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TITLE: DOMINICAN REPUBLIC HUMAN RIGHTS PRACTICES, 1993
DATE: JANUARY 31, 1994
AUTHOR: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
The Dominican Republic is a constitutional democracy with a
popularly elected President and a bicameral Congress. In
practice, the system heavily favors the executive branch,
headed by six-term President Joaquin Balaguer. The Supreme
Court heads an only nominally independent judiciary whose
members are appointed by the Senate. Political parties
representing the ideological spectrum from left to right freely
participate in elections.
The National Police (PN), the National Department of
Investigations (DNI), the National Drug Control Directorate
(DNCD), and the military (army, air force, and navy) form the
security services. The PN has general investigative and
principal arrest authority. The military services have
investigative and general arrest authority for armed forces
personnel and may arrest suspects apprehended by military
patrols. The DNI is the principal national investigative body
for national security concerns and also possesses arrest
authority. The DNCD, a narcotics law enforcement agency formed
in 1988, brings under a single authority elements of the PN and
military services. All security services are under control of
the Government and are generally responsive to civilian
authority, but some members of these organizations continued to
be responsible for human rights abuses.
Once heavily dependent on sugar, the Dominican economy has
grown more diverse; tourism and export processing zones (EPZ's)
are now major sources of income and employment. The economy
showed the benefits of reforms initiated in 1990; inflation was
reduced and real economic growth was expected to be from 1.5 to
3 percent in 1993. State-owned firms such as the State Sugar
Council (CEA), the Consortium of State Enterprises (CORDE), and
the Dominican Electricity Corporation (CDE) continue to be
heavily involved in the economy, and the financial and
administrative difficulties of these firms still impede
economic growth.
Principal human rights problems included continuing instances
of police killings of civilians, arbitrary detention and
beatings of suspects, security services' refusal to obey
judicial orders, judicial corruption, court backlogs and
maladministration, and abuses of Haitian migrant workers. The
extent of antiunion discrimination in the EPZ's gained
increased public attention, while the condition of itinerant
Haitian workers in the sugar industry continued to show
improvement from previous years.
RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
Section 1 Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including
Freedom from:
a. Political and Other Extrajudicial Killing
No political killings occurred in 1993, but there were several
instances of extrajudicial killings by the police. Police use
of excessive force led to at least nine civilian deaths. At
least six other civilians were killed in personal disputes with
low-ranking police personnel, with intoxication or romantic
interest as the typical causes in these deaths. A police
tribunal convicted a former police lieutenant and two former
patrolmen on homicide charges and sentenced them to 5 years in
prison for their role in one of the nine deaths. The cases
involving the other eight deaths reportedly were pending before
civilian courts at year's end.
Among other cases heard by police tribunals in 1993, a DNCD
agent received a 15-year sentence for voluntary manslaughter in
a September 1992 shooting, and a police corporal received a
15-year sentence (reduced to 5 years on appeal) for fatally
wounding a fleeing suspect during an April 1992 raid on a
gambling ring. Police tribunals also sentenced two
ex-patrolmen to 15 years and 10 years, respectively, in prison
in connection with two incidents in which they shot and killed
other police personnel.
Police personnel discharged for their involvement in deaths in
1993 were reportedly awaiting trial in the civilian court
system, a process which will likely take years. Although a
civilian court dismissed charges against an ex-police
lieutenant involved in killing lawyer Rafael Ortiz during
September 1992 antigovernment protests, the police have refused
to release the ex-lieutenant. Two ex-police majors accused of
misconduct in the same case remain fugitives; the ex-patrolmen
and civilian informant charged in the actual shooting remain in
prison awaiting trial on charges of homicide.
b. Disappearance
There were no known cases of politically motivated
disappearances.
c. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading
Treatment or Punishment
Torture and other forms of physical abuse are illegal under
law. There continued to be instances of security service
personnel engaging in beatings of detainees, although some
monitors report a decline in incidence of abuse.
