a line. And we participated with many of those people. But we didn’t enter an organizational front, you see? But if they had a demonstration we were always there.\\
Read the full article:
http://onestruggle.net/2013/05/01/interview-with-batay-ouvriye/
Saturday, May 18, 2013
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
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
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Beaten Haitian Worker Continues Fight for $7-Per-Day Wage
By Dan Schneider, In These Times
March 5, 2013
When Haiti's minimum wage rose to 300 Gourds ($7 US) per day in October 2012, workers across the nation were relieved. The money was certainly not a living wage, but it was far better than the paltry 70 gourdes-per-day standard established in 2003. Despite intense resistance from the U.S. government and apparel companies like Hanes and Fruit of the Loom—who waged a long battle to stave off an increase passed by the Haitian Parliament in 2009 and keep the minimum wage at $3 day for the textile industry—the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere was set to take a step in the right direction for labor rights.
Or so it seemed. Months after the increase took effect, many Haitian factory owners are still refusing to pay their employees the new minimum wage (An actual living wage in Haiti would be much higher still—about $29 per day, according to an estimate by the Workers' Rights Consortium). With a weak national government and an economy largely dependent on U.S. contracts and favorable trade arrangements, workers in the apparel industry—Haiti’s largest exporter—are struggling just to attain their legally-mandated wage. [...]
Read the full article:
http://inthesetimes.com/uprising/entry/14685/surveillance_beatings_firings_how_apparel_companies_suppress_the_minimum_wa/
March 5, 2013
When Haiti's minimum wage rose to 300 Gourds ($7 US) per day in October 2012, workers across the nation were relieved. The money was certainly not a living wage, but it was far better than the paltry 70 gourdes-per-day standard established in 2003. Despite intense resistance from the U.S. government and apparel companies like Hanes and Fruit of the Loom—who waged a long battle to stave off an increase passed by the Haitian Parliament in 2009 and keep the minimum wage at $3 day for the textile industry—the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere was set to take a step in the right direction for labor rights.
Or so it seemed. Months after the increase took effect, many Haitian factory owners are still refusing to pay their employees the new minimum wage (An actual living wage in Haiti would be much higher still—about $29 per day, according to an estimate by the Workers' Rights Consortium). With a weak national government and an economy largely dependent on U.S. contracts and favorable trade arrangements, workers in the apparel industry—Haiti’s largest exporter—are struggling just to attain their legally-mandated wage. [...]
Read the full article:
http://inthesetimes.com/uprising/entry/14685/surveillance_beatings_firings_how_apparel_companies_suppress_the_minimum_wa/
Friday, February 1, 2013
Adidas Sweatshop Workers Speak Out! Worker Tour visits NYC on Feb 4
Hear from garment workers who sew apparel in Honduran and Haitian factories owned and contracted by Gildan Activewear, a Montreal-based apparel company that recently became the largest supplier in the Western hemisphere to sportswear giant Adidas.
Workers will be speaking out across New York to encourage the State to uphold its commitment to not subsidize sweatshops, and in the backdrop of another mounting campaign against Adidas. Six universities have already committed to end their apparel contracts with Adidas over the brand's refusal to pay $1.8 million in legally-owed severance pay to 2,800 former Indonesian workers at a factory called PT Kizone, which shut down unexpectedly over a year and half ago.
Come, listen, and take action!
Monday, February 4th – Three opportunities to hear from the workers!
12- 1 p.m. @ Fashion Institute of Technology, Katie Murphy Amphitheater–enter FIT at the northwest corner of Seventh Ave and 27th Street
4:00 – 5:30 p.m. @ St. Joseph’s College, 245 Clinton Avenue, Brooklyn, NY
8:00 – 9:00 p.m. @ NYU, Kimmel 406 (60 Washington Square South)
Speakers:
Telemarque Pierre is a factory worker and union leader at Premium Apparel, in Port Au Prince, Haiti. The factory produces t-shirts for Gildan, a Canadian company. Gildan clothing is sold in university bookstores, worn by New York state police, and at Walmart. Today at Gildan's four Haitian contract suppliers (Genesis, Premium, Palm and SISA), workers continue to face prohibition of union activities in the factories and arbitrary firings. Moreover, several of Gildan’s Haitian suppliers refuse to pay the new mandatory minimum wage of less than $6/day.
