22292: Batay Ouvriye: Alert: Generalized Violence on Codevi Workers! (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Batay Ouvriye <batayouvriye@hotmail.com>

ALERT :

GENERALIZED VIOLENCE ON CODEVI WORKERS !

June 6, 2000
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.