Editor’s Note: This video report was originally published by People’s Dispatch.
As Panamanians enter week three of national strike against the cost of living crisis, the government has responded with heavy repression. On July 19, the anti-riot units brutally repressed the protesters, who have been blocking the Inter-American highway over the past three weeks. However, within hours, the protesters returned to block the road.
Ronaldo Ortíz of the National Front for the Defense of Economic and Social Rights (FRENADESO) spoke to Peoples Dispatch about the ongoing struggle and attempts to negotiate with the government on their demands.
Editor’s Note: This lightly edited article was originally published by The Real News.
Unless you’re buck naked as you read this, chances are that you’re wearing at least one garment manufactured in the Haitian apparel factories of Port-au-Prince, Caracol and Ouanaminthe. Those Hanes or Fruit-of-the-Loom briefs in your dresser drawer; the classic Levi’s denim jacket hanging in your closet; or that cheapo, trendy, puff-sleeved H&M frock you hope to add to your spring wardrobe—all of them were likely made by men and women in Haiti earning the barest of minimum wages.
Since 2019—until the government announced a modest, unsatisfactory hike just two weeks ago to quell the workers’ fighting spirit—the Haitian minimum wage for garment workers making clothing for export has been 500 gourdes a day (or $4.82 USD). The math is even crueler than expected: In exchange for an eight-hour work day, around 57,000 Haitian garment workers have been earning almost three cents less per hour than the average incarcerated worker in the United States makes, which is only 63 cents per hour.
With their products sold at major outlets like Walmart, Target, Zara and The Gap, 62 U.S. brands have profited handsomely for years by paying miserly, unlivable wages to Haitian workers. But on February 9 and 10, too poor even for strike accoutrement like matching tee-shirts or printed placards, workers marched out of the factories en masse in the first of several strategic strikes. Pouring into the streets, they raised their voices in protest of the daily exploitation and destitution they endure. Their only protest swag consisted of common leafy twigs held high in affirmation of their right to a portion of this earth’s abundance in their lifetimes. Poetry in motion; they do not stand alone.
On behalf of its 50 million members worldwide, the secrétaire général of the IndustriALL global union in Geneva, Atle Høie, wrote to Haiti’s Acting Prime Minister and President, Ariel Henry, urging wage relief for workers whose earning power is being crushed by inflation. Since then, the tidal wave of support for the Haitian strikers has continued to swell. Workers United, the successor union in North America to the International Ladies and Garment Workers Union, issued a statement of solidarity. Secretary Treasurer Edgar Romero admonished U.S. companies for their silence as their workers were being assaulted by state police, and reminded them that their actions are not invisible:
The world is watching, and will call to task the companies that are profiting manyfold on the backs of our Haitian brothers and sisters. It’s time for corporations, especially our American companies who import garments manufactured in Haiti to step up, and pay workers what they deserve.
Your brand is at stake.
Exploitation of Workers Is Stitched In
According to Ose Pierre, a representative of the Solidarity Center, the largest U.S.-based international worker rights organization, who is working to support the labor movement in Haiti, a typical Haitian garment worker starts their workday at 6:30 a.m. Too early to cook and eat before they leave home, many workers buy breakfast from vendors, a meal referred to in Haiti as “lunch before work.” With food and drink, “lunch before work” costs about 100 gourdes, Pierre told The Real News. They also buy their “manje midi,” or noon meal (a plate of rice, beans and meat), for about 200 gourdes. Transportation, depending on where they live, could cost 100 gourdes. With four-fifths of their day’s earnings wiped out by necessities, the only way to get marginally ahead is to volunteer for “the wages of production.”
Though the phrase might sound innocuous, wages of production is a discretionary bonus system based on over-and-above production, wherein a line of 10 or so workers make side deals with their bosses. “An importer decides, ‘Well, you were going to make 5,000 of these, but if you do 7,000 you can have some extra money,’” Pierre explained. “The workers have to work extra hard and fast.”
Almost every economic hardship in modern Haiti can be traced back to the unprecedented reparations debt that Haiti, the victor over France in its revolutionary war, was saddled with in 1825 in exchange for recognition of its independence and sovereignty—the equivalent of $21 billion, which has been paid over 122 years, and was resolved only in 1947. As a consequence, Haiti’s development has been strangled and mauled at every turn, a structural power inequality that has led to a neocolonial dependency on foreign investment that has proven impossible for any Haitian government to overcome. All of former Prime Minister Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s efforts to significantly increase wages—in 1991, 1994 and 2004—were answered with coups, sanctions, smears or all of the above.
