Haiti

A journalist was killed and five workers were injured in Port-au-Prince on 23 February 2022 when police opened fire on peaceful demonstrators opposing the amount of the wage increase announced by the government following weeks of protest.
On 21 February, the government announced increases for different economic activity. In the garment sector, the 37 per cent increase lifts wages from 500 to 685 gourdes (US$6.50 a day). The amount is unacceptable to the coalition of unions that is pressing for better wages, including IndustriALL affiliate GOSTTRA. The unions say that even the 1,500 gourdes they have been demanding since January barely covers workers’ basic needs.
The cost of living is increasing every day in this small island economy, where gangs often wield more power than the government.
Protests are set to continue this week.

On Thursday 10 February, for the second day in a row, police fired tear gas and beat protestors with batons outside the SONAPI free trade zone in Port-au-Prince.
Last month a coalition of unions, including IndustriALL affiliate GOSTTRA, called on Prime Minster Ariel Henry to increase the minimum wage in the garment industry from 500 gourdes a day (US$4.80) to 1,500 gourdes. According to the Labour Code, wages must be adjusted when inflation exceeds 10 per cent in the year. In recent months, inflation has already topped 23 per cent. In the garment sector, wages have stayed the same for the past three years and workers earn less than a third of what they need to survive.
The situation is made worse by the widespread violations of labour rights in the garment industry, most recently at Centri Group, where some 60 workers were dismissed for protesting at unfair wage practices while the Ministry of Labour turned a blind eye.

CODEVI, a division of Grupo M, decided to dismiss virtually all the trade union representatives at the company for having called for better working conditions and an end to income tax deductions from their wages.

The name of the president of Haiti’s public and private workers’ confederation CTSP, Jean Bonald Golinsky Fatal, featured on a list threatening five people, one of whom has already been murdered.
Lionel Alain Dougé, executive director of the Tripartite Implementation Commission of the HOPE Act, was killed in December 2018 at his home in Pétion-Ville, Haiti. Dougé was responsible for ensuring that textile companies adhere to Haitian laws, ILO labour standards and the HOPE Act, which gives companies access to tariff advantages when trading with the United States and European Union.
The Trade Union Confederation of the Americas (TUCA) and the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) are calling on the international community to press the Haitian government to take measures to identify all those responsible and to bring them to justice. During a joint trade union mission in Haiti, in 2018, the TUCA and the ITUC underlined the endemic anti-unionism, as manifested by the “systematic persecution and criminalisation of trade union members and representatives”.

On 18 November, several thousand people marched through the country’s main cities to denounce the corruption and, above all, to call for the president’s immediate resignation. According to the opposition, 11 demonstrators were killed, three according to the police. The situation remained tense the following day, especially in the metropolitan area of Port-au-Prince, left deserted following the opposition’s call for strike action.

A year after unfairly dismissing union representatives and members (including 13 GOSTTRA members) following a strike to press for an increase in the minimum wage, Gildan’s supplier in Haiti was still refusing to reinstate them. It has, moreover, placed them on a blacklist, making it impossible for them to find another job.
In spite of a mission organised by IndustriALL in September and meetings with the labour relations mediator, Gildan is categorically refusing to reinstate the trade unionists.

In June, the subcontracted labour movement announced four days of action to press for an increase in the minimum wage and the reinstatement of unfairly dismissed workers. Over a thousand workers gathered peacefully on 11 June in front of the Industrial Park in Port-au-Prince. They had planned to march to the parliament to submit a document recalling the pledges and the commitments that the government had not yet honoured. Despite having received police authorisation to demonstrate, Haiti’s riot police, the CIMO, intervened, attacking a number of demonstrators with their batons.

Haitian national centres (the Confederation of Public and Private Sector Workers and the Haitian Trade Union Coordination) have complained that employers consistently refuse all collective bargaining. They say that there are only four collective agreements in Haiti and that most are sham agreements, for convenience only.

