BATAY OUVRIYE AN BANDISYON

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Haiti: Criminal Minimum Wage
by BO - Batay Ouvriye Friday, Mar 7 2008, 12:29am
central america / caribbean / workplace struggles / other libertarian press



Comrades - workers, toilers, the unemployed, genuine progressives, the PEOPLE'S CAMP in general:



In our most recent leaflet, we denounced the plot from the bourgeoisie, the State and the rotten pseudo-worker federations to make us swallow a minimum wage they said would not exceed 5 to 10% (meaning: 73.5 to 77 gourdes at the most, $ 1.96 and $ 2.05 respectively!). We also explained the extent of their contempt and hatred for the Haitian People in such wholesale disrespect. In distributing our leaflet to the workers, and in their neighborhoods, it was clear that everybody felt a hard hit. Everywhere, all have decided to MOBILIZE to face off this serious threat!



Today, in addition to the CRIMINAL MINIMUM WAGE , there is also the HIGH COST OF LIVING which continues to increase to the point where we cannot pay for schooling, disease, housing! to the point where people are eating mud pie so as not to starve! This means, we have seen how these HENCHMEN WANT TO KILL US ALL IN THE EXPLOITATION OF OUR LABOR. WORST OF ALL, the State cannot solve the unemployment problem, it does not want to carry out land reforms; it does not intend to improve living conditions in our neighborhoods, and public transportation, and it is not going to provide free education and healthcare as is required in our Constitution! ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!



This president we elected together with his government has done nothing in the interests of workers, or the popular masses. And it is not a question of saying "cannot do miracles" to put us to sleep. "Miracles", they have done so, but for others: for the bourgeoisie, for the big eaters, for the capitalists-imperialists! And, while they are telling us: "be patient", be patient!, they are very well off! On our backs! While they are putting in place privatization to benefit the bourgeoisie, stealing tax finances , spending it in grandiose meetings, in expensive trips, in paying high salaries to technocrats; in replenishing their POCKETS!

Comrades: workers, toilers, the unemployed, genuine progressives, THE PEOPLE'S CAMP in general: They have proven to us clearly: THERE ARE NO MORE SECRETS! ALL IS CLEAR TO SEE! From their actions, we could witness: “They are taking it all for themselves and give us nothing! It means, likewise, the solution should be very clear to us: IT IS ONLY A GENERAL MOBILIZATION THAT WILL HELP US SOLVE THIS UNTENABLE SITUATION!



March 3, 2008


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it is time that all workers and peasants unite to elect in haiti a government that really cares about the poors ,the workers who can not eat a decent meal with their daily wage.if this is not slavery, tell me what it is.

we're not asking for favors ;we, the workers of the world, are asking for a piece of the pie that is ours.we do not want to import any political or economic theory that is not compatible with our culture,I said that because not long ago anytime workers were asking for a decent wage ,the right to form union ,the members of the bourgeoisie were accusing us of being communist so their dictators can kill us.

Today it it is not a question of political ideology it is a question of defending our human rights.It is enough; we can not tolerate any longer that politicians put us to sleep with promises that they never wanted to honor.it is the responsibility of progressive people all over the world to support the workers and peasants movement.we have to recreate the MOP.

