Antigua, Guatemala, Nov. 4, 2005

Batay Ouvriye message concerning the construction of a regional working class coordination of the garment industry

Dear friends, compañeras, compañeros,

Presently in Antigua, Guatemala, an initiative has been launched to establish a regional working class coordination of the garment industry. Given the worldwide importance of this production branch (the vast majority of humanity today dresses and we are the ones who make its suits, shoes and other clothes…); given the ease the bourgeois of this industry has obtained through the great mobility of financial capital and the delocalization of factories that, consequently, can occur at all times; given, on the other hand, the wave of resistance, fighting spirit and perseverance shown by the working class engaged in this process, despite all the risks and, concretely, the brutal repression existing there: a working class coordination not only would be welcome, but, in truth, obligatory.

Our position, in Haiti, one of the countries where the workers have been historically and presently the most exploited and dominated in the world, is not only that of a class that has the absolute need of such initiatives, not only that of the main victims of permanent and reinforced attacks of the imperialist system, as producers but also as consumers (most of our clothes, for example, being imported as hand-me-downs, taken from the trashcans of the North) but also that of workers who have the obligation to share their experiences and lessons with comrades of the region and the world, in order to go beyond the limits of the past and manage to advance in the most firm and consequent way towards steps in the direction of a real and indestructible development of the working class movement in construction.

Dating back to the beginnings of the twentieth century, the Haitian working class is young. But it takes its roots from a people of rebel workers that managed to overthrow the colonial and slave system before all, in an exemplary revolutionary gust for its time and still today. The setting up of the textile assembly industry in our country emerged from the corpses of the fighting working class movement, killed by Duvalier and his henchmen during the 60’s, but also from the corpses of the small workshop sewing industry, destroyed during the following years. The basic relation existing between the two facets of the same phenomenon appears clearly: production and consumption, the political and the economical.

The analysis of the garment industry worldwide, an ideal illustration of the necessary appearance in this domain of imperialism from the economic realm, also reveals these permanent contradictory relationships. When this branch of the North-American economy wasn’t able to maintain up to date its machinery and to modernize correctly its production, its rates of profit falling gradually below the average, it was obliged to seek elsewhere how to recompose its necessary surplus value. The wage labor that had been forced to become the cheapest in the dominated countries offered this advantage. Thus squeezed in their own logic of exporting capital, the bourgeois of the industrialized countries not only sought markets to sell their products but, especially, sought, in this phase, to acquire wage labor a lot cheaper than in their own countries. Towards this end, the terrain had to be prepared economically and politically. This phase, although corresponding to the same basic principles (destruction of the local capacities to valorize themselves) varies according to social formations in presence. In Haiti, the destructuration of the national economy began with systematized “dumping”, while at the same time, for example, all over the territory the massacre planned by USAID of “creole” pigs was developing, whereas they were the last savings of a peasantry already greatly impoverished. The elimination of the production of sugar and the destruction of rice, dictated by the World Bank and the IMF, combined with a great number of so-called “food aid”, thus eliminating most of the agricultural production. More recently began the sending, also systematic, of the so-called “pèpè” (second-hand clothing) that basically killed all workshop based sewing…

To seek cheap labor necessarily means, at the same time, keeping it in this state too. Thus: nominal salaries mustn’t and can’t raise, a reality of greater and greater misery, and, logically, the violent blocking of all working class struggles against this state of things. Hence: the terrible anti-union repression within and outside of the factories, the need for repressive forces and a whole corrupt state apparatus, organically in favor of this situation. But also, seeking cheap labor and being able to obtain it means demanding, at the same time, the most absolute misery of the entire people, so that anyone of our comrades can, at all times, be ready to accept any salary.

Thus, seeking cheap labor becomes not only an economic question, but also a political one, which explains the presence of imperialist governments in their role of extreme political domination, even reaching, often, to extend without the least problem towards direct military occupations (as in the case of Haiti today and all throughout Latin America during the past century) or disguised one (as are all military relations – arms, training, bases – that dominated countries maintain with the USA. Seeking cheap labor and maintaining it in this state, then, is a global issue in which imperialist governments and their puppets play a central role.

