Tag Archives: Textile

Caracol Free-Trade Zone Jeopardizes Natural and Cultural Heritage | La zone franche de Caracol met en péril le patrimoine naturel et culturel du Nord-Est

avatarPosted on by March 11, 2019

By Rachelle Charlier Doucet, AlterPresse | Commentary and translation by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. A massive industrial park is scheduled to open in the Caracol Bay area of Haiti, although no plan is in place to mitigate the park’s impact on a region that has been proposed as a World Heritage Site for its ecological, historical, and archaeological importance. (English | French)

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Caracol Haiti Industrial Park With Projected Adverse Environmental Impact | Caracol, un parc industriel d’Haïti Parc qui aurait un impact environnemental négatif

avatarPosted on by March 1, 2018

By Staff, Haiti Grassroots Watch. Part 6 of 7. The same week over 300 agricultural plots in Caracol, Haiti, were unexpectedly destroyed, the Haitian government signed an agreement with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, IDB, and Korean textile giant Sae-A Trading to convert the lands into an industrial park. This park will dump its wastes into a bay with extensive coraf reefs and one of the country’s last mangrove forests. (English | French)

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Gildan Orders Haitian Subcontractor to Reinstate Union Workers

avatarPosted on by February 25, 2019

By Alison MacGregor, Montreal Gazette. Gildan Activewear Inc., a Montreal-based apparel firm, has ordered its Haitian subcontractor, the Genesis S.A. factory owned by Haiti’s Apaid family, to reinstate four workers illegally fired in September for forming a new union.

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Sweatshops: Stepping Stone or Dead End? | Tremplin ou cul-de-sac?

avatarPosted on by February 25, 2019

By Staff, Haiti Grassroots Watch. Part 5 of 7. Are low-wage, low-skilled assembly industries in Haiti really a “stepping stone” to more complex industrial development? In the Mexican maquiladora boom areas, the water table is dropping by 1 to 1.5 meters every year due to intensive use of water; the blue dye run-off from jeans pollutes rivers and irrigation ditches; 67% of homes have dirt floors, and 52% of streets are unpaved. (English | French)

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What’s Planned for Haiti? | Quel est le plan pour Haïti?

avatarPosted on by December 14, 2018

By Staff, Haiti Grassroots Watch. Part 4 of 7. ”You get some factories and some salaries, and everything else is imported…. People need to know what FTZs are, what has happened in Mexico, or Honduras, so they don’t think these things will ‘save’ us.” – Camille Chalmers, Economist. (English | French)

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Why is Haiti ‘Attractive’?Pourquoi Haïti est si ‘attrayante’?

avatarPosted on by March 1, 2018

By Staff, Haiti Grassroots Watch. Part 3 of 7. Haiti is the only country that guarantees the U.S. market duty-free and quota-free access. With every free-trade zone that gets built on prime agricultural land, more farmers are put out of work. Thus Haitians import more food as real wages drop to rock bottom in the sweatshops, where there are now plans to legalize 3 x 8 hours work shifts. In Haiti, we sometimes talk figuratively about being eaten up. This comes pretty close to the real thing. DC (English | French)

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Anti-Union, Pro-‘Race to the Bottom’Anti-syndicalisme, pro-‘course vers le bas’

avatarPosted on by March 1, 2018

By Staff, Haiti Grassroots Watch. Part 2 of 7. “It’s a big error to bet on the slave-wage labor, on breaking the backs of workers who are paid nothing while [foreign] companies get rich. It’s not only an error, it’s a crime…. [Assembly factories] work with imported materials, they’re enclaves. They don’t have much effect on the economy.” – Haitian economist Camille Chalmers. (English | French)

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Salaries in the ‘New’ Haiti | Les salaires dans la « nouvelle » Haïti

avatarPosted on by December 27, 2018

By Staff, Haiti Grassroots Watch. Part 1 of 7. In Haiti, the minimum wage went from $3.00 per day in 1982, to 200 gourdes today, which is about $1.61 PER DAY in 1982 dollars. This represents a 46 percent drop in real salary compared to 1982 wages. (English | French)

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Nascent Union Charges Reprisals by Textile Factory Owners | Naciente sindicato denuncia represión patronal

avatarPosted on by December 21, 2018

By Ansel Herz, IPS. Port-au-Prince – Workers in Haiti’s apparel manufacturing sector charge that factory owners are repressing attempts to organise in the capital, after the dismissals of six of seven leading members of a new union within just two weeks of its formation. (English | Spanish)

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Lesotho Government to Turn Its Back on Textile Industry

avatarPosted on by March 11, 2019

By Kristin Palitza, IPS | Commentary by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. In response to demands of a living wage from unions of Lesotho’s textile factory workers this summer, the World Bank is recommending to Lesotho’s government that it should ditch its textile industry, after the manufacturers have enjoyed Lesotho’s attractive tax breaks.

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In Praise of the Shadow Economy

avatarPosted on by December 27, 2018

By Andrew Leonard, Salon. “Half the workers of the world work in jobs that are off the books… The combined economic activity of these 1.8 billion workers adds up to $10 trillion. If this informal economy were squeezed into a single political structure, it would be the second largest economy in the world,” Robert Neuwirth writes in Stealth of Nations: The Global Rise of the Informal Economy.

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Bye-Bye MINUSTAH! | Bye-Bye MINUSTAH! | Bye-Bye MINUSTAH! | Adeus MINUSTAH!

avatarPosted on by January 3, 2019

By Dady Chery, Haiti Chery | Spanish translation by Fernando Moyano | Portuguese translation by Murilo Otavio Rodrigues Paes Leme. This article was first published in Aug 2011 when newly sworn Brazilian Defense Minister Celso Amorim said he wanted to conclude Brazil’s participation in the notorious United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH). (English | French | Spanish | Portuguese)

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Fertile Land Seized for New Sweatshop Zone | Un déficit d’information publique sur le parc industriel du nord

avatarPosted on by March 1, 2018

By Sylvestre Fils Dorcilus, Alter Presse. “It’s the most fertile area we have at Caracol…. It’s inconceivable and unacceptable that the government could choose this part of the land to set up an industrial park.” – Resident Renel Pierre (English | French)

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Let Them Live on $3 a Day | Usines Levis et Hanes ont combattu, avec l’ambassade des É.-U., l’augmentation du salaire minimum en Haïti

avatarPosted on by March 1, 2018

By Dan Coughlin and Kim Ives, The Nation. Contractors for Fruit of the Loom, Hanes, and Levi’s worked in close concert with the US Embassy when they aggressively moved to block a minimum wage increase for Haitian assembly zone workers, the lowest-paid in the hemisphere, according to secret State Department cables. (English | French)

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