I think that the fact that Batay Ouvriye received US$3,500 from the Solidarity Center to help the 350 workers and their families who were fired from the Codevi FTZ in Ouanaminthe in June 2004 should not distract anyone from appreciating the organization's fantastic work with agricultural laborers, assembly plant workers and other Haitian workers over the last decade.

To my mind, the efforts that Batay Ouvriye has made to help Haitian workers to organize themselves to win a better way of life contrasts quite starkly with the performance of the Lavalas Family party while in full control of the country's government and institutions 2001-2003. Can anyone point out one thing that government did for Haitian workers?*


* PS Don't say raising the minimum wage, because no one, not even President Aristide's press officer, Michele Karshan, could explain why at the tripartite talks to set the new minimum wage in 2003, the co-opted unions called for 102 gourdes a day, the private sector offered 72 gourdes a day, and the Lavalas Family government decided on 70 gourdes a day, which was in effect equivalent to less than the 15 gourdes a day paid under Jean-Claude Duvalier!


If anyone is seriously interested in finding out about Batay Ouvriye and the recent history of the labor movement in Haiti, then please check the following:

http://www.batayouvriye.org/English/Welcome.html

LabourStart Haiti archives 2002
http://tinyurl.com/aqp8x

LabourStart Haiti archives 2003
http://tinyurl.com/7cn2p

LabourStart Haiti archives 2004
http://tinyurl.com/d9c9q

http://www.laborstart.org/

http://www.haitisupport.gn.apc.org/fea_campaign_index.html