Mostly True | HRC and Haitian Wages

[GeorgiaPeanuts]

http://www.snopes.com/hillary-clinton-suppressed-haitis-minimum-wage/

WHAT'S TRUE: The U.S. State Department, among others, pushed to cut Haiti's minimum wage in 2009.

WHAT'S FALSE: Hillary Clinton was the sole architect of the move to reduce Haiti's minimum wage

[djean111]

1. Oh, so it wasn't JUST Hillary. But she was on board for suppressing wages, not on board

for "raising" them (to an amount that still was not enough to live on.

You know, we all are told Bernie should have fixed everything, all by himself, over the years. Hillary used her position of SOS not to try and elevate, but in agreement to suppress, wages.

And if she was so very powerless as SOS, stop touting it as experience. To hear the excuses about why everything was Obama's fault, or whatever - looks like the only experience she got was getting frequent flyer miles, texting from her Blackberry, and arranging arms deals for donors to the Clinton Foundation. IMO and all that.

[GeorgiaPeanuts]

2. I think Snopes pointed that out to try and head off the strawmans that might pop up.

[Hoyt]

3. The Snopes article also explains the reasons for "cutting" the proposed increase in minimum wage.

Actually, their wages weren't cut, but a proposed hike was reduced because many felt employers would leave a tragically economically depressed area. I don't know whether that is true or not, but sometimes you just can't afford to take the risk when people could be worse off than before.

[GeorgiaPeanuts]

4. I see, they should eat their breadcrumbs and like it....

And they better not dare demand better conditions they are lucky their gracious "Job Creators" (TM) are giving them breadcrumbs in the first place.

Has the Democratic Party gone full Republitard?

[Hoyt]

5. Here's another side.

" . . . . . . Now, of course, it would be wonderful if Haitians could make far more than $3 a day on average for working in an apparel mill. But — as history shows — that requires that Haitian workers and Haitian factory managers develop the skills to do more complex things than just make a T-shirt. T-shirts are so cheap, there just isn't much profit in there to pay anybody well. Some Haitian factories do make polo shirts and other higher skill products, and they pay better. If Haiti can move up to much higher-end production — like luxury items, say, for chic New York stores — then Haitians' will make even more money.

"This has been the story of industrial development throughout the world. In England, in the early days of the industrial revolution, workers began making simple, coarse cloth and then learned and developed skills and inventions and eventually made far more complex and valuable goods. Their wages rose along with their skill. . . . . . ."

". . . . . . .I recently spent some time talking to apparel manufacturers in the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti. They told me how they developed a low-paying, cost-competitive T-shirt sewing industry in the 1980s and 1990s. But, today, their factories and their workforce have developed so much skill that nobody is willing to take those T-shirt sewing jobs. They're making much more money creating more expensive and complicated clothing.

"In short, Dominican textile workers have real bargaining power because they have real, globally competitive skills. I'm sure manufacturers would love to pay them $3 a day, but they can't because the Dominicans know how to do stuff that commands a higher wage. "

http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2011/06/10/137064161/would-a-5-a-day-minimum-wage-make-life-better-in-haiti



Truthfully, I bet a lot of people bringing this up, couldn't care less whether Haitians progress. That bunch views foreigners as little more than scabs and competition. Personally, I think the world will be better off if poor countries develop skills and progress economically. The America First types are too myopic to see it.

[Schema Thing]

6. Nice strawman though. No one ever claimed Hillary was "the sole architect" of anything.