[Haiti] After the minimum wage increase, heightened exploitation!

central america / caribbean | workplace struggles | press release Tuesday October 20, 2009 09:57 by Batay Ouvriye - BO batay at batayouvriye dot org

Port-au-Prince, October 16th, 2009

The following is a flyer we distributed last week concerning rising quotas and increased exploitation in the factories in Haiti.

Comrade workers of the clothing and textile industries,

After having pulled all sorts of strings to deter the wretched daily 200 gourdes* wage adjustment (while we had calculated that 450-500 gourdes was actually needed as a minimum wage presently, while even the department of labor calculated workers should be making at least 300 gourdes as a living wage!), as they ordered brutal repression to stop us from speaking out on our own interests: now the assembly industry bourgeoisie are determined once more to swindle us on the quota question.

As we all well know, QUOTAS and MODULES are the bourgeois’ major exploitative mechanisms, drying us to the bones. Now, beyond this usual oppression, the QUOTA system is attempting to fool us and thus exploit us further.

In which way? The fact is a simple illustration shows us everything. Let’s take a factory in which the minimum wage is 70 gourdes. For this, we used to have to 1500 unities for 180 gourdes. That was the quota. So, each unity was worth 0.12 gourdes. Presently, while the minimum wage has risen to 125 gourdes, they’re demanding we produce 1400 unities. So, each unity for 0.14 gourdes and we believe we’re working less for more pay. THIS IS WHERE THEY’RE FOOLING US! Because in fact: where are the specifics of the wage adjustment? Let’s see further to know where the truth lays.

125 gourdes, correctly, is 1.78 times 70 gourdes. Normally, if our labor’s worth was adjusted proportionally to the minimum wage adjustment, that is, as logic clearly dictates it, a 1.78% adjustment of the 70 gourdes minimum wage dictates that each unit become 0.21 gourdes. So, when and if we manage to attain 1400 units, they should pay us 294 gourdes. [And, to be even more precise – 1.78, is in fact 1.7857; o.21 is 0.2142, etc…), so if we wished to be quite exact the adjustment of the 1.7857 minimum wage adjustement, would really come out to 300 GOURDES!] Therefore, with their maneuvers, instead of 300 gourdes, they’re handing us 200! With their moves, instead of 300 gourdes, these robber barons are paying us 200 gourdes! With these thieving maneuvers, the bourgeois are making 100 gourdes per day on each of us! And we, despite such a tiny little adjustment that’s already absolutely useless for us, worse, now: WE’RE LOSING 10O GOURDES A DAY!!!

Impossible.

Let’s come together and refuse to accept the abusive exploitation these comfortable bourgeois have decide to carry out on our backs, in our sweat, in the blood of our children!