22339: Batay Ouvriye: Re: 22334: (Chamberlain) Dominican-Haiti Trade (corrected date) (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Batay Ouvriye <batayouvriye@hotmail.com>

Forwarded from the: The International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers'
Federation, 216 Trade Unions in 106 countries with a combined membership of
over 10 million workers bound together in solidarity
(http://www.itglwf.org/)

June 9 2004
Mr Capellan
Chief Executive Officer
Grupo M
Dear Mr Capellán,
I am writing in response to your letter dated June 7, reference GM-carta
ADIH (En), which you copied to us.
You claim that your employees have been threatened by a group of activists
from Batay Ouvriye, which you say is not a legally-registered union.
It is not the task of employers to determine to which union their employees
may belong. That is their choice, and their choice alone. For your
information, Bataye Ouvriye was registered at the Ministry of Social Affairs
and Labor in 2001 under the number STA4-00760. The registration was renewed
on October 1 2003, and expires in 2005.
You say that because of this situation you have decided to relocate your
production, unless the situation improves.
Let me make it perfectly clear that 'cutting and running' in order to avoid
unionisation is totally unacceptable. Your company moved to the border with
Haiti in order to take advantage of lower wages and weaker labour standards.
Now that problems have arisen, you have a responsibility to work to remedy
those problems, rather than running away from them. Please be advised that
should you decide to shut down your operations in Haiti, we would have to
convey to your customers that such behaviour makes Grupo M an unsuitable
business partner for any respectable company.
Instead, you must deal urgently with the very serious problems that have
arisen. What are the injections workers have been receiving? Why have nine
women workers suffered miscarriages ? Why have women been held in what
workers call the 'dark room' ? Why have workers been threatened at gunpoint
by Dominican armed guards ? Why were women stripped of their work shirts,
and why was a pregnant woman thrown to the floor ?
I would strongly urge you to work towards a resolution of this crisis
without delay.  If I can be of any assistance I would be happy to try to
help move things to a conclusion in a way that promotes social dialogue
instead of confrontation.
Yours sincerely,
NEIL KEARNEY
General Secretary