Yannick Etienne is the director of the Haitian workers’ rights organization Batay Ouvriye. Batay Ouvriye brings together independent, democratic unions and worker rights organizations, and educates, empowers and organizes wage-workers, self-employed workers as well as the unemployed for the defense of their rights.
Raquel Navarro is a garment worker and union leader at STAR, an Adidas supplier factory in Honduras owned by Gildan. Gildan is Adidas’ largest supplier in the western hemisphere. After Raquel and her colleagues formed a union in November 2007, a bloody struggle ensued, including the illegal firing of 55 union activists. Still today, mass layoffs continue. Recently, Gildan’s vague plans to close factories provoked a dangerously hostile atmosphere towards union leaders where Gildan management allowed death threats against union leaders to transpire.
In addition, representatives from Labor-Religion Coalition of New York, SweatFree Communities / International Labor Rights Forum, and United Students Against Sweatshops will share information about local actions that people can take in support of Adidas/Gildan workers.
Additional events in New York State:
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
4:00-5:30 p.m.: Presentation at Syracuse University, New York
6:00-8:30 p.m.: Dinner and Presentation at All Saints Church
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
4:00-5:30 p.m.: Presentation at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
7:00-8:30 p.m.: Presentation at First Presbyterian Church, followed by dessert reception hosted by Labor-Religion Coalition of the Finger Lakes (315 North Cayuga Street, Ithaca, NY, by DeWitt
Thursday, February 7, 2013
8:30 a.m.: Breakfast and Presentation at First Unitarian Church (220 South Winton Road, Rochester, NY 14610)
12:15-1:30 p.m. Presentation at St. John Fisher College, Basil 135
6:30-8:00 p.m.: Presentation at University of Buffalo, Natural Sciences Complex 215, NY
Friday, February 8, 2013
11:00 a.m.: Press conference at New York State Capitol, Albany
12:30-1:30 p.m.: Presentation at Siena College, Key Auditorium, Roger Bacon 202
3:00-4:30 p.m.: Presentation at SUNY Albany, Humanities 354
7:00-8:30 p.m.: Presentation at Pastoral Center, sponsored by Peace and Justice Commission of the Roman Catholic Dioceses of Albany
For more information:
Joy Perkett, Faith Organizer/ Campaign Coordinator
Tele; 518/ 213-6000 ext. 6348
jperkett@labor-religion.org
http://www.labor-religion.org/
For background on Haitian sweatshops:
In $7-Per-Day Fight, Haitian Workers Call for North American Support
http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/14391/7_per_day_haiti_anti-sweatshop_revival/
What Are 'Peacekeepers' Doing in a Haitian Industrial Park?
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/haiti-archives-51/4073-what-are-peacekeepers-doing-in-a-haitian-industrial-park
Some Key Players in Haiti’s Assembly Sector
http://grassrootssolidarity.blogspot.com/2013/01/some-key-players-in-haitis-assembly.html
Workers will be speaking out across New York to encourage the State to uphold its commitment to not subsidize sweatshops, and in the backdrop of another mounting campaign against Adidas. Six universities have already committed to end their apparel contracts with Adidas over the brand's refusal to pay $1.8 million in legally-owed severance pay to 2,800 former Indonesian workers at a factory called PT Kizone, which shut down unexpectedly over a year and half ago. Come, listen, and take action!
Monday, February 4th – Three opportunities to hear from the workers!
12- 1 p.m. @ Fashion Institute of Technology, Katie Murphy Amphitheater–enter FIT at the northwest corner of Seventh Ave and 27th Street
4:00 – 5:30 p.m. @ St. Joseph’s College, 245 Clinton Avenue, Brooklyn, NY
8:00 – 9:00 p.m. @ NYU, Kimmel 406 (60 Washington Square South)
Speakers:
Telemarque Pierre is a factory worker and union leader at Premium Apparel, in Port Au Prince, Haiti. The factory produces t-shirts for Gildan, a Canadian company. Gildan clothing is sold in university bookstores, worn by New York state police, and at Walmart. Today at Gildan's four Haitian contract suppliers (Genesis, Premium, Palm and SISA), workers continue to face prohibition of union activities in the factories and arbitrary firings. Moreover, several of Gildan’s Haitian suppliers refuse to pay the new mandatory minimum wage of less than $6/day.
