Charles Henri Baker - Business Career

Business Career

Baker began his business career as a manager at the age 21 in his family-owned and operated supermarket chain. When his father became ill, he took over the family-owned 90-acre farm Habitation Dujour, which grew sugarcane, banana, and tobacco. Eventually, the land expanded another 120 acres which made it the largest flue-cured tobacco farm in Haiti, with more than 200 acres. Simultaneously, from 1982 to 1985 he worked with the tobacco growers of Haiti through the Comme il faut Company, where he held the position of Assistant to the Leaf Growing Manager.

Beginning in the late 1980s, Baker began to purchase garment factories. These factories, which have been called sweatshops by labor rights and human rights organizations, employ hundreds of Haitians who are paid very little and have no benefits. Baker sells the garments produced in these factories to major corporations such as Sara Lee, Walmart and K-Mart.

In 2000, he joined the Association des Industries d’Haïti as member and a year later became Vice

Baker was a prominent member of the Group of 184 (G 184), a coalition of Haitian organizations opposing Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The groups actions contributed to the coup d'état against Aristide in 2004.