Tag Archives: Sweatshop

Poor Little Rich Haiti to Be Fleeced of Copper-Silver-Gold Via Caracol Deep-Water Port

avatarPosted on by July 30, 2022

By Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Plans are under way for Canadian and US corporations to mine Haiti’s northeast area near Caracol, which has been discovered to contain a wealth of silver and gold, in addition to copper. As in the Dominican Republic’s Pueblo Viejo project, construction of the mines will involve dynamiting of mountains, and the ore will be extracted by an opencast (or open-pit) mining process that contaminates large volumes of water with cyanide. UPDATES: Attempts to issue mining permits to the US’ VCS Mining LLC and Canada’s SOMINE SA, without any environmental impact assessment (EIA) were thwarted by Haiti’s Senate in January 2013. Plans to dredge a deep-sea port in the pristine Bay of Fort Liberte were scrapped in April 2014.

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Caracol Free-Trade Zone Jeopardizes Natural and Cultural Heritage | La zone franche de Caracol met en péril le patrimoine naturel et culturel du Nord-Est

avatarPosted on by March 11, 2019

By Rachelle Charlier Doucet, AlterPresse | Commentary and translation by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. A massive industrial park is scheduled to open in the Caracol Bay area of Haiti, although no plan is in place to mitigate the park’s impact on a region that has been proposed as a World Heritage Site for its ecological, historical, and archaeological importance. (English | French)

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Aid as a Trojan Horse: On the Anniversary of the Haitian Earthquake

avatarPosted on by January 30, 2021

By Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Long before the word sustainable became fashionable, before Henry David Thoreau noted that “A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone,” there was Haiti.

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Caracol Haiti Industrial Park With Projected Adverse Environmental Impact | Caracol, un parc industriel d’Haïti Parc qui aurait un impact environnemental négatif

avatarPosted on by March 1, 2018

By Staff, Haiti Grassroots Watch. Part 6 of 7. The same week over 300 agricultural plots in Caracol, Haiti, were unexpectedly destroyed, the Haitian government signed an agreement with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, IDB, and Korean textile giant Sae-A Trading to convert the lands into an industrial park. This park will dump its wastes into a bay with extensive coraf reefs and one of the country’s last mangrove forests. (English | French)

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Gildan Orders Haitian Subcontractor to Reinstate Union Workers

avatarPosted on by February 25, 2019

By Alison MacGregor, Montreal Gazette. Gildan Activewear Inc., a Montreal-based apparel firm, has ordered its Haitian subcontractor, the Genesis S.A. factory owned by Haiti’s Apaid family, to reinstate four workers illegally fired in September for forming a new union.

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Sweatshops: Stepping Stone or Dead End? | Tremplin ou cul-de-sac?

avatarPosted on by February 25, 2019

By Staff, Haiti Grassroots Watch. Part 5 of 7. Are low-wage, low-skilled assembly industries in Haiti really a “stepping stone” to more complex industrial development? In the Mexican maquiladora boom areas, the water table is dropping by 1 to 1.5 meters every year due to intensive use of water; the blue dye run-off from jeans pollutes rivers and irrigation ditches; 67% of homes have dirt floors, and 52% of streets are unpaved. (English | French)

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What’s Planned for Haiti? | Quel est le plan pour Haïti?

avatarPosted on by December 14, 2018

By Staff, Haiti Grassroots Watch. Part 4 of 7. ”You get some factories and some salaries, and everything else is imported…. People need to know what FTZs are, what has happened in Mexico, or Honduras, so they don’t think these things will ‘save’ us.” – Camille Chalmers, Economist. (English | French)

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Why is Haiti ‘Attractive’?Pourquoi Haïti est si ‘attrayante’?

avatarPosted on by March 1, 2018

By Staff, Haiti Grassroots Watch. Part 3 of 7. Haiti is the only country that guarantees the U.S. market duty-free and quota-free access. With every free-trade zone that gets built on prime agricultural land, more farmers are put out of work. Thus Haitians import more food as real wages drop to rock bottom in the sweatshops, where there are now plans to legalize 3 x 8 hours work shifts. In Haiti, we sometimes talk figuratively about being eaten up. This comes pretty close to the real thing. DC (English | French)

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Anti-Union, Pro-‘Race to the Bottom’Anti-syndicalisme, pro-‘course vers le bas’

avatarPosted on by March 1, 2018

By Staff, Haiti Grassroots Watch. Part 2 of 7. “It’s a big error to bet on the slave-wage labor, on breaking the backs of workers who are paid nothing while [foreign] companies get rich. It’s not only an error, it’s a crime…. [Assembly factories] work with imported materials, they’re enclaves. They don’t have much effect on the economy.” – Haitian economist Camille Chalmers. (English | French)

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Nascent Union Charges Reprisals by Textile Factory Owners | Naciente sindicato denuncia represión patronal

avatarPosted on by December 21, 2018

By Ansel Herz, IPS. Port-au-Prince – Workers in Haiti’s apparel manufacturing sector charge that factory owners are repressing attempts to organise in the capital, after the dismissals of six of seven leading members of a new union within just two weeks of its formation. (English | Spanish)

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Lesotho Government to Turn Its Back on Textile Industry

avatarPosted on by March 11, 2019

By Kristin Palitza, IPS | Commentary by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. In response to demands of a living wage from unions of Lesotho’s textile factory workers this summer, the World Bank is recommending to Lesotho’s government that it should ditch its textile industry, after the manufacturers have enjoyed Lesotho’s attractive tax breaks.

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Fertile Land Seized for New Sweatshop Zone | Un déficit d’information publique sur le parc industriel du nord

avatarPosted on by March 1, 2018

By Sylvestre Fils Dorcilus, Alter Presse. “It’s the most fertile area we have at Caracol…. It’s inconceivable and unacceptable that the government could choose this part of the land to set up an industrial park.” – Resident Renel Pierre (English | French)

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Let Them Live on $3 a Day | Usines Levis et Hanes ont combattu, avec l’ambassade des É.-U., l’augmentation du salaire minimum en Haïti

avatarPosted on by March 1, 2018

By Dan Coughlin and Kim Ives, The Nation. Contractors for Fruit of the Loom, Hanes, and Levi’s worked in close concert with the US Embassy when they aggressively moved to block a minimum wage increase for Haitian assembly zone workers, the lowest-paid in the hemisphere, according to secret State Department cables. (English | French)

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Thai, Argentine Textile Workers Unite Against Slave Labour

avatarPosted on by December 27, 2018

By Marcela Valente, IPS. Buenos Aires – Textile cooperatives founded by former slave labourers from Argentina and Thailand will jointly launch a new brand of clothing in June to raise awareness about exploitation and promote decent jobs in the garment industry.

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