Yannick Etienne is the director of the Haitian workers’ rights organization Batay Ouvriye. Batay Ouvriye brings together independent, democratic unions and worker rights organizations, and educates, empowers and organizes wage-workers, self-employed workers as well as the unemployed for the defense of their rights.
Raquel Navarro is a garment worker and union leader at STAR, an Adidas supplier factory in Honduras owned by Gildan. Gildan is Adidas’ largest supplier in the western hemisphere. After Raquel and her colleagues formed a union in November 2007, a bloody struggle ensued, including the illegal firing of 55 union activists. Still today, mass layoffs continue. Recently, Gildan’s vague plans to close factories provoked a dangerously hostile atmosphere towards union leaders where Gildan management allowed death threats against union leaders to transpire.
In addition, representatives from Labor-Religion Coalition of New York, SweatFree Communities / International Labor Rights Forum, and United Students Against Sweatshops will share information about local actions that people can take in support of Adidas/Gildan workers.
Additional events in New York State:
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
4:00-5:30 p.m.: Presentation at Syracuse University, New York
6:00-8:30 p.m.: Dinner and Presentation at All Saints Church
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
4:00-5:30 p.m.: Presentation at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
7:00-8:30 p.m.: Presentation at First Presbyterian Church, followed by dessert reception hosted by Labor-Religion Coalition of the Finger Lakes (315 North Cayuga Street, Ithaca, NY, by DeWitt
Thursday, February 7, 2013
8:30 a.m.: Breakfast and Presentation at First Unitarian Church (220 South Winton Road, Rochester, NY 14610)
12:15-1:30 p.m. Presentation at St. John Fisher College, Basil 135
6:30-8:00 p.m.: Presentation at University of Buffalo, Natural Sciences Complex 215, NY
Friday, February 8, 2013
11:00 a.m.: Press conference at New York State Capitol, Albany
12:30-1:30 p.m.: Presentation at Siena College, Key Auditorium, Roger Bacon 202
3:00-4:30 p.m.: Presentation at SUNY Albany, Humanities 354
7:00-8:30 p.m.: Presentation at Pastoral Center, sponsored by Peace and Justice Commission of the Roman Catholic Dioceses of Albany
For more information:
Joy Perkett, Faith Organizer/ Campaign Coordinator
Tele; 518/ 213-6000 ext. 6348
jperkett@labor-religion.org
http://www.labor-religion.org/
For background on Haitian sweatshops:
In $7-Per-Day Fight, Haitian Workers Call for North American Support
http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/14391/7_per_day_haiti_anti-sweatshop_revival/
What Are 'Peacekeepers' Doing in a Haitian Industrial Park?
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/haiti-archives-51/4073-what-are-peacekeepers-doing-in-a-haitian-industrial-park
Some Key Players in Haiti’s Assembly Sector
http://grassrootssolidarity.blogspot.com/2013/01/some-key-players-in-haitis-assembly.html
Thursday, January 17, 2013
What Are 'Peacekeepers' Doing in a Haitian Industrial Park?
By David L. Wilson, Upside Down World
January 14, 2013
The big industrial park near the international airport north of Port-au-Prince actually does look like a nature park. Thousands of Haitians may be inside the complex’s 47 buildings hurriedly stitching tens of thousands of T-shirts for the North American market, but the wide, tree-lined streets between the factory seem peaceful when you drive along them in mid-morning on a workday. It’s as if you were in a gated community in the United States, a thousand miles from the noisy chaos of the Haitian capital.
As in many gated communities, there’s a security force at the Metropolitan Industrial Park, which is identified in Haiti as SONAPI, the acronym for Société Nationale des Parcs Industriels, the semi-governmental agency that runs the park. Haitian guards check you out before they allow you to enter, and once inside you find the grounds patrolled by a white car with a big “UN” painted in black on the side. [...]
