Workers against workers: Haitian migrants in the Dominican Republic
Wednesday, September 29th, 2010[Translations of two articles from September 26, the first from El Nacional of Santo Domingo, the second from Haïti Libre of Port-au-Prince. See original articles here and here.]
- El Nacional photo
Haitians said to displace Dominicans
Most street venders and construction workers are Haitians
by Santiago González
Santiago – The Federación Nacional Unitaria de Sindicatos de Trabajadores de la Construcción (FENUSTRACON — National Unified Federation of Construction Workers’ Unions) warned yesterday that the sector is passing through a deep crisis because Haitians are displacing Dominicans in the construction work force and in agricultural work.
“The government must pay greater attention to the domestic sector of the work force in the projects going up all over the country, since we are being displaced by Haitians and this is very dangerous,” the organization declared…
Rodríguez stated that many construction workers, principally those organized in the union he leads, have no work because engineers in charge of the jobs prefer to hire Haitians because they can pay them less for a day’s work. (more…)