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Congress Legislation "Hope Bill" for Haiti may equal despair for Haitian workers

Tuesday, Jan 16 2007, 4:54pm

Hope Bill: another recycle policy. The Haitian Hemispheric Opportunity through Partnership Encouragement Act, or HOPE, is a bill which recently passed as part of a package of legislation which included normalizing trade relations with Vietnam and extending special benefits to four Andean and 37 African nations. One of the so-called objectives of HOPE is to create jobs that are in dire need in Haiti...

The HOPE Bill: Despair for Haitian Workers and for Haiti

The Haitian Hemispheric Opportunity through Partnership Encouragement Act, or HOPE, is a bill which recently passed as part of a package of legislation which included normalizing trade relations with Vietnam and extending special benefits to four Andean and 37 African nations. One of the so-called objectives of HOPE is to create jobs that are in dire need in Haiti, particularly in the garment industry. This bill was passed in the American Congress by a bi-partisan coalition of Democrats and Republicans and it is aimed to help Haiti break away from a worsening cycle of poverty and political strife. This cycle has entered a downward spiral and the tendency for this plunge to accentuate is far greater than any other alternative.

The HOPE bill is not an accident, although it may be one of the steroid shots intended to jump-start the Haitian economy. The textile industry doesn?t require a high level of technology. The garment industry has not gone through any big technological changes recently. The same sewing machines are still in use. The role of Haiti will only be to assemble what is being shipped to the country, and then to ship it back out.

HOPE is not a new kid on the block; in fact it is a recycled policy that has already failed. Under Jean Claude Duvalier, in the 70?s, more than a hundred assembly sweatshops, hiring more than 600,000 workers did little to bolster the failing Haitian economy. On the contrary, the Haitian economy worsened. The internal migration toward the metropolitan areas and the emigration to other countries was aggravated. Added to that, US imperialist policies of structural adjustment and globalization wreaked havoc on the Haitian economy. A case in point was the wholesale slaughter of native pigs, which were the bank accounts of poor Haitian peasants.

Will HOPE help bolster the Haitian economy?

The Haitian social formation is a very complex one. What good can come out of a patch up attempt? Misery is not generalized in Haiti; there is a small, minute minority in Haiti that never has to deal with misery and its violent consequences. Not being able to provide for your family, not being able to provide proper health care or proper education, having to indenture your child as a servant to guarantee him or her a mediocre meal, this is the daily violence that the Haitian masses face. Having no recourse for your grievances, having no job security, not knowing where your next meal will come from, that is the level of insecurity that the Haitians masses must deal with on a daily basis. If HOPE is aimed to alleviate the misery, then realistically it should have been designed in the interest of those facing these hardships. There is a simple logic: WE CAN?T ENTRUST THE MICE?S SOLUTIONS TO CATS. There should at the very least be some level of protection, or else HOPE will only create more despair. HOPE is entrusting the welfare of Haitian workers to the Haitian ruling classes, whose misery they have created and from which they have profited.

Jobs and the cost of living:

The assembly industry has no connection to the national economy. There is no connection between agricultural and industrial production. The assembly industry is like an ugly tumor in a deserted, devastated desert. These tumors are located in the some of Haiti?s most fertile lands, such as the Free Trade Zone established in Ouanaminthe under Aristide?s Lavalas regime. One of the consequences of these policies is that Haiti can no longer produce enough food to feed its population. Peasants are no longer interested in agriculture and can?t compete with imported or so called donated goods such as rice. We can?t forget the most recent rice?s scandal under the regime of Aristide where these populist accumulated capital and benefited. Haiti?s national currency has been devaluated, making it worthless in US dollars. Workers are not able to sustain themselves and the meager wages received for their labor puts Haitian workers in conditions similar to slavery, with the added difference that workers now have to provide for themselves. The Haitian cost of living is as comparable to the US cost of living, but wages are not. The minimum wage in Haiti is about 24¢ an hour and a lot of workers don?t even earn this much due to unjust labor practices of sweatshops owners such as piece work, module where Haitians workers are required to produce a certain amount of goods or they will not be able to get their minimum wage as required by the Haitians antiquated Labor Laws. The Haitian ruling classes and their state apparatus, now led by the Préval-Alexis administration, has no national plan to develop the economy. In fact their bankrupt policies are facilitating Haiti?s US/UN tutelage.

Jobs, at what cost?

Haiti?s economy was flourishing in the period of slavery, but a plantation slave?s life expectancy was about 5 years. Nowadays, after all the advances made by humanity, should we accept these new conditions of slavery for the benefit of greedy capitalists? Again, US policy makers have allied themselves with Haiti?s ruling elites. Again, this will be a failed policy, just as in Iraq, or any other country where the ally is part of the problem.

In the short term, we need to demand that safeguards for Haitian workers be built into HOPE. The right to organize, the right to collective bargaining, and the right to adequate health care should be an integral part of HOPE. All progressives need to struggle against the anti national anti popular policies of the Haitians dominant classes and the safeguarding of these policies by the Haitian State Apparatus now led by remnant of Aristide?s populist trend. At the same the interest of workers internationally need to be address in our battle for the rights of Haitians workers.