Read the full article:
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/haiti-archives-51/4073-what-are-peacekeepers-doing-in-a-haitian-industrial-park
January 14, 2013
The big industrial park near the international airport north of Port-au-Prince actually does look like a nature park. Thousands of Haitians may be inside the complex’s 47 buildings hurriedly stitching tens of thousands of T-shirts for the North American market, but the wide, tree-lined streets between the factory seem peaceful when you drive along them in mid-morning on a workday. It’s as if you were in a gated community in the United States, a thousand miles from the noisy chaos of the Haitian capital.
As in many gated communities, there’s a security force at the Metropolitan Industrial Park, which is identified in Haiti as SONAPI, the acronym for Société Nationale des Parcs Industriels, the semi-governmental agency that runs the park. Haitian guards check you out before they allow you to enter, and once inside you find the grounds patrolled by a white car with a big “UN” painted in black on the side. [...]
Read the full article:
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/haiti-archives-51/4073-what-are-peacekeepers-doing-in-a-haitian-industrial-park
Thursday, January 10, 2013
In $7-Per-Day Fight, Haitian Workers Call for North American Support
By David Wilson, Working In These Times
January 9, 2013
 |
| Haitian workers rally for a living wage outside an industrial park on October 8, 2012. (Marty Goodman/Socialist Action) |
The small workers’ center in Port-au-Prince’s Delmas district was hot and the electricity had gone out, but about three dozen workers from the city’s apparel plants were willing to sit in the dark and the heat for nearly two hours after work one evening in early October to tell a group of U.S. activists about the struggle for better wages in Haiti.
“We have to pay for our transportation,” said “Jean” (not his real name), an employee at the Multiwear Assembly plant in the big industrial park near the airport. “We can’t do anything with our salary. We start work at 6 a.m. and finish at 5 p.m. The quota is huge. We don’t even have time to eat because we can’t meet the quota.”
Protests had broken out at the end of September and the beginning of October, the workers said, after factory owners stepped up production quotas to circumvent an increase in the minimum wage that went into effect on October 1. [...]
Read the full article:
Haiti Three Years After the Earthquake: NYC, 1/12/13
For immediate release
Contact: Haiti Anti-Sweatshop Committee, 212-781-5157 • 347-792-7091
Haiti Three Years After the Earthquake: A Labor Perspective
When: Saturday, January 12, 2013, 6 pm
Where: CWA Local 1180, 6 Harrison Street, basement, Manhattan (between Hudson Street and Greenwich Street, 1 to Franklin St or A, C, E, 2 or 3 to Chambers St)
What: Forum on Haiti three years after the earthquake
New York, Jan. 10—Three New York-based activist journalists are marking the third anniversary of Haiti's 2010 earthquake this Saturday with a report-back on their visits to the country last October. The forum, held at a union hall in Lower Manhattan, will focus on grassroots organizing by Haitians, especially in the garment assembly plants.
The anniversary has brought a run of articles in the media here. While the coverage notes the failure of international aid to help Haiti “build back better,” it also claims there has been “some progress,” in the words of a New York Times editorial. The paper’s example is “a new industrial park north of Port-au-Prince, the capital, providing the first 1,300 of what are supposed to be many thousands of manufacturing jobs.”
The three New Yorkers got a very different perspective in talks with Haitian assembly workers, who are currently struggling just to be paid the new legal minimum wage of $7 a day. They are looking for grassroots solidarity from the United States, they said--not projects like the new industrial park, built largely with $124 million in U.S. tax money170 miles from the earthquake zone, and mostly benefiting multinationals like Walmart..
The forum will include a photo projection from photojournalist Tony Savino and talks by David Wilson and Marty Goodman. Savino, who visited the northern city of Ouanaminthe in October, has photographed Haiti regularly for a quarter century; a sample of his work can be found at http://www.tonysavino.com/. Wilson was in Port-au-Prince when the earthquake struck, and has written about that experience and about the economics of the assembly sector. Goodman, a retired transit worker and former member of the TWU Local 100 Executive Board, began covering Haiti in 1986 with reports on the overthrow of Jean-Claude Duvalier (“Baby Doc”); an article on his most recent trip appeared in the November Socialist Action.
