In the new world
economic order,
small countries
must compete
against each other
by offering lower
wages to attract
transnational
investment. In this
“race to the
bottom,” women
workers pay
dearest.
Workers leave the factory after a long day of work in the free-trade zone of San Pedro Macoris. BY HELEN I. SAFA “‘ W Then I started to work in the free-trade
zone,” says Esperanza, who worked in a
garment factory for ten years, “I earned
15 pesos a week. With those 15 pesos I did many
things. I went to the market and bought groceries. I
even bought toilet soap, which I can’t afford now.”
Like other women who work in the Dominican
Republic’s sprawling free-trade zones, Esperanza com-
Helen i. Safa is professor of anthropology and Latin American
Studies at the Center for Latin American Studies of the
University of Florida. Her most recent book is The Myth of the
Male Breadwinner: Women and Industrialization in the
Caribbean (Westview Press, 1995).
VOL XXX, No 5 MARCH/APRIL 1997
plains about how much more difficult it is to manage
on the low wages factory work pays today. Despite
wage increases, inflation has decimated the buying
power of Dominican workers. “Now a worker earns
200 pesos or more,” she says, “but it’s still not enough
to make ends meet.”
Esperanza is one of thousands of women who began
working in the free-trade zones in the 1980s. Although
free-trade zones have existed in the Dominican
Republic since the 1960s, export manufacturing has
boomed over the last decade, largely due to structural-
adjustment measures implemented after 1982 in
response to growing public debt and general economic
31
0
0
;
zREPORT ON THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
crisis. Structural adjustment meant currency devalua-
tions, which forced the basic cost of labor in the free-
trade zones down from $1.33 an hour in 1984 to $.56 an
hour in 1990.1 With one of the lowest wage levels in the
Caribbean, foreign investors flocked to the Dominican
Republic to set up shop in its growing free-trade zones.
Tariff benefits provided by the U.S. government to off-
shore garment producers under the Caribbean Basin
Initiative and other special programs also helped stim-
ulate textile production, and garments are now the
country’s primary export. The free-trade zones consti-
tute the third-largest source of employment, following
the public sector and the sugar industry. 2 While the
free-trade zones employed 20,000 Dominican workers
in 1982, today, 180,000 Dominicans, most of them
women, work in this sector.
While women continue to enter the workforce in
droves, life is increasingly precarious, especially for
women workers. Under the rubric of structural adjust-
ment, government programs have been cut drastically,
undermining gains in women’s health, education and
occupational mobility won in previous decades.
Growing poverty has pushed an increasing number of
women into the labor force to meet the rising cost of
living and the decreased wage-earning capacity of
men. While this has helped increase the importance
Workers on an assembly line in a free-trade zone text
and visibility of women’s contribution to the house-
hold economy, it is also a reflection of the desperate
conditions facing Dominican workers.
Jos6, who has worked in the free-trade zone for eight
years, complains bitterly about wages and working con-
ditions. He already had to switch jobs because of diffi-
culties with his supervisors, and says he is only work-
ing out of desperation: “Work in the free-trade zone is
no good. You work because you have to and because
there is no other source of income. The policies of man-
agers are always to suppress the workers, to squeeze us
dry.” He sums his feelings up with a phrase common to
the Dominican working class: “The big fish eat the lit-
tle fish.” Though Dominican workers are referring to
the relationship between capital and labor, the phrase
also aptly characterizes the relationship between multi-
national corporations and the Dominican state, and
between big, powerful countries like the United States
and small, vulnerable countries like the Dominican
Republic.
ver the past few decades, the Dominican econ-
omy has undergone a sharp transformation. A
largely rural economy based on sugar exports
and import-substitution industrialization in the 1960s,
the Dominican Republic today is a service economy
‘e factory dependent on tourism, export manufacturing and agribusiness.
Unlike import-substitution indus-
trialization, export promotion
does not require the development
of an internal market, but the
reduction of labor costs in order
to compete effectively in the so-
called new international eco-
nomic order. Working conditions
have consequently deteriorated,
as workers’ wages are continu-
ously driven lower and their labor
rights are minimized.
These shifts in the economy
have had dramatic consequences
for the makeup of the Dominican
labor force. As import-substitu-
tion manufacturing was scaled
back and the U.S. government cut
the country’s sugar quota, male
wage labor deteriorated, forcing
increasing numbers of men to
seek refuge in the informal sector.