Similarly, many of the political hardships Haiti faces today, like the ongoing instability and insecurity in the aftermath of the July assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse, can be traced back to the Core Group. Imposed upon Haiti by the United Nations in 2004 after the U.S.-backed coup that ousted Aristide, the Core Group is a multi-national supervisory body with the nebulous mission of “steering the electoral process.” Its creation was originally proposed as a six-month interim transition support measure, yet it endures to this day.
Proponents of the Montana Accord, a civil society proposal put forward by a coalition of 70 political organizations and social groups, want to plan for a transition of power to stabilize the country and move toward free and fair elections by 2023 without outside interference. By contrast, acting President and Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who is answerable to the Core Group, has been pushing for elections later in 2022, which will again presumably be “steered” in service of the interests of the oligarchic forces within Haiti and the forces of international capital at the expense of another generation of Haitian workers.
Garment Workers Forced to Strike, Face Tear Gas and Live Rounds
In tension with these systemic constraints, the Haitian constitution (Section 35: Freedom to Work) explicitly guarantees workers certain rights and duties: Among them the right to a fair wage, rest, vacation and bonus, and to unionize and strike. But legal ideals aside, for decades, garment workers have been denied anything approaching the standard of fairness.
In theory, the Superior Council of Wages (SCW) is responsible for analyzing socioeconomic factors and ensuring that the minimum wage reflects changes in the cost of living at scheduled reporting intervals. Additionally, any rise in inflation over 10 percent triggers a requirement for action under Article 137 of the Haitian Labor Code. But the SCW hasn’t fulfilled its charge; thus, on January 17, noting a current inflation rate of 22.8 percent, a coalition of nine trade unions representing or affiliated with garment workers in Haiti sent an open letter to Henry seeking a wage increase from 500 gourdes ($4.82) per day to 1,500 gourdes ($14.62). With that, the unions fired their opening salvo in what Mamyrah Prosper, international coordinator of the Pan-African Solidarity Network, called in her March 2 piece for Black Agenda Report, a “Different Fight for 15.”
In February, having been ignored by Henry, the unions joined the workers in the execution of a number of strategic, multi-day strikes to force the issue. Interested onlookers could follow events as they unfolded on the “Madame Boukman—Justice 4 Haiti” Twitter account, after she began posting about ValDor Apparel, a Florida-based company that shuttered its factory in Haiti on December 31, absconding with its workers’ wages. Madame Boukman told The Real News that, building on the positive international responses to her tweets, she’s seeing growing support for the workers’ movement in and outside of Haiti.
“It’s a movement that can transfer immense power from the small, but powerful, economic elite to the poor masses,” she observed. “Haiti’s minimum wage is the lowest in the region due to years of violent suppression by external and internal forces. With a near non-existent parliament, a de facto prime minister and no president, the masses are taking it into their own hands to set a path to a living wage.”
Their actions have started to move the needle. Talks between the government, foreign factory owners, and the unions have resulted in several incremental advances and concessions on wages and proposed supports, like transportation to work. But so far the negotiations have fallen short of the strikers’ primary demand: On February 21, the SCW acted to raise the minimum wage across sectors, and the highest wage, applicable to garment workers who are part of the import/export tranche, is now 770 gourdes, which amounts to roughly half of what garment workers are demanding.
Strikers returned to the streets again on February 23, but this time they were met with lethal state violence meant to terrorize them back to their sewing machines at any price. Pierre suspects this police violence has had the opposite effect and has stiffened strikers’ resolve, though videos of the police assault against peacefully demonstrating strikers are certainly shocking.
“The workers were protesting: They have their mobiles with music, and Haitian music is playing, and they’re dancing, and they have their flyers saying what they want—their demands,” he explained. “Then the Haitian National Police came. They used tear gas.”
Besides choking on the gas, some of the workers were burned by canisters that hit their bodies and feet. Amid the mayhem, another unknown police force reportedly came and shot into the crowd.
“Masked police without any identification badges came in white cars with generic plates… and they shot the peaceful workers, and three journalists,” Pierre said. Photojournalist Maxihen Lazarre was killed, and two other journalists were injured. Another worker was shot in the foot, three people were hospitalize and many others were injured, according to local reporting. The factories were then closed—ostensibly, the closures were for Carnival celebrations, but more likely they were intended to allow worker outrage, like the toxic gas fired by police, to dissipate.
“People ask me if I am safe in Haiti, and I say, ‘I am not safe, but I am quiet,’” Pierre said.