The forum has been organized by the Haiti Anti-Sweatshop Committee and is endorsed by One Struggle (NY) and the Batay Ouvriye Solidarity Network. The presenters are available for interviews. For more information, call 212-781-5157 or 347-792-7091, or visit http://www.facebook.com/events/512833625416529/
--30--
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Haiti’s Garment Workers Join the Worldwide Fight Against Sweatshop Abuses
Labor organizers from Port-au-Prince to Ouanaminthe are sewing your underwear and agitating for international solidarity.
By Stephanie McMillan, Take Part
December 5, 2012
The garment industry is a global web of nightmares, where suppliers compete to offer their products at the lowest possible cost to stores like Walmart, The Gap and JCPenney. The cutthroat competition can mean starvation wages and unsafe conditions for the people working in sweatshops, the people who stitch, press and fold the T-shirts, pants and dresses that wind up on the shelves of U.S. stores.
This past October, several members of One Struggle (an anti-imperialist collective with chapters in South Florida and New York) traveled to Haiti to meet with workers who produce clothing for familiar brands, including Cherokee and Hanes. [...]
Read the full article:
http://www.takepart.com/article/2012/12/05/op-ed-haitis-garment-workers-look-america-solidarity
By Stephanie McMillan, Take Part
December 5, 2012
The garment industry is a global web of nightmares, where suppliers compete to offer their products at the lowest possible cost to stores like Walmart, The Gap and JCPenney. The cutthroat competition can mean starvation wages and unsafe conditions for the people working in sweatshops, the people who stitch, press and fold the T-shirts, pants and dresses that wind up on the shelves of U.S. stores.
This past October, several members of One Struggle (an anti-imperialist collective with chapters in South Florida and New York) traveled to Haiti to meet with workers who produce clothing for familiar brands, including Cherokee and Hanes. [...]
Read the full article:
http://www.takepart.com/article/2012/12/05/op-ed-haitis-garment-workers-look-america-solidarity
Sunday, December 16, 2012
The Hell that is Haiti
By Marty Goodman, Socialist Action
November 15, 2012
PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti—Oct. 22 was a romantic rendezvous for Bill and Hillary Clinton in Haiti, their one-time honeymoon destination. Hollywood celebs were there too—Sean Penn, Ben Stiller and sweatshop magnate Donna Karan, along with members of the Haitian elite, led by President Michael Martelly, a Washington-backed military coup supporter. “Haiti is open for business and we mean it,” Martelly said to his beaming guests.
The occasion was the opening of a new $300 million sweatshop industrial park in Caracol in northern Haiti, $124 million of it paid for by the U.S. taxpayers.[...]
Read the full article:
http://socialistaction.org/2012/11/the-hell-that-is-haiti/
November 15, 2012
PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti—Oct. 22 was a romantic rendezvous for Bill and Hillary Clinton in Haiti, their one-time honeymoon destination. Hollywood celebs were there too—Sean Penn, Ben Stiller and sweatshop magnate Donna Karan, along with members of the Haitian elite, led by President Michael Martelly, a Washington-backed military coup supporter. “Haiti is open for business and we mean it,” Martelly said to his beaming guests.
The occasion was the opening of a new $300 million sweatshop industrial park in Caracol in northern Haiti, $124 million of it paid for by the U.S. taxpayers.[...]
Read the full article:
http://socialistaction.org/2012/11/the-hell-that-is-haiti/
Friday, November 9, 2012
Haiti: Hidden Costs of the Industrial Zone
The displacement of local farmers to build the Caracol Industrial Park neatly exemplifies the "economic development" programs the United States and international institutions regularly promote in Haiti.
by David L. Wilson, World War 4 Report
November 7, 2012
On Oct. 22 Haitian president Michel Martelly hosted the official opening of the Caracol Industrial Park, a 617-acre tax-exempt factory complex in Haiti's rural northeastern corner that promoters say will bring as many as 65,000 jobs to the country.
