The Haiti Support Group backs the struggle of the 20,000-odd workers who assemble garments for export who are denied the right to form trade unions, and who are paid the equivalent of US$2.20 or £1.40 a day.

When workers attempt to form unions and engage in negotiations with factory management over improved pay and conditions, they are dismissed.

See Haiti Briefings Numbers 21, 22, 23, and 30

From 1996-98, the Haiti Support Group participated in the international campaign to lobby the Walt Disney Company ­ one of the main companies placing orders for T-shirts and pyjamas with Haitian sub-contractors. The letter-writing campaign asked the Walt Disney Company to ensure its sub-contractors in Haiti respected the International Labour Organisation’s conventions No.2 87 – the right to freedom of association, guaranteeing the right to form trade unions; and No.2 98 the right to collective bargaining. Although the Walt Disney Company has since incorporated these basic rights into its Code of Conduct for its licensees, systematic union-busting continues in Haiti.

Batay Ouvriye (Workers’ Struggle) is the Haitian popular organisation that accompanies the garment assembly workers in their fight for union rights.
Click here to see a Multinational Monitor interview with Yannick Etienne of Batay Ouvriye

For information about Batay Ouvriye see here.

Haitian workers assembled t-shirts for Disney that were sold on the release of the film 101 Dalmations

For information about the Walt Disney Company and garment assembly in Haiti see
the Clean Clothes Campaign 1998 report.