[Peace-discuss] more attacks on Haitian workers

[Ricky Baldwin]

[From the Haitian union federation called Batay
Ouvriye (Workers' Struggle)...]

BATAY OUVRIYE ALERT :
GENERALIZED VIOLENCE ON CODEVI WORKERS !

Permanent intimidation, insults, constant threats,
harassment, forced strippings, beatings, kidnapping…
all of this, under the repression of the Dominican
armed forces once again illegally called in by the
free trade zone management, in direct violation of
territory, as well as of the recent agreements
established during the workers’ reinstatement. 

According to the reinstatement agreements, the next
step was to reestablish negotiations in view of
satisfying the workers’ demands. Other than one
meeting in which Grupo M’s representative, Mr. Cruz,
received the union’s list of demands already
distributed to all, no serious dialogue was ever able
to be obtained. Indeed, at the next meeting, Mr. Cruz
not only categorically refused the totally legal
presence of Batay Ouvriye’s delegate, but further
contented himself with simply enumerating a few points
management accepted to consider. With this, he left
the room. Nothing had ever even been initiated. 

One must say that, meanwhile, the workers’ situation
in the factory has seriously worsened. Exactions of
all kinds, violence, intimidations and supervisors’
threats, illegal firings… and, especially, the
injection of unknown “vaccines” injected to all of the
factory women, without the least documentation… Might
these be sterilizations? The fact remains that nine of
these women had miscarriages, some of them at an
advanced phase (eight months) of their pregnancy. And
the exploitation hasn’t stopped increasing, daily,
through a new system of “tickets” rejected by the
workers in their totality,within their permanent
resistance… 

Finally, the bucket overflowed when at the last
meeting formally accepted by management after many
demands, on Tuesday, June second, Mr. Cruz presented
himself at the factory but displayed his contempt for
the workers and their union by not even appearing at
the projected meeting, leaving shortly after, ignoring
the problem totally. 
This is how, assembled in meeting on the same Tuesday
evening, the workers unanimously decided to launch
within forty-eight hours a work stoppage to show
management their general discontent. If management
should choose to maintain its negative position, then
a strike would follow on the following Monday (June
7th). Following legal stipulations, this decision was
duly communicated to the Ministry of the Social
Affairs and Labor, as well as to the Codevi direction.
of the were warned duly of these arrangements, within
the delay legally required; the signed receipt of
these documents are with the union’s secretariat. 

On the next Thursday, June 3rd, the work stoppage was
held from nine o’clock to nine thirty and was
unanimously followed. The main manager, Mr. Luis Gill,
tried to summon to his office two members chosen by
himself amongst the union, the General Coordinator,
Mr. Borgella, and the Secretary, Mr. Miratel Joseph.
This practice is in itself illegal because it is not
management’s prerogative to decide the union’s
representation. The workers, aware of their rights in
this question, presented themselves with a complete
delegation of twelve members chosen by them. Then, Mr.
Gill chose to lecture them without end on that which
he considered to be a lack of council in the union, on
the fact he had been asking them the list of union
members in vain, and so on and so forth, all of this
in direct violation of the Work Code’s stipulation
concerning management interference. The union
refusing, correctly, to answer, Mr. Gill refused to
let them go and it is only thanks to the intervention
of their colleagues outside who, realizing what was
going on, came in great number, clamoring, that they
were able to get out of this difficult situation.

On the following day, Friday, Mr. Capellan himself
came to the factory. Instead of holding a dialogue, he
simply threatened the workers of being fired, alleging
a loss of several million dollars because of a lack of
productivity, but making no mention of the negotiation
process and/or the various problems confronted by the
workers. 
Later in the afternoon, in view of firing four members
of the M.D. t-shirt factory, Mr. Gill summoned them in
a small room called the “dark room”, had the door
locked and Dominican “guardias” (once again illegally
on Haitian territory) stand outside the door. Under
the threat of weapons, these women were interrogated
in police fashion, their badges and shirts identifying
them as factory workers were ripped off of them. As
they were inside the room for over an hour or two,
their colleagues became alarmed and approached the
room shouting. Two Dominican guards already present
called others; a whole truck arrived, the guards
aiming their weapons in direction of the workers.
Order was shouted to the workers to back off behind a
line traced on the ground with a rifle. Thus ended
this week of work, the workers not even having
received their weekly pay and a good number not even
having been able to recover their bikes from the
factory. A four-month pregnant woman was thrown to the
floor, in a pool of mud, her dress torn. The fired
workers who had remained topless benefited from the
generosity of their colleagues to be able to cover
themselves with bits of borrowed clothes. 
These events have for us an alarming significance.
“Get rid of the natural, it comes back stronger” says
a proverb: Grupo M once again is employing the most
savage violence (beating workers and even pregnant
women!), violating sovereignty in a reiterated manner
(calling repeatedly the Dominican armed forces onto
Haitian soil) and in sadistic horror (provoked
abortions). 

It is important to add the role of certain members of
the Haitian bourgeoisie, Michael Roy and Carl Denis
(the latter being a notorious putschist who overtly
affirmed his adherence to the most reactionary and
corrupt forces of the country during the three 1991
coup years), who accompany this process while
attempting to bribe members of the union and even of
the verification commission, and play the role of
disinformation agents. Never these two men have
deigned to explain themselves concerning who they
represent or what brings them to interfere in this
conflict. 

Also, the role of this government which, after having
ignored numerous requests of intervention from the May
First Batay Ouvriye Union Federation, as well as from
the union itself, since the beginning and all
throughout the conflict --- at the slightest call from
the employers sent its representatives from the
Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor at once,
accompanying management even within its cars, and more
! intending to establish its offices in the local of
the Codevi (Commission Verification report, 7 May
2004). 

The Codevi workers thus find themselves alone before
this orchestrated, armed, highly violent and in all
points illegal and sadistic offensive. This is
therefore a most urgent alert. Who knows what will
become of the workers during the Monday strike? As
always, your action of diffusing this information, the
most extensively possible, denunciations by all means
available, direct or indirect pressure and all forms
of mobilization are a mark of solidarity and necessary
common struggle. 




	
		
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Friends.  Fun.  Try the all-new Yahoo! Messenger.
http://messenger.yahoo.com/