Haiti garment workers protest deaths of co-workers denied medical care
https://themilitant.com/2020/09/05/haiti-garment-workers-protest-deaths-of-co-workers-denied-medical-care/
BY MICHEL DUGRÉ
Vol. 84/No. 36
September 14, 2020
Garment workers in Port au Prince July 31 protest death of Sandra René,
pregnant coworker, after hospital turned her away. Bosses never paid
health insurance deducted from her pay.
COURTESY HAITI LIBERTÉ
Garment workers in Port au Prince July 31 protest death of Sandra René,
pregnant coworker, after hospital turned her away. Bosses never paid
health insurance deducted from her pay.
MONTREAL — Garment workers at two plants in Haiti’s capital
Port-au-Prince held work stoppages beginning Aug. 4, outraged at the
deaths of two workers who were refused medical care by hospital
authorities. They were turned away because bosses where they worked held
onto deductions taken from the workers’ wages for health insurance.
Hundreds of workers turned out for the funeral of Sandra René July 31,
marching with her casket to protest at the offices of OFATMA, the
government health insurance company. She had worked for 10 years at the
Palm Apparel factory.
“We suffered a blow. It hurt, but we resist,” they sang in Creole —
words from a popular song often sung at demonstrations in Haiti. Many
wore T-shirts of Batay Ouvriye, an organization that has worked with
textile workers trying to organize a union.
Six months pregnant, René was turned away by the Carrefour hospital in
Port-au-Prince. Authorities there justified their callous refusal to
provide the treatment she needed on the basis that her insurance card
wasn’t paid up. Company bosses had held onto deductions from all their
employees’ wages for years instead of paying them to OFATMA. René died
at her home four days later.
On Aug. 3, Lunel Pierre, who was working at Sewing International S.A.,
died in similar circumstances after being denied dialysis treatment.
“We are suing the companies for misappropriation of funds, OFATMA for
not getting the money owed to them by the companies, and the Carrefour
hospital for not providing the basic human care that was obviously
required,” Evel Fanfan, a lawyer working with René’s family, told the
Militant in a phone interview Aug. 28.
“Workers are determined to not let this happen again,” Réginald
Lafontant, from the Association of Textile Workers for Assembly and
Export union, told the Militant.
There are 57,000 garment workers in Haiti, assembling garments for
companies like Walmart and Montreal-based Gildan. Less than 20% of the
big garment companies in Haiti pay the insurance to OFATMA that they
deduct from workers’ wages.
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Robert G. Ingersoll
“Progress is born of doubt and inquiry. The Church never doubts, never
inquires. To doubt is heresy, to inquire is to admit that you do not know—the
Church does neither.”
― Robert G. Ingersoll,
