- Title: HAITI: ELECTORAL OFFICIALS THREATEN TO WALK OFF THE JOB
- Date: 22nd June 1995
- Summary: PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI (JUNE 22, 1995) (RTV - ACCESS ALL) 1. SV PEOPLE VIEWING LIST OF CANDIDATE NAMES OUTSIDE ELECTORAL OFFICE 0.03 2. SV GUARD AT GATE 0.08 3. SV WORKERS AND ENVELOPES OF ELECTION DOCUMENTS (8 SHOTS) 0.37 4. SCU VICE PRESIDENT OF COUNCIL EUGENE RAYMOND SPEAKING ABOUT ELECTIONS (FRENCH) 0.54 5. SV WORKERS CHANTING IN HALL 1.09 6. SCU WORKERS SAY WE WILL NOT WORK THAT IS ALL (FRENCH SPEECH) 1.15 7. SV U.N. SOLDIERS ENTER ELECTIONS OFFICE 1.21 8. SV MEDIA CONFERENCE BY ELECTIONS COUNCIL 1.25 9. SCU REMY SPEAKING ABOUT ELECTIONS (FRENCH) 2.14 10. SV OAS WORKERS IN HAITI. 2.25 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
- Embargoed: 7th July 1995 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI
- City:
- Country: Haiti CARIBBEAN
- Reuters ID: LVA5CUAHCJT1RG79YXLAI8KYXJ58
- Story Text: Angry Haitian election workers threatened on Thursday (June 22) to walk off the job just three days before scheduled nationwide parliamentary elections.
A group of about 50 workers gathered at the regional electoral office in Port-au-Prince to demand pay raises. They said their salaries were "ridiculous" and that they had not been paid for a month.
Asked what they would do if the provisional electoral council did not meet their demands one worker responded, "we will not work, that is all." He claimed that the group represented the thousands of electoral workers who had been hired throughout the capital.
Eugene Raymond, Vice President of the Port-au-Prince regional elections office voiced a hope that a settlement would be reached.
He said that the provisional electoral council had proposed a wage of 150 gourds (10 United States dollars) per day.
But Anselme Remy, president of the council, said he could make no promises, arguing that a commission from the European Union had set the budget. "To pay this raise we would have to find the money from somewhere and I cannot see a solution," he said.
In the regional council office, work went on with preparations for the elections, as those workers who were not part of the protest sorted through the mountains of paper they will need to distribute before and during the vote.
In the halls of the building, the angry protesters banged on walls and doors and chanted slogans to press their demands.
On Sunday Haiti is set to hold its first elections since the U.S. military ousted the defacto regime which had overthrown President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Voters will select from thousands of candidates for a two-chamber parliament as well as electing local officials throughout the country.
Earlier in the day, there was little sign of campaign activity as many politicians from the country's traditional parties gathered for memorial services for Ulrick Saint-Louis, a former senator from the period when the country was goverened by the Duvalier family dictatorship. A few small campaign posters on the walls of the church were the only indications of the coming vote as mourners carrying the coffin and banners from his party walked into the church. Saint-Louis died of old age accroding to mourners at the funeral.
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