Cases in which police officials received little or no punishment
for abuse continued in 1993. In one instance, a National Police
lieutenant colonel accused of running a torture ring in police
headquarters was relieved of his job in March 1992 but selected
for advanced training before the charges were formally
dismissed in January 1993. The National Police appealed the
ruling, and the case remains pending before a higher court. In
another case, on September 29, a police tribunal sentenced a
police captain to a 1-month suspension without pay and an
ex-police captain to 6 months in prison in connection with the
torture of a part-time university professor in January 1992.
In other instances police tribunals convicted for physical
abuse an ex-patrolman who received a prison sentence of
5 months, a corporal sentenced to 2 months in prison, a
patrolman who was given 5 months, and two patrolmen who
received 2-month sentences in two separate incidents.
Approximately 60 percent of cases brought before police
tribunals resulted in convictions; the figure in civilian
courts is significantly lower.
Prisons are overcrowded, and health and sanitary conditions are
substandard. Some prison personnel reportedly engage in
extortion and other corrupt activities, and most prisoners find
it necessary to rely on relatives or their own finances in
order to be fed adequately. Medical care suffers from a lack
of supplies. In some instances, minors have been incarcerated
in adult prisons (see Section 5).
d. Arbitrary Arrest, Detention, or Exile
The Constitution stipulates that suspects may be detained for a
maximum of 48 hours for investigation before arraignment, after
which they must be charged or released. However, in special
circumstances, suspects may be detained for longer periods with
the approval of the prosecutor's office. Security services
officials continued routinely to violate constitutional
provisions by detaining suspects for "investigation" or
"interrogation" beyond the prescribed 48-hour limit. Law
enforcement authorities traditionally detain all suspects and
witnesses to a crime, and use the investigative process to
determine who are innocent and merit release and who should
continue to be held.
Military officers occasionally violated legal provisions
against military detention of civilians. Despite announcements
to the contrary, the DNCD and National Police continued to
engage in indiscriminate roundups of people in poorer
neighborhoods. In 1993 these roundups were increasingly
targeted at drug trafficking, and most detainees were released
after several hours in custody. The security services also
continued occasionally to detain relatives of suspected
criminals with the aim of forcing the surrender of suspects;
most of these cases occurred when relatives were present at the
scene of a search that uncovered narcotics.
The National Police and the DNCD persisted in their refusals to
release some prisoners and detainees who had been granted
judicial release orders. Law enforcement and other
governmental authorities cited judicial corruption as the
justification for this noncompliance. In some of these cases
involving narcotics or terrorist-related crimes, it appeared
that evidence merited pursuing the cases in the judicial
system. In other cases, prosecutors unsuccessfully appealed
the judicial decisions to the Supreme Court so there was no
further recourse available to block the release orders. The
54 prisoners in such circumstances include Luis Lizardo
Cabrera, the subject of three separate judicial release orders
since his detention as a suspect in the 1989 bombing of a
U.S.-Dominican Binational Center which killed a 1-year-old girl.
No exile of citizens took place in 1993.
e. Denial of Fair Public Trial
Although the Constitution stipulates an independent judiciary,
in practice interference occurs from other public and private
entitites, including the executive branch. The court system
includes a Supreme Court, an appellate court, and courts of the
first instance. The Senate appoints judges at all levels.
Their terms of office correspond roughly to those of the
President and other elected officials. A newly elected Senate
can either replace the judges or reconfirm them, and may remove
or transfer them by a majority vote. Critics credibly charge
that senators customarily nominate judges on political grounds
rather than for their competence as jurists. These same
critics also fault some prosecutors and judges for corruption,
incompetence, and a lack of effort. Administrative supervision
of judges and prosecutors by the authorities in charge of these
bodies is poor to nonexistent.
