I opened my Free Press this AM to see the AP story about a new plan for economic recovery in Haiti that would harness the devastated Haitian population as a cheap labor pool for the garment industry.  The workers would earn $3.09 for eight hours of toil, allowing the factory owners a profit of 22%.    Under the plan, which would expand an existing sweatshop industry in Haiti, the goods would then be imported to the U.S. for resale at substantial profit to the corporate beneficiaries. The example given in the AP story was a $500. suit sold by Jos. A. Banks.  Nice; really nice.

Apparently, our esteemed President Obama has endorsed this plan and proposes that U.S. retailers commit to obtaining at least 1% of the clothing they sell from Haiti(as opposed to other sweatshop economies.)  The plan is the brainchild of Oxford University Professor Paul Collier and is getting a boost from that perennial friend of “free” trade (as opposed to fair trade) Bill Clinton. Am I the only one who finds this idea the least bit disturbing?

I cannot dispute that it will, in the short-run, create jobs for people who do not currently have them; but I can’t help wondering what are the long-term consequences for workers everywhere of officially reinforcing the loathsome practice of labor exploitation.  There have been countless studies documenting the “race to the bottom” that has resulted from the unrestricted “free trade” practice of chasing the most desperate workforce from island to island in the relentless pursuit of cheaper goods and greater profits.  “This will not end well,” they all seem to say; and yet, the first economic recovery model that even our U.S. Democratic leaders put forward for this desperately poor population is to further reinforce the pattern of exploitation that has held them powerless in their own country almost since its inception.

Surely there is something else that could employ all those people without extending the local impact of their poverty to all the other exploited labor populations throughout the world!  How about getting all of those resort, cruise ship, and luxury vacation venues, as well as the corporations that have historically mined Haiti for cheap labor,  to pony-up for some serious infrastructure and land-improvement work that could employ as many people as the expanded sweatshops and leave them with some real value for their labor? Stabilization of agricultural lands, further development of tourism and expanded markets for traditional  products should be the goal rather than systemic reinforcement of impoverishing practices.

When did we become so callous as a nation that we simply accept sweatshop labor as the solution to any kind of economic problem?