Export promotion, on the other
hand, has favored the employ-
ment of women-the preferred
labor force in garment produc-
NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS
a
i ni
32REPORT ON THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
tion, the predominant industry in the free-
trade zones. By 1992, when the Dominican
Republic became the leading source of
apparel exports to the United States in the
Caribbean Basin, surpassing even Mexico,
two of every three firms in the free-trade
zone produced garments. 3
Declining employment opportunties has
forced many Dominican men to take jobs
in the free-trade zones. Today, about 30%
of the workers in the free-trade zones are
men. Many men like Jos6 work on heavier
garments like pants and coats, where
women’s “nimble fingers” are less advan-
tageous, and where men apparently feel
they are not doing “women’s work.”
Several of the women I interviewed say
they feel sorry for men who have to work in
the free-trade zones, mainly because of the
low salary. “Men don’t like to work in the
zone,” says Teresa, a former free-trade zone
worker. “Just imagine! The wage they pay
in the zone is not a wage for men.” While
Teresa said the wages were also inadequate
for women, she thought that women should
stay home, as she now does, and work in THE B5UE
the informal sector. “Women can earn more
money by working out of their home than in the zone,”
she says, “even if it’s just making johnny cakes, selling
ice cream-whatever.”
The rise in work for women in the free-trade zones
has resulted in a four-fold increase in female employ-
ment between 1960 and 1990, from 9.3% to 38%. At
the same time, however, female unemployment remains
much higher than for men, reaching 46.7% in 1991.4
This cannot be explained by educational levels-in
1991, 63% of women in the free-trade zones had com-
pleted secondary school, compared to 47% of the men, reflecting a nationwide trend of higher educational lev-
els for women. Despite these gains in education, women are employed primarily as unskilled production
workers while men are still preferred for higher-paid
managerial, professional or supervisory positions. 5
Overall, women also receive lower salaries than men.
The persistence of gender hierarchies, even within a
predominantly female labor force like that in the free-
trade zones, seems to be accepted by women workers, who are accustomed to having men in charge at the
workplace.
Women who have worked a long time and demon-
strated skill in the garment industry may rise to become
supervisors, but to my knowledge, all the plant man-
agers are men. Supervisors are paid more and often
receive special benefits from the company, like Maria,
CoORA STcEAA. AT 11E FRE-TRADE CAF..
who has worked for the same plant for 17 years.
Though she earns over 3,600 pesos a month plus
extras-about $280, triple the salary of a regular fac-
tory worker-Marfa still complains that she can’t make
ends meet. Yet certain benefits, like a company schol-
arship which allows her six-year-old daughter to attend
a private Catholic school, make Maria feel lucky to
have her job. Like many long-term employees-she
recently received a plaque noting her 15 years with the
company-Marfa identifies strongly with the company
and its recent growth. “The company has progressed a
lot,” she says. “It grows and grows; they give us more
work; they show that they have more confidence in us.
As the company grows, we grow also because we
develop. The company is our school because we learn
there.” The sense of pride and self-worth Maria derives
from her work is not matched by most workers, even
long-term employees, who often feel there is no future
for them in the free-trade zones. Yet by fostering
employee identification with the company, employers
help dampen the development of worker consciousness.
n 1992, the government, under pressure from labor
in the Dominican Republic and in the United States, passed a new Labor Code which protects the right of
collective bargaining for all workers. Prior to the pas-
sage of this law, there was an informal prohibition on
Vol XXX, No 5 MARCH/APRil. 199733 VOL XXX, No 5 MARCH/APRIL 1997 33REPORT ON THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
union activity in the free-trade zones for years. Workers
who were involved in union activity lost their jobs and
were blacklisted from employment with other firms in
the zone. Hilda lost her job several years ago because
she was involved in an attempt to form a union. She
says that management told the workers that “the big
fish eat the little fish, and you need us more then we
need you.” They were right, she says, “because even if
you don’t want to work in such conditions, you have to, out of necessity and poverty.” Today, she regrets her
activism because it cost her her job.
Women workers, while aware of the new labor code,
were not well informed as to its contents. Several
women, for example, believed that the new labor code
forced companies to pay workers severance pay at the
end of each year, in effect firing each worker and rehir-
ing them as “new” workers the following year. The
women approved of this practice because of the extra
income it provided them at the end of the year. This is
not a mandate of the labor code, but a practice instituted
by some companies to retain workers, which may in
fact deprive them of severance-pay benefits that would
accumulate if they were not paid out yearly. Several
companies are known for never paying severance pay,
even for workers with many years on the job.
