In Haiti, the Solidarity Center works to strengthen workers’ organizing efforts through training, research, humanitarian assistance, and a cross-border solidarity network.
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| Thousand of Haitian workers and their families lived in makeshift tents after the January 12, 2010, earthquake. Photo by Cathy Feingold |
The poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, Haiti has an estimated unemployment rate of 70 percent. Most Haitians work in the informal economy. Many sell prepaid cell phone cards, hawk prepared foods on the streets, or provide domestic service—low-paid, insecure jobs with no social protections. More than half earn just $1 a day, putting them well below the poverty line. Once-public services have been privatized, and food costs are so high that many families cannot afford even a plate of rice.
In 2008, Haiti was devastated by floods and hurricanes that left 1,000 dead and nearly a million homeless. Then in January 2010, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit the capital, Port-au-Prince, killing hundreds and rendering more than 3 million homeless, without food or drinking water. The Solidarity Center has established an Earthquake Relief for Haitian Workers Fund.
Desperate to find work, Haitians stream across the border to the Dominican Republic, only to find themselves trapped in dangerous, degrading jobs. With no documentation, they are at the mercy of unscrupulous employers and corrupt officials, who force them into debt bondage, steal their wages, and deport them with no money to show for their hard labor.
The Solidarity Center works with established union federations, worker associations, and human rights organizations in Haiti to develop new strategies for protecting the rights of workers in both the formal and informal economy. In addition, the Solidarity Center works in the Dominican Republic with Haitian migrant workers and Dominican union federations. The Solidarity Center supports the following programs:
- Human and worker rights NGO AUMOHD provides the first free legal assistance to workers, enabling them to combat illegal firings. harassment, and employers’ non-compliance with the Haitian labor code. AUMOHD also conducts legal rights training workshops for factory workers.
- UACSH organizes new unions in the informal economy, including street vendors, domestic workers, auto mechanics, and others.
- Union federations conduct trainings on organizing, public policy, worker rights, and the environment, among other topics.
- Exchange programs enable Dominican and Haitian unions to share strategies for protecting worker rights. As a result of these exchanges, the first transnational informal economy worker network was created. The network conducts training and educational outreach to domestic workers and street vendors in both countries.
- The Solidarity Center and its partner, the Dominican labor federation CNUS, have reached out to Haitian construction workers in the Dominican Republic with surveys, trainings, and handouts in Creole, the native language of Haiti. CNUS affiliate FENTICOMMC, which represents construction workers, has pledged an all-out organizing effort, and affiliates in other industries are following suit.
In the News
Rebuilding Haiti: The Job Everybody and Nobody Wants | July 9, 2010
In These Times | Link to Story » As civil society groups try to figure out where they fit into Haiti's quest for “sustainable development,” worker rights movements are emerging as a counterweight to the international aid agencies often associated with oppressive neo-imperialism. Education International, National Nurses United, and the Solidarity Center have all launched relief campaigns that promote partnership with fellow Haitian workers.
U.S., International Unions Aid Haitians' Fight for Good Jobs and Reconstruction | March 22, 2010
In These Times | Link to Story » As relief efforts continue to provide supplies to the people of Haiti, the Solidarity Center, AFL-CIO and U.S. and international trade unions are focused on building a strategy for development and job creation.
After Quake, Haiti Seeks Better Business Climate | February 25, 2010
National Public Radio | Link to Story » Cathy Feingold, the Solidarity Center's Country Program Director for Haiti, offers her critique of using Haiti's textile industry as an economic development model for the country.
Solidarity Center Publishes First Creole Translation of Haitian Labor Code. The January 2010 earthquake has increased Haitian workers’ vulnerability and subsequently intensified the need for legal mechanisms that ensure the enforcement of their fundamental labor rights. In response, the Solidarity Center and its partner, Action des Unités Motivés pour une Haïti de Droit (AUMOHD), recently published the first abridged Haitian Labor Code in Creole and will distribute it free of charge.
Solidarity Center's Cathy Feingold Named AFL-CIO International Department Director. Cathy Feingold, country program director for Haiti and the Dominican Republic, will succeed Barbara Shailor as director of the AFL-CIO’s International Department. Associate International Department Director Stanley Gacek will become Special Counsel for international labor law at the Solidarity Center.
Unions Demand Decent Work in Haiti Recovery Process. More than 120 trade unionists from all over the world, including many leaders representing the Haitian labor movement, attended an April 8-10 summit in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic to explore the role of trade unions in the reconstruction of Haiti. “Decent work must be at the heart of any rebuilding effort in Haiti,” said the Solidarity Center’s Cathy Feingold.
Union-to-Union Relief Effort Supports Haitian Workers. Since the devastating January 12, 2010, earthquake in Port-au-Prince, the Solidarity Center has acted quickly to send needed supplies and support to its Haitian partners through a union-to-union effort that builds toward long-term reconstruction and strengthening of Haiti’s labor movement. Please donate now to the Solidarity Center’s Earthquake Relief for Haitian Workers campaign.
Survey Finds Human Trafficking, Debt Bondage Common in Dominican Republic. Haitian migrants who cross the border into the Dominican Republic for jobs in the construction industry are among the country’s most exploited workers, and many feel that union membership is the key path to decent work, according to a new survey developed by workers for workers with Solidarity Center support.
Solidarity Center Publications
- Unequal Equation: The Labor Code and Worker Rights in Haiti (2003). This report is based on interviews with leaders and activists from several trade unions, including ESPM-Batay Ouvriye (Entesendikal Premye Me Batay Ouvriye or First of May Federation-Workers’ Struggle) conducted in Haiti in 1999 and 2000. It documents widespread, serious violations of worker rights, analyzes the weakness of the Labor Code, and the negative impact on worker rights and living conditions of donor policies toward Haiti. It calls for “a labor law reform process that would integrate and serve the needs and priorities of workers in both the formal and informal economies.”
Learn More
CBTU Contributes $30,000 to Haiti Relief and Reconstruction. Demonstrating its strong commitment to Haiti’s reconstruction, the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU) donated $30,000 toward the Solidarity Center’s Earthquake Relief for Haitian Workers Fund.
Post-Earthquake Support for Exploited Haitian Migrant Workers. While addressing the February 3, 2010, President's Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, Ambassador-at-Large Luis CdeBaca of the U.S. Department of State’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons announced that the Solidarity Center would be playing an important role in helping Haitian migrant workers avert exploitative conditions in the wake of the recent earthquake.
