Wade Rathke: Chief Organizer Blog » haiti

Haitian Sweatshops are not Relief

jstuart — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 15:31:26 +0000

New Orleans In the wake of the tragic earthquake in Haiti a “jobs” plan originally requested by the UN and touted by special envoy, former US President Bill Clinton is making the rounds with its claims that it could quickly produce hundreds of thousands of largely textile jobs to assist in the recovery. The plan as always depends on two things: an already enacted sweetheart no-tariff trade deal to the USA and of course dirt, cheap labor. With unemployment almost immeasurable between 60-80%, the prevailing logic is that anything must be a win here.

An excellent story by Jonathan M. Katz for the Associated Press calls the whole mess into question.

It starts with tragically low wages. The daily minimum wage is now equal to $3.09. Remember, I just say, per day! Worse, this is about the same minimum wage that prevailed in Haiti 25 years ago and its purchasing power in less than half of what it bought then. Haitian legislators tried to put the daily minimum wage to almost $5 USD last year, but the President refused to enact the higher rate, so around and around we go. The “compromise” was that the wage was allowed to rise, but workers involved in “outsourcing” would be paid the measly 3 bucks and change. So, seriously the “relief” would be importing vast numbers of jobs that would be below the daily minimum for other Haitian workers. Gawd!

The worst irony might be that the program of tax breaks for the industry is called HOPE II (Haiti Hemispheric Opportunity through Partnership Encouragement Act), which is clearly a name that could only make a textile industry lobbyist proud. At the least in the name of transparency we should substitute the works “partnership encouragement” with “predatory encouragement” and tell it like it is.

Katz’s last lines are worth sucking down whole:

“All sides agree that garment industry wages are too low to feed, clothe, and house workers and their families. Even factory owners acknowledge that reality – though they deny running sweatshops and say the businesses have an important role.”

If a job can’t feed, clothe or house workers and their families, it seems the UN, President Clinton, and about everyone else should agree that that job pretty much defines worthless. An earthquake and then this tragedy is too much for Haiti.

Advocating Squatting in Haiti

jstuart — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 14:41:28 +0000

New Orleans Here’s an interesting twist on the Haitian disaster where 3 million people may now be homeless and essentially living as refugees in their own homes and country: support squatters’ rights. A least that’s the argument made as one of the rebuilding contributions on the op-ed page of the New York Times today by Robert Neuwirth, author of “Shadow Cities: A Billion Squatters, a New Urban World.”

Obviously ACORN International has a lot of experience working and organizing in squatting communities especially in Kenya, India, and Peru especially. I had even read the book, which I enjoyed and found informative even about areas where we work, although I also thought Neuwirth sometimes drifted a little heavily into a sort of “oh, gee” kind of advocacy about a situation where is primarily driven by necessity and poverty obviously rather than a life style choice. This piece in the Times walks precariously close to that line as well, but Neuwirth has a solid point and as a rebuilding strategy I think it deserves full attention and support.

In essence why should the Haitian recovery pretend, as we continue to do in New Orleans, that these are simply “temporary” measures while we rebuild to specifications in the bye and bye which directly ensure the opposite of what we intend thereby exiling tens of thousands of New Orleanians who are unable to return. In Haiti there’s nowhere else to go, though ACORN International members in Santiago, Dominican Republic report that they are already seeing families pushing to unite with relatives working – as undocumented immigrants in low wage jobs – all over the Dominican Republic.

People are going to have to live where they stand and settle there for years. That means long term refugee-style encampments like the Organizers’ Forum witnessed along the Burmese border and are common in many other situations. This may not be exactly what Neuwirth is advocating, but why not actually make part of the recovery strategy and rebuilding plan one that supports long term squatter communities with real infrastructure and resources that ameliorates the normal hand-to-mouth reality of the squatting homeless? For a chance why can’t we embrace reality rather than forcing people to live in total misery and adapt to it for years, if not decades, while we pretend we are hard to work on a real solution?

Squatting is a hard way to live and requires hard work to survive, but removing the extralegal restraints and immediately supporting with raw building materials, potable water, and electricity in the Haitian climate could be a workable solution with a real partnership between people and the rebuilding resources.

Disasters for the Haitian Poor

jstuart — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 20:32:40 +0000

New Orleans The Haitian non-relief story is heartbreaking: unknown, unnamed victims in mass graves and $100 per day picking up dead bodies in the street. What can we make of the future from this catastrophe just off our shores?

A Smith College professor named Kevin Rozario with a book about disasters in his resume actually made good sense of some of the future issues in the Wall Street Journal of all places this morning. His piece first caught my attention by realistically noting that there is “no silver lining” from a disaster of this proportion.

In truth, the dominant narrative of disasters as instruments of progress has always been contested. Disasters have often been truly disastrous for the poor. The emergency conditions introduced by calamity have often encouraged a disregard for the rights of citizens; a fervent commitment to economic development often discouraged attention to social costs.

He also seems to understand that the Katrina devastation of New Orleans and the non-recovery here have rewritten even his earlier book, but certainly any rosy glow arguments that disasters are development bonuses.

