Rapid Response Network

Category: Solidarity

Take Action: Bogus Taxes, Illegal Firings
Haitian garment workers in the northeast part of Haiti ask us for international back up.

Please email Fernando Capellan to let him know that he cannot illegally fire union members in the CODEVI Free Trade Zone.

After thousands of workers decided to stay home from work to protest unjust wage taxes, 42 union members were targeted and illegally fired. Now more workers are facing retaliation as well with nearly 70 additional workers being suspended or fired.

Grupo M operates the CODEVI Free Trade Zone and is responsible for taking out taxes and the firings. Fernando Capellan owns Grupo M.

You can keep reading for more info or, CLICK HERE to Email Now.

2019-06-12 Update: Thank you so much for the support that has poured in from around the world! Thank you for emailing and spreading the word. Fernando Capellan was supposed to meet with union leaders regarding these illegal firings, but this process has slowed down. All of Haiti is upside down at the moment.

Across the country, people are enraged by the level of corruption and blatant disregard for the people’s ability to exist. There have been giant marches, blocking of roads and calls for general strikes. This is the same frustration shared by the textile workers in CODEVI Free Trade Zone who have been resisting a tax on their meager wages, because the only purpose the taxes serve is to line the pockets of government officials, their friends and cronies.

Please continue to email Fernando Capellan. He is complicit in this situation. Let’s keep the pressure on! Thank you for your solidarity!

WHO?
- SOKOWA & SAKAD are textile trade unions, affiliated with Batay Ouvriye, in the Codevi Free Trade Zone (FTZ) in Ounaminthe, Haiti. SOKOWA has existed since 2004 and is responsible for many of the rights that have been gained for workers in Codevi FTZ. SAKAD is a new union.
- Batay Ouvriye (Workers Fight) – a Haitian movement of autonomous textile unions and organizations of peasants, small vendors, and neighborhoods.
- Fernando Capellan – owns Grupo M, the company that operates Codevie Free Trade Zone, which is the entity responsible for applying the taxes to workers’ wages.
- Manufacturers & Brands in Codevi FTZ – Dominican company, Grupo M, manufactures clothing for a variety of U.S. brands — Hanes, Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, Under Armour, Champion, Fruit of the Loom, Gap, Dickies, Carhart and Sorell. These companies make millions of dollars in profits and pay nearly nothing in taxes, nor investments into social services.
- Haitian state and officials – known for ongoing corruption. In reality, most of this tax money will be used to line the pockets of state officials and their friends.
WHAT?

Textile workers in the CODEVI Free Trade Zone earn 2,493 Gourdes/week or $27.24 US. They struggle to pay rent and feed their families on this wage. The Haitian government has been trying to tax workers’ meager wages across the country. Workers who make more than 150,000 Haitian Gourdes per year ($1,638 US) are being taxed 18% of their wage.

While a wage tax sounds like a normal practice for road maintenance, libraries, parks etc, the case is different in Haiti. There are no public services like this. Workers do not have the basics of electricity and clean, running water. These taxes do not go towards public services, but instead line the pockets of government officials and the rich in Haiti.

Meanwhile, the manufacturers who set up shop in Haiti make millions and often billions of dollars in profit. They are attracted to Haiti because of extremely low wages and no taxation or regulation. So, workers’ position is: No Services? No Taxes!

Rightfully angered, many workers decided to stay home from work on Monday, May 6, in protest. Because nearly 90% of the workforce stayed home, this became a work stoppage, but it was not an official strike. It was not organized by any union, but organically happened through angry workers discussing their frustrations and word of mouth. Many workers continued to stay home from work on Tuesday, May 7 and Wednesday, May 8. After three days of protest, CODEVI shut down the plants for Thursday, May 9 and Friday, May 10.

Workers returned to the factories on Monday, May 13 and worked a full week. When workers received their checks on Friday, May 17, CODEVI took taxes from some workers – machinists, supervisors and middle management – but not the sewing machine operators. And, the note regarding the tax was removed from the operators’ pay slips. This may have been an effort to divide and pacify some of the workers. Everyone went home for the weekend, and returned to work on Monday, May 20.

On Tuesday, May 21 around 3pm, union leadership of SOKOWA, SAKAD and all the other unions in the free trade zone were rounded up with security and told that CODEVI will no longer work with them. They were all handed resignation letters to sign, which they refused. Instead, these union members took a copy of the letter, resisted being thrown out of the factory, and went to inform other workers of what was happening. Upon hearing about this retaliation against the unions, many workers chose to walk out with the illegally fired union leaders.

Fired union committee members meet to plan their actions.

Since the initial firings, an inter-union committee has been formed to fight the firings. SOKOWA and SAKAD have led meetings, handed out leaflets, hired a lawyer and filed a formal complaint with the Ministry of Labor. There have been more firings and suspensions, and the Ministry of Labor did not show for two remediation meetings, scheduled on for Thursday, May 23 and Friday, May 24.

Workers are continuing to mobilize and protest with sit ins in front of CODEVI, and they are asking for international solidarity as well.

