No pension for cane cutters

JFD

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Feb 10, 2010
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While Leonel is on a 10 days trip in Europe, during transition time and with the fiscal deficit we have, this is what's happening with people who spent their life doing one of the most difficult job on earth: Videos - Hoy Digital

Can it get any worse ?
 

Kipling333

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Jan 12, 2010
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can it get worse ..NO the men are treated as slaves and their families live in boiling tin shacks in the bateys ,,,they are totally exploited by immoral people who control the sugar industries .These men know that the Haitians are desperate , just to live, and they pay them a pittance with no benefits .They even have the cheeck to ask residents in la Romana to help them with donations. In the meantime the sugar barons make billions .It is a disgrace
 

bob saunders

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Jan 1, 2002
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can it get worse ..NO the men are treated as slaves and their families live in boiling tin shacks in the bateys ,,,they are totally exploited by immoral people who control the sugar industries .These men know that the Haitians are desperate , just to live, and they pay them a pittance with no benefits .They even have the cheeck to ask residents in la Romana to help them with donations. In the meantime the sugar barons make billions .It is a disgrace

True they are exploited, but are you going the bitch that they have no jobs when it's all automated?
 

Matilda

RIP Lindsay
Sep 13, 2006
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It won't be automated as it has been tried and automated systems cannot cut the cane properly. Otherwise would have been done by now, and not as has been done for last 400 years. Anyway with price of gasoline exploiting Haitians is significantly less than fuel for automation.

matilda
 

NALs

Economist by Profession
Jan 20, 2003
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AUSTRALIA
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BRAZIL
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That's how those countries, which are among the largest producers of sugar in the world, have been harvesting their sugar cane for years. Not a single Haitian or machete wielding cutter to be seen. What takes a group of 10 to 20 men under the tropical Sun, the heat, the humidity, the bugs, and the sheer exhaustion; is done by two, perhaps three men in air conditioned cabins, pushing buttons and pulling planks, with higher wages. No need to burn the sugar cane fields either, which is great for the health of anyone that lives near a plantation.

BTW, the Dominican sugar industry is mechanizing and already is over 60% mechanized. They will continue until it reaches 90%.
 

JFD

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Feb 10, 2010
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Mechanized or not mechanized, these workers paid their fee for their pension, one of them in this video for 56 years I think, and they have no pension. It's a damned shame.
 

Kipling333

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Jan 12, 2010
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the original posting was about the people working in the cane fields in the Dominican Republic and being treated like animals ..it was not about automation in Australia where labour is very expensive and the unions insist on workers having many rights including pensions .
The simple fact for everyone to see for themselves is that these workers , who have no alternative but to accept anything just to feed themselves and their families , are living in appalling conditions and their companies can afford topay much more .It would not be permitted in any country with any sense of decency .
For people who are interested or can not believe the conditions just drive to any small batey in the sugar fields and be shocked,,,bring somme gifts with you
 

kdolo

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Mar 9, 2009
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cane workers

Also they are not forced to do the work, although there isn't anything else available to them

there are alternatives for them, they may not necessarily be aware of them ....

..and that is not to say that pursuing those alternative are easy either since their existence is subsistance or close to it
 

kdolo

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Mar 9, 2009
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the original posting was about the people working in the cane fields in the Dominican Republic and being treated like animals ..it was not about automation in Australia where labour is very expensive and the unions insist on workers having many rights including pensions .
The simple fact for everyone to see for themselves is that these workers , who have no alternative but to accept anything just to feed themselves and their families , are living in appalling conditions and their companies can afford topay much more .It would not be permitted in any country with any sense of decency .
For people who are interested or can not believe the conditions just drive to any small batey in the sugar fields and be shocked,,,bring somme gifts with you

You make a lot of unfounded assumptions.
1. Since when is a pensions a right ??
2. how go you know that these workers have no alternative ??
3. their living conditions may be appalling, but how did they live before becoming cane cutters ?
4. how do you know what the companies can afford to pay ?? are you their accountant ??
 

cobraboy

Pro-Bono Demolition Hobbyist
Jul 24, 2004
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Someone explain how the Haitians who work the cane fields are exempt from the new immigration policies.
 
Dec 26, 2011
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Yes it is too strong of a word since they get paid to do the work however it does come really close.

I read at one time they were paid in credit at a company store wheres staples were sold to them at highly inflated rates. Not sure if this practice has been discontinued.
 

Givadogahome

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Sep 27, 2011
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Yes it is too strong of a word since they get paid to do the work however it does come really close.
I dunno, many are as good as kidnapped, taken to somewhere they can not leave, forced to spend their hard earned on the campus shops and so in the end the wage filters back into the business bank. Unable to leave, locked into camps, no, it is slavery, to think this is not slavery is to be blind.
 

NALs

Economist by Profession
Jan 20, 2003
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the original posting was about the people working in the cane fields in the Dominican Republic and being treated like animals ..it was not about automation in Australia where labour is very expensive and the unions insist on workers having many rights including pensions .
The simple fact for everyone to see for themselves is that these workers , who have no alternative but to accept anything just to feed themselves and their families , are living in appalling conditions and their companies can afford topay much more .It would not be permitted in any country with any sense of decency .
For people who are interested or can not believe the conditions just drive to any small batey in the sugar fields and be shocked,,,bring somme gifts with you
You do know that Dominican wages are much higher than in all Central American countries except Costa Rica and Panama, right?

Derfish said:
Mi nocaraguense friend says that that is the way it is done there now, u nlike in SFla where he and were familiar withthe burning and Jamaicans swinging their machetes.
Interesting... Nicaragua has the lowest wages in Central American. Very interesting.

Anyway, as things are right now, the average Haitian in the DR makes upwards of 9 times as much as they would had earned in Haiti.
 

Celt202

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May 22, 2004
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