Trade Subcommittee Leader Says Sugar Workers in Dominican Republic Still Exploited
House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee Chairman Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., and Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Mich., said a recent Labor Department report about Dominican Republic-Central America-United States Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR) labor compliance in the Dominican Republican's sugar industry confirmed their conclusions when they visited sugar cane farms in July, that the workers live in substandard conditions and that there is a "culture of fear" in the industry.
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The Labor Department report said that children are no longer cutting cane, and said that the government is doing better at conducting inspections and is doing more regular outreach with Haitian migrant workers who dominate the sector. It also said that the minimum wage has doubled in the fields.
But the report also said, "Even the most robust inspections and outreach efforts may be ineffective if workers constantly fear deportation; this fear leaves workers vulnerable to exploitation and forced labor."
Blumenauer and Kildee said that the workers' undocumented status exacerbates the problems. “While the report identifies efforts undertaken to improve labor conditions in the Dominican Republic’s sugar sector, it is clear more must be done by the U.S. and Dominican governments and the sugar companies," they wrote in a Sept. 14 news release.