WORKERS LIVES MATTER - BUT NOT TO CAPITAL!

SAY THEIR NAMES! Sandra Rene! Peirre Lunel!

WHAT’S DONE TO THE MOST EXPLOITED WORKERS IS DONE TO ALL WORKERS!

The basic aspirations and desires of the workers throughout the world are the same. Workers are workers the world over. Every worker in every country shares the same class interests, and all produce value which becomes wealth for the factory/company owners (capitalists). CEOS fly all over the world, capital flows with almost free access internationally, so why should the international working class (which produces all the capital and goods that flow between countries) allow the artificial borders made by capitalist politicians to divide us? It is the responsibility of our class to reach out, support, unite, and coordinate our struggles as one class spread out around the world with a unified fist, not separate individuals without a common cause that can easily be divided. Proletarian (Working Class) Internationalism is essential to the interests of our class.

Just as water flows to its lowest level, so do wages, if the most exploited among us are left without international action from their fellow workers we are abandoning our responsibilities to our sisters and brothers. The nationalism dominant inside the yellow unions in the US and other imperialist countries was obsolete the moment when worldwide mass production methods were introduced. Proletarian internationalism is not merely in the interest of the workers in the most oppressed countries dominated by imperialism, it is for the benefit of the workers in the imperial metropolis as well.

When the factory leaves US shores and flocks to Haiti, or Indonesia or Honduras, it flocks to easier exploit cheaper labor. Capital has no concern for our national origin, our skin color, or our sex. Capital exploits labor wherever the two exist. Our interests are collective, our cause is one!

The most exploited workers in this hemisphere—who receive the lowest wages for producing the most — work in the factories of Haiti. Daily wages in these factories amount to about 4 US dollars!

A brief background on the situation

On July 31, 2020, workers at the Haitian firm Palm Apparel (a “Gildan Brands” subcontractor) held a mass funeral for one of their co-workers, Sandra Rene, who died on July 19, 2020 because of Alain Villard, and Palm Apparel. Palm Apparel is a sweatshop in Carrefour owned by capitalist Alain Villard. She was 30 years old and six months pregnant with her first child. She died, along with the child she was carrying, because she was sick and was denied medical care during an international pandemic, something that should have made worldwide headlines! She was turned away from the hospital because Palm Apparel, where she worked for over 10 years, stole her health insurance payments along with those of all of its workers. OFATMA – the state insurance provider – refused to cover Sandra’s care.

Despite ten years of biweekly paycheck deductions to cover healthcare, Sandra was told her insurance card was invalid. Villard has not paid a cent of insurance payments to OFATMA for three years. He had also not paid tens of millions of gourdes of covered medical bills. Villard has been pocketing the insurance payments despite the fact that he receives customs tax breaks under the current Haitian law on the condition that he provide social security and health benefits to workers. Sandra even asked the factory to loan her the hospital fee, but her request was denied, and she and her unborn child died at home four days later. Villard saved only about six hundred U.S. dollars of medical expenses by killing her - this is how little a worker’s LIFE is worth to a capitalist!

She was the second worker to die recently in an Alain Villard factory because of denied medical care. Pierre Lunel was similarly killed by denial of life-saving dialysis treatments. Understanding their common interests, Sandra René’s coworkers marched her funeral procession and casket to the doors of the OFATMA office. On August 7, 2020, Sandra Rene’s coworkers at Palm Apparel, mobilized by their Batay Ouvriye-affiliated union SOTA-BO, protested outside the company gates when workers were locked out and the factory electrical generator was turned off. (Due to the economic downturn of the COVID pandemic, most companies are only operating a few days a week and are suspending workers arbitrarily. Most worked six days a week prior to COVID.)

