24246: Robert Benodin (info) BATAY OUVRIYE (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Robert Benodin <r.benodin@worldnet.att.net>

BATAY OUVRIYE
Port-au-Prince, February 10th, 2005

Batay Ouvriye greets the press with us today as we present the latest
information on the developments at the CODEVI free trade zone in
Ouanaminthe. We thank you also for your continued concern regarding this
question that has kept the news throughout last year. We’re asking you to
maintain this interest since the struggle is continuing also. The workers
still have numerous point of struggle to carry out in order lower the
exploitation they are facing in the free trade zone.
Contrary to what we’ve been hearing, that the conflict has been resolved
between the workers, the union representing them and management, we believe
an advancement has been made in this question, since gains were established
during the two days of negotiation spent with the company, but that doesn’t
mean at all that the conflict is over. We believe that the struggle will be
hardest after the agreement protocol. That will be another moment for
careful workers to be most vigilant in order for the sentences written on
paper to be truly applied. In this moment, anything can happen. The SOCOWA
union and all the other workers have to continue to mobilize for the
agreement to be respected and they need to use this document to seize their
rights and obtain still more gains. This is how we understand the agreement
signed on February 5th, 2005, two days before SOCOWA’s first establishment
birthday. In this sense, we can say that with this agreement’s signature,
SOCOWA has a tool to use to advance in another new year. It is an progress,
a step ahead, with respect to last year.
For us, at Batay Ouvriye, who were at SOCOWA’s side throughout the two days
of negotiations, facing the CODEVI management representatives, we can say
there are positive aspects, which were obtained in the agreement. For
instance:

The company’s recognition of union freedom, which means that the owners have
to respect the SOCOWA union’s right to operate unreservedly throughout the
free trade zone. It is in this framework that we understand its agreement to
reinstate 5 union leaders presently, a few days after the agreement.
Besides, as we speak, these workers should already be working. This is a
first proof that CODEVI management recognizes SOCOWA’s presence in the
factory, by accepting for all the union’s leadership to be reinstated in the
work. In addition, an agreement was settled upon for the over 150 workers
fired between June 11th and 20th to return to work gradually as Levi-Strauss
and Sara Lee return orders to the free trade zone. These 151 workers will
have priority in reinstatement. We should add that CODEVI intended to
reinstate only 40 workers and asked for these workers to sign a document
saying that they renounced to the use of violence. This didn’t happen. We
succeeded in ensuring the 150 workers reinstatement with no condition and
with no one having any files saying they ever recognized any violence. This
question of violence the company brought up was never proved and besides the
June 11th and the following days firings were massive, indiscriminate, ones,
to destroy the union. Quite the contrary, another major element of the
settlement is the formal accord prohibiting the use of the army or security
guards in workplace conflicts.

In order for the workers to be able to obtain a form of compensation, we
accepted a compromise as a help fund for the workers still waiting to return
to work. We had demanded for their reinstatement without any discrimination
and with compensation, which means that they would maintain their seniority
and receive a sum equaling 7 months of their salary. The CODEVI
representatives demonstrated that the company was in major economic
difficulties, that it wouldn’t be possible for them to accept the cost of
these reinstatements. They agreed to rehire the workers and for both parties
to work together to try to obtain funds to assist the workers still waiting
to return to work from various foundations.

Creation of a Joint Commission with representatives of both sides to
investigate workplace conflicts in the meantime for an agreement to be
attained on the procedure for conflict resolutions. For us, this Joint
Commission will be a place of struggle for the workers to bring forward
their demands and seek solutions to the conflicts, as well as to mark more
gains in the development of their fights.

Another aspect reinforcing the earlier point concerning union freedom is a
concrete application of these rights: the agreement in principle that within
the six months following the agreement protocol signed, the union will meet
with management to negotiate a collective convention. This point is for us
an essential gain as a battleground for the workers to advance in their
deeper demands, to emerge from individual contracts that tie their arms in
order to arrive, rather, at a collective contract that allows them more than
the limits imposed by the labor legislation.

A last aspect we consider important and that we are asking for the press to
continue to follow up on is the vaccinations question. The union should be
receiving all CODEVI / Grupo M management files to try to shed light on this
question. The company has agreed to give all explanations necessary and, if
the union feels there is basis for the issue to be furthered on to justice,
it will be legitimately entitled to do so. So, SOCOWA will have a large task
to accomplish to obtain this scientific material and the assistance of other
persons or organizations to clarify this question.

These are the few points we feel important in the settlement agreed upon. We
think it is a positive step but the major work is still ahead: the struggle
must continue to ensure this agreement’s respect and application and for it
to continue to be a basis for further advancement.

We salute the tenacity and conviction of the SOCOWA union workers who
initiated this battle over six months ago, a battle in which they confronted
a major company of the industrial sector who was furthermore upheld by all
of the Haitian bosses of the Association of Haitian Industrialists (ADIH)
and that had the complicity of the various government authorities,
especially the Ministry of Commerce and Industry and the Prime Minister’s
Office. We are taking the opportunity to point out that a large number of
these bosses are presently talking about a “new social contract” but don’t
even accept to negotiate collective work contracts within their own
factories. For us, this protocol of agreement is an example for all workers
in the assembly industry of the Port-au-Prince Industrial Park to use in the
advancement of their own battles. Only in the fight will we find solutions
to our problems in the factory, not in telling ourselves that “we’re better
off worse than out”.

We, at Batay Ouvriye, will continue to advance in this path for the mass of
Haitian workers, whether agricultural day laborers or poor sharecropper
peasants, and all other exploited and dominated workers to find a solution
in their battles. As we always say: our lives, as workers, is a battle with
no pause, a battle with no stopping.

Batay Ouvriye