Four Puerto Rican union leaders chained themselves to the gates of the Fortaleza, the governor's official residence, in San Juan on Sept. 28 to protest plans to lay off 16,970 of the island's 180,000 public employees. About 30 other unionists set up what they called a "Camp of Dignity and Shame" outside the 16th-century fortress. After a brief scuffle, police agents dispersed the group, which included members of the General Workers Union (UGT) and Robert Pagán, president of Local 1996SPT of the US-based Service Employers International Union (SEIU). No arrests or injuries were reported. Pagán promised that this was just the first of "dozens of civil disobedience actions" against the layoffs.

Brazilian organizations delivered an open letter to the United Nations Information Center in the Itamaraty Palace in Rio de Janeiro on Oct. 5 opposing the continued presence of Brazilian troops in Haiti. Afterwards the activists held a solidarity event with hip-hop presentations in the Largo Carioca plaza in downtown Rio. The UN Security Council is expected to renew the mandate for the Brazilian-led United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), now five years old, sometime before Oct. 15.

During a meeting in Brasilia on Sept. 17, Brazilian foreign minister Celso Amorim and US commerce representative Ronald Kirk ratified a plan to allow Brazilian companies operating in Haiti to export products to the US without paying customs fees. This would be done through an extension of two US trade acts ostensibly aiding Haitian industries: the Haitian Hemispheric Opportunity Through Partnership Encouragement (HOPE) Act of 2006 and the HOPE 2 Act of 2008. Amorim told the Chinese news agency Xinhua that the initiative's goal is humanitarian, "to aid Haiti's economic development through sustainable production activity," although he noted that it would also benefit Brazilian and US companies.

On Sept. 9 Haitian riot police and SWAT teams entered the grounds of the Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy (FMP) of the State University of Haiti (UEH) in downtown Port-au-Prince and arrested about 20 students who had been occupying a building there since Sept. 7 to prevent the start of classes. Although police agents are generally not allowed on campuses in Haiti, the authorities said the raid was legal because the school's administration had asked for it and a justice of the peace was present to monitor the operation. Students from the UEH's Faculty of Ethnology responded to the raid by throwing rocks, and demonstrations continued at least through Sept. 11, when some 40 vehicles were reportedly attacked by students.

A series of wildcat strikes that shut down an industrial park on Port-au-Prince's northern outskirts for at least two days in early August continued into the week of Aug. 10 as thousands of Haitian workers, students and activists demonstrated for a law to increase the country's minimum wage from 70 gourdes ($1.74) a day to 200 gourdes ($4.97). President René Préval has blocked the 200 gourde increase, arguing it would hurt the country's maquiladora sector—the tax-exempt plants that assemble products chiefly for export—and cause the loss of thousands of jobs.

On Aug. 13 leaders of the Dominican Medical Guild (CMD) and the National Union of Nursing Services (UNASED) announced the suspension of a strike they started on July 29 over salaries. The unionists said the suspension was based on what they considered an agreement that Public Health Secretary Bautista Rojas Gómez would drop his efforts to remove seven health professionals—including Rufino Senén Caba Plasencia, president of the CMD's National District (Santo Domingo) branch—for alleged involvement in a violent incident during the strike. The job action was the latest development in an 18-month struggle around a demand for a monthly minimum wage of 58,400 pesos ($1,624) for medical professionals.

The Chamber of Deputies of Haiti's Parliament voted 55-6 late on the evening of Aug. 4 to increase the country's minimum wage from 70 gourdes ($1.74) a day to 150 gourdes ($3.73). Three deputies abstained, and about 20 walked out before the vote, apparently protesting what they considered irregularities in the secret balloting.

Leaders of the Dominican Medical Guild (CMD) and the National Union of Nursing Services (UNASED) announced on Aug. 7 that Dominican medical workers would continue a strike they started on July 29 for at least another five days, until 6 AM on Aug. 13. The strike is the latest development in an 18-month struggle around a demand for a monthly minimum wage of 58,400 pesos ($1,624) for medical professionals.