HOW YOU CAN HELP

Please take two minutes to copy, paste and send the below email.

Feel free to add your own note.

And, please help spread the word! Thank you so much.

Email: fcapellan@grupom.com.do, lcruz@grupom.com.do
cc: batayouvriye@gmail.com, contact@rapidresponsenetwork.info

Subject: Rehire fired CODEVI workers

Mr. Capellan & Mr. Cruz,

I am emailing you, because I stand with the workers at CODEVI Free Trade Zone who are protesting against the taxes taken from their meager wages. Workers receive incredibly low wages and lack basic services like electricity and clean running water, while Grupo M and the brands you produce for profit and avoid paying taxes. No services for workers? Then no taxes.

I ask you to do the following:
1. Rehire or reinstate the workers and union leaders you unjustly fired and give back payments for days lost
2. Stop retaliating against union members
3. Respect workers’ rights to organize
Solidarity with Haitian workers fighting for their rights,

Name
Rapid Response Network
City, State
Country
May 29, 2019
Action: Apaid – Rehire Workers!
2018/10/24 – Haitian garment workers, illegally fired for exercising their union rights, are asking for our support. Will you help by voicing their demands?

Every day, we dress ourselves in the products of exploitation. Meanwhile, the workers who produce these goods are struggling for basic rights.

Let’s pressure Haitian factory owner, Clifford Apaid, to meet the demands of illegally fired workers.

Clifford Apaid in one of the Apaid Group factories.

CLICK HERE TO HELP

Scroll down for more background info.

WHO is Involved

SOTA-BO – independent textile trade union with members in several garment factories in Port Au Prince and Carrefour, Haiti. They are affiliated with Batay Ouvriye.

Batay Ouvriye (Workers Fight) – a Haitian movement of autonomous textile unions and organizations of peasants, small vendors, and neighborhoods.

Clifford Apaid – head of the Apaid Group/AGA Corp which owns several textile factories in Haiti. The Apaids are one of the wealthiest families in Haiti deeply involved in politics, allowing them to influence government regulatory agencies. Along with other factory owners, they strongly resist wage adjustments and increases. They consistently repress workers’ legal right to organize.

Clifford Apaid is a graduate of Florida International University. He has a bachelor’s in Management Information Systems, another in finance and a master’s in international finance. He is also a board member of the Haitian Association of Industries (ADIH) and of the SOFIHDES development bank in Haiti.

You & Me/Consumers – Most of the clothing produced in Haiti is sold in the US and Canada, thanks to the HOPE and HELP Acts, which allow brands to pay zero tariffs to import its products from Haiti to the US & Canada. (This means no taxes are collected to use towards desperately needed social services, public resources, and infrastructure in Haiti).

WHAT is Happening?
- Garment workers in Haiti receive the lowest wage in the western hemisphere – 350 Gourdes, or US $5.40 per day.
- Their wages are consumed just by the transportation costs of getting to and from work.
- Most live in debt, and on the brink of hunger and homelessness.
- Production quotas in factories are often set impossibly high. Factory owners and management do not respect the law, and often do not pay the minimum wage.
- Union members and organizers are constantly harassed and arbitrarily fired for exercising their legal rights.
Since 2017 SOTA-BO has been organizing series of ongoing strikes, work stoppages, walk outs, marches, and discussions to push for a minimum wage adjustment. They’ve handed out thousands of leaflets, sang songs about their struggle, and mobilized thousands of workers to join them.

Even though unions are “legally recognized,” hundreds of workers have been illegally fired for their legal acts of fighting for basic rights.

Many workers from Apaid factories, including Premium Apparel, Silver Linings and Maton have been out of work for over a year because of these illegal firings. They are struggling to exist.

You can click here to read the direct appeal for solidarity from SOTA-BO.

WHY Don’t They Just Pay Them?

Factory owners in Haiti generally hold no respect for workers. In a country where feudalist ideas still hold influence and there are thousands of desperate people looking for work, textile workers are seen as an inexhaustible resource for exploitation.

Manufacturers and the brands they produce for vehemently oppose workers’ rights because they interfere with their ability to extract as much profit out of the production process as possible. This means exploitation is required, and it takes many forms. Setting impossible production quotas to prevent workers from receiving the minimum wage, wage theft, and unpaid overtime are a few of these methods.

NOTE – On Consumer Guilt

The reality is that no matter what brand you buy, from clothing to food, every good is tied to exploitation at some point in the production process.

Rather than scour the internet for guilt-free products that do not exist, stand behind the people who produce the goods we consume, the people fighting exploitation daily.

We are not just passive, individual consumers. We are people with conscience, with a human instinct for solidarity and collective action. We are many.

Lend your solidarity. Take a stand with Haitian garment workers!

