The “Competing Demands Analysis” Theory of Labor Migration



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Migrating Toward Exploitation:

“Competing Demands Analysis” and

the Case of Haitian Labor in the Dominican Republic

By Francesca Holme

International Economics, Section 2

May 1, 2003

“The majordomo told us to take off all our clothes…so we were in our shorts, our underpants, for five whole days. In the rain, in the sun, cutting cane. The leaves of the cane are very sharp, and they whip you when you cut them, and if your back is naked or your chest or your legs, they rip right into you. For those five days, everyone came back bleeding from the field.”

-- Frankel Lubin, Haitian bracero

“I can’t go back when I want to. And I want to go back. Food here is too expensive, no matter what you make, you end up eating all your money…if I wanted to leave now, they wouldn’t let me off the batey. If I managed to get off, I’d get picked up off the street and brought back. And of I managed to get somewhere where there was a bus to Haiti, well, they say it costs 150 pesos to get back to Haiti, and I don’t have that kind of money.”

-- Elisen Seu, Haitian bracero

“You resign yourself, because a Haitian has no choice. If your neck is already on the butcher block you’re not afraid of the knife. But you’re not content.”

-- Edmund Joseph, Haitian bracero

In the Dominican Republic thousands of Haitian laborers work on sugar cane plantations, making up the backbone of a dying industry. They work under conditions that many human rights activists claim are worse than slavery. These laborers live in bateyes, or work camps, where 5 to 9 workers sleep in a single room without beds, sanitary facilities, electricity or running water.[i] They toil for 12 to 18 hours a day with dangerous equipment such as machetes, and injuries are common.[ii] Furthermore, Haitians do not have the right to move about freely in the Dominican Republic.[iii] Recent protests by human rights organizations have led to some improvements in living and working conditions, but in general, the situation remains deplorable. Why do Haitian laborers continue to migrate to the Dominican Republic in spite of these terrible conditions? This paper will argue that the “competing demands analysis” theory of labor migration can account for some of the reasons why labor migration occurs and accurately predicts some of its outcomes, but it is far from complete. The primary reasons why Haitian laborers continue to work in the Dominican Republic relate to the coercive political dealings between the two governments and the power of a small elite that profits from maintaining the inefficient sugar industry and using abusive practices to do so.

The “Competing Demands Analysis” Theory of Labor Migration

The “competing demands analysis” theory of labor migration predicts that labor will move from one country to another in a situation where trade is not perfectly free. That is, labor migration acts as a substitute for free trade, allowing people from relatively labor-abundant countries to work in relatively labor-intensive industries, even if those industries are located in other countries. Migration is an alternative way in which countries make relatively intensive use of their abundant resources.[iv]

The following graph illustrates how labor migration can cause wages and capital prices to converge across developed countries (DCs) and lesser-developed countries (LDCs) that send and receive migrant workers.[v]

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As shown in the graph, the demand for inexpensive labor in DCs often exceeds the available supply. Labor from LDCs can meet that demand because migrants are often willing to work for lower wages, since the wage in their home country tends to be even lower. Migrants have a strong economic incentive to work in DCs because of the comparatively higher wages, and firms have an incentive to hire labor from LDCs because it is comparatively cheaper. The net effect of this migration is the same as under free trade: wages converge across the two nations. As labor migrates, wages in DCs tend to drop as local workers have to compete with foreign workers’ lower wages, and companies in LDCs have to pay workers more to entice them to stay at home.[vi]

The following charts show the gains and losses to each sector of the DC’s and LDC’s economies.

