[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
#4765: Slavin: Comments on Grand Marnier & #4578 (fwd)
From: Patrick Slavin <pslavin@unicefusa.org>
Like nearly everyone ?? with the exception of Grand Marnier
shareholders -- I share Bebe Pierre-Louis's outrage over labor
conditions at the Grand Marnier operations in Haiti. But as
with any international development, bilateral, or human rights
action taken in Haiti, you have to consider the long-term
implications of an action and answer the question, are you in
it for the long haul?
That's why I am glad to see that the organizers of this action
in London are not calling for a boycott, even though initial
outrage calls for such a step. You only have to turn back to
the Pax Christi Rawlings protest to learn this lesson. In 1990
& 1991, heady days in the movement for majority rule in Haiti,
I thought the campaign against the pitiful labor conditions in
the Rawlings baseball factory in Port-au-Prince was great. It
was also an incredible PR opportunity to dramatize the
conditions of sweatshop factories in developing countries:
workers doing the arduous job of making baseballs for
millionaire ballplayers. But when Rawlings reacted by closing
the factory and moving operations to Costa Rica, I interviewed
some of the factory workers who lived near the disgraceful
factory and a common statement was: "We believed in this
project, we listened to your advise, but now what do I do?" I
am not arguing in favor of low wages, but the fact is those
workers depended on their terrible salaries and put up with
awful working conditions to earn it. And they lost out during
that well-meaning protest.
I'm glad to see that at least one international effort to make
things better in Haiti has learned a lesson from the many
disastrous actions the international community has taken since
1986 (a three-year embargo & 6-month police training just to
name two).
Patrick