A History of Unaccountability Pervades the International Community’s “Investments” in Haiti
Sandra Wisner, senior staff attorney for the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, thinks it’s time the international community acknowledged its role in creating these conditions on the ground. “It needs to take a look at itself,” she told The Real News, “and focus on providing a long-term, rights-based approach to development in the country instead of prioritizing foreign interests.”
The Caracol Industrial Park, where the recent spate of garment worker actions started, is a good case study.
In 2010, after the devastating earthquake, it was decided by foreign actors—the United States and the Inter-America Development Bank—to locate a new garment center in the northeast district, distant from the epicenter. But in the process of building the garment center where they did, Wisner explained, Haitians were dispossessed of valuable fertile land, replacing subsistence farming with a textile industry that exploits cheap labor. A dozen years later, hundreds of farmers and their families are still waiting to get paid for the seizure of their land and the loss of their livelihoods.
“It was slated to provide 65,000 new jobs to the country,” Wisner said of the original plan for the garment center. “But as of two years ago, it had only provided around 14,000 jobs. When the international community comes into the country and decides what development is going to look like, no matter the repercussions for Haitians, there needs to be accountability for that.”
“Where is the accountability for that?” she asks.
Frances Madeson writes about liberation struggles and the arts that inspire them. She is the author of the comic political novel, Cooperative Village. Follow her on Twitter at @FrancesMadeson.
Israeli military personnel push a Jewish activist from the United States amid a Palestinian-led protest on June 10 against the seizure of the Masafer Yatta region in the West Bank / credit: Emily Glick
MASAFER YATTA, OCCUPIED WEST BANK—On Tuesday, the Israeli military started training in Masafer Yatta, a rural, arid enclave south of the occupied West Bank city of Hebron. This comes after more than two decades of Palestinians using legal avenues to try to stop the seizure of their land.
The military training has involved the army sticking shooting targets onto tractors, windows and barrels of hay.
My voice shakes in this video. Tons of Israeli soldiers just started "training" in Masafer Yatta. They're driving war tanks near a school, as children watch, terrified, they're placing targets on cars and windows, they're doing this to evict us in the most brutal way possible. pic.twitter.com/kWV7JWEraB
Expected to last a whole month, this is the first such military training exercise in the Palestinian community in 20 years, and comes as Masafer Yatta is experiencing the largest mass expulsion of Palestinians since 1967.
Today the military launched its training in Masafer Yatta, which is planned to last a whole month, by positioning targets, pictured here, on the vehicles and property of Palestinians from the community of al-Majaz.
Demonstrations—regularly met with violence from soldiers and Israeli settlers—have occurred almost weekly since Israel’s Supreme Court rejected a petition in May against the expulsion of more than 1,000 Palestinians.
For example, on June 10, the Israeli army attacked a Palestinian-led protest. Soldiers beat protesters, fired tear gas that burned demonstrators, threw stun grenades and detained Israeli solidarity activists. More than 200 Palestinians, Israelis, and Jews from both the United States and the United Kingdom protested as part of the “Save Masafer Yatta” campaign.
“Our protests show the racism in how the Israeli army treats us,” said Basil Adra, an activist from the village of Tuwani in Masafer Yatta. “Soldiers who claim that they are not allowed to stop settlers from committing violence against us are then very aggressive towards protesters.”
Israeli military personnel push Palestinians and solidarity activists protesting on June 10 the seizure of the rural West Bank enclave of Masafer Yatta / credit: Emily Glick
The Culmination of a Decades-Long Legal Battle
In the 1980s, the Israeli army declared all 19 villages in Masafer Yatta as “Firing Zone 918,” a closed military training site. By 1999, the Israeli military rounded up more than 700 residents into trucks and expelled them off land they had cultivated for generations.
In response to the forcible transfer, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) in the year 2000 filed petitions with the Israeli Supreme Court on behalf of residents. The court then granted an interim injunction, permitting residents to temporarily return to their homes.
A 2012 state attorney decision allowed four villages—Tuba, Sirat ‘Awad Ibrahim, Sarura and Mufaqara—to remain based upon the Israeli Defense Ministry’s position that the land wasn’t needed for military training. Despite the decision, settler violence and land theft have plagued these villages.
From there, the high court continued hearings on various petitions for years. But last month, the court dismissed residents’ petitions. In its ruling, the court determined the Palestinian inhabitants—who live nomadically and depend on shepherding for their livelihoods—were not permanent residents when the military declared the area a firing zone.
