Facebook Instagram Twitter YouTube

Haitian Textile Workers Strike Against U.S. and International Sweatshops

Thousands of textile workers in Haiti have walked out to demand higher wages. The strike shows growing militancy among one of the most hyper-exploited sectors of capitalism’s imperial hierarchy.

B.C. Daurelle

February 18, 2022
Facebook Twitter Share
A Haitian textile worker at protest

Thousands of textile workers from Haiti’s assembly and export industry are leaving the factory floor and taking to the streets of Haiti’s capital city, Port-au-Prince. This predominantly female workforce is engaged in textile manufacturing and assembly for export to clothing giants like Levi Strauss, Gap, and Nike. The peaceful walkout was almost immediately met with police repression in the form of tear gas, beatings, and arrests, as the protestors marched to the residence of prime minister Ariel Henry. Nevertheless, protestors re-grouped for a second day to continue the fight for a higher minimum wage, and their ranks continue to swell as the action passes into its second week. 

The initial walkout was organized by the militant union group Batay Ouvriye at the Parc Industriel Métropolitain, one of Haiti’s “assembly zones,” duty-free production centers for multinational retailers such as Gap, Old Navy, H&M, JCPenney, and Zara, whose low prices rest on the legalized exploitation of Haitian labor. The initial demonstration on February 9 was entirely peaceful: protestors played music and danced, while others waved small tree branches, a display of non-violent resistance. The protest had barely begun, however, when police fired canisters of tear gas to disperse the crowds. However, the intensity of police repression only emboldened the striking workers, who returned the following day with faces painted to protect against another round of tear gas. According to Konbit Jounalis Lib, at least 15 people were injured in the first two days, 13 of whom were women. As of the weekend, four were still in the hospital, including one pregnant woman. 

The demand on the protestors’ lips is a raise in the minimum wage from 500 to 1,500 Gourdes (or HTG, the local currency). Currently, the minimum salary for workers in “assembly zones” like PIM is the equivalent of USD $4.86, for a nine-hour work day, a wage so low it’s derisively referred to as “Aba salè tibèkiloz”, a ‘tuberculosis salary.’ Many workers point out that it can cost nearly 250 Gourdes per day just to get to and from work.

The poverty wages paid to textile and assembly workers in Haiti is no accident: it has deep roots in imperialism. The complex at the center of today’s strikes is one of several administered by the government agency Société Nationale des Parcs Industriels or SONPAI, duty free zones created to enforce the country’s tiered wage system. Though textile workers in Haiti actually fall within the highest tier of the country’s minimum wage protections, companies that contract piece work specifically for export are allowed to pay workers 10% less. This is a legacy of the HOPE and HOPE II acts, passed by the U.S. congress in 2006 and 2008, during earlier periods of labor unrest in Haiti. To pre-empt the Haitian congress’s attempts to raise the minimum wage, the HOPE treaties imposed a U.S.-backed package of trade liberalization, allowing for extremely modest, gradual increases in the minimum wage in exchange for duty-free export of textiles. Leaked cables show how Hillary Clinton’s State Department and the U.S. Embassy leaned on the Haitian government directly, on behalf of companies whose profits rest on cheap Haitian labor.

Back in 2008, when the Haitian congress attempted an ambitious minimum wage increase, a study from the Worker Rights Consortium showed that a wage of 550 HTG was needed just to cover the daily living expenses of a family of three. Thanks to U.S. intervention, the wage rose only slightly, from $0.22 to $0.31, rather than to $0.62, as the government originally proposed. More recently, a 2019 report by Solidarity Center estimated that a reasonable living wage would be four times higher, since workers typically spend more than half of a current day’s earnings just on lunch and transportation. Modest increases have been made since the report, but they are far outpaced by inflation. The workers’ demand today, a daily minimum of 1,500 HTG, is still well below the 1,750 called for in that report.

Haiti’s textile and assembly workers know the fruits of imperialist inequality better than most, and the history of a struggle for a liveable minimum wage shows the lengths to which multinational capital will go to maintain a cheap, exploited workforce. These workers have been told by governments, economists, and business leaders of the Global North that they should be grateful to have jobs at all, that a reasonable minimum wage would drive businesses out of the country. But among those who work for nine hour a day — making articles of “cheap” clothing that cost four times their daily salary — resistance rooted in a sharp class consciousness will inevitably develop, as these protests demonstrate.

Facebook Twitter Share

Labor Movement

Three tables full of food, with signs hung above them. One says "The People's Pantry: FREE FOOD." Banners hung from the tables say "Free CUNY" and "Cop Free School Zone"

CUNY Administration Cracks Down on Student and Worker-Run Food Pantry

Students and workers opened "The People's Pantry" seven weeks ago as part of a broader anti-austerity campaign at CUNY, leading to several direct confrontations with the administration.

Olivia Wood

March 19, 2023

Temple’s Grad Worker Strike Ends with Important Victories 

The last report on the strike from a union teacher at Temple University in Philadelphia.

Jason Koslowski

March 17, 2023

Teachers and Education Workers Set to Strike! Tens of Thousands Rally in Los Angeles 

A three day strike was announced by two education unions at a rally attended by tens of thousands of members. The workers are calling for increased wages, reduced class size, and an end to harassment by their employers.

Julia Wallace

March 17, 2023
A sign drawn on a small whiteboard, in trans pride colors. Text: "CUNY Graduate Center and Professional Schools Workers for Trans Rights" Beneath the text is a chain of 9 smiling stick figures in different colors, all holding hands

CUNY Union Chapter Unanimously Passes Resolution in Support of Trans Rights

The Graduate Center chapter of PSC-CUNY, the faculty, staff, and graduate worker union of the City University of New York, passed a resolution pledging support to all workers fighting the anti-trans bills nationwide.

Olivia Wood

March 12, 2023

MOST RECENT

What’s Behind Xi Jinping’s Visit to Moscow?

Chinese president Xi Jinping has visited Moscow for the first time since the beginning of the Ukraine war, in an effort to strengthen trade relations between the two countries.

Madeleine Freeman

March 23, 2023
Protesters gather during a demonstration on Place de la Concorde in Paris on March 17, 2023, the day after the French government pushed a pensions reform using the article 49.3 of the constitution. - French President's government on March 17, 2023 faced no-confidence motions in parliament and intensified protests after imposing a contentious pension reform without a vote in the lower house. Across France, fresh protests erupted in the latest show of popular opposition to the bill since mid-January.

Battle of the Pensions: Toward a Pre-Revolutionary Moment in France

President Macron's use of article 49.3 to push through an unpopular pension reform bill has opened up an enormous political crisis that has changed the character of the mobilizations against the French government. We are entering a "pre-revolutionary moment" that can change the balance of power between the classes in France.

Juan Chingo

March 21, 2023

20 Years Since the U.S. Invasion of Iraq: A Reflection from a Socialist in the Heart of Imperialism

A Left Voice member and anti-war activist reflects on the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq and how he learned to hate U.S. imperialism.

Sam Carliner

March 20, 2023

It is Possible to Win: The Pension Reform Crisis in France

A French socialist reflects on the way forward after Macron invites Article 49.3 to pass pension reform.

Paul Morao

March 20, 2023