'Haiti is Open for Business!': Government Complicity in Wage Theft by Foreign Factories

PORT-AU-PRINCE – Haiti’s minimum wage will nudge up 12% on Jan. 1, from $4.65 to $5.23 (or 200 to 225 gourdes) per day. Calculated hourly, it will go from 58 to 65 cents, before taxes.

But the raise will not affect Haiti’s 30,000 assembly factory workers, who are supposed to already be receiving about seven dollars for an eight-hour day – about 87 cents per hour. Recent studies have found rampant wage theft at almost two dozen of the factories that stitch clothing for companies like Gap and Walmart.