VZCZCXYZ0000
PP RUEHWEB

DE RUEHDG #2810/01 2412112
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 292112Z AUG 06
FM AMEMBASSY SANTO DOMINGO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 5971
INFO RUEHZA/WHA CENTRAL AMERICAN COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUEHPU/AMEMBASSY PORT AU PRINCE PRIORITY 4326
RUEHC/DEPT OF LABOR WASHDC PRIORITY

UNCLAS SANTO DOMINGO 002810 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR WHA/CAR, DRL 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: EAGR ELAB PHUM SMIG KOCI DR HA
SUBJECT: IMPROVEMENTS ON DOMINICAN SUGAR PLANTATIONS: THE 
 
 
VICINI PERSPECTIVE 
 
¶1. SUMMARY:  Observations from visits in March and on August 
25 indicate that the Vicini consortium, one of the two 
largest private producers of sugar in the Dominican Republic, 
has substantially improved working conditions associated with 
its Cristobal Colon plantations.  These changes come amidst 
company efforts to automate operations, which if successful 
could reduce the consortium's seasonal workforce from 1,800 
to 300 within five years.  Improvements include company 
action to discontinue annual importation of trafficked 
workers from Haiti, to stop using child labor, to allow 
employees the freedom to leave their jobs, and to replace 
substandard living barracks with more humane residences. 
Increased media coverage of the plight of Dominican sugar 
cane workers and government crackdowns on employment of 
migrant workers could be part of the impetus behind some of 
the changes.  While these improvements are significant, and 
possibly temporary, deficiencies remain.   END SUMMARY. 
 
 
THE VICINI CONSORTIUM 
- - - - - - - - - - - 
 
¶2.   The Vicini Group is owned and controlled by the Vicini 
family, one of the wealthiest in the Dominican Republic.  The 
company is the second-largest private producer of sugar in 
the Dominican Republic, and is responsible for around 13% of 
the sugar produced in the country; the largest producer, 
Central Romana Corporation, is responsible for 74%.  The 
Vicini family has owned and operated the Cristobal Colon 
sugar plantation since 1890. 
 
 
BIG SUGAR'S RELIANCE ON MIGRANT WORKERS 
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
 
¶3.   Like other producers in the Dominican sugar industry, 
the Vicini Group has traditionally relied heavily on seasonal 
migrant workers from Haiti to cut and harvest the sugar cane 
it grows.  Such workers have played a vital role in Dominican 
sugar production since the 19th century, but it was Trujillo 
who negotiated and signed the first formal bilateral labor 
contract with Haiti in 1952, under which 16,500 workers were 
recruited and brought into the country to cut cane.  The 
practice of recruiting Haitian workers under this system 
continued until the fall of Duvalier in 1986.   Since then, 
independent agents called "buscones" have informally managed 
the recruiting of Haitian cane workers smuggled into the 
country.  That these schemes can be orchestrated on such a 
large scale is a testament not only to the corruption that 
has plagued Dominican military and immigration institutions, 
but also to the political and economic significance of the 
sugar industry in the country. 
 
¶4.  Since the 1890s Haitian migrant workers have been housed 
in "bateyes" (company towns or barracks), which tend to be 
situated next to the sugar plantations.  Theoretically, 
workers remain on the bateyes only for the six months of 
sugar harvesting season, but in practice many migrants remain 
year-round, in part because Haitians who leave the relative 
security of the bateyes subject themselves to police 
harassment and deportation.  Many workers are joined by their 
wives and children.  The majority of workers on bateyes 
typically lack such basic services as electricity and running 
water, living in much the same way as they did a hundred 
years ago, though Vicini workers apparently have access to 
running water.  Traditionally, bateyes have been largely 
isolated from Dominican society and ignored by the Dominican 
government, which has permitted them to operate in open 
violation of labor and immigration regulations. 
 
¶5.  Until recently, cane-cutting operations had changed 
little over 70 years.  Cane cutters typically work in teams 
of six men to cut the cane, load it onto ox-drawn carts and 
haul it to central weighing stations.  Cane cutters are paid 
based on the weight of the cane they harvest.  During a March 
2006 visit, plantation manager Camos de Moya told Consul 
General Clyde Bishop that an experienced cane cutter can earn 
up to 500 pesos (US $15) per day -- about 5 times the 
nationally mandated wage for agricultural workers.  De Moya 
appears to have been exaggerating.  Vicini Group workers are 
paid RD 86 (US $2.50) per ton of sugar cane processed 
manually, and only the strongest workers are able to process 
more than two tons in a day.  Embassy political officers 
verified this estimate during a recent visit to the site, by 
inspecting pay stubs of a number of workers.  Most workers 
typically earn the equivalent of between US $2.50 and $4.00 
per 12-hour workday, out of which they must pay a percentage 
to the company for Dominican social security and pension 
 
funds -- money, they say, they never see again. 
 
¶6.   During the six-month off-season workers who remain on 
the plantation receive far less.  The company provides them 
with some employment, but workers are often unable to earn 
even a dollar a day through the tasks they are given.  During 
the August 2006 visit, at around 2 p.m. on a weekday, 
political officers asked workers and their children what they 
had eaten during the day.  The answer: "Nothing, because when 
there is no work, there is no food." 
 
 
HUMAN RIGHTS COMPLAINTS 
- - - - - - - - - - - - 
 
¶7.  Representatives of human rights organizations say the de 
facto autonomy of Dominican sugar producers has created sugar 
fiefdoms where human rights violations are committed with 
impunity.  Organizations say that Haitian workers are 
trafficked under false offers of work in different sectors, 
only to be forced into cane cutting upon arrival; that child 
labor is regularly used in harvesting activities; that 
medical attention is limited or unavailable; that living and 
working conditions are dangerously unsanitary; that workers 
are kept against their will in slavery-like conditions, and 
are punished for attempting to escape; and that basic housing 
and nutritional needs are not met for workers in the bateyes. 
 