The recent court opinion has given the army the green light to demolish eight villages and displace the Masafer Yatta residents once again.
The residents, along with ACRI, petitioned the Supreme Court on Sunday for an additional hearing and interim order to stop military training in Masafer Yatta.
“It is to be hoped that the high court will accept the request for additional hearing and reverse the ruling that war crimes can be committed under the court’s purview,” ACRI attorneys Dan Yakir and Roni Pelli said.
Israeli military personnel push solidarity activists on June 10 amid the Palestinian-led protest in the West Bank enclave of Masafer Yatta / credit: Emily Glick
From Quiet Grazing Lands to an ‘Army Base’
Since the court ruling, residents say Masafer Yatta feels like it has transformed into the equivalent of a military base. Temporary army checkpoints have been established at entrances of the area’s eight villages deemed the firing zone. Soldiers with assault rifles strapped to their chests patrol the area daily—delivering demolition orders, as well as carrying out arrests and nightly raids. Military jeeps packed with soldiers roam the rocky terrain.
The Israeli military has already started carrying out demolitions since the court ruling.
BREAKING Imminent threat to the entire community of Khalet a-Thab’a in Masafer Yatta. From Sunday June 19, all but three of the village’s structures are at risk of being destroyed.
In May, 19 structures such as houses, tents, animal pens and water tanks were demolished. That left 45 people homeless in the villages of Al-Fakheit and Al-Mirkez. This month, the army bulldozed tents belonging to 21 residents of these villages, which they had set up after their homes were destroyed. On Thursday, all but three buildings in the village of Khalet a-Thab’a received demolition orders that can be enacted beginning Sunday.
Even areas of Masafer Yatta not part of the firing zone are at risk of being razed. The Israeli Civil Administration, which governs activities in the West Bank, issued on Thursday a demolition order for Palestinian activist group Youth of Sumud’s guest house and community center.
Just now the Israeli civil administration accompanied with army raided Tuwani village delivered a final demolition order for Youth Of sumud center in the village in Masafer Yatta /South Hebron Hills . #SaveMasaferYattapic.twitter.com/cJsLEsr0YZ
“This center, which we worked for years to complete, is a big step for the people of Masafer Yatta to organize and protect our lands. We use this place to host internationals, hold meetings and organize community gatherings,” Sami Huraini of Youth of Sumud told Toward Freedom. “This demolition order isn’t just about the Youth of Sumud—it is about crushing organizing efforts in solidarity with the vulnerable communities in the 918 firing zone.”
The center is located in Tuwani—the only village in Masafer Yatta with a zoning plan—meaning the law protects it from demolition. Sameeha Huraini, Sami’s sister who also is involved with Youth of Sumud, explained the Civil Administration gave the demolition order on the grounds the center is located outside of the zoning plan and on an archeological site—both claims are false, she said. The Israeli military and Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, which oversees the Civil Administration, did not respond to requests for comment by the time of publication.
A stun grenade burned the pants and leg of an activist during a June 10 Palestinian-led protest against the seizure of the rural enclave of Masafer Yatta in the West Bank / credit: Emily Glick
‘Our Rights Have Become Dreams’
Army-enforced eviction isn’t Masafer Yatta’s only struggle. Several illegal, Jewish-only settlements encircle the region.
“Israeli illegal outposts inside Masafer Yatta are connected to resources and are not under imminent eviction,” said Ali Awad, a Palestinian activist from the village of Tuba. “Settlers in these outposts commit violence against neighboring Palestinians and work in tandem with the Israeli military to steal our resources and expel us from our homes.”
While the Palestinian villages are not connected to the electrical grid and water system, the illegal settlements are. Without these hookups, Palestinians are forced to survive on NGO-donated solar panels and expensive water tanks, which settlers often destroy and soldiers confiscate.
Israeli military personnel mingle on June 10 with settlers from the colony of Mitzpeh Yair / credit: Emily Glick
Awdah Hathaleen, a Palestinian activist from the village of Umm al-Khair in Masafer Yatta, lamented what will happen to his community if the army is successful in dismantling the eight villages.
“After that, what will be [the army’s] next mission? The other villages [in Masafer Yatta], and, unfortunately, my village will be one of them. Because if they succeed in this, they will just keep going,” Hathaleen told Toward Freedom. “We are humans. Humans who deserve basic rights. But our rights have become dreams. And now we have to work to make those dreams become reality.”
Jessica Buxbaum is a Jerusalem-based freelance journalist reporting on Palestine and the Israeli occupation. You can follow her on Twitter at @jess_buxbaum.
