Where the Big Fish Eat the Little Fish: Women's Work in the Free-Trade Zones
Safa, Helen
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...
...7. U.S...
...We hardly ever go out...
...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...
...Women with some higher education have also started up private elementary schools in La Romana...
...We spend all our money on rent, food and a few other basic items...
...Many men like Jos6 work on heavier garments like pants and coats, where women's "nimble fingers" are less advantageous, and where men apparently feel they are not doing "women's work...
...People are willing to risk their lives," says Hilda, "in order to leave...
...Jorge does the shopping and administers all the household expenses, and is clearly the dominant figure in the household...
...differs considerably from that of women who head their Structural adjustment, by forcing women to assume own household...
...After the new code was passed, the newly formed National Federation of Free-Trade Zone Workers (FENATRAZONAS) helped organize nearly a hundred new unions...
...Two-thirds have no resident male partirresponsibility 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...
...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...
...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...
...The Dominican Ministry of Labor also brought sanctions against several firms for code violations--a notable departure from the past, when worker complaints of mistreatment or unjust dismissal were generally rejected in favor of management...
...With those 15 pesos I did many things...
...Structural adjustment meant currency devaluations, which forced the basic cost of labor in the freetrade 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...
...1 3 Incomes are their lives," she generally lower in the inforSays, "in order mal sector, but some men engaged in illegal activities, to leave the such as money lending, have done quite well...
...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...
...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...
...He sums his feelings up with a phrase common to the Dominican working class: "The big fish eat the little fish...
...Over 10% of all households surveyed by the Institute for the Study of Population and Development (IEPD) in 1991 were secondary households headed by women like Maria, which suggests that the percentage 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...
...Hilda's oldest son is completing his studies in civil engineering...
...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 supplement or substitute for wages under structural adjustment has contributed to the growth of the informal sector in the Dominican Republic...
...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...
...Several companies are known for never paying severance pay, even for workers with many years on the job...
...In 1992, a family of five needed an estimated 7,580 pesos, about $600, to cover monthly expenses for basic necessities, 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 families to survive on such low salaries...
...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 consumption...
...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...
...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...
...If far more prevalent in urban than in rural areas...
...Yet certain benefits, like a company scholarship which allows her six-year-old daughter to attend a private Catholic school, make Maria feel lucky to have her job...
...I won't living in consensual unions...
...Even more notable is that extended families are goes to work while the man stays home resting...
...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...
...Despite wage increases, inflation has decimated the buying power of Dominican workers...
...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...
...they show that they have more confidence in us...
...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 rehiring them as "new" workers the following year...
...My wages don't stretch that far...
...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...
...She says that management told the workers that "the big fish eat the little fish, and you need us more then we need you...
...The women approved of this practice because of the extra income it provided them at the end of the year...
...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...
...She bought a nice home in La Romana where her children live, and she rents out her former house...
...market...
...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...
...Most women have siblings abroad, and remittances are the primary source of foreign exchange in the Dominican Republic...
...These shifts in the economy have had dramatic consequences for the makeup of the Dominican labor force...
...Maria and women like her who head secondary households would probably be considered 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...
...Maria, a single mother who works in the freetrade 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...
...We can't afford any kind of recreational activities, like going to a dance or to the movies...
...The persistence of gender hierarchies, even within a predominantly female labor force like that in the freetrade zones, seems to be accepted by women workers, who are accustomed to having men in charge at the workplace...
...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...
...Workers who were involved in union activity lost their jobs and were blacklisted from employment with other firms in the zone...
...I am not going to tell you that I live well or comfortably," says Hilda, "because for me to live comfortably in St...
...He has than female-headed households with no secondary never supported the child, except for 500 pesos, about households...
...I know many sidered extended families-a high figure for an urban women who make life very easy for men...
...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...
...She wanted her daughters to study also, but they did not want to, and the oldest works intermittently in the free-trade zone...
...6. Helen I. Safa, The Myth of the Male Breadwinner Women and Industrialization in the Caribbean (Boulder: Westview Press, 1995...
...Nelson Ramirez, La Fuerza de Trabajo, p. 19...
...cially rose from 21.7% in 1981 to 29.1% in 1991, is actually much higher...
