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28605: Dailey re fired Teleco workers (fwd)




From: Peter Dailey <phdailey@msn.com>

RV asserts that Teleco was a notorious patronage mill and that the Latortue government's decision to cut 50% of the work force- 2,000 employees- eliminated "no show patronage jobs." Sprague argues that real jobs were eliminated and that this resulted in a decline of public services and "sites" in support a statement by Anoop Singh, Director of the Western Hemisphere Department at the IMF.

However, Singh, speaking in the summer of 2004 only weeks after the advent of the Latortue government, never mentions Teleco, stated only that "expenditure cuts" by the state "adversely affected the ability of the authorities to deliver basic public services." Nowhere does Singh state that this inability was the result of the firing of municipal workers, or that the Latortue government was eliminating basic public services that had been previously provided by the Aristide government. Is Sprague arguing that the quality of service provided by Teleco has declined in the past two years? What about garbage collection etc. ? What services has the Haitian government traditionally provided, and which are no longer available?

I've been told that although in indexes like literacy, life expectancy, access to potable water, etc. Haiti is close to the bottom, it leads the hemisphere in municipal employees per thousand phone lines. Is this true? When Aristide returned to power in 1994 were their similar layoffs? My impression is that in addition to legions of ghost workers like Rene Civil, Teleco has traditionally provided a safe haven for the otherwise unemployable sons and nephews of prominent bourgeois whom Aristide or any other head of government may fire at their peril. There are undoubtedly many persons who would be interested in an analysis of Teleco's operations over the last thirty years or of the Port Authority and how they came to be a byword for corruption and incompetence. There are probably others besides myself who would welcome an explanation by Sprague of some of his fundamental assumptions. Should independent unions under a "progressive" government have the right to collective bargaining and to strike? I've read that the support of the AFL-CIO was crucial to the success of Solidarity in Poland. Was this an example of the undermining of a "progressive" government that Sprague has in mind?

Sprague sasks where the "overwhelming evidence" of FL's complicity in the attack on the organizers of Guacimal is to be found. I suggest that he examine contemporaneous accounts, many of which were posted on the Corbett List, including the thoroughly mendacious efforts by various Aristide flaks to justify the attacks and subsequent imprisonments.

Peter Dailey