Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies

Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies
in the Dominican Republic in 1995. Historically, more than
20,000 Haitians have worked annually in the Dominican sugarcane
fields during the harvesting season, although the number
of such workers has decreased in recent years. But in bad times,
greater numbers of indigent Haitians travel to the Dominican
Republic, imposing a heavy burden on their neighbor's social
services. For this reason, periods of political tension between
the two countries are occasionally punctuated by calls for more
stringent immigration regulations; these occasions usually
result in the forced expulsion of many undocumented Haitians
from the Dominican Republic. Most of those expelled manage
to return fairly quickly, however, mainly because of the lack of
adequate controls on both sides of the border.
In fairness it should be noted that the Haitian community
resident in the Dominican Republic makes significant contributions
to the Dominican economy by performing many
menial jobs that the average Dominican worker tends to shun.
Indeed, the ambivalence of Dominicans toward their Haitian
neighbors is seen in the stance of some senators representing
Dominican frontier provinces who have expressed concern
over a possible avalanche of illegal Haitian immigration (triggered
by dire socioeconomic conditions) ;
they have called on
the international community to promote social and economic
development in Haiti instead of concentrating only on institutionalizing
democratic rule. Other Dominicans have gone so
far as to suggest that their country might be wise to encourage
more Dominican investment in Haiti. After all, the Dominican
Republic's exports to Haiti exceed US$30 million a year, while
its imports from Haiti fall short of US$1 million; moreover,
Haiti buys 77 percent of all Dominican exports to the Caribbean.
Haiti established a labor code in 1961, but revised it in 1984
to bring legislation more in line with standards set by the International
Labour Organisation (ILO). Conformity with ILO
guidelines was a prerequisite for certification under the Caribbean
Basin Initiative (CBI—see Glossary) enacted by the
United States Congress in 1983. The country's most fundamental
labor law, the minimum wage, is the most controversial. Low
wage rates have attracted foreign assembly operations. In 1989
the average minimum wage stood at the equivalent of US$3 a
day, with small variations for different types of assembly work.
The minimum wage in the late 1980s was below the 1970 level
in real terms, but assembly manufacturers and government
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