...Export promotion, on the other hand, has favored the employment of women-the preferred labor force in garment producNACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS a i ni 32REPORT ON THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC tion, the predominant industry in the freetrade zones...
...Under the rubric of structural adjustment, government programs have been cut drastically, undermining gains in women's health, education and occupational mobility won in previous decades...
...Since cheap labor is the prime determinant for investment, especially in small countries lacking other resources or infrastructure like the Dominican Republic, the chances for improvement are slim...
...6 In response, ADOZONA, the Dominican free-trade company association, led a barrage of criticism against the government for its supposed bias in favor of organized labor...
...Unions have always been weak in the Dominican Republic, partly because of their fragmentation and ties to political parties, and have never represented more than 10 to 15% of the labor force...
...Prior to the passage of this law, there was an informal prohibition on Vol XXX, No 5 MARCH/APRil...
...Today, she regrets her activism because it cost her her job...
...The rise in work for women in the free-trade zones has resulted in a four-fold increase in female employment between 1960 and 1990, from 9.3% to 38...
...Women who have worked a long time and demonstrated skill in the garment industry may rise to become supervisors, but to my knowledge, all the plant managers are men...
...Esperanza is one of thousands of women who began working in the free-trade zones in the 1980s...
...Desperate working and living conditions in the Dominican Republic are fueling a riskier survival strategy: illegal migration...
...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...
...government to offshore garment producers under the Caribbean Basin Initiative and other special programs also helped stimulate textile production, and garments are now the country's primary export...
...Women workers, while aware of the new labor code, were not well informed as to its contents...
...The author gratefully acknowledges research support provided by the North/South Center at the University of Miami...
...While women continue to enter the workforce in droves, life is increasingly precarious, especially for women workers...
...Supervisors are paid more and often receive special benefits from the company, like Maria, CoORA STcEAA...
...In 1991, 24% of in a hotel...
...We can't save anything," says Linda...
...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 freetrade zones in the interior of the country, where labor is still abundant...
...In this "race to the bottom," women workers pay dearest...
...they give us more work...
...You work because you have to and because there is no other source of income...
...Her most recent book is The Myth of the Male Breadwinner: Women and Industrialization in the Caribbean (Westview Press, 1995...
...In comparison to female heads, submore 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...
...As the company grows, we grow also because we develop...
...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 completed secondary school, compared to 47% of the men, reflecting a nationwide trend of higher educational levels for women...
...government cut the country's sugar quota, male wage labor deteriorated, forcing increasing numbers of men to seek refuge in the informal sector...
...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...
...Hilda lost her job several years ago because she was involved in an attempt to form a union...
...Now a worker earns 200 pesos or more," she says, "but it's still not enough to make ends meet...
...But the Dominican Republic's drawing power may soon decline, as export manufacturing proliferates in other countries that offer ever-cheaper production costs-and hence more profits...
...I even bought toilet soap, which I can't afford now...
...Hilda has now been living in St...
...Just imagine...
...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...
...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...
...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 individual gain...
...Though Dominican workers are referring to the relationship between capital and labor, the phrase also aptly characterizes the relationship between multinational corporations and the Dominican state, and between big, powerful countries like the United States and small, vulnerable countries like the Dominican Republic...
...Thomas...
...As import-substitution manufacturing was scaled back and the U.S...
...Thomas, badly...
...Tariff benefits provided by the U.S...
...Teresa's husband, Jorge, left the police force several years ago to become a money lender, and his family lives comfortably...
...allow anyone to live with me unless he is able to con- In 1991, 40% of all Dominican households were contribute to the household," she says...
...2 (Santo Domingo: Profamilia, 1992), p. 110...
...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...
...199733 VOL XXX, No 5 MARCH/APRIL 1997 33REPORT ON THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC union activity in the free-trade zones for years...
...After the 1995 peso debacle in Mexico, many export manufacturers moved production to that country...
...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...
...Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD...
...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...
...Department of Labor, Foreign Labor Trends: Dominican Republic, 1992-93, p. 12...
...The company has progressed a lot," she says...
...Isis Duarte, "The Impact of Structural Adjustment on Women...
...5 Overall, women also receive lower salaries than men...