The Constitution provides for public trial, and court-appointed
lawyers normally are provided at public expense to indigents in
felony criminal cases, but rarely in criminal misdemeanor
cases. The judicial process is plagued by chronic delays; of
the penal system's approximately 11,000 detainees, only about
10 percent have been convicted. Although the right to judicial
determination of the legality of detention exists, pretrial
detention is legal and commonly employed. This custom, coupled
with a lack of administrative and financial support for the
system, creates a major backlog of cases, which in turn causes
suspects to suffer long periods of pretrial detention that
sometimes exceed possible criminal penalties.
Though the judicial system has provisions for a suspect's
release on bail while awaiting trial, in practice, release on
bail usually signifies dismissal of a case as the judiciary
rarely, if ever, continues proceedings in such instances.
There are no special courts for political or national security
cases, and civilians may not be tried by a military court.
Members of the armed forces and police are under the
jurisdiction of military or police courts but are frequently
remanded to the civilian court system after review by a
military or police board.
The Dominican Republic has no political prisoners.
f. Arbitrary Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, or
Correspondence
There were no credible reports of arbitrary governmental
interference with the private lives of persons or families.
Constitutional safeguards against invasion of the home are
generally observed. A residence may not be searched except in
the presence of a prosecutor or an assistant prosecutor, except
in cases of "hot pursuit" or instances where there is probable
cause to believe that a crime is in progress.
Section 2 Respect for Civil Liberties, Including:
a. Freedom of Speech and Press
The law provides for these liberties and they are respected in
practice. Dominicans of all political persuasions exercise
freedom of speech. The numerous privately owned radio and
television stations broadcast all political points of view.
The Government controls one television station but no major
newspapers. Newspapers freely reflect independent and
opposition points of view. Although journalists operate in a
relatively tolerant environment, a certain amount of
self-censorship exists for fear of offending prominent
persons. In April the Government refused to bestow the "best
novel of the year" award on the work chosen by an independent
selection committee; this refusal stemmed from the perception
that the book was an allegorical parody of the President.
Economic considerations also inhibit free expression, as all
the principal media outlets are owned by powerful economic
consortiums or wealthy, influential families. In addition,
some journalists solicit, or are responsive to, bribes in order
to generate reports.
Public and private universities enjoy broad academic freedom.
The main public university, the Autonomous University of Santo
Domingo, with approximately 35,000 students, has no restrictions
on enrollment and maintains a policy of nonintervention (other
than curriculum development) in classroom affairs. The
Government exerts no control over private universities except
for the preservation of standards, and teachers are free to
espouse their own theories without government oversight.
b. Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association
The Constitution grants these freedoms, which are commonly
respected in practice. Outdoor public marches and meetings
require government permits, which are usually granted.
Professional organizations of lawyers, doctors, teachers, and
others function freely and can maintain relations with
counterpart international bodies of diverse political
philosophies.
c. Freedom of Religion
The Constitution prohibits discrimination on religious grounds
and the Government has not interfered with the free practice of
religion. There exist no religious requirements to hold public
office, no restrictions on the practice of religious faiths,
and no social discrimination based on religion. The Dominican
population is predominantly Roman Catholic; several
non-Catholic faiths have well established churches in the
country.
d. Freedom of Movement Within the Country, Foreign
Travel, Emigration, and Repatriation
Dominican citizens face no unusual legal restrictions on travel
within or outside the country. During a week-long period in
October, the Government ordered Dominican military personnel to
repatriate undocumented Haitian nationals. The forced
repatriations occurred in various regions of the country; human
rights groups estimated that between several hundred and a few
thousand Haitians were forcibly repatriated to Haiti. Local
authorities in border regions have also undertaken on their own
recognizance to repatriate small numbers of illegal Haitians,
but these instances are difficult to document. Charges of
forced recruitment and detention of Haitians to work on sugar
plantations diminished in comparison with earlier years (see
Section 6.c.).
