From: Curtis Price <cansv-AT-igc.apc.org>
Date:          Fri, 23 May 1997 07:12:23 +0000
Subject:       (Fwd) Dominican sugar workers stage one-day strike


------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
Date:          Thu, 22 May 1997 15:32:41 -0700
From:          NewsHound <speak-AT-hound.com>

Reply-to:      speak-AT-hound.com
Subject:       Dominican sugar workers stage one-day strike



Here is your NewsHound news article from your "STRIKES" hound with a score "78."  For more information, visit the NewsHound website at http://www.newshound.com or send an email to speak-AT-hound.com.



Dominican sugar >>workers<< stage one-day >>strike<<

BY JOSE MONEGRO
Associated Press Writer


SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) -- More than 30,000 Dominican sugar
cane >>workers<< went on >>strike<< Thursday demanding pay raises and
access to basic health care.

The planned one-day walkout paralyzed operations at eight state-run sugar
plantations and repair work at four others run by the State Sugar Council.

The >>workers<< are demanding a 60 percent wage increase and access to free
medical care -- a service the government promised but never supplied,
citing financial straits. The sugar council owes 300 million pesos ($21.5
million) to the Dominican Social Security Institute, which manages most of
the public health clinics.

The lack of health care is particularly serious on the plantations. Ninety
percent of the female cane >>workers<< suffer from uterine cancer, largely
due to the plantations' poor sanitation and working conditions, a recent
U.N. report found. Ten percent of the 30,000 harvesters suffered from AIDS,
it said.

Most of the >>workers<<, who currently earn 2,500 pesos ($180) per month,
rarely or never see a doctor.

For years, human rights groups have decried the working and sanitary
conditions on the plantations, where whole families are forced to live in
tiny mud huts and where >>workers<< are often forced to work weeks without
rest.

But the cane cutters, thousands of whom come from neighboring Haiti, have
little option but to endure the backbreaking labor and poor pay.

The Dominican sugar industry is one of the world's largest, producing
210,000 tons of sugar in 1996, but few earnings actually reach >>workers<<.

Wage negotiations were expected to resume Monday.



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