{"id":4882,"date":"2012-01-10T16:18:07","date_gmt":"2012-01-10T23:18:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=4882"},"modified":"2012-01-12T09:30:06","modified_gmt":"2012-01-12T16:30:06","slug":"sate-department-wont-move-to-reign-in-the-al-khalifas-but-they-will-help-shakedown-haitians-for-cheaper-labor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=4882","title":{"rendered":"State Department won’t move to reign in the al Khalifas, but they will help shakedown Haitians for cheaper labor"},"content":{"rendered":"

Washington Backed Famous Brand-Name Contractors in Fight Against Haiti\u2019s Minimum Wage Increase<\/strong>
\nby Dan Coughlin and Kim Ives<\/p>\n

The U.S. Embassy in Haiti worked closely with factory owners contracted by Levi\u2019s, Hanes, and Fruit of the Loom to aggressively block a paltry minimum wage increase for Haitian assembly zone workers, the lowest paid in the hemisphere, according to secret State Department cables.<\/p>\n

The factory owners refused to pay 62 cents an hour, or $5 per eight-hour day, as a measure unanimously passed by the Haitian parliament in June 2009 would have mandated. Behind the scenes, the factory owners had the vigorous backing of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the U.S. Embassy, show secret U.S. Embassy cables provided to Ha\u00efti Libert\u00e9 by the transparency-advocacy group WikiLeaks.<\/p>\n

The minimum daily wage had been 70 gourdes or $1.75 a day.<\/p>\n

The factory owners told the Haitian parliament that they were willing to give workers a mere 9 cents an hour pay increase to 31 cents an hour \u2013 100 gourdes daily \u2013 to make T-shirts, bras and underwear for U.S. clothing giants like Dockers and Nautica.<\/p>\n

To resolve the impasse between the factory owners and parliament, the State Department urged then Haitian President Ren\u00e9 Pr\u00e9val to intervene.<\/p>\n

\u201cA more visible and active engagement by Pr\u00e9val may be critical to resolving the issue of the minimum wage and its protest \u2018spin-off\u2019 — or risk the political environment spiraling out of control,\u201d warned U.S. Ambassador Janet Sanderson in a June 10, 2009 cable to Washington.<\/p>\n

Two months later, Pr\u00e9val negotiated a deal with Parliament to create a two-tiered minimum wage increase \u2013 one for the textile industry at $3.13 (125 gourdes) per day and one for all other industrial and commercial sectors at $5 (200 gourdes) per day.<\/p>\n

Still, the U.S. Embassy was not pleased. Deputy Chief of Mission David E. Lindwall said the $5 a day minimum \u201cdid not take economic reality into account\u201d but was a populist measure aimed at appealing to \u201cthe unemployed and underpaid masses.\u201d …more<\/a><\/p>\n

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Washington Backed Famous Brand-Name Contractors in Fight Against Haiti\u2019s Minimum Wage Increase by Dan Coughlin and Kim Ives The U.S. Embassy in Haiti worked closely with factory owners contracted by Levi\u2019s, Hanes, and Fruit of the Loom to aggressively block a paltry minimum wage increase for Haitian assembly zone workers, the lowest paid in the more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247],"tags":[2321],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4882"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4882"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4882\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4925,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4882\/revisions\/4925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}