Since the 1991 coup in Haiti, the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) accorded refugee status to
1,341 Haitians who fled to the Dominican Republic. Although
the Government began processing petitions for Dominican
recognition of the refugee status of the UNHCR wards in 1991,
only 107 Haitians have been granted such status. Contingency
planning for refugees has not developed very far since then.
Section 3 Respect for Political Rights: The Right of Citizens
to Change Their Government
The Dominican Republic is a constitutional democracy. The
President, all 150 members of the Senate and Chamber of
Deputies, and the mayors and city councilmen of over 100
municipalities are freely elected every 4 years by secret
ballot and universal suffrage (except for active duty military
and police, who may not vote). The President appoints the
governors of the 29 provinces. The nation enjoys a functioning
multiparty system. Opposition groups of the left, right, and
center operate openly.
In practice, the President dominates public policy formulation
and implementation, exercising his authority through use of the
veto, discretion to act by decree, and influence as the leader
of his party. The Congress traditionally has had limited
powers and seldom disapproves actions by the executive branch,
but it provides an open forum for the free exchange of views
and debate. The governing party holds a majority in the Senate
(16 of 30 seats) and has a plurality (42 of 120 seats) in the
Chamber of Deputies.
Women and minorities confront no legal or practical impediments
to political participation. Eight of the country's 29
governors, 4 Cabinet-level executive branch officials, and 14
of the 120 Congressional Deputies are female.
Section 4 Governmental Attitude Regarding International and
Nongovernmental Investigation of Alleged Violations
of Human Rights
Nongovernmental human rights organizations operate freely
without government interference. In addition to the Dominican
Human Rights Committee, several other Haitian, church, and
labor groups exist. The Dominican Republic has been slow to
acknowledge requests for information and criticism from some
international human rights organizations. The Government took
note of criticism by the U.N. Human Rights Commission (UNHRC)
at its March 1993 session but did not address the issues or
take any action on them. There were no instances of killings,
beatings, or harassment of human rights monitors in 1993.
Section 5 Discrimination Based on Race, Sex, Religion,
Disability, Language, or Social Status
Women
Discrimination based on race and sex is prohibited by law.
However, women traditionally have not shared equal social and
economic status or opportunity with men, and men hold the
overwhelming majority of leadership positions in all sectors.
In many instances, women are paid less than men in jobs of
equal content and equal skill level. According to one study,
women are the head of the household in 37 percent of the
families in the capital city of Santo Domingo. Divorce is
easily obtainable by either spouse, and women can hold property
in their own names apart from their husbands. Legislative
proposals to modify women's status under the Civil and Penal
Code remained stalled in the Congress at year's end.
A study by one women's group reported 280 cases of violence
against women from November 1990 to November 1992, based upon
media reports and national police statistics. Of these,
64 percent were homicides, indicating that physical abuse cases
were greatly underreported. No systematic studies exist on the
extent of sexual harassment, an issue especially relevant to
the export processing zones (EPZ's), which have a predominantly
female work force. An undetermined number of Dominican women
are victims of rings which smuggle Third World women to Europe
to work as prostitutes in conditions rife with exploitation and
mistreatment. The Government periodically prosecutes organized
alien smuggling rings (commonly on document falsification
charges), but enforcement is hindered by corruption and
reluctance to restrict the emigration of Dominicans.
Children
The Government's professed commitment to child welfare has not
been supported by financial and intellectual resources.
Despite the existence of government institutions dedicated to
child welfare, the principal burden is carried by private
social and religious organizations. The most serious abuse
involving children is the failure of the justice system to
respect the status of minors in criminal cases. Especially in
narcotics cases, minors are sometimes treated as adults and
incarcerated in prisons rather than juvenile detention
centers. In 1993 the media widely publicized several sexual
abuse cases involving minors; however, the lack of statistics
makes it difficult to determine if such crimes are increasing.
