For decades, Central Romana’s sugarcane workers in the Dominican Republic have labored under dangerous conditions, often working thirteen hour days in the hot sun, cutting sugarcane with machetes, and earning poverty wages. Most workers live in Central Romana’s bateyes (essentially company towns) in dilapidated homes, many of which do not have running water or electricity. Moreover, most of Central Romana’s workers are Haitian or of Haitian descent. Although many were born in bateyes, they often lack documentation and regular immigration status – a result of discriminatory laws. Central Romana has exploited their workers’ vulnerability to keep them in conditions of forced labor.
The egregious working and living conditions in Central Romana’s bateyes and sugarcane fields – amounting to forced labor – have been an open secret for decades, yet change has been slow to arrive. Meanwhile, Central Romana has earned large profits in the US market. As one strategy to push for change in the industry, the Law Office of Robert T. Vance Jr recently filed a petition with Customs and Border Protection (CBP) under Section 307 of the Tariff Act of 1930. Section 307, which prohibits the importation of all goods produced with forced or prison labor into the United States. We urge CBP to take swift action and implement a Withhold Release Order immediately, blocking all sugar and sugar products produced by Central Romana from entering the US market.
Central Romana and the Fanjul Corporation
Central Romana is the largest sugar company and landowner in the Dominican Republic, with 166,000 acres of sugarcane under cultivation. It is a key part of the Fanjul Corporation, a Florida-based company that is the largest producer of refined sugar in the US, selling sugar under the brand names Domino Sugar, Florida Crystals, C&H, and others. (It also sells sugar to Hershey.) Led by brothers Alfonso and Jose Pepe Fanjul, the Fanjul Corporation and its subsidiaries produce over 7 million tons of sugar each year.
Central Romana is enormously powerful in the Dominican Republic and has been called “a government within a government.” As journalist Sandy Tolan explains, “[t]he wealth that Central Romana throws off gives it a kind of political and economic autonomy in the Dominican Republic; essentially it’s a state within a state, with deep ties to the country’s governing and commercial elite.” This power is visible in the myriad ways that Central Romana controls its vulnerable workforce: through “the company supervisors, armed guards, and officials from an unrepresentative union” who reportedly monitor and intimidate workers and outsiders alike to stop them from talking to each other; by providing run-down living quarters for their workers – houses with no electricity when there is otherwise “near-universal access to electricity” in the country; and through the company’s exploitation of a vulnerable population of workers who are Haitian or of Haitian descent, and in many cases undocumented. Although many workers were born in the Dominican Republic, they are not entitled to citizenship and many remain undocumented with a precarious legal status. This makes them especially vulnerable, and many are terrified of being deported back to a country they have never been to or haven’t been to in decades. Other workers continue to cut sugarcane long into old age, unable to access social security and pensions they paid into for decades.
The 307 Petition Against Central Romana
In 2022, the Law Offices of Robert T Vance Jr filed a petition with Customs and Border Protection under Section 307 of the Tariff Act of 1930. Section 307 prohibits companies from importing into the US any goods produced with forced or prison labor.
There is evidence that Central Romana uses forced labor to harvest and cut sugarcane. The following nine indicia of forced labor under the International Labor Organization’s eleven indicators of forced labor have been found in the bateyes and fields:
Abuse of vulnerability
Deception
Restriction of movement
Isolation
Intimidation and threats
Withholding of wages
Retention of identity documents
Abusive working and living conditions
Excessive overtime
To remedy the current situation and be allowed to import sugar and sugar products into the US, Central Romana – in some cases in tandem with the Dominican government – must take the following steps. These eleven steps are essential to change how Central Romana treats its workers, provide remedy for workers, and ensure that the company does not revert to its current way of working.
Central Romana must improve working conditions, including by providing workers with a living wage and written contracts, following all local labor laws, and providing workers with appropriate protective equipment.
Central Romana should not engage in any form of retaliation against workers, human rights defenders, or others.
All households within the bateyes must be provided access to the electrical grid.
All households within the bateyes must be provided with clean, running water.
Workers and their families must have adequate housing and sanitation.
Central Romana must not engage children – anyone under the age of 18 – in hazardous work or hire children during the school day.
Workers of Haitian descent and foreign workers must be provided with documentation and regularization of their legal status.
Workers must have access to adequate health care.
Workers who have paid into social security and pensions must receive it.
Central Romana must provide public-facing supply chain transparency.
An external commission must be established to carry out an inspection of Central Romana’s workplaces every three (3) months for labor and human rights violations.
These steps are essential to ensure that workers in Central Romana’s bateyes are not working in conditions of forced labor.
Next Steps
The US Government has stated that it is concerned about the situation in Central Romana’s bateyes. In the past few weeks, a Congressional delegation visited the Dominican Republic and the US and the Dominican Republic recently established a Technical Working Group to Improve Labor Law Enforcement in the Dominican Sugar Sector. We hope that this renewed focus can lead to real change in the industry, and we urge CBP to issue a WRO in the near future to further pressure Central Romana to end its exploitative practices.
Allie Brudney is a Staff Attorney at Corporate Accountability Lab.
