Today, 8 farms maintain first aid kits on their premises and cover routine and preventive medical examinations for employees after receiving training on OHS with Cultivar - a 55% increase in the number of Cultivar farms with these new policies for a total of 15 farms.

SAI is a multi-stakeholder non-governmental organization (NGO) that promotes decent work worldwide. SAI recognizes that compliance with voluntary standards is only part of what is needed to increase compliance with labor standards in the world. To that end, SAI has developed programs with local grassroots efforts, such as Project Cultivar to ground the work in a context that is both broad and specific. With such projects, SAI contributes to the building of an enabling environment for labor rights and a culture of compliance.

US Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis announces USDOL's funding of Better Work Nicaragua. (Photo courtesy of www.dol.gov)

On the same day that Secretary Solis led discussions on labor standards in Nicaragua, Project Cultivars's Local Partner INCAP (Institute of Popular Culture and Local Self Reliance) led a multi-stakeholder discussion in the Dominican Republic on labor issues affecting the Dominican banana industry. 

Dominican NGOs, banana companies and others convene in Mao to discuss important issues concerning Haitian migrant workers in the region.

 Attendees included representatives from the Ministries of Labor and Migration, social organizations such as Junta de Asociaciones Campesinas "Rafael Fernando Dominguez" (JACARAFE) and Centro Diocesano de Asistencia y Asesoria Legal Juan Pablo II, companies such as ASOANOR, Banamiel, and Bananeras de la Santa Cruz as well as a representative from the military. 

 

Participants focused on the legal status of Haitian migrant workers in the agricultural sector in the country's Valverde Province.  INCAP Director Alsides Brea Franco facilitated a debate on the practical matters surrounding the issuance of state identification cards or work visas to Haitians, who are otherwise working illegally and denied access to social benefits.  Such benefits include the provision of personal security as well as social security. 

 

Migrant workers often find themselves subjected to crimes such as theft.  Money is frequently stolen from them as they cross the border, especially during holiday season.  However, workers are hesitant to report such injustices to the proper authorities because of their illegal status.  The representative from the Dominican military provided an additional perspective on the migration and social protection issue during the discussion.  Participants concluded the forum by discussing a proposal to host a bi-national conference for local and national immigration authorities from both countries to meet and deliberate joint solutions to the labor challenges presented by migration.
 
For more information on INCAP's work on labor issues in the agricultural sector in the Dominican Republic, please contact them at +809-572-5644/8396 or incap1@codetel.net.do.

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They say a picture is worth a thousand words.  For the thousands of braceros, field workers in the Dominican Republic, wrestling with stalks of sugarcane and rustling banana leaves under the blistering sun for US$3.40/day, a picture illustrating the challenges to their human right to a safe and healthy working environment is worth substantially more.
 
Drawing on best practices of popular education to contribute to the education of braceros on their human rights as workers, SAI's Local Partners CIAC (Center for Cultural Research and Support) and INCAP, teamed up in June to create a series of illustrated educational materials in Creole for agricultural workers in the sugarcane and banana sectors of the Dominican Republic, most of who are of Haitian descent.
 
The sugarcane and banana producers in the Dominican Republic, along with government officials face many challenges in their efforts to improve working conditions and labor relations in their industries. Problems range from exposure to hazardous pesticides to child labor to human trafficking.  Adult field workers and their children, who often toil alongside their parents in the furrows of large plantations or small independent farms, frequently find their rights threatened due to institutionalized forms of discrimination and marginalization such as the denial of access to healthcare, public education and other social protections.

It is widely estimated that 85-90% of braceros are Haitian.  Most of the workers, while living and working in the Dominican Republic, do not have government- issued papers which would authorize them to work legally and assure access to health care and other public benefits of the social security system.  Without proper documentation or a birth certificate, which are legally denied to Haitian children born in the Dominican Republic, workers are also excluded from the public school system.  Hence, the cycle of poverty is perpetuated.
 
Aiming to change this situation by increasing workers' awareness of their rights and capacities to exercise them, CIAC and

A slide from the training materials written for workers in Haitian Creole.

INCAP will distribute the educational materials and conduct training at 16 colonos in the sugarcane sector and 12 banana farms in the northwestern region of the Dominican Republic this year, reaching approximately 2,000 workers in all.  The materials include a series of visual presentations and a pocket-sized companion booklet. Developed in the Haitian language of Creole with culturally-appropriate imagery, they address critical issues concerning labor rights and the management systems for assuring occupational health and safety and addressing worker grievances on the farms.

In July, Cultivar Local Partner CDH (Center for Human Development) and the National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH) inaugurated the first Degree Program on Social Dialogue, Labor Relations and Management Systems ever offered in Honduras. The diversity of the inaugural classes demonstrated the public interest in a national dialogue on critical labor rights issues.  Students enrolling in the degree program at the Choluteca and San Pedro Sula campuses included people from the business sector, trade unions and government.
 
Characterizing the importance of this program, Dr. Wilfredo Dominguez, Director of UNAH's Regional University Center of Litoral Pac�fico in Choluteca stated, "The academic-societal connection with the alliance of CDH-UNAH is historic.  This alliance is defining the perspective on labor rights in the region."  Dominguez is a medical doctor with a master's degree in public health.
                                                                                                 

Students form small groups to perform class exercises.

CDH worked closely together with UNAH over the past year to develop the program. Rooted in the international conventions and multi-stakeholder consensus approach of the ILO, the program emphasizes social dialogue, defined by the ILO as "negotiation, consultation or simply the exchange of information between or among representatives of government, employers and workers on issues of common interest relating to economic and social policy." Drawing on international norms, the program trains students on both tri-partite (government-industry-workers/unions) and bilateral (worker/union - manager/company) discussions concerning human rights in the workplace.
 
Representing the private sector, principally in agriculture, (melon in the case of Choluteca and banana in the case of San Pedro Sula) were companies like Montelibano, Agroindustrial Pacifico, Guaruma Agroindustrial and Tropical.  Delegates from local unions included Central General de Trabajadores (CGT), Confederaci�n Unitaria de Trabajadores de Honduras (CUTH) and Confederacion de Trabajadores de Honduras (CTH).  Additionally, state employees from the Labor Secretariat participated - alongside full-time university students.
 
To earn the degree in Social Dialogue, Labor Relations and Management Systems students are required to complete the following four training modules in addition to working at an internship at the company or community level: (1) Context Analysis, (2) Labor Relations, (3) Social Dialogue and (4) Management Systems.  For more information on the Diplomado, please contact CDH at direccion@centrocdh.org or +505-221-4809.