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The era of capital’s globalization causes all the bosses of the entire world to unite. Although certain contradictions may emerge amongst them, all, united, are responsible for the historic, criminal destruction of the peoples of the whole world. Our permanent struggles since two years in the first free trade zone of the country, that of Grupo M, from the Dominican Republic, perfectly reflects the collusion of interests between Haitian, Dominican and US bourgeois (Levi-Strauss, Hanes). It can also be observed in the Gildan industries, just as we’d already seen it with the Disney contractors and others in the past. Presently, with the end of the multifiber agreement and the North-American race toward the last regional spots of special production agreements (Haiti, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua), bitter struggles are foreseeable for us, workers of all these countries.

From this bosses’ coalition itself derives the imperative need for the organization / worldwide and regional coordination of the workers directly affected by this process. North-American workers, linked to those of the South, have the same interest in the reinforcement of struggles in our dominated countries since the extremely low wages paid here causes these workers suffering from exploitation within the imperialist countries themselves are the first to lose their jobs. Because of this, we are taking advantage of the occasion here presented to meet with our worker comrades and friends form solidarity organizations supporting these struggles.

From the analysis above, however, emerge organizational needs that, from the start, have to guide us constantly in the tasks we have set out. Knowing perfectly well that the bosses will always do all they can to try to block us demands that we have a well thought-out and steadfast strategy to organize and struggle for the defense of our interests. So we need to understand the situation precisely and, especially, have – and closely follow – a line that will serve us as a guide, a key for a real unity of action amongst us. It is only with such a line that we will really be able to obtain victories.

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In the first place, and fundamentally, the necessary independence of our workers’ organizations. The experience of the global labor movement is that of the failure, particularly starting from the social-democracy of the early twentieth century, of all form of collaboration with the bosses or their States organized to defend their interests. That is why we are immediately suggesting that, while we are thankful to the AFL-CIO’s Solidarity Center for this initiative, we have the urgent obligation to formally declare that it is not recommended for such a coordination to be placed under its direction, or even its supervision or control. For various reasons.

First and foremost, because of its nature, as an NGO organization of bureaucrats and not workers as such. Secondly, and just as importantly, because of a number of points that, from within and without, have signaled serious criticisms and have never, nevertheless, found adequate answers. We are referring to the debates that emerged before and during this North-American federation’s last congress. Indeed, the criticisms of its own base militants (deep, solid and denouncing the lack of participative democracy amongst members) as well as those of minority neighborhood organizations, or, even of certain branches, for a change in the direction’s orientation, amongst others, obtained not the slightest rectification, or even response. On another hand, more advanced criticisms showed the tight relations the AFL-CIO has maintained with the North-American Democratic Party, the expense of energy necessary towards this end and the lack of independence it has with respect to this relation, which hinders the development of all form of criticism against this party that is as bourgeois and imperialist as the republican one (our histories, as workers and peoples, reveals this clearly) and, so, leads to its not distinctly opposing neither the destructions nor the dominations imposed upon us, nor the criminal imperialist war (which is, concretely, to back them) and even to manage to participate in coups or attempts to boot progressive governments such as in the episode against Chavez.

To all of these criticisms, internal and from outside, from base and head levels, concerning the functional orientation and international interventions, the AFL-CIO hasn’t given a satisfactory response, just as the Solidarity Center hasn’t either.

Certainly, its participation in correct mobilization in favor of the respect of workers rights essentially within the US itself (as for that of the coming Dec. 10th) is indicative of a fresh breath, and it is also clear that the participation of Solidarity Centre members in the concrete struggles with workers of dominated countries was and continues to be an appreciated support; however, we continue to that that the apparatus as such continues to be before all bourgeois, controlled in various manners (the “administrative” aspects representing clear examples, amongst other) by the imperialist structures and, as such, are finally against the historical interests of the workers.

