who is living among, organizing with and talking to garment workers every day, says the nebulous statement makes sense. “They don’t want to say that there’s a problem because there’s no order,” Pierre toldIn Pierre’s analysis, Henry’s continuation of Moïse’s extra-parliamentary authoritarian rule has created such political instability, bloody turf wars and lethal street fights, that businesses are being defeated in their struggles to fulfill orders.
Factory owners are closing the factories because “business as usual” cannot be conducted, he emphasized, and not because workers are intentionally withholding their labor. Surrounded by ruthless gang and, people are sticking close to their neighborhoods where neighbors know each other, he says. Venturing out of one’s own turf can lead to dangerous confrontations with warring gang members affiliated with various political parties, or just getting caught in the crossfire.
“We have a prime minister here, but we don’t have a parliament, and we don’t know exactly who manages this country,” Pierre said. “Maybe that’s one of the reasons why one year after the assassination of Moïse, we’ve never heard a resolution about what actually happened. We’ve heard that the prime minister may be implicated, but the story keeps changing, and we don’t know exactly where these things are left.
But having been trained on the sewing machines and having devoted their entire working lives to manufacturing apparel, many workers do not possess transferable skills, Pierre said, and have taken to peddling home-produced wares on the street. “You can go everywhere and you can find people trying to do some trade on the street, some little commerce,” he explained.