New York City August 19th Solidarity Picket with the people of Haiti

central america / caribbean | workplace struggles | anarchist communist event Monday August 10, 2009 14:14 by supporter - Grassroots Haiti Solidarity Committee info at grassrootshaiti dot org

PICKET LINE

WEDNESDAY AUGUST 19, 2009: Noon – 2:00 P.M.
HAITIAN CONSULATE

August 4, 2009, over ten thousand Haitian workers protested outside the Haitian Parliament

Enact a Living Minimum Wage!
Solidarity with Workers!
End the Repression!
UN (US) Troops Out of Haiti!

PICKET LINE

WEDNESDAY AUGUST 19, 2009: Noon – 2:00 P.M.
HAITIAN CONSULATE

271 Madison Avenue, between 38th & 39th Streets, Manhattan
(Train #4, #5, #6, get off 42nd St., Grand Central)

There has been no adjustment made to the minimum wage in Haiti for over 6 years, even though yearly adjustments are mandated by Haitian law. The current minimum wage in Haiti (70 gourdes or $1.75 per day) is now worth less than 20% of the 1980 minimum wage. In March 2007, Steven Benoit, a deputy in the Lower-Chamber of Parliament, introduced legislation to adjust the minimum wage to 200 gourdes ($5.00 US) for an eight-hour workday. This would still be the lowest minimum wage in the Western Hemisphere and less than half the industrial minimum wage in the neighboring Dominican Republic.Although, according to studies by the Haitian government and the Worker Rights Consortium, 200 gourdes per day is less than half the subsistence needs of family of three, workers see this adjustment as a starting point in a struggle for fair wages.

After delaying more than a year and a half, the Lower-Chamber of the Parliament finally voted in favor of this bill in December 2008. Five months later, in May 2009, the Senate also voted (almost unanimously) in favor of this adjustment. But instead of signing this bill into law, President Préval has sent objections to Parliament, claiming, along with factory owners, that this bill would cause catastrophic unemployment.

Thousands of workers have taken to the streets to protest the illegal compromise adjustment of 150 gourdes ($3.75 US) per day promoted by Préval and ADIH, the factory owners association.
Haiti, which is still under occupation by 9,000 UN MINUSTAH troops, is being groomed for the expansion of textile assembly plans under the HOPE bill promoted by the US State Department and the UN. The Haitian minimum wage is being kept at sub-subsistence levels as a way to entice foreign investments and guarantee huge profits for multi-national corporations such as Levi’s and Hanes. Workers have denounced this plan as disguised slavery, not economic development. They demand a living wage!

Join us to demand a Living Minimum Wage for workers in Haiti!