Certain currents within the North-American federation have tried and continue to attempt to internally impart significant changes with respect to all these fundamental themes, others have preferred not to participate or to withdraw and continue their struggles from without. Certain criticisms, serious and sustained, have even suggested for organized workers to form a new coalition, independent this time, with a wide functioning and based on the masses’ mobilization. For us, today, is the need to clearly understand that an apparatus controlled by the monopolist and imperialist bourgeoisie will never be able to represent and truly defend the workers’ interests.

Presently, precisely, since the Solidarity Center has played a role, up to now, from which we can obtain possible advancements, the activity of the Center’s members here present should be to facilitate the struggle of the working class with which they’ll enter in contact. Indeed, if they do not think they can lead a true criticism towards the direction of the organization above it (the AFL-CIO) and develop there a resolute struggle to, from within, denounce all the negative aspects, if they don’t believe they can engage in the unavoidable break with the bourgeois-imperialist control to gain independence of functioning and orientation and if, in the field of struggle, they don’t think they can reorient the bureaucratic functioning that characterizes many of their practices and those of certain organizations they are in contact with, that which remains for them to do is to facilitate in all ways contacts between organizers sharing these objectives and, on the other hand, help them to function there with the necessary independence.

This last aspect, that of independence, being of vital importance, deserves to be dwelt upon. We suggest its application in three moments: the first concerns precisely a critical aspect of the meeting we are at. It touches upon the organizational order itself. In our opinion, it is by no means recommendable to mix and put at the same level workers organizations and those of support. The very principle of workers’ independence not only demands this differentiation but, furthermore, mixing organizations with so different natures would be populist. Such an inconsiderate amalgam at the same time opens the way towards an easy petty bourgeois direction. Indeed, because its “technical qualities” – named “intellectual” or of “education”, “classical” then – sooner or later, it will occupy positions of direction or, at least, an equal decision level. This order, for working class interest, is extremely nefarious and possibly also highly dangerous. Furthermore, the Center suggest initiations relations of reflection but also organizational advancement on the basis of workshops, whereas for us, and according to the true historical interest of the working class as such, the real, central relations, the formal bases of all organization levels and their advancement need to be formed starting from and within the struggle itself. We need to build our regional coordination. With the support of all those who wish to support such an initiative but with clear principles and line.

The second moment concerns the suggested relation to create the struggle itself. For us, the coordination shouldn’t represent an intermediary space between the brands and union organizations, in which research, maps and “dialogues” occupy the central place and, finally, practically the only one. We should, quite to the contrary, create a different coordination, emerging from base actions, principally and practically only for the struggle as such, coordinated by the workers themselves who suffer from the same exploitation, often by the same exploiters. A coordination that conceives clearly that the factory owners and the brand owners form together a single logic of exploitation and that, despite and beyond a few small contradictions they say they have when talking to us, are essentially united and against us. For us, the role of intermediary the Solidarity Center plays with relation to the brands should by no means be transferred towards the unions, nor even the support organizations in the field.

The third moment, now, is that of the field itself. The structured organization of the workers’ union is useless if it doesn’t permanently pursue the masses’ mobilization, in the most conscious, structured and assumed way possible. For this, the line pursued up to now by the Solidarity Center’s advice won’t allow us to pursue this objective, since it makes recruiting and negotiation left to committees or, worse, bureaucrats (even with the best intentions and the greatest intelligence and courage) the central axis of the union struggle. This crumbles and weakens the Workers’ Movement that historically remains to be built.

Such a mobilization also has to include other workers, the unemployed, the masses in general in the neighborhoods. Their residents are our brothers, neighbors, friends, loved ones… Well organized and articulating their participation in an equally structured camp, they will lead the struggle as ours, simply because it is also theirs. The mobilization in Bonar, in the Dominican Republic, in Ouanaminthe, Haiti, but also the argentine struggles of 200-2003 have managed to construct, despite important limits, mobilizations that will attain significant victories, even if partial.

The orientation presently suggested doesn’t correspond with these fundamental criteria for us and that we consider definitely determinant. Let us hope that meeting here we will be able to go beyond the obstacles before us! In the ultimate benefit of the proletariat’s interest.