...the economically active "People are women in the Dominican Republic were selfwilling to risk employed compared to 38% of the men...
...1 2 This suggests that extended families$40, he gave Maria on a return visit...
...Yet by fostering employee identification with the company, employers help dampen the development of worker consciousness...
...Department of Labor, Foreign Labor Trends: Dominican Republic, 1992-93 (Washington, D.C., 1993), p. 10...
...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...
...Unlike import-substitution industrialization, export promotion does not require the development of an internal market, but the reduction of labor costs in order to compete effectively in the socalled new international economic order...
...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 household economy, it is also a reflection of the desperate conditions facing Dominican workers...
...Though she earns over 3,600 pesos a month plus extras-about $280, triple the salary of a regular factory worker-Marfa still complains that she can't make ends meet...
...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...
...La Romana, the town where the free-trade zone I studied is located, now has numerous informal garment workshops run by women...
...The company is our school because we learn there...
...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...
...Men don't like to work in the zone," says Teresa, a former free-trade zone worker...
...Like other women who work in the Dominican Republic's sprawling free-trade zones, Esperanza comHelen i. Safa is professor of anthropology and Latin American Studies at the Center for Latin American Studies of the University of Florida...
...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...
...Thomas for eight years, where she works as a hotel housekeeper for $7 an hour...
...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...
...Female women demanded that men assume responsibility for sub-heads help raise incomes in these extended housethe home, like our mothers used to, things would be dif- holds to the point that they compare favorably with ferent...
...3 Declining employment opportunties has forced many Dominican men to take jobs in the free-trade zones...
...As a result, Mexico has since surpassed the Dominican Republic as the largest supplier of apparel to the U.S...
...Hilda lives sparsely in St...
...The woman society...
...Working conditions have consequently deteriorated, as workers' wages are continuously driven lower and their labor rights are minimized...
...AT 11E FRE-TRADE CAF...
...He already had to switch jobs because of difficulties with his supervisors, and says he is only working out of desperation: "Work in the free-trade zone is no good...
...Women are -all of which contribute to their higher incomes...
...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...
...country...
...The couple shares the bed3NCI4A REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 34REPORT ON THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC room with the children, while Linda's cousin sleeps in the kitchen...
...2. U.S...
...Female heads of household with young children to support often rely on the assistance of extended kin for child care and/or financial support...
...Their children study at a private school and they go to a private clinic for health care...
...They now own the home they live in, plus two others which they rent out, and they bought a car...
...The wage they pay in the zone is not a wage for men...
...Department of Labor, Foreign Labor Trends: Dominican Republic, 1994-95 (Washington, D.C., 1995...
...Almost all of the women interviewed spoke of leaving the country, 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...
...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...
...David Jessup, "Workers Rights and Trade...
...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...
...where she More men than women are "employed in the informal works as a maid sector (excluding domestic service...
...I went to the market and bought groceries...
...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...
...VoL XXX...
...Jos6, who has worked in the free-trade zone for eight years, complains bitterly about wages and working conditions...
...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...
...13...
...It grows and grows...
...Today, Teresa helps Jorge with his business...
...The free-trade zones constitute the third-largest source of employment, following the public sector and the sugar industry...
...Although free-trade zones have existed in the Dominican Republic since the 1960s, export manufacturing has boomed over the last decade, largely due to structuraladjustment measures implemented after 1982 in response to growing public debt and general economic 31 0 0 ; zREPORT ON THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC crisis...
...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...
...Today, about 30% of the workers in the free-trade zones are men...
...5 Workersespecially women-continue to pay the price in terms of increasing poverty, subordination and despair...
...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...
...Thomas, my family would have to live uncomfortably here...
...9. U.S...
...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...
...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...
...who has worked for the same plant for 17 years...
...The policies of managers are always to suppress the workers, to squeeze us dry...
...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...
...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 violations, 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...
...Dominican women workers are increasingly opting for individualistic solutions, trying to win the favor of management, migrating or setting up a business of their own...
...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...
...Workers leave the factory after a long day of work in the free-trade zone of San Pedro Macoris...
...ver the past few decades, the Dominican economy has undergone a sharp transformation...
Vol. 30 • March 1997 • No. 5
