"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

Poverty-Wage Assembly Plants as Development Strategy in Haiti: An Interview with the Center for the Promotion of Women Workers

By Beverly Bell and Tory Field, Other Worlds Are Possible
May 20, 2010

The U.S. Congress has passed bi-partisan legislation, the Haiti Economic Lift Program (HELP) Act, that would extend and expand current trade law with Haiti to increase U.S. imports of Haitian assembled textiles. Passed May 5 and 6 by the House and Senate, respectively, the bill is part of the push by U.S., U.N., other international leaders, and businesses to expand the low-wage assembly industry as the linchpin of Haiti's post-earthquake recovery. President Obama is expected to sign the bill into law.

"This important step responds to the needs of the Haitian people for more tools to lift themselves from poverty, while standing to benefit U.S. consumers,'' said a statement by former presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton about the bill. [...]

Read the full article:
http://www.otherworldsarepossible.org/another-haiti-possible/poverty-wage-assembly-plants-development-strategy-haiti-interview-center-prom

See also:
http://grassrootssolidarity.blogspot.com/2010/03/rebuilding-haiti-sweatshop-hoax.html