[Peace-discuss] Coca-Cola in Haiti

[Ricky Baldwin]

Folks,

I don't think any of us had the idea that Preval won
and everything is okey-dokey now in Haiti, but
sometimes countries slide off the radar when there
isn't an election or an invasion ongoing ... and Haiti
in particular has a tendency to slip off the
left/progressive radar in the US.

So here's a story that fits in with the ongoing
anti-Coke campaign here at UIUC... as well as our
anti-racism efforts...

Ricky

--- Batay Ouvriye <batay at batayouvriye.org> wrote:

> From: "Batay Ouvriye" <batay at batayouvriye.org>
> To: "Batay Ouvriye" <batayouvriye at hotmail.com>
> Subject: URGENT ACTION APPEAL – LA COURONNE
> BREWERY/COCA-COLA H
> 	AITI – GENERAL REPRESSIVE PRACTICES TO END WITH THE
> WORKERS !
> Date: Mon, 15 May 2006 10:22:18 -0400
> 
> 
> BATAY OUVRIYE                             
> 
>  
> 
> 
> 
> May 15, 2006
> 
> URGENT ACTION APPEAL – LA COURONNE BREWERY/COCA-COLA
> HAÏTI – GENERAL REPRESSIVE PRACTICES TO END WITH THE
> WORKERS !
> 
>  
> 
> After several months of attempted negotiations, the
> Batay Ouvriye May First Union Federation and the La
> Couronne – Northern Branch Labor Union find
> themselves in a situation in which, over 6 months
> after the first note we issued in November 2005, we
> are forced to jump to new levels and publicly
> denounce the La Couronne Brewery – Coca-Cola Haiti
> company. We are now, consequently, raising our
> voices to launch an APPEAL TO SOLIDARITY to all
> concerned progressives in Haiti and the entire
> world.
> 
> The precise reason we have reached this level is
> that, since the beginning of this year 2006,
> although the owner of this company, Mr. Raymond
> Jaar, promised to consider the workers’ demands and
> answer positively to several points they had laid
> down last December, at present, after several
> anti-union acts, Jaar has categorically cut all
> contact with us and even refused to meet with
> representatives of our union organization. Although
> the workers’ of this company’s Northern branch have
> stood up all together several times, with work
> stoppages and legal strikes, not only has management
> ignored them, but it even undertook anti-union
> dismissals that have antagonized all the workers.
> 
>  
> 
> All should know that LA COURONNE BREWERY – COCA-COLA
> HAITI IS AMONGST THE MOST ILLEGAL AND REPRESSIVE
> MANAGEMENTS IN HAITI.
> 
> Wages, at the Brewery, are catastrophic! The bosses
> profit of the workers to the maximum, making them
> toil at minimal cost. Even the watchmen at the gate,
> called warehousemen by the company, make 100 gourdes
> a day (US $2.50) for twelve hours of work. Overtime
> isn’t paid, not to mention in the way it is
> stipulated by the law, that is 1.5 times regular
> wages. The bosses steal 4 hours extra from these
> workers daily! For those lifting the soft drink
> cases, it’s even worse. They earn a “base wage” of
> 50 gourdes per day ($1.25!!!), which is outright
> ILLEGAL. The days in which the workers are unable to
> work, such as if the trucks are out of order or if
> their drivers are unable to come to work due to
> illness or so on
 this 50 gourde salary is all they
> receive, so: less than the 70 gourde minimum wage!
> The law is however quite clear: the base wage is the
> wage, all other forms are incentives and should be
> added upon it, by no means may they count as the
> fixed wage! Beyond, the ‘base wage’, now, a supposed
> commission on sales is added. For the workers, the
> base wage is truly their wage – the commission is in
> the bosses’ advantage alone. Because on each case of
> 24 pops sold, the workers make 3 cents of a gourde
> ($0.00075)!!! That is, 300 gourdes ($7.50) for each
> thousand cases sold. When sales are good, this
> thousand cases can sell over three days – but in
> other periods, they may take a week to be sold. If
> we take an average of 60 gourdes added upon the
> daily wages, this results in a measly daily income
> of 110 gourdes ($2.75), especially considering the
> hardships the La Couronne Brewery – Coca-Cola Haiti
> workers undergo!!!
> 
> Broken bottles
 are the responsibility of the
> workers! If a driver is ticketed trying to deliver