DC |Before |After |Change | |LDC |Before |After |Change | |Capital |A |ABD |BD+ | |Capital |HIF |H |FI- | |Labor |BC |C |B- | |Labor - Non-migrant |J |IJ |I+ | |GNP |ABC |ADCD |D+ | |Labor - Migrant |G |FGE |EF+ | | | | | | |GNP |FGHIJ |EFGHIJ |E+ | |

The economies of both countries benefit from the exchange by becoming more efficient. Area D represents a GNP gain in the DC, while area E represents a GNP gain in the LDC. In the case of the DC, the benefits of the labor migration go to capital owners, while in the LDC, the benefits fall on both migrant and non-migrant laborers. This dispersal of benefits also replicates the free trade situation: under free trade, countries benefit as a whole, but those who benefit the most are capital owners in capital-abundant countries and laborers in labor-abundant countries.[vii]

Testing the “Competing Demands Analysis”: The Haitian-Dominican Case

The case of Haitian laborers in the Dominican Republic provides a complex real world example to test the “competing demands analysis.” Although it is a case in which laborers are migrating from one LDC to another, the differences between the two countries is as extreme as the difference between a DC and an LDC. Haiti’s GNI per capita is only US $460, compared to US $2,130 in the Dominican Republic.[viii] Life expectancy is 67 years in the Dominican Republic, whereas it is only 54 in Haiti.[ix]

Knowing these circumstances, it seems obvious why labor migration would take place between the two countries. It would appear that Haitians’ economic opportunities would be much greater in the Dominican Republic and that they might benefit from better public services such as health care and more sanitary conditions, improving their life expectancy. Dominican firms would benefit from using less expensive foreign laborers. But there is more to the story. The Dominican Republic has an unemployment rate of 25%, indicating that there should already be a supply of cheap local labor willing to take on the jobs currently occupied by Haitian migrants.[x] And many Haitians who migrate to the Dominican Republic end up worse off, both economically and in terms of living conditions, than they were in Haiti.[xi]

Why does labor migration continue between the two countries? How can the “competing demands analysis” help account for this phenomenon, and where does it fall short? The following case study will show how the “competing demands analysis” helps explain why some Haitians choose to migrate to the Dominican Republic, as well as the convergence of wages between the two countries and the benefits to Dominican capital owners. However, the “competing demands analysis” does not fully describe the Dominican-Haitian case because it is largely the political power of the sugar corporations that continues to draw Haitians to the Dominican Republic and subsequently forces them to live in inhumane conditions.

Braceros and Anba Fil

Before launching into this case study, it is important to make a distinction between those Haitians who are legally contracted temporary workers living in the Dominican Republic and those who are undocumented. Legal workers are called braceros and are hired almost exclusively to work on sugar plantations in the Dominican Republic. They are recruited in Haiti and given contracts. Braceros are transported to specific plantations and are not allowed any mobility from one plantation to another. They enter the country during one of the two harvest seasons and leave when the work on the plantations runs out.[xii]

Illegal Haitian immigrants are commonly referred to as anba fil, a Haitian Creole phrase that translates to “under the wires.”[xiii] Anba fil refers to both Haitian braceros that remain in the Dominican Republic after the harvest and those who cross the border illegally. Unlike braceros, anba fil work in a variety of jobs, from construction to food vending. They tend to have more upward mobility than the average bracero. Among those anba fil that do work on the sugar plantations, many hold less arduous jobs than cutting cane; they tend to work as “cart drivers, train-car loaders and cane-cutter foremen,” which are considered to be more prestigious positions.[xiv] Since anba fil have more mobility, they seek out areas to settle where they have friends or family.[xv]

“Competing Demands Analysis”: A Partial Explanation

“Competing demands analysis” can help explain one of the factors that pushes both braceros and anba fil from Haiti to the Dominican Republic. There is no doubt that these groups of workers are poor and seek greater economic opportunities. More important than simply being poor, however, is that Haitians that migrate tend to be cash-poor.

About 80% of braceros and 75% of anba fil were peasants in Haiti.[xvi] Most braceros are male heads of households in Haiti with multiple responsibilities. They subsist with their families on crops grown on their land exclusively for consumption and sometimes on a limited number of cash crops, or a combination of the two. But in order to pay debts or purchase land and livestock, Haitian peasants “must look for the necessary cash outside of the community or outside the country.”[xvii] Without cash to pay debts, Haitians can quickly wind up in jail or lose their family’s land and possessions.[xviii] Although working conditions on the Dominican sugar plantations are terrible and wages are extremely low, Haitian heads of households are often desperate. They feel it is better to bring back a meager amount of cash to pay back part of their debts than risk losing everything their family needs to survive.