The Confederation of Public and Private Sector Workers (Confédération des travailleurs-euses des secteurs public et privé - CTSP) has complained of the slowness and cost of legal proceedings which severely hamper the ability of victims of anti-union discrimination to take cases to court, and the delaying tactics used by employers to drag out the proceedings. Trials can last years, notably owing to appeals brought abusively by employers, discouraging many workers.

In the banking sector, workers are prohibited from organising. The Confederation of Public and Private Sector Workers (Confédération des travailleurs-euses des secteurs public et privé - CTSP) even says that, in the recruitment process, candidates must complete a form in which they swear they are not members of any trade union and agree not to join one. Workers who ignore this rule are relentlessly dismissed.

Further to a strike by civil servants from the Higher Court of Auditors and Administrative Disputes (Syndicat des fonctionnaires de la Cour supérieure des comptes et du contentieux administratif - CSC/CA), 22 members of the union were dismissed after a period of forced lay-offs, without following the disciplinary procedures established by law.
Similarly, following a number of workers’ rights violations at the National Identification Office (ONI), notably the non-payment of salaries for several months, the National Identification Office Employees Union (SEONI) organised protest action to demand constructive dialogue to find a solution to the problems.
Unfortunately, instead of agreeing to dialogue, ONI management chose outright conflict, closing the premises on 5 March 2017, without informing either its staff or the users of its services. Doing so was not only a serious violation of the rights of its staff but also of the ONI’s duty to provide a public service.
After several weeks of silence, the authorities opened “kiosks” to receive the public, staffed by newly hired employees. At the same time, on 10 April 2017, the ONI sent letters of arbitrary dismissal to seven of the 15 members of the union’s executive committee: the general coordinator, Evens Jean; the disputes secretary, Patrick Leon; the general secretary, Jeanette François, the administrator, Junior Cherilan Chery, and members Baudelaire Balthazar, Ronald Blot and Arlee Ludgie Dorsainvil. A further 40 active union members suffered the same fate. These dismissals constitute a serious violation of Haiti’s international commitments as a signatory of ILO Conventions 87 and 98.

From the moment it was formed, the workplace union at Brasserie de la Couronne - Coca-Cola, SYTBRACOUR-CTSP, has been the object of unrelenting attacks by the management. Within a month of its formation, its leaders, who had been working at the company for several years, started to receive written reprimands without valid grounds. These unjustified disciplinary procedures led to the dismissal of five union leaders, including the general secretary. The management, in response to the constant condemnations and calls for the leaders’ reinstatement, told the workers to call a ballot to elect new leaders and put an end to the matter. The workers staunchly opposed the employer’s interference in their trade union’s affairs, which constitutes a clear violation of ILO Convention 98.

Brasserie de la Couronne SA (Coca-Cola-Haiti) is seeking to crush the union by sacking its main leaders. The company also announced that it was dismissing around 400 employees, to make them sign a new employment contract. This illegal practice is one of the many strategies deployed to rid the company of all employees leading, joining or supporting the union in any way. This underhand tactic was nevertheless endorsed by labour inspectors, in a complaisant report submitted to the employer.

The president of the CTSP received threats by telephone and became the object of a smear campaign, waged by employers’ associations, accusing him, for example, of “washing dirty laundry in public” after speaking out against the dismantling of the national retirement pensions office, the ONA – carried out in collusion with members of the COASS, a tripartite body for social dialogue on pensions and social security – and sending observations to the ILO regarding the violations of the Conventions signed by Haiti on working hours and night work.

On 1 May 2017, GOSTTRA-CTSP, CNOHA and PLASIT-BO organised a motivational drive to prepare for a strike on 8 May. The main purpose of the strike was to demand an increase in the minimum wage from 300 gourdes to 800 gourdes a day. On 19 May 2017, workers in the majority of clothing factories in Port-au-Prince went on strike to demand an increase in the minimum wage. The Haiti Industries Association reacted by announcing the complete closure of the factories on 20 and 22 May.
Fresh strikes were organised at sector level on 26 June and 10 July 2017 in the following factories: Interamerican Wovens, Fairway Apparel, Premium Apparel, Sewing International S.A. SISA and H & H Textiles.
During the strikes, many workers were beaten and injured. At Interamerican Wovens, Sewing International S.A. SISA and Premium Apparel employers called the police who violently repressed demonstrators and beat up several workers. At the MBI company, at least 16 women were beaten by the police in the same factory because they refused to resume work. Some of them were undressed and filmed by the police.

