28605: Dailey re fired Teleco workers (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Peter Dailey <phdailey@msn.com>

RV asserts that Teleco was a notorious patronage mill and that the Latortue 
government's decision to cut 50% of the work force- 2,000 employees- eliminated 
"no show patronage jobs." Sprague argues that real jobs were eliminated and 
that this resulted in a decline of public services and "sites" in support a 
statement by Anoop Singh, Director of the Western Hemisphere Department at the 
IMF.

However, Singh, speaking in the summer of 2004 only weeks after the advent of 
the Latortue government, never mentions Teleco, stated only that "expenditure 
cuts" by the state "adversely affected the ability of the authorities to 
deliver basic public services." Nowhere does Singh state that this inability 
was the result of the firing of municipal workers, or that the Latortue 
government was eliminating basic public services that had been previously 
provided by the Aristide government. Is Sprague arguing that the quality of 
service provided by Teleco has declined in the past two years? What about 
garbage collection etc. ? What services has the Haitian government 
traditionally provided, and which are no longer available?

I've been told that although  in indexes like literacy, life expectancy, access 
to potable water, etc. Haiti is close to the bottom, it leads the hemisphere in 
municipal employees per thousand phone lines. Is this true? When Aristide 
returned to power in 1994 were their similar layoffs? My impression is that in 
addition to legions of ghost workers like Rene Civil, Teleco has traditionally 
provided a safe haven for the otherwise unemployable sons and nephews of 
prominent bourgeois whom Aristide or any other head of government may fire at 
their peril. There are undoubtedly many persons who would be interested in an 
analysis of Teleco's operations over the last thirty years or of the Port 
Authority and how they came to be a byword for corruption and incompetence. 
There are probably others besides myself who would welcome an explanation by 
Sprague of some of his fundamental assumptions. Should independent unions under 
a "progressive" government have the right to collective bargaining and to 
strike? I've read that the support of the AFL-CIO was crucial to the success of 
Solidarity in Poland. Was this an example of the undermining of a "progressive" 
government that Sprague has in mind?

Sprague sasks where the "overwhelming evidence" of FL's complicity in the 
attack on the organizers of Guacimal is to be found. I suggest that he examine 
contemporaneous accounts, many of which were posted on the Corbett List, 
including the thoroughly mendacious efforts by various Aristide flaks to 
justify the attacks and subsequent imprisonments.

Peter Dailey