Association Ouvrière

Michel Hector's chronology of Haitian labor history includes a reference to a mutualist association founded in July 1894, Association Ouvrière, in Port-au-Prince. Details about this early worker association in Haiti are scarce, but I uncovered the following.

Founded in July 1894, the short-lived organization included a bureau of M Laforest (Maximilian?), president, Stanislaus Madour (cabinetmaker whose work was displayed at the 1893 fair in Chicago), vice-president, P. Errié, secretary, I. Vieux (Isnardin), adjoining secretary. L'echo d'Haiti newspaper (associated with Etienne Mathon) reported on the foundation of the Association Ouvrière in July and August 1894.

 

Joseph Jérémie, writer, politician, and intellectual, was also tied to early attempts at worker organization and education in Port-au-Prince in the 1890s. He was involved with Association Ouvrière and, according to Maurice Ethéart (in Revue de la Ligue de la jeunesse haïtienne), he was a pivotal figure in the origin of Association Ouvrière.
 

Maurice Ethéart references Joseph Jérémie for evidence of the Association Ouvrière attracting nearly 200 workers (not defined, but presumably artisans and skilled workers in Port-au-Prince) to the organization's meetings. This indicates something of the appeal of the mutualist society to the workers of Port-au-Prince of the 1890s. Coeurs-Unis des Artisans, a society founded in 1870, cannot be brought into discussion of an earlier history of worker associations due to the limited knowledge available at the moment to the author, although it presumably reflects a previous interest in mutual aid and labor among Haitian artisans in Cap-Haitien.

 

However, the large numbers of people drawn to the organization's meetings and fears of socialism and anarchism, led to its eventual demise. Ethéart alludes to fears of this sort, plus L'Echo d'Haiti likewise alludes to Capoix Belton's exaggerated fears of socialism and anarchism as a threat to the social order ,which Association Ouvrière supposedly represented, despite its mutualist aims and goals.
 

Although certainly not radical, the rise of mutual aid societies among workers in Port-au-Prince by the 1890s indicates a certain incipient class consciousness, as well as the beginning of a search for common interests and social solidarity between different artisans and workers in the capital. One can likely assume most of the workers attracted to such an organization were tailors, shoemakers, barbers, printers, government functionaries, and other skilled and probably educated workers in Port-au-Prince of the era (and, one supposes, not the numerous laborers of the West Indian migrant population or other foreign skilled workers in the Republic at this time).

 

Although members of the Haitian political class and press supported the mutualist organization, one cannot help but wonder if it reflects self-movement of skilled workers in Port-au-Prince of the time. For instance, Michel Hector's chronology references a 1891 strike among coiffeurs in the city. Perhaps this, plus the founding of a night school in 1892 (associated, again, with Joseph Jérémie), reflect a burgeoning interest in mutual aid societies, craft associations, and common identification among skilled workers in late 19th century Port-au-Prince. If Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic are any indication, Haiti certainly would not have been alone if gremios, night schools, and worker associations begin to proliferate near the end of the 19th century in urban areas of Cuba, PR, and the DR.

 

Possible influence of Freemasonry and socialist or anarchist ideology is something that may also explain how and why Haitian intellectuals and workers may have supported some of these mutualist ventures. For example, much has been made of the impact of Cuban immigration on skilled trades in Haiti (especially tailors and shoemakers), and perhaps Cubans and other foreigners in Haiti may have assisted in the spread of socialist, union, and radical ideology beyond mutual aid societies among the Haitians they took on as apprentices or employees and colleagues in period between 1868-1898. More work must be done to explore this possibility, but Cubans were definitely an important influence on Haitian artisans of the late 19th early and early 20th century, if Fleury Fèquiére can be trusted. Certainly, Haitian intellectuals and politicians were aware of debates in France and elsewhere around Europe on capitalism, socialism, labor, and syndicalism, which may also have shaped the larger discourse among artisans in urban areas who interacted with the upper classes in Masonic lodges or other institutions.

However, given the important role of upper-class patrons and organizers within Association Ouvrière, and their own belief on the role of education in inculcating proper moral values and appreciation of labor's importance, they may also have limited the scope of the organization by opposing it against trade unions and class consciousness. Jérémie and other like-minded intellectuals also saw the danger of a large unemployed urban population without labor and other distractions, and may have supported workers organizations of a mutualist type as reformism without advocating for unions or self-emancipation of laboring masses.

 

Until further sources and newspapers of the era are consulted, one cannot say with any certainty what Association Ouvrière represented in Haitian labor history or its larger significance. Yet, it certainly speaks to a burgeoning embryonic proletariat and its gradual political assertion of itself in the affairs of Port-au-Prince. It also speaks to the limits of mutual aid societies and the focus on moral uplift of the toilers without class struggle. However, if events of Haiti were comparable to corresponding trends in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, Haiti's economic structure limited the potential growth of radical and militant labor formation among the nascent working-class. If the works of Angel Quintero-Rivera, Joan Casanovas, Martinez-Vergne, Cassá and Kirwin Shaffer are any indication, events in Haiti probably resembled to a smaller degree trends among artisans and proletarianization in the region. Moreover, Haiti had, already by the 1860s, experienced the role of popular classes in political transition, and reformist elites could support mutual aid societies, night schools, and worker clubs to redirect the weak urban pre-proletariat from action against the upper-class.