The AFL-CIO Executive Council expresses its continued and unfaltering solidarity with the people of Haiti following the horrific earthquake and aftershocks of January, 2010, that claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Haitians, including workers and trade unionists. Having struggled to recover from a hunger crisis and four devastating hurricanes in 2008, the hemisphere's poorest country is now attempting to rise again from the depths of overwhelming and unprecedented destruction.
The Haitian people are also fighting to liberate themselves from decades of occupations, dictatorships, global neglect, deforestation, and a crushing external debt amounting to at least one million U.S. dollars paid weekly to foreign banks and international financial institutions before the January earthquake.
We salute our affiliates, state federations, central labor councils, constituency groups and countless union members who have made vital and generous financial contributions and donations of essential supplies to aid the Haitian people during their moment of critical need. Much of this help has been directed to the Solidarity Center's Emergency Relief Fund or to other worthy and effective national and international agencies. Many of our members are serving directly as volunteers – including fire fighters, pilots, flight attendants, air traffic controllers, building trades members, federal employees working with the U.S. Department of State, U.S. AID, and FEMA, nurses, paramedics, doctors, and maritime and dock workers, to name a few. In addition, a number of our organizations and their members have been aiding the settlement of Haitian working families in the United States in the wake of the disaster. The Council asks that these good efforts continue and multiply.
Nevertheless, much more needs to be done. U.S. AID has concluded that emergency food aid needs to reach hundreds of thousands more in and around Port-au-Prince. Workers continue to sleep outside or in makeshift tents, exposing themselves to security and health risks, especially as the rainy and hurricane season commence. Employment in and around Port-au-Prince has slowed dramatically, and in some cases halted, due to the destruction, leaving workers with no access to income to sustain themselves and their families as they begin the slow process of recovery. Many union halls have been damaged or destroyed.
We recognize the invaluable efforts of the global trade union movement, including the International Trade Union Confederation, ITUC, working with its Haitian and Dominican affiliates, to insure distribution of food and supplies, as well as advocating the immediate cancellation of Haiti's debt burden with the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the Inter-American Development Bank.
The AFL-CIO will continue to work with Global Unions to press the international financial institutions and foreign banks to immediately cancel Haiti's debt burden in order that all available economic resources may be devoted to rebuilding the lives and livelihoods of Haitian working families. In particular, the International Finance Corporation of the World Bank must do its utmost to rebuild factories and create decent jobs in Haiti based on its underwriting of private sector investment in the country. We will urge the U.S. Treasury and other relevant U.S. Government agencies to support such policies.
The Federation will continue to call on Congress and the Obama Administration to support humanitarian relief in the form of Temporary Protected Status to Haitians currently in the United States. Deportation is unconscionable and not an option, as it will only exacerbate the current crisis of survival and recovery.
The AFL-CIO and the Solidarity Center, in addition to maintaining emergency funds, vital supplies and volunteer services on behalf of Haitian working families and trade unionists, will strive to support worker to worker and union to union rebuilding projects, enhance greater coordination of relief efforts on the part of the international labor movement, and strengthen the Haitian unions' relationship with the global organizations shaping the future of reconstruction in the country.
We urge the U.S. Government and the international community to adopt a recovery and reconstruction strategy that strives to assist the Haitian people to attain sustainable long-term economic independence and ensure a commitment to economic development, with Haitian workers at the center. Temporary and stopgap employment projects must respect internationally recognized labor standards and provide livable wages, but they also are no substitute for a sustainable and durable jobs policy.
We urge the U.S Government and the international community to ensure that, consistent with UN global strategies for sustainability and capacity building, it is Haitian workers who rebuild their country; and further that Haitian workers are employed with the benefits of safety, health and career training, skills development, and long term employment with guarantees of living wage standards and respect for fundamental labor and trade union rights. We also urge the U.S. Government to make sure these concerns are addressed at the upcoming UN donors' conference for Haitian relief and reconstruction. To implement these purposes, contracts for rebuilding and new construction should be conditioned by the United States and other donor nations on the implementation of these global sustainability and capacity building goals.