The Haitian president was joined by an array of foreign officials and celebrities. The United States, which invested $124 million in the project, was represented by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, and Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT). Another guest, former US president Bill Clinton, now the United Nations special envoy for Haiti, was a major promoter of the Caracol facility. [...]
Read the full article:
http://ww4report.com/node/11671
by David L. Wilson, World War 4 Report
November 7, 2012
On Oct. 22 Haitian president Michel Martelly hosted the official opening of the Caracol Industrial Park, a 617-acre tax-exempt factory complex in Haiti's rural northeastern corner that promoters say will bring as many as 65,000 jobs to the country.
The Haitian president was joined by an array of foreign officials and celebrities. The United States, which invested $124 million in the project, was represented by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, and Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT). Another guest, former US president Bill Clinton, now the United Nations special envoy for Haiti, was a major promoter of the Caracol facility. [...]
Read the full article:
http://ww4report.com/node/11671
|
| Photo of Oct. 8 workers' rally outside the Port-au-Prince industrial park, courtesy of Marty Goodman/Socialist Action. |
Friday, December 2, 2011
"Haiti--Open for Business" and Interview With Batay Ouvriye's Yannick Etienne
Haiti--Open for Business
Haiti Grassroots Watch/Ayiti Kale Je
November 29, 2011
“Haiti is open for business.”
That’s what President Michel “Sweet Micky” Martelly said on November 28 at a ceremony inaugurating a giant industrial zone being built in the north of Haiti.
Across Haiti and abroad, Martelly, his government, and “advisors” like former President Bill Clinton have been pushing Haiti as a foreign investor’s dream come true.
“We are ready for new ideas and new businesses, and are creating the conditions necessary for Haiti to become a natural and attractive destination for foreign investment,” the new president said last fall in New York City. [...]
See the full report:
http://haitigrassrootswatch.squarespace.com/haiti-grassroots-watch-engli/2011/11/29/haiti-open-for-business.html
Controversy over Haiti’s development
The Stream, Al Jazeera
November 30, 2011
A new industrial park in Haiti will create jobs, but is it leading the country in a “race to the bottom”? [...]
[Includes discussion with Yannick Etienne, a spokesperson for Batay Ouvriye, which is involved in organizing the SOTA union for assembly plant workers.]
See the full report:
http://stream.aljazeera.com/story/controversy-over-haiti%E2%80%99s-development-0021890
See also:
Investigation Finds Evidence of Violations of Union Rights in Garment Industry
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/investigation-finds-evidence-of-violations-of-union-rights-in-garment-industry
"Rebuilding Haiti" -- the Sweatshop Hoax
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/wilson040310.html
Haiti Grassroots Watch/Ayiti Kale Je
November 29, 2011
 |
| From Haiti Grassroots Watch |
That’s what President Michel “Sweet Micky” Martelly said on November 28 at a ceremony inaugurating a giant industrial zone being built in the north of Haiti.
Across Haiti and abroad, Martelly, his government, and “advisors” like former President Bill Clinton have been pushing Haiti as a foreign investor’s dream come true.
“We are ready for new ideas and new businesses, and are creating the conditions necessary for Haiti to become a natural and attractive destination for foreign investment,” the new president said last fall in New York City. [...]
See the full report:
http://haitigrassrootswatch.squarespace.com/haiti-grassroots-watch-engli/2011/11/29/haiti-open-for-business.html
Controversy over Haiti’s development
The Stream, Al Jazeera
November 30, 2011
A new industrial park in Haiti will create jobs, but is it leading the country in a “race to the bottom”? [...]
[Includes discussion with Yannick Etienne, a spokesperson for Batay Ouvriye, which is involved in organizing the SOTA union for assembly plant workers.]
See the full report:
http://stream.aljazeera.com/story/controversy-over-haiti%E2%80%99s-development-0021890
See also:
Investigation Finds Evidence of Violations of Union Rights in Garment Industry
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/investigation-finds-evidence-of-violations-of-union-rights-in-garment-industry
"Rebuilding Haiti" -- the Sweatshop Hoax
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/wilson040310.html
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Haiti: Anti-Occupation Protests Boil Over
Most reporting on Haiti gives the impression that MINUSTAH is a humanitarian mission and that its troops are “peacekeepers,” with little reference to a long list of Haitian grievances against the force.
