Date of publication: June 17, 2006
Source: LA Times
The HOPE Act would create tens of thousands of jobs, proponents say.
By Carol J. Williams
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Vladimir Fabre had what passes here for a
decent-paying job: work as a fabric roller at a factory making T-shirts
for U.S. discount stores.
But three years ago, Fabre, his mother and four of his siblings lost
their employment, thanks to rising political violence here and fierce
competition from Asia. The Fabres now eke out an existence by boiling a
pot of rice and beans each day and ferrying it to the garment-factory
zone to sell to Haitians still lucky enough to be working.
Jobs in the garment industry, once Haiti's most vital sector, have
dropped from 100,000 in the late 1980s to less than 20,000 today. In a
country long plagued by chronic unemployment of 50% to 70%, the apparel
assembly sector remains the nation's most important.
But manufacturers that have managed to survive, albeit by borrowing or
scaling back production, believe that recovery could be on the horizon.
A bill pending in the U.S. Congress would grant Haitian garment makers
duty-free entry to the U.S. market for apparel crafted from fabric made
in the U.S.
The bill, known as the Haitian Hemispheric Opportunity Through
Partnership Encouragement, or HOPE, Act, could create as many as 20,000
jobs within four months of its passage, industry leaders say.
"When you lose your job in Haiti, the whole family suffers, because
everyone else is counting on you to help them," said Fabre, 30, as he
set up his lunch stand in the leafy industrial park, where the whine of
sewing machines now emanates from less than a third of the buildings.
The HOPE Act is a watered-down version of a humanitarian gesture drafted
in 2004. That bill, which was known as the Haiti Economic Recovery
Opportunity, or HERO, Act, would have allowed all Haitian-made apparel
duty-free entrance to the U.S. market, whatever the origin of the cloth.
HERO was passed by the Senate but bogged down in the House, prompting
supporters of tariff relief for Haiti to bow to pressure from the U.S.
textile lobby and scale back their ambitions.
Haitian garment makers have been led to believe that action on the bill
was imminent, but unrelated Middle East trade issues have upended
legislative scheduling, said a congressional source who did not want to
be identified because negotiations on the matter are confidential.
A spokeswoman for the House Ways and Means Committee, Ianthe Jackson,
said the timing of any debate on HOPE was unclear.
As recently as January, the few apparel manufacturers still in business
in Port-au-Prince were having to close sporadically because of gang
violence and riots in the slums that consume all but a few tiny enclaves
in this capital city.
"Every day you lose in a factory is a complete loss," said AG Textiles
owner Georges Sassine, noting that he has to pay employees even when
flaming barricades block their way to work. "It's not like commerce,
where if you have to close you'll sell tomorrow the sugar you didn't
sell today."
Economists and foreign analysts have identified the garment industry as
the most promising for kick-starting an economy on its knees.
The Sonapi industrial park here once produced Major League baseballs,
brassieres and electronics. Now it is home almost exclusively to
manufacturers of knit garments. Contracts for the other products began
migrating to China in the 1980s and disappeared altogether during the
turmoil of the last two decades that saw a military coup, political
strife, assassinations and an armed rebellion that sent former President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide into a second exile in February 2004.
"We as an industry are the only ones who can create jobs quickly," said
Sassine, whose plant employs 600 people who make sweatshirts for
Canadian company Gildan Activewear Inc. "We just need to receive orders
and execute them. We have capacity that is not used or is underused."
He says he could hire 300 more workers if HOPE passes, based on an
expected boom in orders for the U.S. market.
Sassine's plant, like others doing business with Western countries, is
certified by the nonprofit group Worldwide Responsible Apparel
Production for maintaining accepted standards for garment workers,
including regulated hours, adequate ventilation and healthcare.
"Our customers want to know their goods are not being made in sweatshops
or with child labor," Sassine said. "This is our guarantee that the
goods are made by socially responsible factories."
He points to the lunchtime scene around the industrial park as evidence
that a boost for the garment industry would have a ripple effect in the
capital's economy. Outside the walled compound of giant assembly plants,
vendors display secondhand clothes, fresh fruits and vegetables,
housewares and handicrafts, catering to those earning paychecks. At
noon, dozens of vendors like Fabre haul in crude wheeled carts carrying
food and soft drinks.
Richard Coles, whose family owns the Multitex factory that produces
150,000 dozen T-shirts a week for customers such as Hanes, J.C. Penney
Co., Sears, Roebuck & Co. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc., says the
preferential trade terms accorded by the HOPE Act would be a far more
effective way for the U.S. government to help the Haitian economy than
foreign aid.
"It forces everyone to work and modernize to capitalize on it," he said
of the duty-free access.
Part of the legislation offers tariff relief on some clothing made of
woven fabrics, which Coles said would offer Haitian manufacturers an
opportunity to diversity the industry here, which is 90% knits. Working
woven fabric is more labor-intensive, he said, offering the prospect of
more jobs and higher revenues.
To sew a dozen T-shirts from knitted fabric, U.S. and Canadian apparel
companies pay Haitian factories $1.60 to $1.80 for the labor. To sew
jeans or trousers from woven cloth, manufacturers get $20 to $35 per
dozen.
Coles said he trusted newly elected President Rene Preval's commitment
to help revive the garment industry, breaking with other business
leaders who have taken a wait-and-see attitude toward the new
government.
But even some business leaders who opposed Preval have become bullish on
the garment industry's outlook. Minimum wage in Haiti is less than $2 a
day, compared with more than $5 in the neighboring Dominican Republic
and most of Central America.
Jean-Edouard Baker, the older brother of an unsuccessful challenger to
Preval and a fellow garment maker until Aristide's loyalists burned down
his factories in February 2004, has drawn up plans for a free-trade zone in the town of Croix-des-Bouquets, just east of the capital airport. The current president of the Haitian Industrialists Assn., Baker accompanied Preval on a March visit to Washington, where they lobbied congressional leaders to pass the HOPE Act "to send a clear signal that Haiti is back open for business."
Newly appointed Prime Minister Jacques-Edouard Alexis has promised to
streamline business-licensing procedures to make Haiti an attractive
venue for foreign manufacturers, Baker said. The new government is also
working to ensure a reliable supply of electricity and water to the
existing industrial park and to the site of the proposed free zone, he
added.
In an analysis of the HERO and HOPE proposals, the Washington think tank Inter-American Dialogue concluded that because the garment industry "presents itself as one of few opportunities for growth and new employment in an otherwise anemic economy," passage of one of the tariff relief measures would be an effective way to aid Haiti.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has also weighed in on the
subject, saying that "it is time to end Haiti's unmerited suffering" and urging Congress to act before the summer recess.
"If the U.S. Congress would pass this HOPE bill, it would be a good
thing for the Haitian economy and would help Haiti recover some of what
it has lost" over the last 15 years to unrest and China, said Andre
Apaid, who owns five factories that produce 200,000 dozen T-shirts a
week for export.
Revival of apparel manufacturing here would have a stabilizing effect
and would discourage Haitians from taking to the seas in flimsy boats in hopes of reaching Florida or the Bahamas to find black-market
employment, said Jean Pierre Mangones, an official with the
International Organization for Migration. The IOM has been lobbying
Washington to pass the HOPE Act to convince Haitians that their best
prospects might be at home.