VZCZCXYZ0015
PP RUEHWEB

DE RUEHDG #3359/01 2992035
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 262035Z OCT 06
FM AMEMBASSY SANTO DOMINGO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 6514
INFO RUEHZA/WHA CENTRAL AMERICAN COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUEHC/DEPT OF LABOR WASHDC PRIORITY

UNCLAS SANTO DOMINGO 003359 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR WHA/CAR 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: ELAB DR PGOV SCUL SOCI
SUBJECT: A DOMINICAN STRIKE THREATENS THE OLDEST UNIVERSITY 
IN THE AMERICAS 
 
 
¶1.  SUMMARY: Employees of the Autonomous University of Santo 
Domingo (UASD), the largest university in the Dominican 
Republic, carried out a 48-hour strike this week in protest 
of a university-wide change in medical insurance providers. 
Workers resumed normal activity on Wednesday, but organizers 
threaten to recommence the strike and run it  indefinitely as 
early as next week if their demands are not met.  The 
university's rector has taken a hard line in opposing the 
organizers, accusing the employee unions of corruption and of 
misrepresenting their members.  END SUMMARY. 
 
¶2.  Employees of the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo 
(UASD), the largest university in the Dominican Republic, 
carried out a 48-hour strike this week in protest of a 
university-wide change in medical insurance providers. 
Significant labor unrest is not new to UASD; a popular 
newspaper counts 17 employee strikes or work stoppages there 
in recent years.  A previous strike over wage increases in 
March of this year paralyzed the university for 25 days 
during the academic year.  An agreement allowing the 
resumption of classes was eventually brokered, and it has 
held over the six months since. 
 
¶3.  The 48-hour stike carried out on October 23-24 threatens 
to unravel that tenuous peace.  The unrest results from the 
autonomous administration's decision to abandon the 
university-administered health care system in favor of a 
private policy.  The previous plan provided unlimited 
coverage for lab expenses, hospital visits and even 
medication costs for employees and their families, but 
covered only 80 percent of these expenses for professors. 
Only 17 clinics were approved for employees under the plan, 
and all of these were located in Santo Domingo itself, 
leaving the thousands of UASD employees in other parts of the 
country without clinics that would accept their insurance 
policies. 
 
¶4.  According to Juan Urena, President of the Association of 
University Employees (ASODEMU), the university did not 
consult its employees over the change in providers, a failure 
that which Urena believes was a violation of Dominican labor 
law.  His union has demanded a restoration of the old system, 
complaining that the new plan, contracted to Humano ARS, the 
largest private insurance provider in the country, was not 
assigned competitively. 
 
¶5.  Of Humano ARS's five corporate insurance plans, UASD 
chose the middle-of-the-road option in terms of quality and 
price.  The plan covers 80 percent of expenses such as 
emergency room visits and lab expenses.  It imposes on 
employees what ASODEMU says are unreasonable annual coverage 
limits (for example, USD $70 for psychiatric consultations, 
USD $150 for laboratory or x-ray expenses, and USD $18 for 
emergency medical expenses in non-affiliated clinics). 
However, a big advantage of the new plan over the old one is 
that employees now have 162 affiliated clinics - including 
many outside of Santo Domingo ) from which to choose. 
 
¶6.  University rector Roberto Reyna told a different story to 
an Embassy political officer.  He believes that most 
university employees and professors are pleased with the new 
policy despite its limitations because the previous one was 
so poorly managed that, in the end, most clinics had refused 
to accept it.   The lack of coverage limits and controls 
under the old system bred corruption, he says, with clinics 
ordering unneeded tests and patients selling unneeded 
medicines on the gray market.  Reyna says that the primary 
reason that unions are upset is because they took a 
substantial cut of those illicit earnings. 
 
¶7.  Reyna says that the current opposition originates from a 
hard-core group of a hundred or so leftists among the more 
than two thousand professors at the university.  This group 
regularly decries perceived efforts to privatize the UASD and 
sees the change in insurance providers as a step along the 
road to doing so. 
 
¶8.  The 48-hour strike appears to have been successful. 
Although administration officials had asked faculty and 
employees not to heed the call to strike, enough chose to do 
so that more than 23,000 students were kept from attending 
class.  It is difficult to reconcile this information with 
Reyna's assertion that strikers represent only a tiny 
minority of the university's staff. 
 
¶9.  The way forward is not clear. ASODEMU has called an 
assembly next Monday to discuss the issue; they threaten that 
unless progress is made in the meantime, their 
representatives could decide to resume strikes for an 
 
indefinite period. For his part, Reyna is digging in, saying 
that he is disgusted with the unions and is prepared to allow 
the current dispute to trigger what he called "a final 
confrontation." He has planned a variety of public 
appearances throughout the end of the week and the weekend in 
an effort to generate support for his position. 
 
¶10.  The Dominican government and UASD's governing University 
Council are not likely to permit the resumption of protracted 
work stoppages again this year.  The strikes in April 
seriously disrupted the university and generated a great deal 
of bad press.  In the end the Labor Ministry intervened to 
"encourage" settlement of that dispute; few would rule out 
the possibility of another such intervention recurring this 
time around. 
 
¶11.  Allegations of corruption and mismanagement in labor 
unions have shaped public perception around the country.  In 
a Gallup poll conducted earlier this year, labor unions came 
in second-to-Iast of 13 institutions measured in a survey of 
public confidence. 
 
¶12.  Drafted by Ted Bryan. 
 
¶13.  This report and extensive other material can be 
consulted on our SIPRNET site, 
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/wha/santodomingo/  
 
BULLEN