This is the third installment of WOLA Senior Associate Vicki Gass' running report on her trip to the Dominican Republic and Central America to inspect labor conditions under the DR-CAFTA trade agreement.
In previous posts, she reported on conditions faced by undocumented Haitian workers and on the overall labor situation before the presidential elections on May 16.
Adding to the crisis in the Dominican Republic's labor force is the hemorrhaging of jobs in the Free Trade Zone. Estimates of direct job losses range from 60,000 to 70,000 in the last two years, and there have been countless indirect job losses. The government blames in the part the end of the Multi-Fiber Agreement, which has increased costs internally, and the appreciation of the national currency, the real, against the dollar. Plants are either closing down completely or moving to Nicaragua or Honduras, where labor costs are said to be cheaper. The areas hardest hit have been Santiago and San Pedro.
What has the Fernández government done to stem the hemorrhage? In essence, it has bailed out the multinationals in the Free Trade Zone by giving employers $2,000 reales per employee, subsidizing energy and water costs, and reducing docking charges for ships that come to receive goods. What has the government done for the workers who have lost their jobs? Nothing. Nor are there any policies or plans to build jobs. The options for those laid-off workers are to fade into the informal sector, return to their families in the countryside, or migrate.
Workers in the formal sector are regularly denied the right to form unions or carry out collective bargaining and are forced to work overtime and on a 4 x 4 schedule. A 4 x 4 schedule means four days on (12 hours per day for the first 3 days, 6 the fourth) followed by four days off, making it difficult for workers with families to have a set schedule. Workers also argue that they work more hours than for what they are paid.
The problem is not that labor laws in the Dominican Republic are not good. It's the lack of enforcement and the fact that employers willfully and blatantly prevent unions from being formed through harassment or illegal firings. They form parallel workers associations, buy off union leaders, and intimidate would-be rank-and-file.
The case of the workers at the TOS Dominicana plant in Bonao is a patent example of an employer's disregard for workers' right to unionize. The multinational corporation Hanes Brands owns the factory where, over a year ago, worker began to organize a union. Managers fired workers, intimidated them and bought off would-be members by raising wages to an average minimum wage of $35 a week. Despite the increase, organizers were able to gain enough signatures to form a union, and last summer international organizations like WOLA, the Workers Rights Consortium and the Solidarity Center pressured the Dominican Secretariat of Labor to conduct a verification process on the union. The verification process was successful but Hanes refused to accept the Secretariat's findings on a technicality. It wasn't until a delegation of workers went to San Francisco to meet with a Hanes representative in November that management in the Dominican Republic agreed to recognize the union. Even with negotiations under way for a collective contract, the company continues to use delaying tactics such as sending people who do not have decision-making power.
This case is not an exception. The State Department's 2007 Human Rights Report states that labor rights are routinely violated. Regarding illegal firings, the report says the "law forbidding companies from firing union organizers or members was enforced inconsistently, and penalties were insufficient to deter employers from violating workers' rights." It adds that workers are routinely harrassed and intimidated, that few companies have collective bargaining pacts, and mandatory overtime is a common practice.
The government is attempting legislative reforms that, rather than strengthening the rights of workers, weaken them. Recently a law was passed that changed how workers are compensated when let go from their employment. Prior to the change in the law, workers accumulated a certain amount of time for each year they were employed. So, if one worked for five years, she or he would be eligible for three months pay. The new law allows employers to pay off workers each year, so workers don’t accumulate savings over a period of time until the job ends. Although implementation of the law is blocked because a court declared it illegal, it is a clear sign of the legal maneuvers to curtail workers' rights.
The government's Commerce Minister was quoted in the press as saying, prior to my arrival, that the country has been unable to attract more investment because the labor code protects workers too much. I guess these legal measures are intended to improve conditions for investors.