Following the strikes, some of the trade union leaders and workers from the five factories were dismissed. Fairway and Premium however changed their minds and reinstated the dismissed strikers. The three other factories, which employ a total of 5,746 people, or 12.5 per cent of the sector’s total workforce, are still refusing to reinstate the illegally dismissed workers.

Furthermore, during June, July and August 2017, the administration dismissed 104 workers, including 25 trade unionists, owing to a supposed reduction in orders in the sector. More thorough investigation, pushed through by the ILO’s Better Work programme, revealed that the only reason for these mass dismissals was the workers’ participation in trade union activities. The dismissed workers have still not been reinstated. The national union centres have complained of the existence of black lists in the textile sector. To date, all the workers dismissed during the 2017 strikes have been refused a new job in other factories in the sector.

In 2016, the Confédération des Travailleurs des Secteurs Public et Privé (CTSP) sent a report to the ITUC denouncing the collusion between the government and the Front Syndical Haïtien (FSH). According to Jean Bonald Golinsky, head of the CTSP, the authorities orchestrated the formation of the so-called Front, in a bid to prevent other unions from making their voice heard. During the transport strike in February 2015, Joseph Montes, the coordinator of the FSH, strongly criticised the action being led by a platform of trade unions from the transport sector, maintaining that the strike was politically motivated. Joseph Montes is also a director of the state transport company Service Plus, from which he reportedly dismissed a large number of workers in the past, including all the trade union representatives. The head of the CTSP also reported that the nine members of the Post Office trade union committee dismissed in 2012 had not yet been reinstated despite the demand of the Citizen Protection Office (OPC), an independent institution, although set up by the state. He points out that anti-union discrimination is the rule in Haiti, particularly in private sector companies, such as the BRANA brewery, in the banking sector and in the export processing zones, where works councils have been set up – often by the employers – despite the presence of trade unions.

Leaders of the Syndicat des Travailleurs et Travailleuses de BRANA (SYTBRANA) were threatened and two members were dismissed in August 2015. On 1 September, another employee, Wilson Celiné, suffered the same fate. At the beginning of 2015, he had been given permission to take part in a trade union workshop organised by the Canadian union Teamsters, but also received barely-disguised threats from a manager that his safety was at risk. Not long after, he narrowly escaped serious injury when one of his superiors restarted a bottle washing machine while he was conducting maintenance work on it. On 1 September, Wilson Celiné was dismissed. Two managers deigned to justify the decision by telling him that his profile no longer met the company’s needs (although he had been working there for ten years) and that, no doubt, the complaint he had filed against his superior following the accident at the plant had not helped. At international level, the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers’ Associations (IUF) sent a mission to investigate the situation at the brewery. The Canadian union Teamsters and a number of other unions put pressure on the brewing giant Heineken to ensure respect for trade union rights at its Haitian subsidiary BRANA.

Riot police from the intervention and peacekeeping corps CIMO blocked May Day marchers as they arrived in the centre of Port-au-Prince to conclude their march by rallying around the statue of a revolutionary hero. The police hurled tear gas grenades at the marchers, beat them and arrested two students. The main participants in the march were workers from Haiti’s garment assembly sector who took part to mark International Workers’ Day and to highlight their campaign for a minimum wage of 500 gourdes (USD 12.96) per day. It was organised by Batay Ouvriye (Workers’ Struggle) and the Textile and Garment Workers’ Union (SOTA), and backed by the Popular Democratic Movement (MODEP).

Haiti’s national brewery, BRANA, tried to get its workers’ union, SYTBRANA, to sign an agreement whereby negotiations between the union and the employer would be restricted to general issues “aimed at improving the performance of the enterprise”. No individual demands could be dealt with under the terms of the draft agreement. In addition to seeking to reduce the union’s bargaining rights to virtually nothing, BRANA also referred in the draft text to a company rule banning the distribution of printed materials by the union without the management’s permission. Furthermore, in a letter dated 5 March 2015, BRANA even tried to stop the union from calling itself SYTBRANA.

