The Dominican government decided to seek a solution through dialogue to try to get the United States to revoke the decision to prevent the entry of sugar produced by Central Romana, for which it placed the Minister of Labor to lead the negotiating team.
The spokesman for the government of Luis Abinader, Homero Figueroa, said that the Dominican side has appointed the Ministers of Labor, Luis Miguel de Camps; of Foreign Relations, Roberto Álvarez and of Industry and Commerce, Víctor Bisonó, to try to establish a dialogue with the United States authorities.
Figueroa, who is the director of Strategy and Communication for the Presidency, considers that the present authorities understand that “working together will restore the harmony that characterizes the intertwined history of the United States and the Dominican Republic.”
Among these measures, the Government decided to designate the Ministry of Labor as responsible for leading, together with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, the monitoring of the issue.
Likewise, the government intends to accompany the Central Romana Corporation during the action plan that it will execute to request the revocation of the measure and schedule periodic exchanges with the corresponding North American authorities.
In the same way, maintain a continuous flow of information on the progress of the process.
“We understand that the decision to suspend imports to the United States of sugar produced by Central Romana has nothing to do with the role of the Dominican government; but since it affects the international image and the country’s economy, we have to get involved. We want to do it constructively,” Figueroa said in a written statement.
Recently, the United States ordered a halt in its ports of shipments of sugar from the Central Romana Corporation, due to alleged forced labor and other alleged violations of the rights of the workers of that company.
Central Romana claims
The Central Romana Corporation asked the American Chamber of Commerce to come out in its defense before the accusations of the representatives of the United States government about the alleged forced labor of its workers and the violation of five indicators.
Through a statement addressed to the president of that union, Roberto Herrera, the company requested to do the same and publicly support this sugar company taking into account its track record and business ethics.
In addition, through this letter, the company took the opportunity to respond to each of the accusations made by the United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Officers, as well as highlight its actions as a responsible company, for more than a century.
The first observation is about “abuse of vulnerability”, where he states that no worker or independent of his is prevented from moving to other places.
They reported that the agricultural areas of Central Romana that could be far from those urban areas of La Romana are only a few kilometers away, and that, in any case, the sugarcane communities are surrounded by small towns with easy access.
Commenting on the “withholding of wages”, he assured that this is false, given that the collection of wages in that company is one of the greatest attractions for its field workers, where they are paid on time, in cash. and without “retaining a single cent of what belongs to the employee, both from his earnings and from incentives and bonuses.”
They stressed that their cane cutters earn an average of RD$622.97 per day, which places them 55% higher than the minimum wage in the agricultural sector in an eight-hour day.
In light of the “abusive working and living conditions” that the CBP report warns of, Central Romana said that each year they invest US$2 million in repair and maintenance programs for agricultural communities.