No hay azúcar sin cañeros. There is no sugar without sugarcane workers. People across the United States can thank Haitian workers who endure grueling conditions in Caribbean sugarcane fields for much of the sugar we consume. Many of these cane workers, known as cañeros, labor in the fields of the Dominican Republic under unfathomable conditions for private sugar producers. Among those producers is the notorious Central Romana Corporation Limited (Central Romana), a Dominican company owned in large part by the billionaire Fanjul brothers of Florida. The Fanjuls’ main holding company, American Sugar Refining, Inc. (ASR Group International, Inc.) is the largest refiner and marketer of cane sugar in the world. ASR Group owns staple household sugar brands Domino Sugar, C&H Sugar, and Florida Crystals, and supplies sugar to Hershey.
Three weeks ago, through a Withhold Release Order (WRO), US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) began blocking imports of raw sugar and sugar-based products from Central Romana’s Dominican fields, citing evidence of forced labor. Central Romana must now work with CBP to develop a plan for remediation–and then actually remediate the harms CBP identified in its WRO–to regain access to the US market.
The sugarcane workers’ union, the Union de Trabajadores Cañeros (UTC), welcomed the WRO and is calling for additional sanctions under domestic law to push Central Romana’s hand to address its role in the human rights crisis in Dominican sugar. Last week, more than 200 cañeros protested before the Ministerio de Trabajo (Ministry of Labor), calling for action on the human rights situation at Central Romana in light of the WRO.
This post highlights worker support of the US import ban on sugar from Central Romana in the Dominican Republic and workers’ demands for the company.
The UTC is the resilient sector-wide sugarcane workers’ union in the Dominican Republic. The union formed in 2009 with the goal of securing pensions for aging cane workers–many of whom work through their 70s and 80s–but quickly expanded its mission to address the wider range of unremitting harms cañeros and their families suffer. Despite indications of near constant surveillance, threats, and intimidation, the UTC is present across the vast cane fields and dilapidated batey work camps of Central Romana and other sugarcane producers on the eastern side of the island colonially named Hispaniola.
Most cañeros at Central Romana are undocumented, lack employment contracts, work 14-hour shifts at extremely low wages (about 200 Dominican pesos, or $3-4 USD per ton of cane), and do not have access to medical care. In addition, they are subjected to hazardous working conditions leading many to sustain illness and injury, live in deteriorating company-provided housing, and, if they object to Central Romana’s labor practices, risk retaliatory firings and evictions.
In a recent conversation, UTC Coordinator Jesús Nuñez said: “There has to be an intervention at Central Romana. In a place that is modern, touristy, and industrialized there cannot be a population that is enslaved, surveilled, and abused.” “We’re on board with the sanctions,” he said, “but they can’t be lifted without response to our demands.”
The UTC is not to be confused with the Sindicato Unido de Trabajadores, the company union for which cañeros pay dues automatically deducted from their paychecks and whose members reportedly take part in the comprehensive worker surveillance at Central Romana, paying close attention to workers who meet in groups without first obtaining “permission” from human resources. (The company union reportedly assists Central Romana’s security forces with keeping tabs on workers. While the vast majority of Central Romana’s bateyes have no electricity, running water, or toilets, each batey is staffed by at least one company guard assigned to keep watch on the workers and their families.) Central Romana does not recognize the UTC but publicizes its negotiations with the company union, whose leaders are reportedly paid much higher salaries than cañeros.
For example, the company is touting a recent agreement signed with the company union after the WRO. Cañeros report that the agreement, which includes a significant pay raise for Dominican workers at Central Romana who do not cut cane, does not apply to cañeros who are largely undocumented and not formally classified as employees, but rather as “day laborers.”
The UTC is leveraging the recent attention on Central Romana, brought about by the WRO, to advance its demands for improvements that will actually benefit cañeros. Although UTC members are calling for pensions and a shorter work day, they insist that comprehensive “humanization” of the workplace is in order. “Humanization” will require government action, especially around protection of undocumented workers, but cañero demands that must be addressed by Central Romana include the following:
Providing cañeros with work contracts that are in line with Dominican law and international labor standards;
Eight hour work days;
No more forced evictions;
Decent housing with basic services;
Access to healthcare;
Accommodations for cañeros who have become sick and/or disabled as a result of cane work; and
Termination of the guardia campestre (paramilitary style guard system).
With mounting economic and political pressure from the United States, all eyes are on Central Romana and the Fanjuls. The stakes are high and time is short for them to step up to the plate and center the dignity, health, and welfare of the cañeros on whom they depend.
This post is also available in Spanish.
Avery Kelly is a Staff Attorney at Corporate Accountability Lab.