> the merchandise in small roads, full of holes
 it’s
> his business! Workers work on Saturdays, without
> being paid the Sunday! There are no holidays at La
> Couronne Brewery – Coca-Cola Haiti. Even the 15 day
> sickness leave isn’t respected! And as we said
> overtime hours aren’t paid. Money is taken from the
> workers salaries to pay the State pension and
> sickness insurances, without the workers ever
> knowing anything of where these sums go, nor what
> they serve them.
> 
> Firings are legion, without explanation. The
> northern branch’s main demand today is the rehiring
> with back pay of their fellow worker, Philome
> Cemerant, the union secretary, a serious worker all
> respected and who was fired right after the union
> was established at the end of 2005, under a lousy
> pretext: “With this letter, we confirm that you are
> no longer a member of the La Couronne Brewery sinc
> November 5th for having refused to obey to the
> indications, orders and instructions of the North
> Distribution Center’s Director”. Even the Ministry
> of Social Affairs and Labor answered La Couronne
> saying: 
> 
> “The Labor Administration of the Northern Regional
> Bureau of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor
> salutes you
 and profits of the occasion to
> recommend Cemerant Philomé to your well-meaning
> attention
 The Ministry has a role of protection and
> employment promotion, but especially of encouraging
> parties to sit around the table of negotiations in
> view of reconciliation. This is why we carried out
> an inspection visit at the La Couronne Brewery last
> Nov. 8th to avoid an open, serious conflict within
> this institution. We will agree with you that, once
> named, the employee may be fired. You’ll agree with
> us as well that erring is human since Mr. Seraphin
> and Mentor, representatives of the Brewery in the
> North, said and we’ll quote “Cemerant Philomé, who
> worked with the company since 4 years and 3 months,
> was a good employee and a sudden change took place
> in the past few months.’Thus the Labor
> Administration would like to request, if possible,
> that this employee be returned to his job, with
> excuses”. 
> 
> The Philomé Cémérant case isn’t isolated. Last year,
> the company fired and ordered the arbitrary arrest
> of Gérard Petit-Frère who spent over two months in
> jail and was freed without ever even being judged.
> 
> Let’s recall the Port-au-Prince La Couronne Workers’
> Committee’s outcry already in 2001: 
> 
> “Drinking Couronne soft drinks is sweet, but they’re
> made through terrible exploitation, with outright
> illegal practices. And the bourgeois who own LA
> COURONNE enjoy perfect impunity. We’re asking what
> can workers do with 50 gourdes a day, especially
> when they have to work 12-hour shifts? Let’s have a
> look: Workers have to eat on credit. If they are to
> feel they’ve eaten, they should eat 3 small plates
> of food, so, 3 times 15 gourdes. They can’t! In the
> morning, they often have to take a small spaghetti
> place at 15 gourdes with a 5 gourde juice. If they
> can’t afford it, then they have a small 5 gourde
> patty and a juice, sometimes they’ll have a soft
> drink instead in the morning. Adding upon this, they
> spend at least 6 gourdes of transportation. Since
> they’re working 12 hours, they have to support, but
> they just forget about it. What’s left? In the
> conditions in which workers spend less, they’ll be
> left with 14 gourdes if they have a patty in the
> morning; they’ll be left with 4 gourdes if they have
> spaghetti. This is how they reproduce themselves in
> order to return to being exploited tomorrow morning.
> But that’s not all. Considering wages, there are
> regular days salaries and Sunday or holidays
> salaries. Here again, the La Couronne Brewery is
> ILLEGAL. It pays no heed to the law: the workers are
> paid all days as if they were normal days. Workers
> aren’t paid according to the Labor Legislation.
> Often major travel is needed for the work. This is
> particularly true when the workers are delivering
> soft drinks in areas outside of the Port-au-Prince
> region. In these cases, wages are maintained as