After the new code was passed, the newly formed
National Federation of Free-Trade Zone Workers
(FENATRAZONAS) helped organize nearly a hundred
new unions. FENATRAZONAS is an affiliate of the
National Confederation of Dominican Workers
(CNTD), the largest of the three major Dominican labor
confederations, which has the support of the American
Despite recently
won gains in
workers’ rights,
many
Dominicans
remain skeptical
about the
viability of
organizing
unions in the
free-trade zones.
Institute for Free Labor
Development (AIFLD).
The Dominican Ministry of
Labor also brought sanc-
tions against several firms
for code violations–a
notable departure from the
past, when worker com-
plaints of mistreatment or
unjust dismissal were gen-
erally rejected in favor of
management. 6 In response,
ADOZONA, the Dominican
free-trade company associ-
ation, led a barrage of criti-
cism against the govern-
ment for its supposed bias
in favor of organized labor.
After protracted struggles
in which several hundred
workers lost their jobs and
the Dominican Republic
faced a possible retraction of tariff benefits under the
Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) because of
AIFLD’s complaint of Dominican workers’ rights vio-
lations, four companies in the free-trade zones finally
signed collective-bargaining agreements with unions in
1994.7
Despite these seeming gains in workers’ rights,
Dominican workers remain skeptical about the viability
of the incipient union movement in the free-trade zones,
and most continue to express their dissatisfaction
through turnover and withdrawal rather than through
union organizing. Unions have always been weak in the
Dominican Republic, partly because of their fragmenta-
tion and ties to political parties, and have never repre-
sented more than 10 to 15% of the labor force. 8
The only factor Dominican workers have in their favor
is the high demand for labor, and company demand for
cheap labor has spurred the creation of additional free-
trade zones in the interior of the country, where labor is
still abundant. But the Dominican Republic’s drawing
power may soon decline, as export manufacturing prolif-
erates in other countries that offer ever-cheaper produc-
tion costs-and hence more profits. After the 1995 peso
debacle in Mexico, many export manufacturers moved
production to that country. As a result, Mexico has since
surpassed the Dominican Republic as the largest supplier
of apparel to the U.S. market.
ow wages combined with a rising cost of living
have increased the desperation of workers in the
free-trade zones and forced them to look for
alternate and supplementary sources of income. In
1992, a family of five needed an estimated 7,580 pesos,
about $600, to cover monthly expenses for basic neces-
sities, but free-trade zone workers at that time were
earning a monthly minimum wage of 1,269 pesos,
about $100.9 Even when both husband and wife are
working in the zone, it is very difficult for young fami-
lies to survive on such low salaries. Despite several
increases in the minimum wage in the free-trade zones,
the cost of living has increased so much that workers
are barely able to feed their families and never have
money to save, to educate their children, to buy a house
or simply to enjoy themselves.
Families with young children have the most difficult
time, because unlike single women or elderly workers,
they have additional costs of food, housing and child
care. Linda and her husband Pedro, who earn higher
salaries because they both hold higher-level positions in
the free-trade zone, are barely able to manage with two
small children. They pay 600 pesos a month to her
younger cousin, who lives with them and watches the
children while they work, and 400 pesos a month for a
small three-room house. The couple shares the bed-
3NCI4A REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 34REPORT ON THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
room with the children, while Linda’s
cousin sleeps in the kitchen. “We can’t
save anything,” says Linda. “We spend
all our money on rent, food and a few
other basic items. We can’t afford any
kind of recreational activities, like going
to a dance or to the movies. We hardly
ever go out.”
Female heads of household with
young children to support often rely on
the assistance of extended kin for child
care and/or financial support. Maria, a
single mother who works in the free-
trade zone, just moved into a separate
unit in her father’s house to be closer to
work, and her father’s wife takes care of
her daughter while she works. Maria and
women like her who head secondary
households would probably be consid-
ered by census-takers as part of an
extended family headed by her father, even though she pays him rent and
maintains an independent budget for her
child and herself. Over 10% of all
households surveyed by the Institute for
the Study of Population and Dev-
elopment (IEPD) in 1991 were sec-
ondary households headed by women
like Maria, which suggests that the per-
centage of female-headed households in A young woman sews fabric for garment production at Kun Ja textiles, a Korean
the Dominican Republic, which offi- subcontractor in Barahona, a Dominican free-trade zone.
