I got back from Haiti on June 4. Still working on how to write up my thoughts and experiences on that. But, before I get to that, I want to post about how the US has messed with not only the Haitian economy, but helped mess up our own.
On June 5, the day after I got back, I read a post called Wikileaks: U.S. Intervened To Keep Haiti Slave Wages Low On Behalf Of Hanes, Levi Strauss at Crooks and Liars. The Nation’s article that spawned the post is called Let Them Live on $3 a Day.
Here’s the gist: Factory owners in Haiti refused to raise the pay for their workers to $5 a day. The US Agency for International Development and the US Embassy backed the owners.
Levi Straus “vehemently denies” this, stating that, at $3 a day, their workers make more than 80% of their fellow Haitians. Which is a wonderful bit of marketing: They’re not quite as poor as everyone else in the poorest country in the western hemisphere.
How far does $3 a day go in Haiti? The Nation’s article has this informative bit:
According to a 2008 Worker Rights Consortium study, a family of one working member and two dependents needed at least 550 Haitian gourdes, or $12.50, per day to meet normal living expenses.
In one town where we served in Haiti, we were told the average household size was 9 people. So, even with the $2/day raise, it still wouldn’t be a living wage.
How does this screw the US economy over? Simple: American workers can’t compete with $3/day. So, Haitians don’t benefit, and Americans don’t either. Who does? Crooks and Liars points out “Hanesbrands CEO Richard Noll, on the other hand, got a nice cushy $10 million compensation package last year.”