Dominican Workers Triumph

(By Haider Rizvi - Multinational Monitor, January/February 1996)

  For the first time, maquila workers in the Dominican Republic conducted a successful strike that led to the signing of a collective bargaining agreement in late November 1995.
  The workers ( most of them women ) had worked for more than a year to organize a union at the Korean owned Bonahan Apparel Company, which makes women's wear for Jones New York.
  The Dominican labor ministry had earlier cited the Bonahan maquila operation for physical abuse of women workers, refusal to pay overtime, use of two-way mirrors in the bathrooms, refusal to pay severance benefits, forcing workers to stand for long periods, maintaining excessively high temperatures in working areas and other violations of the labor code.
  When the workers tried to organize to change these conditions, their leaders were illegally fired in March 1995. After conciliation efforts by the Dominican Republic labor ministry proved futile, the workers walked off their jobs on October 31. Despite teargassing and arrest of 18 strike leaders, the walkout gained momentum, forcing the company back to the bargaining table. Two weeks later, the company agreed to sign the contract and to rehire and pay back wages to union leaders it hact fired.
  The new contract sets up an unemployment fund for laid off workers, provides overtime workers with extra wages, rest breaks, meals and transportation and sets up a union-management committee.

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