HOW You Can Help

Email & Call Clifford Apaid, executive director of the Apaid Group/Aga Corp

Email: clifford@agacorp.com

AGA Corp address: 7209 NW 41 ST, Miami, FL 33166

AGA Phone: 305.592.1860

Clifford Apaid – https://www.linkedin.com/in/clifford-apaid-47231213

SAMPLE EMAIL:

To: clifford@agacorp.com

Cc: batayouvriye@hotmail.com; rrnsolidarity@gmail.com

Subject: Rehire SOTA Workers & Respect Unions

I am emailing on behalf of the many illegally fired workers at your factories – Premium Apparel, Maton, and Silver Lining.

I insist that you and your companies respect the rights of union members and meet the following demands:
- Reinstate all the workers who were illegally and arbitrarily fired from the Premium/Maton plants in May 2018, and pay them their wages.
- Reinstate the Committee Section members in Silver Lining factory who were arbitrarily fired.
- Pay all salary arrears owed to the workers from the wave of firings at Premium Apparel stemming from workers’ mobilization to demand a minimum wage adjustment in 2017.
- Stop the repression against union members in the Apaid Group plants.
In solidarity with Haitian garment workers,

Your Name
City, State, or Country

[BACK TO TOP]
October 23, 2018
May Day Report Back!

Thanks so much to everyone who lent their support to Batay Ouvriye (BO) and the Haitian workers movement this May Day!

Together, we raised a total of $1,481! That’s $181 more than our original goal of $1,300. Thank you so much!

We want to share a thank you letter from BO and a report back on May Day events in Haiti.

Batay Ouvriye said, “the financial we received from you helped us to realize May Day activities in Port Au Prince.”

The letter also shares how the funds were utilized.

Click here to read the full Letter from Batay Ouvriye.

Leading up to May Day, PLASIT-BO textile unions, peasant organizations & neighborhood groups held activities throughout the country, including leafleting; a conference & debate on low wages & the high costs of living in Port Au Prince; a day long strike on 4/24 at some factories in Port Au Prince, and a press conference, announcing workers renewed demands, including a minimum wage adjustment of 1,000 Gourdes/day ($15.50 US).

PLASIT-BO is a federation of 3 unions in the textile sector that includes the Apparel and Textile Workers Union-Batay Ouvriye (SOTA-BO), CODEVI Wanament Workers Union (SOKOWA), and the S&H Global Valiant Workers Union in Karakol (SOVASHG).

Check out what happened with the unions, neighborhood groups, and peasants in their different locales.

Port Au Prince

In the capital city, SOTA-BO textile union sang and handed out leaflets on April 31, outside the SONAPI Industrial Park, encouraging fellow workers to join them on May 1st to march for their demand of a minimum wage adjustment of 1,000 Haitian Gourdes/day ($15.33 US).

On May Day, workers of SOTA-BO and other unions gathered outside the industrial park gates, then marched to the downtown area, where there were stopped by a line of CIMO police. There were no arrests.

In Haiti, May 1st is a national holiday. The government focuses people’s attention on agriculture and national production, rather than the true roots of May Day – workers’ fight for the right to organize and the eight-hour work day.

As it’s a holiday, most work is cancelled for the day. Many of the textile workers in Port Au Prince live outside the city. It costs a lot for them to commute into the city on a day that they will not be paid. Those who showed up were very committed.

Factory owners also worked to persuade workers from marching. In Carrefour, just south of Port Au Prince, factory owners organized a soccer match among all the factories as a distraction from the march. This year’s march was a bit smaller than last year’s, but it was combative and strong.

Cap Haitien

In the north of the country in Cap Haitien, neighborhood groups and workers affiliated with BO held their own march, echoing the demands for 1000 Gourdes, social services and more.

Caracol

Caracol is also in the North of Haiti. The Caracol Industrial park is one of the newest in Haiti, built after the 2010 earthquake. SOVAGH is the textile union here, affiliated with BO. They rode a bus to Ounaminthe to join the May Day march there.

Ounaminthe

SOKOWA is the BO affiliated textile union in Ounaminthe. Together with SOVAGH workers from Caracol, they marched to echo the demands put out by PLASIT-BO.

Peasant Groups in the Countryside

Peasant meeting

In many areas of the countryside, peasant organizations affiliated with Batay Ouvriye handed out a leaflet on May Day, insisting that their salary be based on their labor power. Many poor peasants have no basic rights, so this effort is them insisting on the same basic rights the textile workers are demanding.

Click here to read the leaflet they handed out, translated from Kreyol to English.

After May Day

After May Day, workers at Horizon factory in Port Au Prince went on strike.

Saturday 5/12/18 – In Port Au Prince this morning Premium Apparel factory owner, Clifford Apaid locked out SOTA union members from entering the factory. The workers are planning a strike for this coming week on either 5/20 or 5/21, and he is trying to prevent them from mobilizing.

SOTA-BO members locked out of Premium Apparel factory.

The Struggle Continues!

We continue to stand with the Batay Ouvriye movement of textile workers, peasants and neighborhood associations.

Be sure to follow the RRN on social media and sign up for email updates. We’ll keep you posted about ways to lend international solidarity.

Facebook: @RapidResponseNetwork

Twitter: @RRNsolidarity

May 14, 2018