16476: BAtay Ouvriye: Re: 16452: Vilaire: Re: 16449: Danier: Re: Minimum wage and its unintended consequences. (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Batay Ouvriye <batayouvriye@hotmail.com>

(Translation of Batay Ouvriye's "Open Letter to the Minister of Social
Affairs concerning the application of the Minimum Wage", published in French
in "Le Nouvelliste" newspaper, June 24th edition, Port-au-Prince)


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Port-au-Prince, June 17th, 2003


OPEN LETTER CONCERNING
THE APPLICATION OF THE MINIMUM WAGE


Mrs. Eudes St. Preux
Minister of Social Affairs

Madame the Minister of Social Affairs,

On April 17th, 2003, « Le Moniteur », the official newspaper of the Republic
of Haiti, reproduced the « Law fixing to seventy (70) gourdes the minimum
wage to pay throughout the country, in commercial, industrial and
agricultural establishments, for an eight (8) hour working day ».

In an analysis published in our last document : « Batay Ouvriye's position
concerning the country's situation», in February 2003, we showed to what
extent the minimum wage of 70 gourds represents a cruel joke, a slap given
in the face of the Haitian workers by the lavalas government. Article 137 of
the Work Code stipulates that this minimum wage « . will be adjusted
periodically according to variations in the cost of living or each time the
official inflation indicators established by the Haitian Statistics and Data
Processing Institute accuses an increase of at least ten percent (10%)
during a fiscal year period ». Respecting this prescription to the letter, a
scrupulous calculation of how much such a salary should be, with regard to
the skyrocketing inflation that rages since 1995 (the last date when the
minimum wage was established) produces an adjustment (and not an "increase",
as the government would tendentiously have us believe) of seven times and
half (7.5) the value of 1995, i.e. two hundred sixty ten (270) gourdes. And,
taking into account the constant fluctuations of the monetary depreciation
(prices having attained a peak never subsequently lowering) one must
actually estimate three hundred (300) gourdes. Yet, there again, we would
only be speaking of an adjustment! Because in fact, the growing
specialization of the Haitian working class with regard to the early days of
the assembly industry, for example, adding to the new needs which have
appeared in relation with the general deterioration of life conditions,
forces us  to look towards a real wage increase. Which would be then be at
least three hundred fifty (350) to four hundred (400) gourdes !

Representatives of the bourgeoisie scream bloody murder (some already hit
the roof when they heard the miserable seventy gourdes adjustment
announcement) arguing that labor being a merchandise like all others, the
concession of such a salary will immediately affect all others costs. While
omitting, sadistically, to note that it is precisely because all others
prices have already increased radically that those of labor must necessarily
follow suit.

But, as the lavalas government has made it manifest for all, its role, in
effect, resumes itself to reproducing, organizing and satisfying the
bourgeoisie, national and international, while filling its pockets at all
levels of the state. This law therefore ratifies the Haitian workers'
sacrifice at the altar of the unlimited and perfectly encouraged profit
which all wheeler-dealers of the moment are making these days. There's more,
however. The law appeared solely in the official, oh so rare, "Moniteur"
newspaper, thereby frankly out of range of workers, whoever they may be. Not
a single loud and clear announcement, not a word ! Worse, two months later,
neither the regional offices, nor even the central offices of the Social
Affairs Ministry had been informed of the enactment of this law, nor did
were they in possession of a copy of this number 29 of the 158th year issue
of « Le Moniteur » ! Skeptical as they were (or pretended to be), we had to,
ourselves, obtain it for them !