cially rose from 21.7% in 1981 to 29.1%
in 1991, is actually much higher. differs considerably from that of women who head their
Structural adjustment, by forcing women to assume own household. In comparison to female heads, sub-
more economic responsibility and reducing employ- heads are younger (85% are under 35), have higher
ment opportunities for men, seems to be contributing to educational levels, and higher labor force participation
this increase in female-headed households. Women are -all of which contribute to their higher incomes.
resisting marriage because the “marriage market” of Nearly three-quarters of these female sub-heads live
eligible men willing and able to support a family has with a parent, usually their mother, and over half have
shrunk.’ 0 Many Dominican women complain of male only one child. Two-thirds have no resident male part-
irresponsibility and, like Maria, they refuse to live with ner, about half are separated, and a third are married or
a man who cannot offer financial support. “I won’t living in consensual unions.”
allow anyone to live with me unless he is able to con- In 1991, 40% of all Dominican households were con-
tribute to the household,” she says. “I know many sidered extended families-a high figure for an urban
women who make life very easy for men. The woman society. Even more notable is that extended families are
goes to work while the man stays home resting. If far more prevalent in urban than in rural areas. Female
women demanded that men assume responsibility for sub-heads help raise incomes in these extended house-
the home, like our mothers used to, things would be dif- holds to the point that they compare favorably with
ferent.” The father of Marfa’s six-year-old daughter left male-headed households, and are considerably higher
for the United States shortly after she was born. He has than female-headed households with no secondary
never supported the child, except for 500 pesos, about households. 1 2 This suggests that extended families-
$40, he gave Maria on a return visit. most of which are headed by women-represent an
The IEPD survey also suggests that the profile of advantage not only to single mothers, but also to the
women heading secondary households, or sub-heads, households in which they live.
VoL XXX. No 5 MARCH/APRIL 1997 35 VOL XXX, No 5 MARCH/APRIL 1997 35REPORT ON THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
he need for alternative sources of income to sup-
plement or substitute for wages under structural
adjustment has contributed to the growth of the
informal sector in the Dominican Republic. La
Romana, the town where the free-trade zone I studied is
located, now has numerous informal garment work-
shops run by women. The women collect the excess
cloth from the factories to make garments which are
sold in boutiques in the capital, despite laws against the
sale of imported, duty-free cloth for domestic con-
sumption. Women with some higher education have
also started up private ele-
mentary schools in La
Romana. Despite the high
cost of 100 pesos or more a
Hilda, a once- month, many women prefer
to send their children to militant worker, these private schools
has emigrated because the public-education system has deteriorated so
to St. Thomas, badly.
where she More men than women are
“employed in the informal
works as a maid sector (excluding domestic
service). In 1991, 24% of in a hotel. the economically active
“People are women in the Dominican Republic were self-
willing to risk employed compared to 38%
of the men. 1 3 Incomes are
their lives,” she generally lower in the infor-
Says, “in order mal sector, but some men
engaged in illegal activities,
to leave the such as money lending,
have done quite well. country.” Teresa’s husband, Jorge, left
the police force several
years ago to become a
money lender, and his fam-
ily lives comfortably. They now own the home they live
in, plus two others which they rent out, and they bought
a car. Their children study at a private school and they
go to a private clinic for health care. Teresa quit her job
in the free-trade zone at Jorge’s insistence-he wanted
her to stay home with the children and avoid the stress
of factory work, which was taking its toll on her health.
Today, Teresa helps Jorge with his business. Jorge does
the shopping and administers all the household
expenses, and is clearly the dominant figure in the
household.
Desperate working and living conditions in the
Dominican Republic are fueling a riskier survival
strategy: illegal migration. “People are willing to risk
their lives,” says Hilda, “in order to leave.” Almost all
of the women interviewed spoke of leaving the coun-
try, and are deterred only by their responsibility for
young children and their fear of the dangerous trip by
raft across the straits to Puerto Rico, a cheaper way to
emigrate illegally. Most women have siblings abroad,
and remittances are the primary source of foreign
exchange in the Dominican Republic. In the 1991
IEPD survey, the percentage of families with members
who presently or previously resided abroad increased
from 15% in the early 1980s to over 35% in the late
1980s. Most migrants are young urban residents under
30 with professional and clerical skills, and about half
are women.14
Migrants leave because they see no future working
for wages in the Dominican Republic. Hilda has now
been living in St. Thomas for eight years, where she
works as a hotel housekeeper for $7 an hour. The first
two years were very difficult, she says, because her
youngest daughter was only four, and it was dangerous
to visit her family because she had migrated illegally.
