Workers' Liberty

Last week thousands of garment workers in Bangladesh went on strike in protest at rising food prices. Factory workers earn as little as a $1 a day and have seen the price of rice increase by a third since last year. Some 30 million people in Bangladesh – nearly a quarter of the population — may be going without a daily meal.

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=38646

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Jul 24 (IPS) - Late last month, President René Préval announced that Haiti's public telephone company, Téléco, would be privatised. Meeting recently with the Haitian Chamber of Commerce and Senator Jean Hector Anacacis of Preval's Lespwa political party, the president finalised plans to sell off the aging enterprise.

Port – au – Prince ; le 11 Juillet 2007

Communiqué de Presse

Inquiétudes de la CTH face à la gestion du pays.

Après la bataille démocratique qu’ont menée les travailleurs et le peuple haïtien avec leurs bulletins de vote aux élections du 7 février 2007 ; où ils ont accouché un gouvernement dans l’idée d’éradiquer le chômage, la misère et l’insécurité.

Port-Au-Prince; July 11, 2007 Press Release Concerns of the CTH, regarding the management of the Country.

After the democratic battle, led by the Workers and the Haitian People through their voting ballots during the elections of February 7, 2007; where they gave birth to a government conceptually eradicating unemployment, poverty and insecurity.

Agence Haitïenne de Presse

At least 500 Téléco workers received termination letters Friday as part of the government's announced plan to privatize the company. Another thousand are expected to be fired on Monday.

Agence Haitïenne de Presse-

Workers at the national telephone company Téléco said Monday that they will not accept payment of one year's compensation if they are to be fired from their jobs under the privatization plan announced by President René Préval.

Port-au-Prince le 28 juin 2007 (AHP)- Les employés de la compagnie nationale de téléphone (Téléco) ont repris leurs acitités jeudi à la suite d'une grève de 3 semaines pour protester contre des décisions jugées arbitraires prises par le directeur général de l'institution, Michel Présumé, dont la révocation d'employés, dans le cadre de la privatisation prochaine de la Téléco.

By: Jeb Sprague and Wadner Pierre

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Jun 19 (IPS) - A two-day transport strike last week gripped Haiti's major cities and underscored a mounting crisis over fuel prices, which rose nearly 20 percent in just two weeks.

Port-au-Prince, le 12 juin 2007 &endash; (AHP)- La grève de 48 heures lancée par des syndicats de chauffeurs a paralysé ce mardi le transport en commun à Port-au-Prince et dans la plupart des villes de province.

By Ben Terrall - HaitiAnalysis.com

New legislation in Washington D.C., under the acronym H.O.P.E. – short for “ the Haitian Hemispheric Opportunity through Partnership Encouragement Act,” has the goal of promoting the garment industry in Haiti. But the legislation falls noticeably short in protecting labor rights or promoting long-term sustainable economic development that will benefit the poor as well as the rich.

By Colin Waugh

The Haitian revolution of 1791-1804 is arguably comparable in importance to the American Revolution of 1776 and the French Revolution of 1789.

Just one of its effects, for example, was that Napoleon abandoned his plan to seize north America, with the result that in 1803 he sold 'Louisiana' (i.e., about one third of the present USA) to the US for £3 million. It illustrates also why to understand the world we must take into account 'black history' - that is, history from which most people are not left out. Thirdly, it is a prime example of history from below, illustrating how it was 'slaves who abolished slavery'.

By Joe Emersberger and Jeb Sprague for Z Net.

The most prominent and well funded international labor organizations active in Haiti, the ICFTU, AFL-CIO, ILO, and ORIT, worked to support and strengthen labor organizations that agitated for the ousting of Haiti’s democratically elected Aristide government (2001-2004). Simultaneously they refused to condemn the massive layoffs and persecution of public sector workers and trade unionists committed by its illegally-imposed successor (the interim government of Gerald Latortue).

By: Wadner Pierre - HaitiAnalysis.com

Port-au-Prince- On November 18, 2006 Haitian grassroots human rights organizations came together to found a coalition. CONODDH (National Coordination of Organizations Defending Human Rights) explains that it is a grouping of organizations all with deep experience working in the field of human rights.