Published on No Sweat (http://www.nosweat.org.uk)
Report from Batay Ouvriye, Haiti
By mick duncan
Created 15/03/2008 - 11:38am
INTERNATIONAL PRACTICES, DECEMBER 2007
POLITICAL BULLETIN, Vol. 2, No. 3
Whenever possible, we, at Batay Ouvriye, always do our best to inform of our activities. However, this is never done in the mere spirit of “reporting”; it is always with the intent of sharing our practices, their fruits, their results, reflections upon them, lessons to be learned, and perspectives to build…so that more workers, working class members and genuine progressives, in a structured way, may become part of them, MOBILIZE through them, or with them.
In this objective, we already reported on our delegates’ various travels to Latin America in 2007, which strengthened our relationship with many organizations in the region. Naturally, this has also increased our responsibilities proportionately. We’ve always been aware of how our practices in Haiti aren’t isolated: not only has the solidarity of workers, toilers and progressives of other countries been of great importance to us – we recall their impact in the struggles in which we confronted Disney, the Guacimal-Cointreau owners, or those of the Ouanaminthe free trade zone… – but, at the same time, our reciprocal solidarity is likewise equally important.
Experience reveals this: whether it be our solidarity with our comrades in the Dominican Republic also working for Grupo M, or our support and orienting of the Central American working class mobilization at the Guatemala conference, or our current reinforcing of relations with CONLUTAS in Brazil to set up a Latin American and Caribbean Workers Meeting (http://www.elac.org.br/en [1])…Thus, in one way or another, our practices at the international level are strengthening. This weight will certainly increase during this year to come. Various perspectives are already taking shape.
Because of this, today, more than ‘reporting’ on our delegates’ travels, we are publishing a “Political Bulletin”. It will address our delegate’s journey in Brazil, Argentine, and Uruguay: the questions that were raised, the levels of participation we found…The reader will note how the issue of the occupation was omnipresent. Not only do our comrades whose countries have troops in Haiti give it importance, but also, for us, it is one of our imperative points of STRUGGLE, though we are clear it is not just denouncing or declaring opposition to it that will help move forward: WE’VE GOT TO HAVE REAL STRENGTH to solve the problem! We need to gather forces to solve it and, for this, proper strategy and tactics, clarity, without rhetoric, a correct LINE linking the struggles in other countries on this question with ours; but also, there must be correct articulation between the struggle against this occupation and other points of struggle present in each country. All of this while taking into account the masses’ real levels of awareness.
Recently, a Batay Ouvriye delegate traveled to represent our organization in Latin America. Previously, we had been to Brazil to participate in the 9th Congress of Metallurgic Workers which is composed of workers employed in factories using metals to make different types of products, from automobiles and auto parts, to airplanes or plane parts, big ships etc…including various types of furniture, tools, trashcans, roofing materials, and so on…always with metal. The metals used are iron, steel, aluminum, copper, lead, and many more…
This time we again went to Brazil, but also to Argentine and Uruguay. Our main objective was to denounce the occupation of Haiti with the presence of the armed forces of the governments of these countries, under the guise of the United Nations; but also to participate, in Brazil, in the Week of “b” in which our comrades protested the pervasive discrimination present there against Blacks.
At the conclusion of our trips to each of these countries, we planned a Latin American and Caribbean Workers Meeting. And, given the importance granted to those questions, at each travel, all the organizations holding the meetings and activities cashed in together to invite us.
All metallurgic workers regroup in one union: the Metallurgic Workers Union. The worker assemblies of each factory vote delegates to represent them at the central labor council which represents all of them. In truth, this regrouping represents a remarkable FORCE. Every two years, the council holds a Congress in which all delegates are present. Each factory sends one, two, or three workers to represent it proportionately to the number of workers in the factory. Before the Congress, pre-Congresses are held in the factories in which the workers meet repeatedly, not only to choose their delegates, but also to discuss the issues the delegates will be conveying at the debates in the Central Body: their demands facing the bosses’ exploitation and domination and the States’ repression and mystifications, their perceptions of the state of their union generally and in full detail, problems existing, necessary corrections and so on… but also, how they feel the country is doing, their perception of their lives in general, their stand facing the bourgeois’ attacks and the government’s policies in constant support of the ruling classes in every way. Especially, these pre-congresses address the forms of mobilization the workers feel should be implemented to confront and attempt to solve these various levels of problems.
At the Congress, all these questions are debated and voted upon, and decisions, resolutions, are adopted. An executive committee is voted for two years in order to implement these decisions; this body will also makes decisions on its own concerning various details and new emerging situations, but always in the context of the orientations adopted by the Congress, and in accordance with the unions’ principles and by-laws.