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Supplement to issue #1057, November 18, 2010
1. Protests Shake Hinche, Shut Down Cap-Haïtien
2. UN Blames Protesters for Cholera Aid Delays
3. In the Capital: “It’s Too Much”
4. The Media Ignore the Background
ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com . It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/
*1. Protests Shake Hinche, Shut Down Cap-Haïtien
Large, militant protests against the presence of United Nations (UN) troops in Haiti broke out on Nov. 15 in Hinche in the Central Plateau and Cap-Haïtien on the northern coast. The protesters demanded the withdrawal of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), a Brazilian-led multinational force with more than 13,000 soldiers, police agents and staffers that has occupied Haiti since June 2004. Many Haitians blame MINUSTAH for an outbreak of cholera in October that by Nov. 18 had already caused more than 1,100 deaths. [...]
Read the full Update supplement:
http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/2010/11/haiti-anti-occupation-protests-boil.html
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Supplement to issue #1057, November 18, 2010
1. Protests Shake Hinche, Shut Down Cap-Haïtien
2. UN Blames Protesters for Cholera Aid Delays
3. In the Capital: “It’s Too Much”
4. The Media Ignore the Background
ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com . It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/
*1. Protests Shake Hinche, Shut Down Cap-Haïtien
Large, militant protests against the presence of United Nations (UN) troops in Haiti broke out on Nov. 15 in Hinche in the Central Plateau and Cap-Haïtien on the northern coast. The protesters demanded the withdrawal of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), a Brazilian-led multinational force with more than 13,000 soldiers, police agents and staffers that has occupied Haiti since June 2004. Many Haitians blame MINUSTAH for an outbreak of cholera in October that by Nov. 18 had already caused more than 1,100 deaths. [...]
Read the full Update supplement:
http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/2010/11/haiti-anti-occupation-protests-boil.html
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Citizen Protests, Government Repression Mount in Haiti
by Beverly Bell, Huffington Post
October 19, 2010
"I came to protest so we can find a solution. Misery is killing me," said Mascarie Sainte-Anne, 70, at the edge of a rally in front of Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive's office on October 12.
Haitians have been taking to the streets with increasing frequency since August in calls for redress of the economic and social crisis which has followed the earthquake. The social movements' demands of the government include the right of those living in internally displaced people's camps to permanent, humane housing; accessible education; and an increase in minimum wage. Rallies have also protested the continued presence of the U.N. Stabilization Mission in Haiti, or MINUSTAH. [...]
Read the full article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/beverly-bell/citizen-protests-governme_b_766360.html
October 19, 2010
"I came to protest so we can find a solution. Misery is killing me," said Mascarie Sainte-Anne, 70, at the edge of a rally in front of Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive's office on October 12.
Haitians have been taking to the streets with increasing frequency since August in calls for redress of the economic and social crisis which has followed the earthquake. The social movements' demands of the government include the right of those living in internally displaced people's camps to permanent, humane housing; accessible education; and an increase in minimum wage. Rallies have also protested the continued presence of the U.N. Stabilization Mission in Haiti, or MINUSTAH. [...]
Read the full article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/beverly-bell/citizen-protests-governme_b_766360.html
Monday, July 12, 2010
NYC: Haiti Events on 7/28 and 7/31
(Creole version below)
Haiti Emergency Committee
Wednesday July 28, 2010:
Anti-Occupation Demonstration in Front of the United Nations
43rd St/1st Ave, New York, NY
5:00 P.M. – 7:00 P.M.
and
Batay Ouvriye Solidarity Network
Saturday July 31, 2010:
Anti-Occupation Forum
Community Hall
Jean-Jacques Dessalines
836 Rogers Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11226
(Between Church Ave & Erasmus St; #2 Train to Church Ave)
6:00 P.M. – 9:00 P.M.