¶8.  Over the past five years, one activist in particular -- 
Father Christopher Hartley, working with the backing of the 
Catholic Church -- has insistently approached the Vicini 
Group and others with complaints of human rights violations. 
Father Hartley is a dual-national Spanish/British Catholic 
priest assigned to minister to the communities in the 
agricultural areas of San Pedro de Macoris, both those on the 
Vicini holdings and others on nearby government-owned 
holdings.  To the consternation of the Vicini family, his 
efforts to focus attention on the plight of migrant workers 
have borne fruit: three documentaries on the subject have 
been released (Vicini representatives deny that footage was 
filmed on Vicini property, in contradiction of Hartley's 
claims), and five more are in the works; a major big-screen 
production on the sugar sector starring Jodie Foster is on 
the horizon; the State Department's Human Rights Report has 
commented about Vicini company practices; and scores of 
newspaper articles and NGO reports have cited Father Hartley 
as a major source.  Father Hartley is now a well-known public 
figure in the Dominican Republic, sufficiently controversial 
and threatened that the government provides him armed guards 
for his security. 
 
 
PLANS TO AUTOMATE OPERATIONS 
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
 
¶9. In March 2006, Consul-General Bishop visited the Cristobal 
Colon plantation at the invitation of Felipe Vicini.  During 
that visit Mr. Vicini explained that his company had recently 
instituted a policy barring the hiring from Haiti of migrant 
workers.  Vicini said the firm had determined that long-term 
workers are more productive than short-term ones; he conceded 
that international human rights concerns also played a role. 
A recently announced government decision to stop allowing 
owners of sugar plantations to hire new workers from Haiti 
could be another factor driving the company's decision. 
Carlos Amarante Baret, Director of the Dominican Immigration 
Agency, announced the new policy in January, but it remains 
unclear whether it has been enforced. 
 
¶10.  Regardless of its rationale, the effects of this new 
policy were evident during an August 2006 visit where Embassy 
political officers visited the facility in the company of 
Father Hartley.  Hartley said that the 2005-2006 harvest 
season was the first in memory without the arrival of 
thousands of Haitian migrant workers, many trafficked.  The 
absence of new Haitian migrant workers was independently 
confirmed by current batey residents.  Hartley strongly 
approved of this change, noting that if this policy continued 
then the Vicini Group would be obliged to automate its 
operations further. 
 
¶11.  Automation appears to be exactly what management has in 
mind.  As Felipe Vicini explained to the Consul General, a 
single mechanical cane harvester replaces 250 cane cutters. 
With mechanization Vicini hopes to increase production levels 
significantly while reducing production costs from $0.12 a 
pound to $0.10.  This would follow the lead of La Romana 
Corporation, whose operations are already 80% automated. 
 
Vicini expects automation to reduce the seasonal workforce 
from 1,800 to 300 within five years, eliminating 19 of the 22 
bateyes in the plantation.  Vicini said that the 
consolidation of the bateyes would allow the company to 
provide better housing facilities, effective medical 
attention and schooling to children of the long-term 
residents.  He claims that, over the long-term, these 
consolidated bateyes would become incorporated legal 
municipalities. 
 
 
OTHER IMPROVEMENTS 
- - - - - - - - - - 
 
¶12.  Father Hartley was pleased to discuss a number of other 
improvements he had witnessed over the past year.  He said 
that child labor was now strictly prohibited on the company's 
facilities.  He saw this as a fundamental change from 
previous years, when children were routinely called upon to 
assist in planting responsibilities.  During the August 
visit, signs outlawing child labor were posted throughout the 
plantation, even though most migrant workers cannot read or 
write. 
 
¶13.  Another major improvement was new and improved housing 
for batey residents.  Consul General Bishop noted relatively 
clean and orderly housing on the site, most of it built over 
the past year.  Previous barracks-style residences were 
dirty, unsanitary, and small, and multiple families were 
routinely forced to share the same quarters.  Those 
facilities were a frequent target of criticism, and were 
singled out by the Ambassador during his 2003 visit to the 
premises.  They have now been completely bulldozed and the 
debris has been removed from the plantation.  Similar 
barracks are visible on government-owned property and Hartley 
says such conditions exist on the La Romana plantations. 
¶14.  Batey workers on Vicini operations also now have the 
freedom to terminate their employment whenever they choose to 
do so.  Previously, those who wished to quit were not allowed 
to leave their jobs.  Those who attempted to sneak away were 
often caught; Hartley says they were punished with beatings 
or forced deportation. 
 
 
DEMANDS UNADDRESSED 
- - - - - - - - - - 
 
¶15.  Father Hartley continues to emphasize three key unmet 
demands:  First, that workers be provided with electricity. 
Second, that workers be provided a job contract which clearly 
states the conditions of their employment (this is also a 
requirement under Dominican law).  Third, that the company 
provide supervision at each of the weighing stations. 
Hartley says that fraud is a huge concern at the weighing 
stations, and that workers are often shorted in the 
assessment of their tonnage and underpaid for their work. 
 
¶16.  Working with local attorneys, Hartley is preparing the 
groundwork to launch class-action lawsuits demanding not only 
written work contracts, but also accountability for medical 
insurance deductions, in the event that formal administrative 
appeals fail to resolve these issues. 
 
¶17. (Drafted by Alexander T. Bryan and Alex Sokoloff. 
 
¶18. (U) This report and extensive other material can be 
consulted on our SIPRNET site, 
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/wha/santodomingo/  . 
BULLEN