We attended these comrades’ metallurgic worker congress and experienced this working-class democracy in which the workers meet and take their existences in hand, individually and collectively, in the context of INDEPENDENT CLASS ACTION, with an acute awareness that only STRUGGLE and MOBILIZATION may allow them to win great and small victories against the capitalists’ exploitation and domination, and the reactionary state’s defense of the bourgeoisie, its mystification, domination, repression and overarching guarantee of the existing exploitation. Facing this general domination, they are aware that ORGANIZATION is the key for STRUGGLES to be able to advance; the implementation of worker democracy, which is a practice, a mechanism for STRUGGLE, allows them to feel, to realize their potential FORCE, their real FORCE, as long as their determination and genuine commitment are up to par. INEVITABLY, THE ORGANIZED WORKING CLASS CARRIES VICTORY!
A main theme is chosen at each Congress by the delegates and the committee ending its term, according to factors linked to the current situation but also deeper, more structural views; this year it was: “Why and how fight working bureaucracy?” Working class bureaucracy is executive board union members become social climbers, seeing themselves as “leaders” and taking advantage of their positions in their own personal interest. For this, they necessarily break with the mechanism of general assemblies in which the workers collectively take decisions, so breaking with the rank-and-file too, and even going so far as to create their own mechanisms in which only the leaders take decisions and direct the union.
They accept favors from the bourgeoisie and the state (who never fail to co-opt and buy off) and betray the cause of the working class, betray the cause of the workers who trusted them and placed them in such positions. Working to satisfy only their personal ambitions, they implement stinky individualistic principles (such as that of a current Haitian ‘leader’ - “swim yourselves out”), becoming gluttons (“big-eaters” – ‘granmanjè’, the term coined by the Haitian people watching them).
In truth, after “swimming themselves out”, through class collaboration with the bourgeoisie, they land in office, as “heads”; “leading”, they’re bureaucrats! In the evolution of their practice, they defend and concretely serve to smooth the progress of the domination of the bourgeoisie, even organizing it. These people participate in the Tripartite Commission (specifically, the collaborationist commission set up by the State with its representatives, those of the bourgeoisie, and those of these traitors speaking in the name of the working class, all allied to come up with agreements legalizing the exploitation). So they engage in class collaboration with the reactionary State, answering present at all bourgeois negotiations to “improve production” (i.e., increase exploitation!). They shrink, divert, denounce, and even halt working class mobilization, selling out working class fights, changing potentially combative unions defending working class rights into union federations-coops-merchandises, yellows! They’re even adjunct to the government’s signing agreements with multinationals or imperialist countries governments to establish extreme limitless exploitation against the workers.
Thus, they fight the working class, standing across the workers; they REPRESENT CAPITALIST INTERESTS WITHIN THE WORKING CLASS: THESE ARE THE TRAITORS!
The Brazilian metallurgic worker comrades confront this problem in various factories present at the Congress. They severely criticized these delegates! Unanimously, they sanctioned two and cast another one off permanently. The Workers Congress, in the context of worker democracy, allows the most class-conscious workers to DEFEND WORKING CLASS INTERESTS, even in unions that are not directly affiliated.
The working class is one! All workers can and MUST defend working class interests as soon as situations present themselves, wherever and whenever they emerge.
This debate was largely discussed. The comrades reflected on the origins of such a disaster, how it came to be (because: truly, it exists!), what historical circumstances allowed this observable fact of treason to come about, its structural causes, but also: what type of scabs produce it, which opportunist, reactionary currents uphold it…Furthermore, a resolution was adopted to establish worker control in the factories where such problems are present and larger resolutions were taken on the question, while participants will continue to reflect on concrete mechanisms to struggle against these situations, to cease its reproduction, fighting its fleshing out and rooting.
Our delegate participated in all these debates, presenting our positions clearly on these questions and showing how the problem of worker bureaucracy also exists in Haiti and is a terrible problem for us. The yellow unions federations, together with the imperialist agents heading the opportunistic currents supporting them, are very active on a permanent basis. We described and denounced all the harm done to the struggles and organization of the working class, workers’ mobilization in general, the real interests of the popular masses; and also the populist origins of the opportunist currents supporting them and how, in fact, they defend the bourgeoisie’s private property - even when called “national” – along with the big-eaters’ accumulation at the head of the State. And we demonstrated how the present Haitian government not only assists, but serves and guarantees worker bureaucracy… especially in the current context of OCCUPATION, supporting it in fact.
Our second trip returned us to Brazil but also led us to Argentina and Uruguay.
Brazil brought us to participate in the week of Black Consciousness. For sure, racial discrimination is rampant in this country; little by little, a growing mobilization is building up against this, among the Blacks themselves, with the participation of genuine militants. Initially, a CONLUTAS “Black Congress” was held in Rio de Janeiro with 600 delegates representing a vast array of organizations at this first Congress on the theme.
Following it, on November 20, 2007, the “Black Consciousness” week occurred, a very large demonstration in the city of Sao Paulo. The participants chose this date to commemorate the Zumbi do Palmares revolt, a slave who escaped and took to the mountains in order to resist colonization by Portugal. He was assassinated on November 20, 1695. This commemoration is linked with another revolt in the year 1910 led by another Black resister, Joao Candido. Neither resister achieved victory but their revolt remains historic and it is with this symbolic resistance that “Black Consciousness” is growing in Brazil.