The bosses called the cops. The cop goon squad shot at, tear gassed and beat the workers savagely, sending some workers to the hospital with head wounds. Some workers felt that only the presence of many witnesses spared from being killed. Workers throughout the assembly sector are mobilizing against ongoing widespread collusion between crooked state insurance officials and thieving bosses (to steal medical revenue and deny care). Over the last three years, over $100,000 of medical insurance payments have been stolen from the workers at JUST ONE of Allain Villard’s factories. In fact, on May Day of 2018, thousands of workers marched on the offices of OFATMA and ONA (State Health Insurance and Retirement offices), protesting against this same ongoing illegal theft.

Continuing protests are being organized to demand:

1- Accountability, transparency and restitution of all stolen health insurance and retirement fund payments
2- An end to police repression of union struggles
3- Respect of workers’ rights to organize
4- The firing of the Palm Apparel staff who called on police to beat up workers
5- That the Haitian Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor, as well as the Health Insurance and Pension Funds, be held accountable for their failure to act on reports that healthcare and pension payments have not been paid by many factories for over two years.

Our sisters and brothers in Haiti are asking us to send pressure e-mails. They are also asking for donations to help with their struggles. A few steps you can take today include sending e-mails to:

Agabus Joseph, Director of OFATMA (sample e-mail here)

Nicole Yolette Altidor of MAST (sample e-mail here)

Alain Villard, Palm Apparel and Sewing International SA owner (sample e-mail here)

These are sample email templates that center the demands of the workers upon three distinct players: Alain Villard, OFATAMA and MAST (the Haitian ministry in charge of paycheck deduction oversight). These e-mails take just minutes to send and are encouraging to the workers seeing international support, especially if they know it’s coming from fellow workers!

Here are some actions you can take in solidarity with your fellow workers right now!

1 - Send the emails

2 - Send your contribution in support to Batay Ouvriye via the Rapid response Network’s GoFundMe workers’ mobilization fund. All donations go straight to the working class. You can donate directly to workers here.

3 - Spread the word, mobilize and organize in struggle. Taking up the struggle here is the strongest form of solidarity.

If you happen to live and work in/near Columbus or Cedartown in Georgia, Clarktown, Salisbury, Mocksville, Eden or Mebane in North Carolina, Charleston South Carolina, or Jacksonville Florida, organize a local solidarity picket at Gildan Brands, with which Palm Apparel is affiliated, to emphasize the workers’ demands.

(Palm Apparel is a “Gildan Brands” subcontractor, and is allegedly bound to operate by the Gildan corporation’s professed “Code of Conduct”, which is publicly displayed at www.Gildan.com. Gildan is headquartered in Canada, and is one the world’s largest T-shirt distributers. Gildan has US factories listed at the bottom of this text.

4 - Consider joining Workers Struggle to help build and be part of organizing an increasing level of proletarian internationalism and solidarity. Reach out to us so we can begin having a conversation on how we can organize together and build our power here, construct a working class movement and develop our own structures and mechanisms of proletarian internationalism.

5 - Contribute towards our GofundMe fundraiser which is important for workers and laborers when possible to support each other’s organizational efforts. We would also appreciate the sharing of this fundraiser

US Gildan Locations:

16 Corporate Ridge Parkway Columbus, Georgia 31907 U.S.A.,

270 North Park Blvd. Cedartown, GA 30125 USA,

820 NC Highway 211 W Clarkton, NC 28433-7536 USA,

2121 Heilig Road Salisbury, NC 28146 USA,

388 Gildan Drive, Mocksville, NC 27028, USA, and

602 East Meadow Road, Eden, NC, USA.,

and it has distribution centers at:

11530 New Berlin Rd Jacksonville, Florida 32226-2250 USA,

Broad Street & Meeting Street, Charleston, SC, USA,

7110 E Washington Street Ext, Mebane, NC 27302, USA,

and next to its factory at 602 East Meadow Road, Eden, NC, USA

An injury to one worker is an injury to all workers and organizing here is the strongest form of solidarity.

Let’s unify our struggles! Workers of the world unite! We have nothing to lose but our chains!

Email: WorkersStruggleMIA@gmail.com
Facebook: WorkersStruggleMovement
Instagram: WorkersStruggleMIA