This conscious game of hide-and-seek highly promotes the law's
non-application. For, if this salary had already been bestowed in certain
factories, it was far from being so in most of the others where, in fact,
the permanent delaying of salary adjustments by bosses is customary. Witness
the case of the Beck hotel, in Cap-Haitian, whose owner, of German origin,
indefinitely protracts negotiations with workers, refusing to admit as well
the possibility that finally, his recognition (?) of the law might function
retroactively. In factories 15, 34, 41 and 42 of the Port-au-Prince
Industrial Park, all belonging to Koreans installed in country, several
workers were roughed up by the police because they demanded this salary
adjustment. The most extraordinary case, however, is that of the "Brasserie
Nationale" (National Brewery) in its Northern version, BRANO ("Brasserie du
Nord") where workers were severely beaten and then arrested by UDMO
(antiriot unit) policemen called in by this factory's regional management,
and later freed without accusation nor judgment for having, on April 22nd,
demanded the respect of the new minimum wage law. Let us recall that the law
was given at the National Palace on April 14th and published on the
following 17th. Michael Madsen, of the family Denmark's honorary consuls in
Haiti, owner of the Brasserie Nationale, answering to an Investigation
Report issued by the Haitian Platform for Human Rights (POHDH) ("Le
Nouvelliste", June 2, 2003), defends himself of these accusations ("Le
Nouvelliste", June 9th, 2003). But keeps well from mentioning that these
events (differently presented in the two articles) date back to April 22nd,
i.e., after the law's enactment. Regardless, then, of the work halt sparked
by the protest, it becomes automatically justified and Brano illegal, since
the law was already in force: it should have been the company's
responsibility to immediately align itself with the newly enforced law,
without the workers having to demand its. minimum respect. Michael Madsen
also purposely chooses to ignore the fact, unveiled by the POHDH, that, a
few weeks earlier, twenty-five workers had been dismissed (without severance
pay !) again simply for having demanded an adjustment of the 36 gourdes
daily salary which, let us be clear, by no means allows any sort of
livelihood, lesser yet an entire family's subsistence. Nor does he mention,
correlatively, that the Social Affairs regional officials confess having to
complain about this factory's management which invariably contravenes the
Haitian laws (see testimony of Mr. Luckner Marie Anjou, head responsible at
the North Labor Bureau, in the POHDH report). Mr. Madsen drastically
finishes his letter addressed to the Nouvelliste's director in these terms:
« I do not wish to return on this matter in any way. » ! And at the writing
of this Open Letter, June 17th, Brano workers still do not benefit of the 70
gourdes demanded by law !!

The fact for us to have systematically raised the various nationalities of
Capital's established protagonists in Haiti by no means witnesses of
xenophobic feelings. On the contrary, our objective by this is to denounce
the lavalas government's insipid and displaced, absolutely retrograde and
hollow, «grenn mango » nationalism, which it advances constantly these days,
on the eve of 2004. The Guacimal events are here, once again, to show us the
extent to which, in all Haitian worker - foreign bosses' conflicts, the
latter have the high hand. Even when the question concerns France's honorary
Consul, Mr. Jacques Novella, a bloodthirsty colonist if there is, who had
acquired peasant lands to establish a bitter orange plantation destined for
the multinational multimillionaire Cointreau's raw material supply.
deputies, departmental delegates, magistrates, Ministry of the Interior
heads. all passed the test, multiplying antinational discourses and fake
'investigations' to defend the multinational's interests, even going so far
as to set up the workers, who were only demanding their systematically
refused rights in this country, as « terrorists », claiming that the present
government was in place « . to defend diplomats' lands » !

The tip-toe enactment of the minimum wage law, essential to the daily lives
of the workers and Haitian people in general (the salary, however miserable,
is widely distributed amongst the poor population) thus shows how much this
gesture is but a façade. As a matter of fact, most bosses immediately
reacted to it by systematically increasing work paces and/or proceeding to
mass firings. Forget the slightest possibility for workers to protest or
even to demand legal stipulations such as severance pay; anti-union
repression, like a guillotine, automatically activates, accompanied by
immediate and brutal police action if need be.

This factual situation, this high level of hatred displayed by the
bourgeoisie confirms its leitmotif, that of «Haiti's comparative
advantage » - its « cheap labor » which, clearly speaking, means the
permanence of misery wages, as well as the people's most abject and
generalized poverty (in order for them to be at all times willing to accept
the most derisory salaries.) with, at the end, a prompt and ferocious police
repression, guarantor of this modern genocide's total logic.

Faced with such a situation, the establishment of a new minimum wage should
be accompanied not only by a vast and intensive disclosure of the law in
question, but also constant, rigorous inspections by the responsible
ministry (Social Affairs) in order to ensure its strict application.
Application of the new pay but also daily inspections to denounce and punish
all antiunion (and, by there, perfectly illegal) management practices,
which, presently enjoy an indecent impunity. Allow us to remind you, Madame
Minister, that the administrative weakness of Social Affairs Ministry
authorities can by no means permit the loss of worker rights.

For, at stake, finally, is an end to bourgeois impunity ! Or, could it be
that the government is working to set up as a norm this social defect, the
new essence of an updated Black Code, cornerstone of a cynical and murderous
construction preparing, once again, to reduce in slavery a people who had
already broken out of it in such an extraordinary manner? One might
speculate, then, on the recent nomination, as Labor Minister ("Secréaire d'
Etat du Travail), of a police chief (!), one moreover denounced by public
clamor!

At the start of these two hundred years of independence, the only deep real
act of advancement, would it not be to work towards the definitive
elimination of bourgeois impunity, foreign and national, that which has no
other banner than maximum profit, with absolutely no limit, in the sweat and
the blood of Haitian laborers?

Please receive, Madame Minister, our respectful salutations,


For BATAY OUVRIYE : Yannick Etienne


Cc :      Mr. Yvon Neptune, Prime Minister,
            Mr. Jocelerme Privert, Minister of the inside,
            National and international press