A suivre

The problem now, as we all know very well in Haiti, is that a mobilization merely based on the “Black” theme, very rapidly will end up being a historic cooptation by the next “black” leaders in the blood of the popular militants who fell in that struggle, therefore, as always, on the back of the masses’ struggles, to achieve their own integration into newly constituted black ruling classes that will exploit and dominate the black toiling masses as usual. At times, these mystifying black leaders, intent on integrating the ruling classes (their real goal) will even ally themselves with the worst of the racists, as for instance, Collin Powell, Condoleezza Rice in the United States, or Rama Yade in France, among others…
The CONLUTAS Congress raised the issue clearly, so that the principal resolution at the Congress was: for us working class, workers in general, we, all, popular masses: the struggle against racial discrimination necessarily links with class struggle. “There is no capitalism without racism”, our comrades highlighted as Malcolm X’s (the Black American revolutionary) illustrious quote. Therefore, more than just “linking”, it is within class struggle only that all other struggles should carry forward, whether confronting discrimination on women, questions of religion, or race…This was also our position and in all our talks what we advocated.
During the first part of our trip, programmed visits informed us. At a land occupation of the MTST (Movimiento de Trabajadores Sim Teto - Movement of Homeless Workers (in Portuguese) in a town near Sao Paulo, Ribeirao Preto, we witnessed the struggle to take a plot formerly belonging the State which has lasted 8 years. The land is on a border town and the big capitalists want it for speculation; so they strive to buy it from the State for pennies (thanks to corruption in the State, and allies), expecting an expansion of the town in the area to resell it then for millions.
However, the mobilization and struggle of all the workers was stronger than expected, and also well organized, thanks to the support and solidarity of another great movement in Brazil which is the MST (Movement of Landless Peasants). Thus, finally, they managed for the State to recognize their needs, their rights to life and to grant them the Property Title, a collective property, in the name of the organization. We saw how they’re organized the land, built roads and houses, distributed water and electricity etc…But also how they’ve organized the production of all types of staples and how organized the sale, all of this collectively, in a very structured way. They welcomed us wholeheartedly and we also reciprocated with our profound solidarity and agreed with them that it is just such a solution that Haitian workers are seeking and that together we should mobilize toward achieving that objective.
The second part of this trip took us to Argentina and Uruguay. In Argentina, we mostly met with members of the working classing, various sorts of workers. We were invited by the FOS (Socialist Workers Front) and the IT (Izquierda de los Trabajadores – Left Workers -- in Spanish). There, the agenda was mainly the DENOUNCIATION OF THE OCCUPATION. As we did at the very first trip in Brazil (See Batay Ouvriye’s visit with Jubilee South), we insisted that the U.N. military force’s presence in Haiti is, before all, to defend the imperialist exploitation project and the bourgeoisie. Its objective is to implement this exploitation project for which they need to provide “security” (the president said it himself: “security is needed for investment!”). Thus, after inflicting devastating blows to the national economy (killing the Creole pigs, the sugar, rice, plantains, oranges, coffee cultures - all left perishing or to perish), and meanwhile privatizing public services to allow the bourgeois to build capital, while abandoning education and healthcare to decompose... they’ve put the country on sale and bow down low, carrying their begging bowl, to sign and implement all the neo-liberal agreements with the IMF, World Bank, BID, the European Union… …So, the ruling classes, the hard-core politicians and the reactionary state declare that the impoverished masses without any future in the system represent “cheap labor”, an “advantage” for the bourgeoisie and the imperialists that will come to “provide jobs”, as it was during the slavery period, in the colony! This is why the government refuses to touch the minimum wage of misery: there lies the “advantage” of the capitalists, national and international!
