Update and background on the situation at the Codevi Free Trade Zone in Haiti !

This article appeared in the print edition of the New Nation, a British weekly newspaper based in London . The on-line edition is at http://www.newnation.co.uk/. It was forwarded to us by the Haiti Support Group. On July 29th there was a picket at Levi's flagship store in London and, on August 5, a picket at Levi's Headquarters in San Francisco , CA .

Scandal of workers who make Levi's

A company that makes jeans is at the centre of some terrifying allegations

By Miranda Moore , New Nation, 16 August 2004

In a town on the Dominican border, a group of Haitian workers enjoyed a small victory over their textile factory bosses last week after a two-month struggle to get their jobs back. However, the Haitian workers are far from celebrating.

Grupo M, their employer, has issued a statement assuring workers that they will be allowed to return to the production line in the new Codevi free trade zone in Ouanaminthe. But since no specific date has been set, the workers, already without pay for nearly 70 days, do not know how much longer they will be without work.

For some this is not the first time they have been illegally fired by the company. Back in March, armed guards removed 31 workers after they formed a union, Sokowa, to campaign for better pay and set working hours in accordance with the law. Pay is linked to individual performance, and many workers claim that they are receiving is lot less than they were originally promised.

The mass sacking followed the dismissal of Ariel Jerome in February after he voiced concerns about discriminatory treatment against a co-worker. Jerome was taken into an office where two Grupo M security guards held handguns to his head while another hit him in the stomach with a rifle butt.

Both incidents were finally resolved following pressure from international workers' rights organisations and Grupo M's main client, Levi Strauss. Grupo M agreed to pay Jerome's medical bills, reinstated all the others, and publicly announced their workers' right to a union.

However the troubles didn't end there. And, with more than a third of the workforce now laid off, the free trade zone is far from the great white hope it once promised to be.

When Grupo M approached the World Bank's International Finance Corporation (IFC) about the project last year, they believed it offered Haiti such benefits that it granted the company a $23 million loan to finance the development, despite evidence of labour rights abuses in its existing factories in the Dominican Republic.

For the IFC, the proposed free trade zone has the potential to create 60,000 jobs in a country where unemployment stands at nearly 85 per cent.

The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) has had reservations about Grupo M's involvement. "When we heard about the investment we were concerned because we were aware of the company's history of not allowing workers to form unions," explains Peter Bakvis of the ICFTU.

The ICFTU asked that a labour clause be included in the loan.

"Originally [the IFC] said "no", that they couldn't do that, but then we provided them with substantial evidence and they finally relented", says Bakvis.

An IFC-sponsored investigation into allegations of violence at a factory in the Dominican Republic found: "There was some targeting of employees for dismissal because they were members of the union-organising committee…and the aggressors who beat up two members of the organising committee appear to have been treated preferentially."

It makes the comments of Fernando Capellan, president of Grupo M, unfortunate: "Since the beginning of our operations in Codevi, we have established the same parameters of work treatment for Haitian workers equal to the ones that exist in the other operations of our company."

According to the IFC's principal strategist in global manufacturing and services, Mark Constantine, workers' rights were never the IFC's main concern. "When the IFC first got involved in this project the labour issues were not really on the radar. The huge positive potential was what we were looking into."

The IFC board of directors unanimously agreed this investment in the Caribbean 's poorest country. "There were all kinds of possibilities to provide better infrastructure, better roads, health care, education…This is a region which basically has every basic need lacking. Some day, when we get beyond these labour problems, we would like to return to that aim."

Charles Arthur of the London-based Haiti Support Group is wary of 'development at any cost.' "Grupo M has a v ery bad history in terms of allowing their workers to organise. The IFC knew that and said, 'Ah yes, but we hope it won't be like that in Haiti .' "

"The point is everybody want jobs [to be created] in Haiti but not at any cost. Not at the cost of workers having to double their output just to make the minimum wage which is very low anyway - just US$2 a day."

So should the IFC have considered these labour issues in greater detail to avoid a repetition of the problems in the Dominican Republic ? "In hindsight, would we have done things differently? Yes," admits Constantine .

Arthur feels that Levi's should be doing more. "They are Grupo M's main client so it is quite easy for Levi Strauss to say, 'We're unhappy with the way things are going and we would like you to take on the workers again, return the levels of production and start negotiations with the union," he says.

"That is in keeping with Levi's own code of conduct, So we're only asking Levi's to do what they say they do. It has a good reputation in terms of workers' rights in Third World countries….up until now."

Which is why, if you walked down London 's Regent Street on July 29 you would have passed a group of sympathisers protesting outside Levi's flagship store.

It is, perhaps, because of Levi's involvement that a resolution is now in sight. The popular jeans label denies that union leaders were targeted in the latest round of sackings, describing allegations of union-bashing as "hearsay".

However, the ICFTU sees things differently; "Our analysis was that these workers were laid off because of their ability to organise and demand that the company respect their right to collective bargaining," argues Bakvis.

Even the IFC's Constantine admits "Grupo M is on a learning curve as to what it means to respect freedom of association."

Although Grupo M blames the "excessive activism of radical groups" for a decline in productivity that ultimately led to the dismissals, there seems to be little doubt that workers were laid off without proper notification.

Levi Strauss is negotiating with Grupo M so that all 254 workers can be brought back to work, regardless of their union status. "It is a challenging situation because the factory doesn't have the orders for those people to be taken on," explains Michael Kobori, Global Code of Conduct director at Levi Strauss.

However, in an important statement of intent, Capellan said: "Grupo M commits that the workers dismissed on or around June 11 will be recalled when work becomes available."

Unfortunately this olive branch has been overshadowed by allegations from a number of workers who believe they have been put on a family planning programme without their consent.

In spring, factory workers were given two tetanus jabs as part of an immunisation programme. However, little information was disseminated about the vaccinations which were given just hours after the immunisation drive was first announced.

Several workers then miscarried and now believe that the shots contained a contraceptive drug. Eveline Jean-Baptiste was seven months pregnant when she was injected. Shortly after the second shot she was rushed into hospital, lost her baby and became critically ill. She blames the injections.

The charges seem so incredible that Levi Strauss, the IFC and even the Haiti Support Group have said that they are hard to believe. However evidence has been gathered by members of the Haitian doctors' union, and one workers claims she was told about the family planning programme by her doctor.

Constantine says: "I would be very, very surprised if these allegations were true. It's just not at all in keeping with who these people [Grupo M management] are."

But the allegations cannot be ignored on the basis that the people involved "seem nice" to the people who have just given them a multi-million dollar loan, especially when around 70 people have testified that they were injected with two separate substances and fell ill.

All eyes are turned towards the Haitian government to unravel the vaccination scandal. The IFC, Levi Strauss, ICFTU and other labour rights organisations agree that a full independent investigation is now required. Haiti 's health ministry seems to be taking the matter seriously.

"Whether or not the allegations prove to be true, the fact that large numbers of workers can believe that their managers would do this to them shows the extent of the communications breakdown between workers and the management," says Arthur.

Bringing the two sides together may seem impossible, but Grupo M's latest statement has brought a glimmer of hope: "We are waiting for further news of signs of Grupo M's intention to honour its fine-sounding declaration, mindful of the fact that workers fired on or around June 11 have now been without any income for two months," says Arthur. "However it does appear as though all our efforts are having some positive effect."

The negotiation process should see a new agreement signed by Grupo M and Sokowa as to what is acceptable behaviour in the workplace. The aim is now to find a neutral ombudsman to oversee complaints and to tighten checks on security staff.

For Constantine , the stakes are simply too high to allow the free trade zone to fail. And, on this, all parties seem to be in agreement.