For the most part, the social and environmental costs of development have been rendered invisible by dominant articulations of American progress. But after Hurricane Katrina, this buried history surfaced with a vengeance. The timing is key here. In an age of energy crises, terrorist attacks, global warming and global financial instability, progress no longer seems quite so inevitable. Disasters increasingly present themselves as manifestations of a catastrophic world rather than as instruments of improvement.

The underlying poverty, whether in New Orleans or Port du Prince, is the hard place from which there is no exile when confronting the future.

But what are the lessons of the disaster? It is becoming clear that a major contributing factor was poverty. The earth moves; that much is unchanging. But a disaster on this scale only happens when plates shift underneath a city with poorly constructed buildings, failing infrastructure and inadequate social services. Poverty played a central role here. The worst damage and suffering occurred in the shanties that cling precariously to the city’s hills. Most Haitians earn no more than $1 per day; there is widespread unemployment, hunger and illiteracy. A desperate need for fuel has led to massive cutting of trees that inhibit floods and bind the soil together to prevent landslides.

Rozario gets the fact that there is a problem in our contentious world in how to “help Haiti.” In New Orleans the fight, particularly in the early years after Katrina and to some degree still is over the future direction of the city and how the levers of power, people, and profit will be synchronized in any equitable way.

This disaster, like all disasters, then poses a question. What is the lesson here? What is the opportunity? Unsurprisingly, there is little agreement in our polarized world. One argument holds that the solution to both the poverty and the disaster is integration into world markets: more International Monetary Fund loans and structural adjustments. On the day after the earthquake, James Roberts, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, laid out an expansive vision of the prospect this disaster presented for a “bold and decisive” U.S. intervention to impose the democratic and economic reforms that would turn Haiti into a stable state and trading partner. Disaster, once again, figures as agent of progress.

At the same time, critics of neo-liberalism are arguing that the disaster was the result of capitalist development, as mandated by the international community. The country—impoverished over the centuries by slavery, the extraction of its resources to imperial metropolises, international occupations, dictatorships—has been dependent on IMF loans since the 1980s, but these have come with strings attached. Haiti, once self-sufficient in rice production, was forced to remove barriers to heavily subsidized American rice. This led to the decimation of local farming and the migration of country-dwellers to the city in search of work, contributing to overcrowding in Port-au-Prince. With recent escalating world food prices, Haitians, unable to grow their own food, have sunk deeper into poverty, locked into a cycle of dependency that contributed to the scale of the destruction and loss of life in the wake of the earthquake.

Hmmm….did they know what you were writing in the Journal, professor? The IMF as solution turns needs to be reminded that there is blood on the streets flowing directly from IMF policies!

And in a final surprise the obvious answer, whether or not the masters of the universe like it or not is actually thinking about what is “best for Haiti,” which may mean including Haitians in finding the real answers here. That is past the Professor’s charge it seems, but it should be central in our discussions about the future for Haiti, that we start learning to listen.

Perhaps this is a time to listen to Voltaire. First, the obligation to help the victims. Then, time to study, to learn, to discover the particulars of history, to ponder which type of development is best for Haiti.

Haitians should speak first, one they are able, and the rest should follow from that point forward.

Help for Haiti

jstuart — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 19:02:14 +0000

New Orleans At a candidates forum last night in New Orleans with the memory of Katrina still in our hearts and in the mouth of every questioner from Local 100 or A Community Voice (formerly Louisiana ACORN), it was appropriate that the forum started with a prayer and made the call for help for Haiti. The devastation seems like Katrina on steroids with a response from the government both there and elsewhere that makes the Bush Administration’s reaction to Katrina seem good. Who might have believed that was possible?

But the devastation is tragic and unworldly to a country that seems in the Mexican expression both too close to America and too far from god.

Here are some places to send your support that have a reputation of getting to the grassroots problem. You can hit the link, if you feel the urge.

Medecins sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders)

The humanitarian organization delivers medical care to people caught in crisis. Donations to its Haiti relief efforts will go toward repairing the obstetrics and trauma hospitals in Haiti that were damaged in the earthquake. They also will go to transporting an additional 70 doctors and medical supplies to the island in an effort to set up makeshift emergency medical response centers. To donate, go to doctorswithoutborders.org or call 1-888-392-0392.

Mercy Corps

The organization provides humanitarian assistance and economic opportunities in the world’s toughest places, specifically those dealing with poverty, conflict and instability. To donate, go to MercyCorps.org. Money will go toward immediate humanitarian needs in Haiti, which may include, food, water and temporary shelter.

Operation USA

The international relief agency provides funding for reconstruction and development aid to communities that have experienced disasters, disease and poverty. For its Haiti relief efforts, the agency plans to use donations for health care materials, water purification supplies and food supplements. To donate, go to opusa.org or call 1-800-678-7255, or mail a check to Operation USA, 3617 Hayden Ave., Suite A, Culver City, CA 90232.

Dominican Republic ACORN

You can also contribute to Community Organizations International / ACORN International if you want to support Haitian refugees and families that are pouring into the Dominican Republican and the efforts of our members in Santiago to help them directly. Go to the donate now button on at www.communityorganizationsinternational.org