The Haitian government does not consult unions on labour law and policy reforms. Although the independence of the judiciary is enshrined in the Constitution of Haiti and other legal instruments, there are major shortcomings in practice. For example, in a case that concerned the dismissal of public servants, the Labour Court decided it had no jurisdiction over the case and referred it to the Administrative Court which also decided it had no jurisdiction. Union members often face discrimination and dismissal by management. For example, all union leaders working for the Post Office of Haiti were dismissed. Other companies targeting union leaders for dismissal are the Archives Nationales d’Haïti, the Presses Nationales d’Haïti, the Office Assurance Vieillesse and Transport Service Plus.

The Office National d’Assurance-Vieillesse (ONA), the national agency in charge of managing private sector pensions, has been in turmoil since Tuesday 25 March 2014. After being unfairly dismissed by the director general, ONA employees held a strike to demand his removal. The director general responded by closing the doors of the institution and has not reopened it to date. Special police forces have taken over the premises and surrounded the institution. This police presence has no other mission but to arrest employees demanding their rights.

Six workers at the One World Apparel S.A. garment assembly plant in the north of Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital, were given notices of dismissal on 8 January 2014, four weeks after workers shut down production in the city’s apparel sector with 10 and 11 December protests demanding a daily minimum wage of 500 gourdes (about US$ 12.08). The fired workers –Jude Pierre, Luckner Louis, Deroy Jean Baptiste, Paul René Pierre, Jean Luvard Exavier and Rubin Mucial – are all on the executive committee of the Textile and Garment Workers Union (SOTA), a member union in the Collective of Textile Union Organizations (KOSIT), the labour alliance that led the December protests.

On 9 September 2013, the ITUC protested about the dismissals of 10 trade union members and leaders from the SYNOTRA-GWH/CATH trade union that were working at the WILLBES company. The entire trade union management committee and 2 trade union members were dismissed.

Members of FENATCO (Fédération nationale des travailleurs en constructions) denounced that unionised Haitian workers were discriminated against in hiring processes for large reconstruction building projects in favour of non-unionised labourers from the Dominican Republic.

Garments factory Modas Gloria Apparel S.A. (MGA) learned about the formation of a union on 27 January 2013 during a training session on collective bargaining organised by Better Work, which was attended by both union representatives and management. On February 4, the eleven workers were dismissed without cause. The average seniority was two years. It was later claimed that they were dismissed for poor performance and quality, in spite of the fact these same workers had been commended on December 20 for their good productivity.

The formal economy only employs 2% of the active population. Attempts to organise in the export processing zones meet with serious obstacles and only one collective agreement has been concluded. Labourers work without protective equipment on construction sites. The vast majority of workers rely on precarious work in the informal economy and many continue to live in makeshift shelters. Under such circumstances, decent work and international conventions are often abstract concepts. Organising workers in unions, defending their rights and strengthening trade union organisations thus remain a major challenge.

Charged with enforcing legislation, labour inspectorates are often short-staffed, poorly equipped and badly trained, or even directly threatened by employers.

The institutions set up to resolve labour disputes are completely dysfunctional. The Tripartite Committee responsible for mediating and arbitrating disputes has been a failure, since the cases submitted to it are never resolved. The industrial tribunals system is also defective, since trials are rarely fair, judges are poorly trained and deadlines are not respected. Using a lawyer is often prohibitively expensive, resulting in the workers hardly ever using the industrial tribunals. When the tribunals do pronounce in favour of the workers, their rulings are not implemented.

The government has never fined an employer for interference in a union’s internal affairs, despite the fact that such acts are prohibited by the Labour Code. Enquiries into abuses committed against trade unionists rarely produce results.

As a result of political turmoil, a climate of violence, record unemployment and the complicity of a weak state, employers have enjoyed absolute freedom. Those trying to organise workers in a union are constantly harassed or dismissed, generally in breach of the labour legislation. To prevent workers from joining unions, employers give bonuses to those who are not union members.