Anba fil tend to represent a different demographic, although they are equally cash-poor. They are usually the “extra sons” in peasant families in Haiti. Rather than remain on the family farm where there may not be enough food to go around, they go to the Dominican Republic to earn a living outside of the community. Because they have less ties to Haiti, they are more likely to stay in the Dominican Republic after harvest seasons and seek other employment.[xix] Thus, as “competing demands analysis” predicts, money does provide an incentive for both legal and illegal labor to move from Haiti to the Dominican Republic.

Wage convergence across the two countries, another of the “competing demands analysis” predictions, also occurs as a result of labor migration. But the lowest class of Dominicans bears most of the burden of this convergence. Because both braceros and anba fil receive very low wages, unskilled Dominican workers in many industries must compete by also working for low wages, driving average income in the Dominican Republic down.[xx]

Meanwhile, the dominant class in the Dominican Republic, some of which is made up of plantation owners, experiences none of this wage depression and actually benefits from being able to pay workers less.[xxi] This benefit to capital owners is also predicted by “competing demands analysis” – the majority of the benefits of labor migration in the more developed country should fall on capital owners. In the Dominican Republic, where capital is concentrated in the hands of a small elite, this phenomenon contributes to class polarization.

Other Factors: The Power of the Elite

There is more to the Haitian migrant worker story than those elements that “competing demands analysis” can account for. Powerful sugar producers such as Gulf & Western (G&W) and the Dominican State Sugar Council (Consejo Estatal del Azúcar, or CEA)[1] have collaborated with the Dominican and Haitian governments to ensure that Haitian laborers, both legal and illegal, continue to flow into the Dominican Republic and onto the sugar plantations. The resulting system of labor migration is characterized by manipulation of Haitian workers and extreme human rights abuses.

The Dominican and Haitian elite have been cooperating for years to supply Haitian labor to sugar plantations in the Dominican Republic. In 1952, CEA signed an agreement with the Haitian government that ensured that for a price of US $500,000 to $3,000,000 per year, 15,000 braceros would be delivered to the Dominican Republic to cut sugar cane.[xxii] Recruiters hired by then-dictator of Haiti Duvalier persuaded Haitians to go work on the Dominican plantations using radio advertisements and announcements from roving pick-up trucks equipped with loudspeakers. The advertisements promised daily wages of up to US $15 a day.[xxiii] But when the braceros arrived in the Dominican Republic they discovered that this advertising was completely false. Even today, few braceros make more than US $1.25 per day.[xxiv] Braceros are paid according to the number of tons of cane they cut and are often cheated by those who weigh the cane.[xxv] Contracts between the Haitian government and CEA have been renewed each year since 1952, despite the fact that the legality of these contracts has been questioned both in the Dominican Republic and internationally.[xxvi]

The elite of the two countries have engaged in other manipulative practices to keep Haitian laborers on the plantations as well. The Dominican Army and National Police are periodically ordered to round up Haitians working in other sectors of the economy and relocate them to the sugar plantations. Theoretically these roundups target anba fil for deportation to Haiti, but even braceros and Dominican nationals of Haitian ancestry are liable to get picked up by police while traveling within the country or contracting services. Furthermore, they are seldom deported, but rather are sent to plantations to cut cane.[xxvii] The following is an excerpt from one of the few newspaper articles that ever reach the mainstream press about this everyday reality for many Haitians:

LA ROMANA – Around 600 Haitians were arrested yesterday in different parts of this city by members of the Army, in a roundup in search of undocumented [workers]. According to the reports obtained by this correspondent, many people had been beaten for refusing to be detained by the military personnel. Those persons resisted the soldiers arguing that they were not Haitians. Many colored persons found in the surrounding area or the mentioned local market were arrested by the soldiers.[xxviii]

These routine roundups occur principally during December and July, coinciding with the beginning of the sugar harvest in the East and Southwest, and then the beginning of the rice and coffee harvests in the North. Only in the month of August, when less labor is required for agriculture, are Haitians actually deported from the Dominican Republic.[xxix] The roundups help explain why the Dominican-Haitian boarder is not sealed more tightly against anba fil: the sugar plantations rely on them during the harvest season, and the Dominican government does not have to pay the Haitian government for their recruitment.[2]

