"We Are at the Crossroads": Yannick Etienne on Sweatshops as Development Model

[Judi Lynn]

"We Are at the Crossroads": Yannick Etienne on Sweatshops as Development Model
Saturday 12 June 2010

by: Beverly Bell, t r u t h o u t | Report

The U.S. and U.N. have based their plan for Haiti's redevelopment on the expansion of the assembly industry. Toward this end, the U.S. Congress passed legislation last month which would expand benefits and income for U.S. investors yet again. Haitian workers will continue to earn $3.09 a day.

Worker rights groups and other sectors of Haiti's social justice movements are adamant that a sweatshop-based development model cannot advance either the country or its workers. First, the investments are unstable, and companies can and do pull out at a moment's notice. Second, the work does not offer a living wage, benefits, possibilities for advancement, or skills training. Third, with the primary products and the machinery imported and the finished products exported, assembly does not stimulate Haiti's economy.

Here, Yannick Etienne, an organizer with the labor rights group Batay Ouvriye (Worker'shttp://www.truth-out.org/we-are-crossroads-yannick-etienne-sweatshops-development-model60360 Struggle), talks about the assembly sector and why it is neither a sustainable nor humane development model. Alternative models of development exist, ones that are not premised on the exploitation of some for the profits of others. Yannick talks about Batay Ouvriye's work to help Haitians participate in determining what redevelopment after the earthquake should look like. (Many articles in this series discuss some economically just options; see www.otherworldsarepossible.org .)

We are at the crossroads. What happened January 12 was we put the traditional way of doing things under the debris of the earthquake. Haiti has to move from where it is, as the poorest country of the hemisphere with people feeling sorry for us.

This earthquake was one of the worst things that could have happened, but we have to turn it into something positive. We have to make sure that people are agents of change, and right now, this is a good opportunity, positive in a political sense. There are so many things that can be done to shake up the traditional way things have always worked here.

More:
http://www.truth-out.org/we-are-crossroads-yannick-etienne-sweatshops-development-model60360