A representative of a Haitian workers' organisation has just completed a trip to Europe to make contact with garment workers' unions and campaigning groups. Yannick Etienne co-ordinates Batay Ouvriye (Workers' Struggle), an organisation with an international campaign to pressure the Walt Disney Company to improve the lot of workers employed by its sub-contractors in Haiti.
Garment and other assembly operations are carried out in 45 factories in Port-au-Prince, 14 of them producing t-shirts, pyjamas and children's outfits for the Disney entertainment giant. Over 20,000 workers, mainly women, work in the assembly sector and receive the lowest wages in the entire Central American and Caribbean region, approximately £1.35 a day.
First stop on her journey was Liverpool where she met with the Women of the Waterfront. "I felt an immediate rapport with these women," Etienne said. "We are going through the same experience. It's not just the workers that are directly affected who must fight for their rights. It must involve their families and communities too."
In Liverpool, Etienne also visited a textile factory and met workers and union representatives from the GMB. "The union reps had some knowledge of Haiti because the GMB took part in a protest outside the Liver-pool Disney store this year. Women workers wanted to know more because they buy Disney products for their children," she said.
Etienne met textile workers of Turkish and Turkish-Kurdish origin in east London who had recently organised a branch of the TGWU. Branch secretary, Tekin Katel said: "our working conditions are poor, pay is only £140 a week if we meet the quota. The bosses are always trying to get away without paying us. Only a few months ago we occupied a factory after the boss claimed bankruptcy and disappeared without paying wages."
After hearing Etienne describe the difficulties of the Haitian garment workers when they try to organise unions - intimidation, threats and dismissals - the branch vowed to help Batay Ouvriye.
For Etienne international solidarity is essential. "The problems faced by Haitian workers are much the same as those experienced by workers all over the world because the capitalist system is based on exploitation. Workers' organisations from different countries can only get stronger by co-operating."
At a meeting with Des Farrell, National Secretary of the GMB Clothing and Textile section, Etienne was clear that, far from wanting companies such as Disney and Nike to cancel contracts in Haiti, the garment workers would like more work from these sources. "That is why we are not asking for a boycott. We want Disney and factory owners to recognise workers' organisations, to negotiate with them and to send more orders," she said.
The importance of workers organising to defend their rights was stressed by Etienne when she met co-ordinators of the European Clean Clothes Campaign in Brussels and Amsterdam. The Campaign mobilises consumers to persuade clothing retailers and their suppliers to insist on improvements in working conditions in Third World sweatshops. Etienne told meetings of Belgian and Dutch campaigners that consumer pressure in the North needs to be complemented by stronger workers' organisations in countries that supply these markets.