One may wonder why the sugar companies and the state go to so much trouble to bring Haitians to the plantations, even though there is a 25% unemployment rate in the Dominican Republic and therefore a large pool of exploitable laborers at home. The answer is that Dominicans are not exploitable enough to keep the struggling sugar industry profitable. Although it was once the backbone of the Dominican economy, sugar now comprises only 3.6% of the Dominican Republic’s exports,[xxx] but its profits continue to benefit a powerful elite that has a vested interest in preserving the industry. Generally speaking, Dominicans not only demand a higher wage than Haitians, but they are more successful at fighting for their rights as workers. Haitian braceros are often unable to organize into labor unions because they are a frequently changing population, often forcibly relocated from one plantation to another and constantly facing the threat of deportation. They are seldom proficient in Spanish and therefore have trouble uniting with Dominican labor unions or familiarizing themselves with their rights.[xxxi] Their inability to speak Spanish also creates difficulties when they are haggling with the middlemen who weigh the cane. On average, the bracero is not credited for 25-30% of the cane he cuts, while the Dominican cane cutter is cheated only about 10%.[xxxii]

The Dominican and Haitian governments also profit from the sugar industries hiring Haitians. The Dominican government levies income taxes on braceros that supposedly contribute to a sort of social security system. But few Haitian workers know that if they are temporarily disabled they can claim a small daily stipend that comes out of this fund, so the great majority of the tax money remains in the hands of the authorities.[xxxiii] As mentioned before, the Haitian government receives cash in exchange for the cane workers it recruits and sends to the Dominican Republic.[xxxiv]

Conclusion

The sugar industry in the Dominican Republic has shrunk rapidly in the past decade. Were it not for the exploitative practices of sugar companies and the Haitian and Dominican governments, it could not continue to be profitable and probably would have died out ten years ago. But because it is in the interest of a small but powerful elite, sugar production continues, balanced on the backs of Haitian laborers. As the “competing demands analysis” would suggest, there is a limited economic pull factor that draws Haitian peasants to the Dominican plantations, and labor migration tends to drive Dominican wages down to the benefit of Dominican capital owners. However, most Haitian laborers are manipulated into going to the plantations and are abused, both economically and physically, by their employers. The needs of the elites within the sugar industry determine the forms of coercion, such as roundups and exploitative contracts, used to bring Haitians to the fields. One can only hope that the efforts of humanitarian groups such as Americas Watch and the National Coalition for Haitian Refugees succeed in their mission to expose the mistreatment of Haitian migrant laborers and end the sugar industry’s stranglehold on the island’s politics.

Bibliography

Griffin, Regina. “Hidden From Sight: Cane Cutters in the Dominican Republic.” America v. 173, July 29-Aug. 5 1995, pp. 22-4.

ITC Databases: Aggregated Trade Statistics website:



Martinez, Samuel. “From Hidden Hand to Heavy Hand: Sugar, the State, and Migrant Labor in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.” Latin American Research Review, v. 34, i. 1, 1999, pp. 57-84.

Martinez, Samuel. Peripheral Migrants: Haitians and Dominican Republic Sugar Plantations. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1995.

Murphy, Martin. Dominican Sugar Plantations: Production and Foreign Labor Integration. New York: Praeger, 1991.

National Coalition for Haitian Refugees, Americas Watch and Caribbean Rights. Harvesting Oppression: Forced Haitian Labor in the Dominican Sugar Industry. New York: Human Rights Watch, 1990.

Onè Respe. El Otro Del Nosotros: Informe de Investigación acerca del Prejuicio Antihaitiano en la Ciudad de Santiago, de la Republica Dominicana. Santo Domingo, R.D.: Editora BUHO, 1995.

Orenstein, Catherine C. “Illegal Transnational Labor: Mexicans in California and Haitians in the Dominican Republic.” Journal of International Affairs v. 48, Winter 1995, pp. 601-24 (online WilsonSelectPlus version).

