29525: Leiderman: question: rates of pay in Haiti? (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

Stuart Leiderman <leiderman@mindspring.com>

17 November 2006

dear Readers:

 over the years, the more involved I get in assisting Haitian
 humanitarian, environmental and capacity-building organizations with
 grant proposals, contract bids, research and development projects,
 emergency employment programs and the like, the less confident I am of
 being able to recommend proper rates of pay for salaried staff and hired
 workers, from project directors to administrators, secretaries to
 technicians to teachers, and so on.  in reviewing draft proposals, I see
 widely varying rates of pay, all the way from what I would consider
 menial to exorbitant for similar kinds of work and responsibilities.  I
 think this makes things difficult both for Haitian applicants and for
 prospective funders.

 what exists in the way of published pay scales or compiled anecdotes of
 what Haitians currently earn in various public and private jobs?  how do
 foreign donors decide what to budget for "x" number of emergency
 employment positions (often expressed in terms of person-months)?  what
 is a living wage in Haiti?  would it be worthwhile for some NGOs,
 churches, charities and grassroots organizations and the Labor Ministry
 to survey historical and current levels of pay?  could it also help
 stretch the money available and better estimate and predict the overall
 costs of development, health, housing, law enforcement, education, rural
 renewal, agricultural and environmental restoration?

thank you,

Stuart Leiderman
leiderman@mindspring.com

appended: selected references on pay-scales, economic conditions, etc.:

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GOVERNMENT OF HAITI:

http://www.haiti.org/business&opportunity/bus_guide_investing.htm
Embassy of the Republic of Haiti in Washington, D.C.
A Guide to Investing in Haiti
<snip>Employee Benefits -- Every company operating in Haiti must assume responsibility for payment of certain employee benefits. Recent studies of the industrial sector indicate that those benefits might reach 37-38% of the basic wages.  Bonus: Between December 24 and 31 of each year, employers are required to pay to their employees complementary wages or bonuses, regardless of length of service. Annual vacation: Fifteen days, to which all employees are entitled.  Tax on workers' salaries is borne solely by the employer. It represents 2% of the total labor expenses (wages, salaries, bonuses and other compensation). This tax is due on the 10th day of each month. Six weeks of maternity leave are paid by the employer. In addition, the employer is required to keep the employee's job open for the duration of the maternity leave. Health card (Gdes 50 per employee), is paid by the employer. It is mandatory for all
employees, and must be obtained within three months of hiring.  In-house medical services are paid for by the employer. Every industrial enterprise must hire a physician to take care of the sick workers.  OFATMA (Worker's Compensation, Health and Maternity Insurance) covers work-related accidents and maternity expenses. The premium is paid entirely by the employer according to the following rates: 2% of the total wages paid by commercial business enterprises; 3% of the total wages paid by agricultural, industrial and construction enterprises, and by agencies of shipping lines 6% of the total wages paid by mining enterprises.  ONA (Age and Disability Insurance) must be paid monthly by the employer and the workers. The premium schedule based on monthly wages can be seen in the following table: <snip>

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UNITED NATIONS

http://www.un.org/Depts/OHRM/salaries_allowances/allowances/hazard.htm
United Nations - Hazard Pay "Hazard pay is a form of compensation granted to staff members who have been requested to remain and report for work in duty stations where very hazardous conditions, such as war or active hostilities, prevailed and where the evacuation of families and nonessential staff had taken place.  The Chairman of the International Civil Service Commission (ICSC) is responsible for authorizing the application of hazard pay to a duty station, based on the recommendation of the United Nations Security Coordinator. The authorization is normally for a period of up to three months at a time, and is subject to ongoing review. The application of hazard pay is lifted when hazardous
conditions are deemed to have abated.  List of countries/duty stations where payment of hazard pay has been approved, with effect from 1 September thru 30 November 2006: <snip>  12.Haiti  <snip> Amount of Hazard Pay:  Internationally-recruited staff -- US$1,000 per month.  Locally-recruited staff -- 25% of the net midpoint of the applicable local salary scale.

http://www.un.org/Depts/OHRM/salaries_allowances/salary.htm#fs
United Nations - Field Service Pay Scale
<snip> Salary structure: Staff in this category, employed in peace-keeping missions and in the operation of the United Nations telecommunications systems, are internationally recruited and entitled to a range of international benefits. The salary structure is similar to that of Professional staff, with a single salary scale applicable to worldwide. Salary rates for the seven grades in this category are likewise established by comparison with similar jobs in the United States federal civil service. Click here [a nice Excel sheet] for the latest salary scales for staff in the Field Service category.

