VILLA HERMOSA, Dominican Republic — The owners of Central Romana, the largest single employer and landowner in the Dominican Republic, claim their workers are well-treated and well-paid. Although by their own admission — likely inflated — many workers make under $11 a day!
An international delegation in the Dominican Republic that took part in a sugarcane cutter union conference heard a different point of view from dozens of retired cane cutters during a March 23 visit to bateyes — company towns — and neighborhoods near Central Romana’s cane fields. The company is partially owned by the U.S.-based Fanjul family.
The delegation included Israel Rousseau, general secretary of the National Union of Sugar Workers of Cuba; Dania Leyva, a leader of the Central Organization of Cuban Workers; Philippe Tessier, a freight rail worker and member of the Communist League in Canada; and members of the Socialist Workers Party in the U.S., including Rachele Fruit, a hotel worker in Miami; Gerardo Sánchez, an organizer with Local 111 of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers union in Fort Worth, Texas; and this reporter.
The vast majority of the cane cutters are Haitian immigrants or of Haitian descent. Many of those we met have been working here for decades — with deductions taken out of their pay for social security — but have been unable to collect since retiring. The government makes it extremely difficult to get official paperwork that they are “permanent residents,” which the government now requires before releasing any benefits. One of the central activities of the union is the fight for workers’ pensions.
“I am 72 years old,” Sobe Pie told us during a meeting in Villa Hermosa, a neighborhood of dirt streets, no running water or sewage system, and little electricity. “When I was younger I could cut a ton of sugarcane a day. You work and work and look how they’ve left us.”
When cane cutters are too old to work, the bosses often evict them from company housing. They have also evicted union supporters.
“They treat us as if we are thieves,” John Estimal said. “We started working there when we were young. Now that we are old we’re of no use to them.”
“The company is the thief,” he said. “If the government doesn’t want to pay our pensions, then the company should. Jesus Christ! It’s our pension, not theirs.”
Central Romana has banned Jesús Núñez, national coordinator of the Sugarcane Workers Union, and other visitors from company-owned property. But that hasn’t stopped union-organizing efforts.
Every week the workers hold meetings at homes that are not on Romana property.
At Batey Santa Rita, we met 70-year-old Evi Cay. When he lived on Romana’s property, “one night Jesús came to visit and parked his vehicle at the side of my house,” he said. “My boss knew. The next day he asked me ‘who slept in your house?’”
After Cay moved out of the batey, that’s no longer a worry. Union coordinator Núñez says that while the challenges for workers of Haitian descent to obtain pensions and health care are bigger, it’s also a problem for Dominican citizens. The union has held hundreds of demonstrations since it was founded in 2009.
“We have to keep one foot in the batey and one in the capital,” Núñez tells the workers.