Plant, Roger. Sugar and Modern Slavery: A Tale of Two Countries. London: Zed Books, 1987.

Whitney, James, Professor of Economics at Occidental College. Lecture to Economics 311 class, section 2, April 7, 2003.

World Bank websites (country statistics):

and



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[1] Together, CEA and G&W contract an estimated 34,000 braceros per season. G&W does all of this contracting through Dominican companies, so that in the face of accusations of human rights violations the company can claim it does not directly employ any Haitian braceros. But the conditions in G&W plantations are still widely considered to be better than those on CEA plantations due a minimum of international accountability, and many braceros mistakenly assume that once they arrive in the Dominican Republic they can move from CEA plantations to G&W Central Romana plantation. (Murphy, p. 80)

[2] Readers may ask why the Dominican population at large does not protest the roundups and deportations. Some Dominicans do object to the inhumane treatment of Haitians, and some are unaware that these injustices take place. But the great majority of the Dominican population has been socialized to be extremely prejudiced against Haitians. Haitians are stereotyped as heathen, smelly and uneducated. A comprehensive study of anti-Haitian prejudice in the Dominican Republic was conducted by the organization Onè Respe (see bibliography for details).

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[i] Griffin, Regina. “Hidden From Sight: Cane Cutters in the Dominican Republic.” America v. 173, July 29-Aug. 5 1995, p. 22.

[ii] Ibid.

[iii] Martinez, Samuel. “From Hidden Hand to Heavy Hand: Sugar, the State, and Migrant Labor in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.” Latin American Research Review, v. 34, i. 1, 1999, p. 79.

[iv] Based on lecture by James Whitney, Professor of Economics at Occidental College, April 7, 2003.

[v] Ibid.

[vi] Ibid.

[vii] Ibid.

[viii] World Bank websites (country statistics): and



[ix] Ibid.

[x] Murphy, Martin. Dominican Sugar Plantations: Production and Foreign Labor Integration. New York: Praeger, 1991, p. 120.

[xi] Ibid., multiple pages.

[xii] Ibid., pp. 80-94.

[xiii] Ibid, p. 88.

[xiv] Ibid., p. 91.

[xv] Ibid., p. 106

[xvi] Ibid., pp. 100, 105.

[xvii] Ibid., p. 108.

[xviii] Ibid., p. 109.

[xix] Ibid., pp. 110-111.

[xx] Orenstein, Catherine C. “Illegal Transnational Labor: Mexicans in California and Haitians in the Dominican Republic.” Journal of International Affairs v. 48, Winter 1995, pp. 601-24 (online WilsonSelectPlus version: p. 9).

[xxi] Ibid.

[xxii] Ibid., (online WilsonSelectPlus version: p. 8.)

[xxiii] Murphy, Martin. Dominican Sugar Plantations: Production and Foreign Labor Integration. New York: Praeger, 1991, pp. 81-2.

[xxiv] Ibid., p. 115.

[xxv] Griffin, Regina. “Hidden From Sight: Cane Cutters in the Dominican Republic.” America v. 173, July 29-Aug. 5 1995, p. 22.

[xxvi] Murphy, Martin. Dominican Sugar Plantations: Production and Foreign Labor Integration. New York: Praeger, 1991, p. 82.

[xxvii] Ibid., p. 91.

[xxviii] Ibid., p. 92.

[xxix] Ibid., p. 93.

[xxx] ITC Databases: Aggregated Trade Statistics. Website:

[xxxi] Murphy, Martin. Dominican Sugar Plantations: Production and Foreign Labor Integration. New York: Praeger, 1991, p. 121.

[xxxii] Ibid., p. 122.

[xxxiii] Ibid., p. 123.

[xxxiv] Ibid., p. 125.

Quotes on the cover of this paper come from the following source:

National Coalition for Haitian Refugees, Americas Watch and Caribbean Rights. Harvesting Oppression: Forced Haitian Labor in the Dominican Sugar Industry. New York: Human Rights Watch, 1990, pp. 16, 23.

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