1907 Cordonnier Walk Out and Urban Labor

Le Nouvelliste (September 20, 1907)

Although much remains to be done in tracking class formation and the conditions of urban labor in Haiti on the eve of the first US Occupation, this captures the voice of shoemakers in a large establishment in 1907 quite well. The establishment, Cordonnerie Continentale, was part of the Tannierie Continentale et Fabrique des Chaussures. An article from the International Bureau of the American Republics (1908) reported on this factory, based on US Consul John B. Terres. According to this report, the establishment employed a total of about 200 people, with a weekly output of 1500 pairs of shoes weekly, according to the Monthly Consular and Trade Reports. It also possessed a contract to supply the government with shoes for soldiers, was foreign-owned, imported most of the machinery, trimmings, and dyes from the US, and must be a great example of the few large-scale industrial workshops in Haiti at the time. 

However, this very same establishment experienced a strike in September 1907, as the shoemakers staged a walk-out when the owner, Marcou, accused them of stealing. Auguste Magloire wrote about visiting the site afterwards in Le Matin, and it would seem in 1907, Marcou was able to replace the strikers with new workers. According to the 1908 US Consul report, the business must have been doing well to employ 200 workers and enter into a contract with the government (although Magloire's visit would indicate about 80 workers in the shoe workshop area of the establishment). 

Nonetheless, the above notice, published in Le Nouvelliste, in the voice of the cordonniers themselves, indicates something, perhaps, of a nascent class consciousness. The workers express a sense of respect, dignity, and understanding of themselves as the ones who produce the shoes and oppose their alienation from the product of the labor. Indeed, a reference to slavery and their assertion of their intelligence and collaboration might indicate something beyond a mere camaraderie between workers in the same trade. Of course, more information must be located about this specific establishment and, if possible, the shoemakers employed there. Moreover, Ethéart (presumably Emmanuel), a lawyer affiliated with the Ecole Libre Professionnelle in the 1890s, would have had exposure to artisans and workers in Port-au-Prince. Thus, in spite of his name attached to the notice, it reads as if written by the shoemakers themselves, "pour les ouvriers."