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finds bitterness in sugar workers’ lives

SAN PEDRO DE MACORIS, Dominican Republic With no hope of finding work in his native Haiti, like many before him and since, Lucner customized nfl jerseys Pierre migrated in 1978 to look for a job in the Dominican Republic’s sugar industry.

Now 59, he has for most of the past 35 years manually cut sugar cane with a machete, dangerous field work which damaged his sight and turned dennis rodman jersey his skin the creased texture of animal hide. government report released last week validates public submissions made by human rights activists about deplorable living and working conditions for undocumented Haitian migrant workers and other poor laborers in the Dominican Republic’s sugar cane fields. Department of Labor’s Office of Trade and Labor Affairs “found evidence of apparent and potential violations” of labor law nba jerseys cheap and workers’ rights called for in the free mlb jerseys cheap trade agreement signed in 2004 by the United States and the Dominican Republic. The labor department also announced last Friday the commitment of another $10 million over the next four years, bringing the amount invested since 1998 to $16 million, to reduce child labor, expand labor rights and improve working conditions. Labor Secretary Thomas Perez said in the report.

Among violations cited: poor working conditions related to minimum wage; 12 hour work days; seven day work weeks; and occupational safety and health concerns such as the lack of potable water, absence of a minimum work age and nba jerseys indications of forced labor, including unlawful overtime performed under threat of deportation.

The labor department, which published the report on its website last week, responded to complaints first brought in December 2011 by Catholic priest and worker advocate Christopher Hartley. custom nhl jerseys discount nhl jerseys His parish included dozens of cane field villages, known as bateyes, where Hartley served for nine years as a church pastor before his 2006 removal by the local bishop.

“Fair trade, the fight against modern day slavery and standing up for our commitments regarding fundamental human rights and freedoms are all issues of deep concern to the American public,cheap nfl authentic jerseys,” Hartley wrote in an email from Ethiopia, where he has worked since 2007. Department of Agriculture. Yet the Dominican Republic’s export quota to the United States is greater than the five other nations ?? Costa Rica, El Salvador,wholesale nhl jerseys 259, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua ?? that are part of the Dominican Republic Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA DR).

The Dominican government, prior to publication of the labor department’s report, responded to specific questions about Hartley’s submissions by calling them “allegations that are far removed from the actual status of workers in the agriculture sector and the protections afforded their rights. importer of sugar did respond Thursday to the report’s findings.

“Our company is committed to ethical sourcing, and we are spending time reviewing the Department of Labor’s findings concerning the Dominican Republic,” Brian O’Malley, president and chief executive of Domino Foods, Inc., said Thursday in a statement released by the Florida based company.

Domino Foods is part of ASR Group, the world’s largest sugar refining company, which imports sugar from many countries, including the Dominican Republic. Domino Foods is the sales and marketing company that sells sugar in the United States under the brand names Domino, C and Florida Crystals.

O’Malley said it is the company’s understanding that nba all star jerseys the report does not claim violations by the Dominican Republic of labor regulations in the CAFTA DR. government.”

Still, said Hartley ?? who remains widely vilified in the Dominican Republic ?? the labor department report is proof of migrant worker exploitation there and should serve as a reminder to Americans that the workers’ plight is not a distant phenomenon.

“I think most Americans would be ashamed to know at what price they put sugar in their coffee every morning,” he said. Sugar workers “are real people, real children, with hopes and dreams of a better future and of a dignified existence.”

The land of opportunity?

About 460,000 expatriated Haitians live in the Dominican Republic, according to the 2013 Dominican National Survey of Immigrants, released in July.

About half of Haitians in the Dominican Republic live largely in isolation in bateyes. They are clumps of company housing or free standing huts in the middle of cane fields, most often lacking adequate sanitation, electricity, potable water, schools and medical care. Homes surround a crude town square in which the only businesses are lottery booths and privately owned corner stores ?? known as colmados ?? stocked with liquor and food stuffs such as rice,nfl jerseys cheap 304,cheap nfl authentic jerseys, at which workers and their families run up mounting debts, according to the new Labor Department report. A ticketer labels the load. So in 12 hours of hard labor, the most productive worker will earn between $11 and $12, advocates say.

Even this process, worker advocates say, has been changed to benefit sugar companies and take from workers. Sugar fields are dotted with dozens of abandoned and rusting weigh stations, where wagons filled with cut cane would be hauled and the cane weighed at the end of the day. Now cane is weighed privately out of sight of the worker who cut it and first allowed to dry overnight, which makes the cane lighter and less costly.

“What is clear is that the worker has no guarantee that he will be paid fully for his work,” said Maria Victoria Mendez Castro, an attorney in San Pedro de Macoris and associate of Hartley’s.

Yet compared to Haiti, where adult unemployment estimates range from 67 percent to 75 percent, something is better than nothing.

Johnny Young, 28, left Haiti four years ago. On a mid July day he cut stalks and loaded them onto a wagon with Pierre Johnson, a man born of Haitian parents in the Dominican Republic. He has worked since he was 17.

“I am sorry I came. I am sorry I left my country,” Young said. “I left looking for work and a life. I found my death.”

Johnson is among the estimated 2.5 million of the 8.9 million people living in the Dominican Republic who do not have a birth certificate. Those without one are either Haitian by birth or the second or third generation children of at least one Haitian parent.

“I would like to learn to drive a truck some day,” said nfl jerseys china Johnson, ty lawson jersey 24,cheap nfl authentic jerseys, who has not attended school and cannot read or write. “I don’t have any paper.’