Thursday, May 14, 2020 at 5:30pm EST, please join the Rapid Response Network for an online screening of Batay La, a 25-minute documentary about the Haitian workers movement, Batay Ouvriye (Workers Struggle). We’ll watch the film and have a live update from Yannick Etienne of Batay Ouvriye, joining us from Haiti. Then we’ll open it up for a Q&A. Click here to RSVP.
As announced on May 1st, we’re also raising funds for Batay Ouvriye to support workers feed their families, pay rent and continue their struggle.
They still face the same battle against exploitative wages, harassment, impossible quotas, and firings. Now, they are being called back to work to sew face masks and medical garments for export .
Thanks to the Hope and Help Acts, a majority of the goods produced in Haiti are sold in the US and Canada. We will be the consumers of these masks.
Please help us raise $3,000 by May 31 to help workers in their fight!
Every dollar has a major impact.
The daily wage for workers is around $5.
$25 can replace a week’s salary for a worker illegally fired, or for someone trying to stay home to protect their family from COVID.
$100 can take care of a month’s salary so workers and their families can eat.
Film still from Batay Ouvriye documentary “Batay La” @bataylafilm
May 1, 2020 – This International Workers Day the streets of Port Au Prince, Haiti will remain relatively quiet. Instead of thousands of textile workers filling the streets with loudspeakers, speeches and songs of protest and demands, they will gather in small, socially distanced groups to discuss a new development in their struggle – COVID19.
These workers face an impossible decision – die from staying home with no way to eat and pay rent. Or, go to work to risk your life for exploitation wages.
After declaring a state of emergency on March 19 which shut down industrial parks, the Haitian government alongside the Haitian Association of Industrialists (ADIH) announced in mid-April that factories would reopen to produce cloth masks and medical garments.
There is no real healthcare system or infrastructure in Haiti. Hospitals barely exist. Social distancing is not possible when the only forms of transit are crowded tap-taps and motorcycle taxis.
Wages are still not enough at around $5 USD per day. Harassment, union-busting, impossible quotas and illegal firings remain the norm. While government officials and factory owners continue to stay home, workers are told it’s safe enough for them to get back to producing goods for export and consumption in countries like the US and Canada.
WORKERS MAKE SOCIETY, PANDEMIC OR NOT
US workers in the meatpacking industry face a similar situation as Trump invoked the Defense Production Act to keep workers producing cheap meat, even as they fall sick to the virus and adequate testing is not in place.
It’s almost like [the plant’s owners] don’t care about us,” the worker said. “Just keep production going, keep the money coming in, whatever they can do to just keep going, that’s how I feel. … And I know I’m not the only one who’s actually scared.
Workers around the world are being compelled to risk their lives to keep society fed and functioning. But this is always the case, whether there is a pandemic or not, as stated by Haitian workers’ movement, Batay Ouvriye (Workers Struggle):
We must go on with our demands. We must go to work in an organized way. And, we must be ready to leave if the capitalists and the government put our lives beneath their will to accumulate profits… Whether going to work in optimal or in pandemic conditions, the continuation of society has become the international responsibility of our class of workers worldwide, as our labor aligns with the interests of humanity.
Today for International Workers Day, Batay Ouvriye workers and organizers continue their struggle. They are meeting in small, social distanced groups, to discuss their May Day leaflet, to struggle around the path forward, and to circulate these ideas among their neighbors, co-workers, families, and friends. The momentum of organization and resistance continues. It just takes another form.
They continue to struggle with factory owners and the government for safety precautions, wages, and protection from retaliation when workers feel their health and safety is at risk.
INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY
As these workers continue to fight exploitation and also produce face masks that we will likely consume here in the US, let’s lend them our solidarity. Please make a donation to support their struggle.
Since April and before, many of the textile workers with Batay Ouvriye have been out of work due to both illegal firings and factory closures. They need financial support to keep the fight going.
We are all facing unknowns and precarious situations, but many of us still retain a level of stability completely foreign to Haitian workers even in normal times.
We support Batay Ouvriye because they are independent and autonomous from political parties and non-governmental organizations. They are building a genuine people’s movement where textile workers, poor peasants and neighborhood groups decide the path forward… something needed the world over.
Give what you can this May Day. Make a donation. Then start thinking and talking about ways to get organized yourself, because our struggles are interconnected.
For over one year, there have been ongoing uprisings across Haiti. Petro-Caribe corruption leading to increased fuel prices, costs of living, food and water shortages have made it near impossible for most Haitians to survive. As a result, people are rising up to spontaneously express their anger and frustrations.
Among the chaos, the garment workers unionized with the workers organization, Batay Ouvriye, continue to bring an organized perspective. The general call is for the ousting of President, Jovenel Moise, but workers bring a reminder that this will not address their ongoing call for an increased wage, social services and safe working conditions. Under Moise and all previous presidents, they have been unable to survive.
Recently garment workers at the Cleveland Factory owned by the Apaid family in Carrefour were fired for announcing the formation of a chapter of SOTA-BO union chapter.
On October 28 – 29, 2019 SOTA-BO union called for a march of garment workers, hotel, service and beverage laborers in Port Au Prince to bring attention to their ongoing demands and the need to organize.
As workers continue to organize facing firings, food and water shortage, your solidarity is needed!
Please make a donation to support the workers organized with Batay Ouvriye!
Your donation will go towards strike funds and will help offset the costs of printing thousands of leaflets, providing meals at union meetings, and sometimes covering transportation costs for workers traveling long distances to make meetings.
