The Dominican garment assembly company, Grupo M, has recently opened its first factory in the new free trade zone in Ouanaminthe, Haiti. Meanwhile, the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) is ready to lend Grupo M US$23 million to help the company develop more factories on the site. (see the Haiti Support Group web site for more details and a model appeal letter asking the IFC to make union rights part of the loan deal.)

Here below, in extracts from ICFTU interviews with Zacarias Gonzales and Genaro Rodriguez, Grupo M workers in Santiago in the Dominican Republic, we can see what Haitian workers can expect:

Violent attacks, abductions, unfair dismissals... Zacarias and Genario tell us about the intimidation and repression faced by workers at the FMI (Grupo M) textile factory in Santiago. And all the while their employer, Grupo M, the largest clothing producer in the Caribbean/Central America region, is planning to extend its activities to Haiti, with financial assistance from the World Bank...

(Zacarias...)

“One day they called Francisco (Alvarez), our committee’s general-secretary, to the office. When he returned to his work two men attacked him with a chair and a hammer. They beat him so badly he had to be carried away on a stretcher. He was taken to the doctor and then imprisoned along with the two men. The following day all three of them were released.

“Then, the next day, at nine in the morning, when I was working at my machine, I saw the same two men coming towards me. They were armed with a machete and a metal pipe, and said they were now coming after me because I was number two in the union. I escaped by jumping over three machines and running up to the personnel office on the second floor. Imagine. It isn’t easy to get away when you are in a closed factory.

“I thought I’d be safe in the office; but they called Ali Corona, the second-in-command of Grupo M security. He knocked on the door but I wouldn’t let him in because I thought the guys were still outside. Then I opened the door a little and this massive man smashed his way in. He had a .45 pistol. He lifted me up and hit me on the neck with the pistol. And then he handcuffed me.”

Genaro Rodriguez, 35 years old and the father of four children, is the last member of the union still working at the FMI factory. He has been working there for three years and is determined to continue the fight for trade union recognition. Many workers at the factory have been beaten up or subjected to corruption, states Genaro....

(Genaro...)

“The company pay for this type of thing, to destroy the unions. There’s a group of 20 people in the free trade zone who are paid to prevent the formation of any unions. Every time they try to form a union, they go and contract these guys and put them inside the factory to start fights with the principal leaders of the committee so that they will lose their rights. They do this every time anyone tries to form a union.”