According to local monitors, the incidence of child abuse is
underreported owing to continuing societal reluctance to
overcome traditional beliefs that family problems should be
dealt with inside the family. In 1993 sporadic instances of
Haitian child labor on sugar plantations continued to occur
(see Section 6.d.). A new Minor's Code was approved by the
lower chamber of the Congress but stalled and was not passed by
the Senate.
National/Racial/Ethnic Minorities
Dominicans are strongly prejudiced against Haitians, many of
whom are illegal immigrants, and who constitute a significant
percentage of the unskilled manual labor force. This often
translates into discrimination against those with darker skin.
The Government has not acknowledged the existence of this
discrimination nor made any efforts to combat it.
Credible sources charge that a long-standing government
practice is to obstruct the recognition of Haitians born in the
Dominican Republic as Dominican citizens. Lack of
documentation also sometimes hinders the ability of children of
Haitian descent to attend school; some parents fail to seek
documentation for fear of themselves being deported.
People with Disabilities
Disabled persons encounter discrimination in employment and the
provision of other services. Law No. 21-91, which took effect
in September 1991, mandates certain provisions for physical
access for the disabled for all new public and private
buildings.
Section 6 Worker Rights
a. The Right of Association
The Constitution provides for the freedom to organize labor
unions and also for the rights of workers to strike and (and
for private sector employers to lock out workers). All
workers, except military and police, are free to organize and
workers in all sectors exercise this right. The new Labor Code
enacted in 1992 significantly strengthened the right of freedom
of association and removed some restrictions on the right to
strike by narrowing the definition of essential services to
exclude transportation, food services, and fuel services.
Requirements for calling for a strike include an absolute
majority of the workers in the unit, a prior attempt to resolve
the conflict through arbitration, written notification to the
Labor Secretariat, and a 10-day waiting period following
notification before proceeding with the strike. The Code also
eliminated previous prohibitions against political and sympathy
strikes. The Government respects association rights and places
no obstacles to union registration, affiliations, or the
ability to engage in legal strikes.
Strikes in 1993 occurred principally in the public sector,
where doctors and nurses continued to stage periodic strikes
and walkouts, and employees of state-owned companies staged
strikes in response to financial difficulties and threats of
job losses. One work stoppage was declared illegal in 1993.
Implementing regulations for the 1992 Labor Code were issued in
November 1993. The Labor Code specifies in detail the steps
legally required to establish a union, federation, and
confederation. The Code calls for automatic recognition of a
union if the Government has not acted on its application within
a specific time. In practice, the Government has readily
facilitated recognition of labor organizations. Organized
labor represents between 10 and 15 percent of the work force
and is divided among three large confederations, three minor
confederations, and a number of independent unions. The
International Labor Organization's (ILO) Committee of Experts
(COE) observed in 1993 that the two-thirds majority vote
required to form confederations was too high.
Unions are independent of the Government and political parties,
although sympathizers of various political parties are found in
most union organizations. Labor unions can and do freely
affiliate regionally and internationally.
b. The Right to Organize and Bargain Collectively
Collective bargaining is lawful and may take place in firms in
which a union has gained the support of an absolute majority of
the workers. Only a minority of companies have collective
bargaining pacts. The Labor Code expressly stipulates that
workers cannot be dismissed because of their trade union
membership or activities. The previous Code allowed arbitrary
termination of a worker so long as severance pay was provided;
the 1992 Code exempts from dismissal specific numbers of union
organizers and officials. The number of union organizers or
officials given protection from layoffs can total up to 20
members of a union in formation, between 5 to 10 members of a
union executive council (depending on the size of the work
force), and up to 3 members of a collective bargaining
negotiating committee. The new Code established a new system
of labor courts for dealing with labor disputes; but their
effectiveness has yet to be determined.