On Friday July 2nd, 2010, we met and decided to continue to work in the framework of the Haiti Emergency Committee, an organization many groups and individuals created in response to the tragic earthquake that hit Haiti on January 12, 2010. As can be noted above, we also agreed on a time and specific area for the anti-occupation Demonstration. We are calling on all progressives, justice-minded people and groups to join us and build these events during the month of July 2010
For more information, please call 646-829-9519
E-mail: bosolidarity@yahoo.com
*******************************
Komite Ijans Pou Ayiti
Mèkredi 28 Jiyè, 2010:
Manifestasyon Anti-Okipasyon Devan Nasyon Zini
43èm Ri/1e Avni, Nou Yòk, NY
5:00 P.M. – 7:00 P.M.
e
Rezo Solidarite ak Batay Ouvriye
Samdi 31 Jiyè, 2010:
Fowòm Anti-Okipasyon
Kay Jean-Jacques Dessalines
836 Rogers Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11226
Ant Church Ave ak Erasmus St
(Tren #2, Desann nan Church Ave)
6:00 P.M. – 9:00 P.M.
Vandredi 2 Jiyè 2010, nou te rankontre e deside travay sou banye Komite Ijans Pou Ayiti (Haiti Emergency Committee), yon gwoup dives òganizasyon ak endividi te kreye an repons a latè tranble trajik ann Ayiti 12 Janvye 2010 la. Kòm nou ka wè pi wo a, nou te dakò tou sou yon lè ak yon kote espesifik pou Manifestasyon an. Nou fè apèl a tout pwogresis, tout moun ak gwoup ki renmen jistis, pou rejwenn nou nan jefò pou bati aktivite sila yo pandan mwa Jiyè 2010 la.
Pou tout enfòmasyon, rele 646-829-9519
Imel: bosolidarity@yahoo.com
Haiti Emergency Committee
Wednesday July 28, 2010:
Anti-Occupation Demonstration in Front of the United Nations
43rd St/1st Ave, New York, NY
5:00 P.M. – 7:00 P.M.
and
Batay Ouvriye Solidarity Network
Saturday July 31, 2010:
Anti-Occupation Forum
Community Hall
Jean-Jacques Dessalines
836 Rogers Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11226
(Between Church Ave & Erasmus St; #2 Train to Church Ave)
6:00 P.M. – 9:00 P.M.
On Friday July 2nd, 2010, we met and decided to continue to work in the framework of the Haiti Emergency Committee, an organization many groups and individuals created in response to the tragic earthquake that hit Haiti on January 12, 2010. As can be noted above, we also agreed on a time and specific area for the anti-occupation Demonstration. We are calling on all progressives, justice-minded people and groups to join us and build these events during the month of July 2010
For more information, please call 646-829-9519
E-mail: bosolidarity@yahoo.com
*******************************
Komite Ijans Pou Ayiti
Mèkredi 28 Jiyè, 2010:
Manifestasyon Anti-Okipasyon Devan Nasyon Zini
43èm Ri/1e Avni, Nou Yòk, NY
5:00 P.M. – 7:00 P.M.
e
Rezo Solidarite ak Batay Ouvriye
Samdi 31 Jiyè, 2010:
Fowòm Anti-Okipasyon
Kay Jean-Jacques Dessalines
836 Rogers Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11226
Ant Church Ave ak Erasmus St
(Tren #2, Desann nan Church Ave)
6:00 P.M. – 9:00 P.M.
Vandredi 2 Jiyè 2010, nou te rankontre e deside travay sou banye Komite Ijans Pou Ayiti (Haiti Emergency Committee), yon gwoup dives òganizasyon ak endividi te kreye an repons a latè tranble trajik ann Ayiti 12 Janvye 2010 la. Kòm nou ka wè pi wo a, nou te dakò tou sou yon lè ak yon kote espesifik pou Manifestasyon an. Nou fè apèl a tout pwogresis, tout moun ak gwoup ki renmen jistis, pou rejwenn nou nan jefò pou bati aktivite sila yo pandan mwa Jiyè 2010 la.
Pou tout enfòmasyon, rele 646-829-9519
Imel: bosolidarity@yahoo.com
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