Argentine workers and progressives, specifically, in the contradiction opposing them to England occupying the Malvinas islands, oppose this situation completely. They organized an important demonstration in which the delegates of the most representative organizations of their struggle participated to show their solidarity and protest against this situation. They even made arrangements for the Exterior Minister to meet with us from Haiti; we were able to give the executive leaders of the country a package denouncing the occupation and the logic of the exploitation and domination supporting it, as well as a letter of protest signed by the leaders of the main organizations and many personalities of this country.
We should mention that, in the period of the general uprising in 2001 to 2003 against the deep crisis due to the development of the neo-liberal logic, Argentines pushed aside the armed forces serving the military dictatorship of the army officers. In Argentina today, the army can only intervene to defend the territory; it cannot intervene in internal problems. However, in Haiti, their military forces repress the population. Let us remember too that a Brazilian general interviewed at his home said that, “Our soldiers are sent to Haiti to get training”! They thus return better prepared to stage repression in the popular neighborhoods in Brazil! Let’s recall also, that, right now, a meeting of the Exterior Ministers of the countries participating in the occupation of Haiti is being held. This means that global control of the ruling classes of Latin America that is taking shape on orders of U.S. imperialism in Haiti is under sway, where the occupation of Haiti is an example being piloted.
A suivre 2
The Argentine comrades are clear on all of this, and mobilized all the way. They welcomed our presence, and made us feel like comrades on the basis of an internationalism that is both genuine and simple. Wherever we spoke, in all instances, debates were on-going, collective analysis is constructed, and resolutions are taking hold.
While in this country, among the visits with the working class and the workers, various visits and activities were held in places taken over by workers. It is important to name them. One of them is Brukman, a clothing factory the workers occupy and administer, after they took control of it when the capitalist owners declared they were going to close it down. The other is a hotel, Bauen, the workers occupied also and are administering very well, both as a hotel and as their headquarters. It is where most workers, a lot of unions, associations…have their delegate assemblies, most of their activities, under the control of workers at all levels. This is where the comrades organized the main activity with us. In Buenos Aires, the capital, we had an important activity with the workers from all the neighborhoods in Lanus in a building called “La Toma” (We take it over!) that the workers occupied when it became empty to have their local assembly. Just like the other occupied places, it is the workers that administer those buildings, organize and manage different activities correctly. For all the occupied places, it is hard struggles that allow the workers to win victories, and it is their consciousness, their seriousness, their collective capacity that allow them to manage so efficiently.
The last leg of the trip was in Uruguay. There, it is the Combative and Classical Tendency (TCC in Spanish) of the Workers’ Federation in that country (there exists there only one Federation) that invited us and welcomed us, in particular, the Taxi Drivers Union. Just as everywhere else we went, it is the OCCUPATION we denounced, with the logic of EXPLOITATION and DOMINATION which brought it about. We handed the same package of denunciation to the Senate, one to the House of Representatives and one to the Exterior Minister. The working class, the workers, and progressives who attended the evening activity are mobilized and in these countries, even propose the constitution of a coordinating committee to build a very serious movement that would take up the question of the occupation of Haiti and the role their ruling classes and State hold in this.
