That project, funded by the US Department of Labor in 1999, aimed to improve working conditions in the Haitian garment assembly industry. At its peak in the 1980s, garment assembly was Haiti's largest manufacturing export sector, employing nearly one hundred thousand workers, of which two-thirds were women. By 1998, the number of jobs had contracted to less than twenty thousand. The ILO project has focused on concrete, sustainable initiatives to improve both working conditions and the attractiveness of Haitian garment assembly plants to foreign investment.
Until the project got underway, social dialogue concerning working conditions had become virtually nonexistent in Haiti. Government, and employers' and workers' representatives participating in the project discovered that they could assist each other in reaching goals. The Memorandum of Understanding emphasizes the importance of creating decent work and improving working conditions, both as goals in themselves and also as a means to improve the competitiveness of Haitian companies in the context of globalization.
The new Labour and Employment Council will be composed of nine members: three representing workers' organizations, three from employers' organizations, and three members from the Ministries of Labour and Social Affairs, Commerce and Industry, and Health. Each organization will also designate an alternate delegate. The different partners have agreed to seek balanced representation between women and men.