She has since managed to obtain legal residence not
only for herself, but for two of her younger children,
and hopes to do the same for the other two. She bought
a nice home in La Romana where her children live, and
she rents out her former house. Hilda’s oldest son is
completing his studies in civil engineering. She wanted
her daughters to study also, but they did not want to,
and the oldest works intermittently in the free-trade
zone. Hilda lives sparsely in St. Thomas. “I am not
going to tell you that I live well or comfortably,” says
Hilda, “because for me to live comfortably in St.
Thomas, my family would have to live uncomfortably
here. My wages don’t stretch that far.”
Hilda is a good example of a once-militant worker
who has displaced all her energy into the struggle for
survival, renouncing collective action in favor of indi-
vidual gain. Dominican women workers are increas-
ingly opting for individualistic solutions, trying to win
the favor of management, migrating or setting up a
business of their own. Union organizing seems to be
largely irrelevant to women who feel little pride in their
work, and who rarely identify themselves as workers in
the first place.
Since cheap labor is the prime determinant for invest-
ment, especially in small countries lacking other
resources or infrastructure like the Dominican
Republic, the chances for improvement are slim. As
one plant manager said, in order to remain competitive
in the new world economic order, small countries like
the Dominican Republic will have to follow the large
powers in order to survive-what some economists
have called a “race to the bottom.”‘5 Workers-
especially women-continue to pay the price in terms
of increasing poverty, subordination and despair.
Where the Big Fish Eat the Little Fish
This article draws on research on Dominican women workers carried out in
1986 as part of a comparative study of women workers in the Hispanic
Caribbean, and on a series of follow-up interviews conducted in 1994 in
the Dominican Republic to examine the impact of structural adjustment on
working conditions, survival strategies and gender relations. The author
gratefully acknowledges research support provided by the North/South
Center at the University of Miami.
1. David Jessup, “Workers Rights and Trade: Democracy’s New Frontier,”
paper presented at a conference on U.S.-Latin American Trade and
Women at the University of Texas at San Antonio, 1994.
2. U.S. Department of Labor, Foreign Labor Trends: Dominican Republic,
1992-93 (Washington, D.C., 1993), p. 10.
3. Consejo Nacional de Zonas Francas de Exportaci6n, “Evaluaci6n de
Zonas Francas Industriales” (Santo Domingo, 1993), p. 4.
4. Nelson Ramirez, La Fuerza de Trabajo en la Republica Dominicana
(Santo Domingo: Instituto de Estudio de Poblaci6n y Desarrollo, 1993),
p. 10
5. Fundaci6n APEC de Credito Educativo (FUNDAPEC), Encuesta Nacional
de Mano de Obra (A report prepared for the Inter-American
Development Bank) (Santo Domingo: FUNDAPEC, 1992), p. 28.
6. Helen I. Safa, The Myth of the Male Breadwinner Women and
Industrialization in the Caribbean (Boulder: Westview Press, 1995).
7. U.S. Department of Labor, Foreign Labor Trends: Dominican Republic,
1994-95 (Washington, D.C., 1995).
8. Rosario Espinal, “Between Authoritarianism and Crisis-Prone
Democracy: The Dominican Republic After Trujillo,” in Colin Clarke, ed.,
Society and Politics in the Caribbean (Oxford: Macmillan Press, 1991).
9. U.S. Department of Labor, Foreign Labor Trends: Dominican Republic,
1992-93, p. 12.
10. Helen Safa, The Myth of the Male Breadwinner
11.isis Duarte, “The Impact of Structural Adjustment on Women in the
Free Zones of the Dominican Republic” (Santo Domingo: The Institute
for the Study of Population and Development, 1994).
12. Isis Duarte, “The Impact of Structural Adjustment on Women.”
13. Nelson Ramirez, “Nuevos hallazgos sobre fuerza laboral y migraciones:
Anglisis preliminar de los datos del cuestionario de hogar ampliado de
la ENDESA 1991,” in Poblacin yDesarrollo, No. 2 (Santo Domingo:
Profamilia, 1992), p. 110.
14. Nelson Ramirez, La Fuerza de Trabajo, p. 19.
15. David Jessup, “Workers Rights and Trade.”
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