Upon realizing that in these countries (Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay…), governments are executing the same policies of giving the capitalists advantages under the orders of imperialism, that it is the same neo-liberal policies of the IMF, the World Bank, the European Union etc…they are committed to, while stripping workers of their rights and repressing popular demands, we realized that it is the SAME STRUGGLE WE ALL ARE FACING! It is a COMMON STRUGGLE. At that moment, obviously we need to reflect upon how to set up a workers coordination in Latin America and the Caribbean to be able to stand up against them effectively. We talked a lot about that. We noticed that peasants, and workers of all types in Venezuela are under the gun the same way, in Bolivia today, same thing, in Chile, in Uruguay… in Haiti…, and we decided to establish a forum to create this coordination and among other issues, look at how, concretely, we are going to MOBILIZE so that, in real STRUGGLES, we need to put an end to the question of U.N. Occupations that have started in Haiti.
Generally, we can say these trips brought about a lot of results. Not only in the sense of continuing to denounce the situation of the OCCUPATION of Haiti, but also in the sense of sharing ideas on the struggles that the working class, workers, the popular masses are carrying out everywhere, not only consolidating the awareness that it is a COMMON STRUGGLE which we’re carrying out against A COMMON ENEMY, but already, beginning to think about putting in place concrete mechanism for COLLECTIVE RESISTANCE, UNIFIED PLANNING, in the context of a EFFECTIVE AND CORRECT LINE with the goal of the REAL EMANCIPATION OF THE MASSES.
Publishing this bulletin is part of the importance we assign to such practices. It will allow us to expand our practice which should gain strength rapidly and which must have follow-up. This is a practice which should allow the Haitian workers, in particular, the working class, to become more engaged on the political scene nationally and internationally, specifically, now, in Latin America, steering clear of a situation where only delegates speak in their own names.
The year 2008 is going to be tough. However, our practice must be up-to-par nationally and internationally especially at a moment when the new populism is continuing to show itself more and more for what it is (Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela…) facing the struggles of workers that are intensifying through real efforts of independent development.
Certainly, everywhere, including in Haiti, the contradictions are such that people don’t see eye to eye on the question of mobilizing concretely against them, although the majority feels the domination and the humiliation is too great already. So, differences exist among workers and progressives in various countries: all the more reason for those of us who are clear about our stand to mobilize even more, taking the matter at hand and moving forward effectively for its resolution.
FORWARD, THE POPULAR MASSES WITH THE WORKERS AT CENTER
AND THE WORKING CLASS IN HEAD!
FORWARD PROLETARIAN INTERNATIONALISM!
Batay Ouvriye
B.P. 13326, Delmas, Haiti, Delmas 16, No. 13 bis
Tel. (509) 222-6719
E-mail: batay@batayouvriye.org [2]
batayouvriye@hotmail.com [3]
http://www.batayouvriye.org [4]
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Gendelè mwen dekouraje avek mantalite e mank inisyativ ayisyen.

Men de tanzantan gen enkourajman tou lè w wè gen Ayisyen konsyan, konpetan ki ap fè bon travay.

Mesye BATAY OUVRIYE sayo merite pou sipote yo, se pou nou fè lot moun konnen sa yap fè pou sosyete a keseswa anndan, keseswa andeyo peyi a.

Ou twope w kanmarad."Sendika" sa a ,se yon kreyasyon lenmi li ye.Li te resevwa kob pal nan men USAID pou li te jwe patisyon pali na sak te pase 29 /2/04 la.

Bonjou Piporico, mwen byen kontan we ou avek nou toujou. Se pou w bay nouvel w pi souvan.

Kestyon USAID la te diskite anpil, se yon kout lang ke sèten moun te bay paske Batayouvriye pat lan kan yo.

Antouka Batay ouvriye te vini avèk eksplikasyon epi dokiman pou demanti sa.

Mwen konnen yo te kont politik gouvènman Aristid la pou sak te pase lan Guacimal kote moun te mouri lan konfwontasyon avèk lapolis pandan yo tap reklame dwa yo.

Men se pou nou gade sa yap fè jodya pou travayè ak peyizan ayisyen kont boujwazi e kont move politik gouvènman an.