There are 26 established export processing zones (EPZ's) with
over 400, mostly U.S.-owned or associated, companies and about
150,000 employees, mostly women workers. The Labor Code
applies in these zones. Some EPZ companies have a history of
discharging workers who attempt to organize unions. Although
the Government registered more than 50 unions in the EPZ's
since the new Labor Code went into effect in June 1992, fewer
than 5 of these unions still have their membership intact. Of
these, none was apparently able to function freely in the
workplace. The other unions apparently ceased to function due
to firings of union members, although some may have dissolved
because of voluntary resignations or company closure. More
than 20 EPZ firms face criminal charges brought by the
Secretariat of Labor for Labor Code violations involving worker
rights. By year's end, two firms had been convicted of such
violations. No EPZ company has concluded a collective
bargaining agreement with a union.
In June the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial
Organizations filed a petition accusing the Government of
failing to ensure EPZ companies' compliance with Labor Code
provisions concerning freedom of association and the right to
organize and bargain collectively. The petition charged that
EPZ companies continued to fire workers for attempting to
organize unions and castigated the Dominican justice system for
failing to issue timely decisions in cases brought before the
courts. A collateral charge was that a provision in Article 75
of the Labor Code enabled de facto blacklisting of trade union
members. One such case brought under the old Labor Code in
1992 is under appeal by the Secretary of Labor following a
judicial ruling in favor of the employer.
The State Sugar Council (CEA) employs workers from over 100
unions. Dominican workers predominate in the unions, although
between two and five unions are Haitian-dominated. There have
been some reports that the CEA has interfered with other
efforts by Haitians to organize.
At year's end, no agreement had been reached in a 1990 dispute
in which the administrator of the state-owned Dominican
Electric Corporation (CDE) charged the CDE union (Sitracode)
with sabotage, featherbedding, and corruption, and began
massive firings of Sitracode leaders and activists which
generated a complaint against the Dominican Republic in the
ILO. In December 1991, the Government agreed to a settlement
calling for pensioning 75 percent of the fired workers and
rehiring the remainder. However, the Government refused to
rehire Sitracode leaders, which the union thought had been part
of the agreement. The case remained before the ILO, which
requested that the trade union leaders be reinstated.
c. Prohibition of Forced or Compulsory Labor
Forced or compulsory labor is prohibited by law. During
previous years, the Government and the CEA forcibly recruited
Haitian seasonal agricultural workers and then restricted them
to work on specific sugar plantations. CEA denied the use of
paid recruiters inside Haiti to obtain workers, and there is no
conclusive evidence that either practice occurred to any
significant degree in 1993. However, Haitian workers continued
to face other problems (see below). Human rights groups
alleged some instances of forced recruitment and forced labor
of Haitians in the harvesting of other crops such as coffee and
rice. The extent of such abuses remained unclear, as these
agricultural sectors were not traditionally subject to the
scrutiny received by the sugar industry.
In 1993 itinerant Haitian sugar cane workers continued to
encounter restrictions on their freedom of movement, but the
restrictions were less onerous than in the past. They included
the presence of armed guards in and around various sugar
plantations and the sequestering of workers' belongings in
order to discourage their movement to other CEA plantations or
other types of employment. To alleviate freedom of movement
problems faced by itinerant Haitian workers, CEA and the
Dominican Office of Immigration in late 1991 initiated a
program to issue 1-year temporary work permits to the workers.
The Office of Immigration reported that 32,357 temporary work
permits had been issued under this program. Over half of the
recipients were employed in private cane plantations or noncane
cutting activities; 12,717 permits were issued to Haitians
employed on CEA plantations. There are no firm statistics on
the number of cane cutters on CEA plantations; estimates range
from 15,000 to 30,000. According to an August 1993 survey by
an independent polling firm, 50 percent of all itinerant
Haitian workers possessed permits. There are no figures
available on the number of forcibly repatriated Haitian cane
and coffee workers.
d. Minimum Age for Employment of Children
The Labor Code prohibits employment of youth under 14 years of
age and places various restrictions on the employment of youth
under age 16. These restrictions include a limitation of no
more than 6 hours of daily work, no employment in dangerous
occupations or jobs involving the provision of intoxicating
beverages, and limitations on nighttime work.
