Word of note:
Sugar prices can't really rise, because that would make them less competitive especially with the corn syrup deal that is coming into the local market. As such, the only way to increase wages is to fire a certain number of people (ie. unemployment goes up for those Haitians who would have starved to death in their own country-after all, that is why the come to the DR, because conditions are better here than in Haiti, otherwise they would leave at the end of the Zafra and never come back, but that is hardly the case).
In other words, if two Haitian works for 10 pesos a day and people want his salary to double, in order to maintain the competitivity of the sugar market what would happen is that one Haitian would be fired, the other would get paid 20 pesos now, but his work load would also increase. The only way his wage of 20 pesos could be kept without increasing his work load would be in investing in new technology.
However, new technology will displace the vast majority of cane cutters who would then be deported and starve in Haiti rather than earning something in the DR. For this example, lets assume there is a Bateye of 10 Haitians each earning 10 pesos. In order to comply to international pressures of increasing the wages, 5 Haitians will be fired so the other 5 can earn 20 pesos instead of 10. However, since international pressure in this example would also require for the Haitians to either maintain their current work load or for their work load to diminish without lowering their pay, then new technology would have to be implemented. In this example, let's say a machine that cuts sugar cane and a truck where the cut cane is automatically thrown by the other machine are brought. Suddenly, 3 of the 5 Haitians earning 20 pesos are unemployed because the new techonology makes it possible for only 2 Haitians to do the same work load in a much quicker and efficient manner that the previous 10 Haitians did manually. So, in the end, 2 Haitians are left employed each earning 45 pesos (because the wage is transfered from the 3 Haitians that were fired to the 2 Haitians left on the job).
Even though this is a very simplistic example, it gives a clear picture of the effects of increasing wages and/or decreasing work load by introducing new techonology. In this example, 10 Haitians each earning 10 pesos was cut down to 2 Haitians each earning 45 pesos and 8 Haitians are now unemployed earning 0 pesos and probably deported to Haiti where they will continue to starve to death.
I'm not giving my opinion on this subject, just expressing in a very simplistic form the economic effect a higher minimum wage and shorter work load could have for the vast majority of Haitians. A few will benefit extraordinarily (after all, going from 10 pesos to 45 pesos is more than a quadruple in income earned), but only 20% of Haitians in this example will benefit to such degree, the other 80% will be much much worst.
And, I must add, this is an example where the sugar estates try to protect their market share by maintaining the lowest possible costs so they can sell the sugar products at competitive prices. If the example would have been in order to protect the sugar companies employees (in this case the Haitians), then sugar products would cost more to produce and that means prices for sugar products would be higher and with the importation of Corn Syrup (which is incredibly cheap), sugar estates will go bankrupt and in the end, everybody in that industry would be unemployed and starving. The latter is not that pretty as you can see.
Also keep in mind, that if profit margins are forced to be lowered, that would cause many sugar estates to divert to other more profitable forms of businesses that could have either a positive or negative effect on the employees in the sugar industry. In other words, the incentive to keep the sugar industry alive is driven by profit margins, a lowering of such would create less interest and a desimation of such industry, this is true of all indusrties everywhere in the world.
Again, I am not proposing my point of view towards this issue, just presenting in a simplistic form the possible economic repercussion of higher wages and/or lower working load with the introduction of new technology in order to comply with international pressures.
BTW: Robert, is it possible to post graphs here? Every time I present an economic example, graph tend to help the average person see the effects much more clearly.