> usual – the workers often are unable to eat. They
> sleep in the woods
 Sometimes the drivers receive
> expenses fees. But this sum is 50 gourdes for two
> people. So the situation is very serious in these
> cases. Generally, the workers toil 6 days on seven.
> But workers are often forced to come to work on
> Sundays and holidays too, as necessary. And it’s the
> same 50 gourdes that are paid without taking into
> account the fact they’re working six days and the
> seventh should consequently be paid, and that
> holidays should be calculated above it all.”
> 
> AT PRESENT, WE ARE SAYING: LA COURONNE BREWERY –
> COCA-COLA HAITI IS AN EXAMPLE OF BOSS IMPUNITY AND
> ANTIUNION ABUSE IN THIS COUNTRY! ITS HEYDAY HAS TO
> BE OVER!!!
> 
> We claim Philomé Cémérant’s return to work without
> delay, with all the backpay the company owes him. We
> demand too a wages adjustment for the Brewery’s
> workers, correct respect and proper work conditions
> for all the workers, especially respect of union
> rights. 
> 
> And we’re informing that we see clearly through the
> complicity of Coca-Cola International in this
> situation. They are the ones who have persecuted
> union leaders in Columbia, even killings having been
> recorded, and they’ve financed death squads
> (http://www.cokewatch.org). They are the ones aware
> students of the United States are working to bar on
> university campuses, because of their workers’
> abuses throughout the world. This company has
> appropriated and deviated the people’s water in
> India, so that local communities have stood up
> against them. Already, last February, the UITA, the
> International Union of Food Workers, called out upon
> Coca-Cola International, concerning its treatment of
> Coca-Cola Haiti workers.
> 
>  
> 
> *
> 
> Comrade Workers, Progressives – The Peoples’ Camp In
> General!
> 
> This call is for us to say that Raymond JAAR’s
> abuses, as well as those of the Coca-Cola Company in
> Haiti, are ENOUGH! Jaar thinks he owns the country,
> but change is occurring. We can’t continue
> tolerating these shameful despicable miseries these
> millionaires want to impose upon us, nor the
> impunity they are imposing on us. That’s why we’re
> asking for all of us to denounce these acts on the
> radio and the national and international press, and
> also to write Jaar to inform him of how we are
> against his behavior. The way to contact him is by
> writing or phoning him as follows: 
> 
> Brasserie de La Couronne, S.A.
> 
> Coca-Cola Bottling Company of Haïti
> 
> P.O. Box 1477, Port-au-Prince, Haïti
> 
> Phones : (509) 250-4264 / 250-7215 / 250-7225
> 
> Fax : (509) 250-0212
> 
> E-mail :  raymondjaar at bracour.com /
> cblanchett at bracour.com
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Here is an example of a letter we can send to him –
> just copy it and paste in an email addressed to
> raymondjaar at bracour.com:
> 
>  
> 
> Mr. Raymond JAAR
> 
> CEO Brasserie de La Couronne S.A.
> 
> Coca-Cola Bottling Company of Haïti
> 
> P.O. Box 1477, Port-au-Prince, Haïti
> 
> raymondjaar at bracour.com
> 
>  
> 
> Mr. Jaar,
> 
>  
> 
> I’ve been informed of your company’s major abuses
> against workers’ rights, particularly the illegal 50
> gourd/day salary and anti-union abuses. You should
> know, Mr. Jaar, that this type of illegal practices
> go against the essential human rights of all
> individuals, and that they will not be able to
> continue in Haiti and the world. This is why I am
> asking you most urgently to adopt the necessary
> measures to rectify the situation at the La Couronne
> Brewery – Coca-Cola Haiti. The workers’ base salary
> needs to correctly adjusted and Philomé Cémérant
> should be rehired without delay, with backpay and a
> constructive dialogue needs to be engaged with the
> workers' union.
> 
>  With the hope you will adopt these measures in the
> spirit of social advancement within Haiti, 
> 
> 
> Respectfully,
> 
>  
> 
>  ___________________          (Signature)
> 
>  
> 
> Cc : Batay Ouvriye, BP 13326, Delmas, Haïti –
> batay at batayouvriye.org 
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 


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