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CHURCHES:

http://www.haiticonnection.org/churchgroups.html
Church Groups Involved in Haiti
<snip> Diocese of Milwaukee Haiti Project, Ginny Wolfe
<judgeginny@voyager.net> The Diocese of Milwaukee Haiti Project is a partnership between the Episcopal Diocese of Milwaukee and the people of St. Marcâs Episcopal Church of Jeannette, located in the southern peninsula of Haiti. The project has built two schools for 600 students in preschool through eighth
grade, a health clinic, water cisterns, latrines, staff housing, and a rectory/community center.  Each year the project raises about $70,000 to cover the salaries for 40 employees including teachers, nurses, health care providers, and agricultural workers. It also funds operating and expansion costs for the school, clinic, and agricultural programs. <snip>

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VOLUNTARY:

http://www.escapeartist.com/transitions_abroad/Short_Term_Work_Resources_2.html#Latin America
Short-Term Work Resources ~ Page Two -- esources for locating Summer Jobs & Short Term Employment Abroad, by Susan Griffith
<snip> Grant Foundation. 8466 N Lockwood Ridge Rd., #111, Sarasota, FL 34243; 941-355-2805; fax 941-351-0735. Work team projects use voluntary input to help at the Hopital Albert Schweizer in Haiti.

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NGO'S:

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/IMF_WB/Haiti_StrucAdj_MNM.html
Haiti's Latest Coup: Structural Adjustment and the Struggle for Democracy
Multinational Monitor, May 1997-- An interview with Camille Chalmers

Camille Chalmers is the executive secretary of the Haitian Platform for Alternative Development (PAPDA), the leading Haitian organization analyzing the impact of structural adjustment. Chief of staff to then-President Jean Bertrand Aristide from 1993 to 1994, Chalmers resigned over disagreement with the development policy mandates of international donors. Chalmers has been a professor of economics at State University in Haiti since 1983. He was arrested and brutally beaten by the Haitian military regime in the early l990s. <snip>

MM: Why have you been so critical of the structural adjustment emphasis on supporting the private sector to generate growth?

Chalmers: In Haiti, we are a very polarized country. One percent of the population has 50 percent of the wealth. Ten to 15 families control practically all phases of production and they engage in all parts of the economy. Supporting the private sector means supporting these families. However, this private sector is not one that invests in the country. It is one that engages in pillage and speculation. They buy coffee in Haiti, sell it somewhere, and put the money in a foreign bank. They do not invest in productive capacities of the country. Their economic activities cannot lead to development. The structural adjustment model also asserts that the Haitian peasantry has no future in agricultural production,
that the peasantry should not engage itself in producing rice or corn, because it can get those things from the United States. Instead, the peasants are told to work in the assembly industry. U.S. AID documents dated 1990 to 1991 state that the "natural advantages" -natural!-of Haiti are two things: its proximity to the U.S. market, and its cheap labor. We do not believe it makes sense to base a development plan on exploitation of low salaries, however, because while cheap labor can offer temporary advantages, development itself means we have to do what is necessary so that the wages can increase. We have to very actively invest in human capital development. That would lead very rapidly to undermining the comparative advantage of Haiti, its cheap labor. Even when there is growth in the assembly sector, it has absolutely nothing to do with the productive capacity of the industry or the economy, since the assembly sector is an economic enclave without backward and forward linka
 ges. Take for example 1991: we exported $150 million worth of goods, but of that $150 million, $134 million was spent on goods imported. So the value added by the Haitian economy was very small. We think that development is possible only to the extent that it uses the historic productive capacities of the country-of its 4 million peasants (800,000 farmer families), 300,000 artisans, 12,000 peasant organizations, 8,000
cooperatives, many tens of thousands of small and micro enterprises and a very dynamic informal sector. This approach calls for courage, for relying on what are truly the most dynamic sectors of the country. Only they could lead to a break with the past, to an eradication of the economic apartheid that we now have in Haiti.

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AND "ON THE MARGINS...":

http://www.officer.com/article/article.jsp?id=32577&siteSection=16
Real-Life Recruiting -- Inside law enforcement recruiting efforts nationwide
Updated: September 13th, 2006 04:52 PM EDT  From the August 2006 Issue
By Liz Martinez

<snip> Lt. Alfred Lewers Jr., the coordinator of the Recruiting, Background Investigations and Training Unit for the Fort Lauderdale (Florida) Police Department, says that his unit's mission is to develop positive change.  "We're not just about recruiting officers," he says. Instead, he wants to promote the image of the police in communities where it hasn't always been positive.  Part of that goal is to bring more minority officers on to the 514-officer force, which is hiring for 19 positions now and will have 25 open positions next year.  The department has made great strides in increasing diversity, Lewers says. "We are engaged in 'recruiting from the margins,' " he explains. "We're looking at people who wouldn't normally consider a police career.  Between 2001 and the present, we have added 5x the number of black officers that we previously had. We also have a large Haitian population here, so we've added five Creole-speaking Haitian-American officers, plus another three o
 f Arabic descent." The department works toward its hiring goals by being omnipresent. "We're everywhere," Lewers says.  "But the key is to be places where other departments aren't."  That includes advertising in non-traditional print venues such as "Essence" and women's health and fitness magazines to appeal to female applicants. "We also reach out to people at traditionally black colleges," he says. "We've gone to New York City to attend the West Indian Day parade and Creole parade in Brooklyn. We even went to Haiti once." The department, which starts officers out at $41,000, requires a high school diploma and has no maximum age limit. The lateral transfer program also provides for a graduated pay scale, and there is a vehicle-take-home program for officers.... <snip>

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