In practice, many of the child labor restrictions are ignored.
The high level of unemployment and the lack of a social safety
net create pressures on families to allow children to earn
supplemental income. A United Nations Children's Fund study
estimated that approximately 58,000 minors work as itinerant
vendors in occupations such as shining shoes, selling
newspapers, and cleaning cars. During the past few years, the
Labor Secretariat made some effort to enforce the law in cases
where companies employed underage workers, but penalties were
largely limited to small fines. Some young workers obtained
work permits and continued their employment; those unable to
obtain permits were dismissed.
Instances of child labor in CEA sugar plantations have
diminished greatly. Past abuses reportedly included the use of
unaccompanied minors recruited from inside Haiti without
parental knowledge. CEA and the Labor Secretariat took steps
to discourage child labor, and in 1993 it occurred in only
isolated instances, most involving children accompanying their
fathers into the fields.
e. Acceptable Conditions of Work
The Constitution gives the Government legal authority to set
minimum wage levels and the Labor Code assigns this task to a
national salary committee. Congress may also enact minimum
wage legislation. Real wages, especially in the public sector,
still suffered from a serious erosion caused by an
unprecedented 1990 inflation rate of 101 percent. Minimum wage
raises since 1990 have not compensated for the loss of
purchasing power, and no wage increases took place in 1993.
The vast majority of workers receive only the minimum wage,
which is about $61 (780 pesos) per month. This represents only
20 percent of the estimated monthly cost of living for an
average-size family in Santo Domingo. As a result, many people
hold more than one job.
The Labor Code establishes a standard work period of 8 hours
per day and 44 hours per week. The Code also stipulates that
all workers are entitled to 36 hours of uninterrupted rest each
week. In practice, a typical workweek is Monday through Friday
plus a half day on Saturday, but longer hours are not unusual.
The Code grants workers a 35 percent wage differential for work
over 44 and up to 68 hours per week and a 100 percent
differential for any hours above 68 per week.
Workplace safety and health conditions frequently do not meet
legal standards. Health standards for workers are set by the
Dominican Social Security Institute (IDSS). Nonhealth safety
standards are covered by the Labor Code. The existing social
security system does not apply to all workers and is
underfunded. Furthermore, some employers charge workers for
social security coverage but fail to pass the payments on to
the IDSS. As a result, benefits are low, payments often
delayed, and medical care is limited and available only in the
major cities.
Workplace regulations and their enforcement in the EPZ's do not
differ from those in the country at large, although working
conditions are typically better. Some companies in privately
owned EPZ's practice much higher worker safety and health
standards. Both the IDSS and the Labor Secretariat have small
corps of inspectors charged with enforcing standards. However,
these posts are customarily filled through political patronage,
and some inspectors have earned a reputation for corruption.
Conditions for agricultural workers, particularly Haitians, are
in general much worse, especially in the sugar industry.
Although CEA readily cooperates with nongovernmental
organizations active in efforts to improve the conditions of
sugar cane workers, in some cases CEA and the Government have
failed to take measures to implement written agreements
designed to overcome the problems facing sugar cane workers.
Cane cutters on CEA plantations are paid by weight of cut cane
rather than hours worked and thus are usually required to work
significantly more hours than the standard workweek in order to
earn a wage approaching that of workers in other industries.
CEA continued to pay cane cutters in vouchers rather than cash,
a violation of the 1992 Labor Code's prohibition of payment in
noncash forms. Cane cutters also faced widespread cheating
during the weighing of their cut cane. Although CEA and the
Labor Secretariat signed an agreement with labor unions to
allow union officials to assist the Labor Secretariat in the
inspection and monitoring of CEA weigh stations, no action was
taken to implement this agreement. Many Haitian worker
villages continued to suffer high rates of disease and a lack
of schooling, medical facilities, running water, and sewage
systems.
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