The Haiti Support Group has been working in solidarity with new trade unions formed in Haiti in recent years.

Back in the year 2000, we had a some success when, thanks to our powerful international campaign, the workers' union at the orange plantation producing for the French Grand Marnier liqueur company won pay rises and improved conditions. We also like to take some credit for the creating the conditions in which 14 new unions decided they could come together in August 2001 and successfully register with the national authorities as the First of May-Batay Ouvriye Union Federation.

More recently, we spearheaded an international campaign in support of workers' rights at a new free trade zone at the town of Ouanaminthe on the border with the Dominican Republic. Our persistent lobbying resulted in the January 2004 decision by the World Bank's International Finance Corporation (IFC) to make union rights central to a loan agreement with the Dominican company running the free trade zone.

In February 2004, we were delighted to hear that workers at the Ouanaminthe assembly plant operated by the Dominican company, Grupo M, had submitted their registration for official recognition of their union.

Sadly we then heard that, on 1 March, the Grupo M management fired all 34 known members of the new union. When other workers prepared to take strike action the following day, the armed thugs who in mid-February had driven the police out of the area were called in by Grupo M to attack the workers.

Immediately we launched an international campaign to lobby both Grupo M and its main contractor, the jeans company, Levi Strauss, to re-instate the fired union members. Nearly three thousand individuals and union branches across the world sent protest emails, and both Grupo M and the IFC were obliged to begin negotiations with representatives of the First of May-Batay Ouvriye Union Federation.

Although the Levi Strauss company has hailed these negotiations as evidence of the management's willingness to achieve a settlement, in fact our contacts at Batay Ouvriye tell a completely different story. Rather than establishing a dialogue and opening up a collaborative process to bring about a resolution, the Grupo M representatives have instead conducted themselves in an aggressive and dismissive manner. Grupo M CEO, Fernando Capellan, even stormed out of a meeting in Santiago, Dominican Republic, on Monday, 8 March, before it had concluded.

Since then, we understand that far from resolving the situation, Grupo M has prevaricated and reneged on a promise to issue a final decision on the status of the dismissed workers. This cynical tactic is clearly designed to pressure the dismissed workers to accept their severance pay, thereby accepting their status as fired workers, and, in so doing, ruin a planned legal action against the company for unfair dismissal. Without pay for over four weeks, the living situation of the fired workers and their dependents is critical.

In order to help those workers carry on the fight for re-instatement and for ecognition of their right to form a trade union, the Haiti Support Group wants to provide a donation of US$1,000. To make this solidarity count, we need to raise this money by the end of this week. PLEASE send a donation by cheque - however small the amount, it all counts - to the following address:

Haiti Support Group
PO Box 29623
LONDON E9 7XU

Mark the back of the cheque 'Union appeal', and add your name and address if you would like a receipt.

Please help these Haitian workers. It is not only their livelihoods at stake - if this union is broken, it will be a massive setback for all Haitian workers across the country.


Yours sincerely,

Charles Arthur
director, the Haiti Support Group

PS please notify us by email if you are posting a donation to this appeal:
 haitisupport@gn.apc.org
______________________________________________


This email is forwarded as a service of the Haiti Support Group.

See the Haiti Support Group web site:
www.haitisupport.gn.apc.org

Solidarity with the Haitian people's struggle for justice, participatory democracy and equitable development, since 1992.
____________________________________________