Demonstrators demand return of Aristide, the exit of MINUSTAH, rehabilitation of all civil employees illegally dismissed, and freedom for all political prisoners.

Article and Photos by Wadner Pierre for Freehaiti.net

Port-au-Prince, October 23, 2006 (AHP); Several thousand people, largely supporters of Fanmi Lavalas, demonstrated Monday in the streets of Port-au-Prince to ask the government authorities to work to re-hire the workers who were dismissed from the civil service by the interim government of Gérard Latortue

International Human Rights and Labor Delegation Protests Attacks on Civilians by MINUSTAH

PRESS CONFERENCE : Friday, August 25, 2006 - 2:00 p.m.
UNDP / MINUSTAH Headquarters, Avenue John Brown / Bourdon, Port-au-Prince

Cap-Haïtien, August 2, 2006 (AHP); The government workers in Cap-Haitian who were terminated declared Wednesday that they are setting a deadline of August 14 for the Haitian authorities to return them to their previous positions and pay them all back wages due since the day they were dismissed.

Hilaire Prophete, Spokesman for Pa Ka Tann Operation (OPK), reiterates the demands for the reinstatement of former public administration employees, thousands of who were laid off for political reasons by the Interim government of Gerald Latortue (2004-2006).

Haitian Civil servants unjustly fired take to streets of Port-au-prince to call for their reintegration and for the liberation of all political prisoners. The elected government of Rene Preval begins commission of inquiry into the massive lay offs that took place under the Latortue government, which had warm relations with the IMF and World Bank.

Reverse Solidarity: The Reactionary Role of US Labor in Haiti and Venezuela - FLASHPOINTS Interview with Kim Scipes and Jeb Sprague on International Labor Intervention in Haiti and Venezuela (June 2006)

On February 16, 2004 a group of foreign trade union officials arrived in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, amongst them ORIT General Secretary Victor Baez, ICFTU Assistant General Secretary Mamounata Cissé and union leaders from France, Canada, Guyana and the Global Union Federation. The purpose of the delegation was to assist eleven trade unionists of the Coordination Syndicale Haïtienne (CSH), accused by Haitian authorities as working to bring down the government. The labor delegation drew international coverage as Katia Gil, General Coordinator of Programs with ORIT explains, “We went to visit them in jail. We went with many newspapers and press, local and international agencies.”[1] Just thirteen days after their arrival on February 29, 2004, Haiti’s popularly elected Lavalas government was overthrown and its President Jean-Bertrand Aristide after being sent on a plane to Africa, declared he had been kidnapped by U.S. Marines. An interim government made up of elites drawn from the political opposition to the Aristide government was quickly put into place, supported by the United States, France, and Canada.

By Dan Katz

Haitian authorities have rescheduled the first round of presidential
and parliamentary elections for 7 February. The polls, originally set
for last November, have been postponed four times because of
so-called "security and organisational issues".

News from working-class struggles around the world...

By Mark Osborn

A year after the fall of the populist, pseudo-radical government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, conditions for the workers and poor of Haiti are terrible and getting worse.

A Haitian court has ordered the Grupo M Free Trade Zone located on the Haitian-Dominican border to pay 1.5 million gourdes (approximately US$40,000) in damages for violations of workers’ rights.

Yannick Etienne is a member of Batay Ouvriye (Workers’ Fight), a militant trade union federation in Haiti. Yannick is on a speaking tour of Britain organised by No Sweat and the Haiti Support Group. Solidarity spoke to Yannick about the situation in Haiti today and about the work of Batay Ouvriye, particularly in the new Free Trade Zone that is being built at Ouanaminthe, on the border with the Dominican Republic

First meeting in the speaking tour organised by No Sweat for Yannick Etienne, an organiser for the Batay Ouvriye union federation in Haiti: click here for full details of the tour.

Yannick Etienne, a trade union organiser from Haiti, will be speaking at the ESF and touring Britain after it.