Labor Laws and the Dominican Republic

Eduardo Calderon & Joel Muñoz

History of the Dominican Republic ●  Tainos, an indian tribe from the South American mainland, were

the first to settle in present day Dominican Republic. They were here before Christopher Columbus.

●  In 1492- Christopher Columbus discovered the island and named it Hispaniola.

●  in 1496- The city of La Nueva Isabela was founded on the southern coast, which was the first permanent settlement in the new world, and would eventually become the capital, Santo Domingo.

●  Years later, African slaves were brought in to replace indigenous tribes because they had all died out, mainly from disease.

●  In 1697- Spain was forced to give the western third of the island to France, which they named Haiti.

●  In 1795- By this year, the French had taken over the whole island.

●  In 1801- The slaves revolted from France. ●  In 1844- The Dominicans declared independence from France. ●  In 1930- Rafael Trujillo was brought to power. ●  In 1961- After a 30 year rule, Trujillo was assassinated. ●  In 1962- Juan Bosch was elected, but was quickly removed

because he was accused of being pro-communist and a three-man junta was formed.

●  In 1965- Citizen opposed the junta and captured Santo Domingo.

●  In 1966- A truce was established and Joaquin Balaguer was elected in June of that year.

●  The Dominican Republic has remained a Democratic Republic ever since.

History of the Dominican Republic cont.

Background on the D.R. ●  Location-

○  Eastern side of the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean Sea.

○  Shares the island with Haiti ●  Capital-

○  Santo Domingo ●  Climate-

○  Tropical Maritime ●  Government-

○  Democratic Republic

●  Language- ○  Spanish (Dominican Spanish)

●  Religion- ○  Mostly all Dominicans are Roman Catholic

■  About 95% ●  Currency-

○  Dominican Peso ■  1 U.S. Dollar= 42.45 Dominican Pesos

Background on the D.R. cont.

●  The economy is highly dependent on the U.S, the destination for more than half the exports and almost half of imports.

●  Tourism is one of the fastest growing economic activities

●  Other industries in the D.R. include sugar processing, ferronickel and gold mining, textiles, cement, and tobacco.

Economy

Current Service Efforts ●  A nursing program from the University of

Ohio is taking nursing students to give health care needs in a third world setting. This helps both the Dominican people as well as the students because the Dominicans get health care they need and the students get clinical time, while doing it in a different setting which gives them more of challenge.

●  This past summer, a group of us also went to the Dominican Republic for a service learning trip. We worked with the Brigada Verde girls at an environmental school. We did many activities like make benches, make steps out of bamboo, cleared fields of invasive species, and interacted with people from the community.

Our Service Efforts

Our Service Learning Experience

Culture Shock

●  Eduardo ○  Adaptation- Sleeping with no A/C ○  Integration-Dancing with the Brigada Verde

girls

●  Joel ○  Adaptation- Washing the dishes ○  Adjustments- Helping a classmate talk to girls

that only spoke spanish ○  Integration- Learning how to dance a different

kind of music and teaching someone else one of our styles of music

Culture Shock

6 Barriers to Intercultural Communication Joel

●  Anxiety- No one spoke english, getting lost ●  Assuming Similarity instead of Difference- Speaking

spanish ●  Ethnocentrism-Clearing the fields ●  Stereotypes and Prejudice- Baseball players,

Language (talk fast) ●  Non-Verbal Misinterpretations- Hand signs ●  Language- Slang

6 Barriers to Intercultural Communication Eduardo

●  Anxiety-Getting attacked because we are tourists, riding an airplane for the first time

●  Assuming Similarity instead of Difference- Machismo

●  Ethnocentrism- “El Mudo” ●  Stereotypes and Prejudice-Education and religion ●  Non-Verbal Misinterpretation- Girls in the park ●  Language- Different words

Subcultures in the D.R. ●  Economic Status

○  People tend to stick to their own class, whether it being rich people with other rich people, or lower class people with other lower class.

○  Passed down from one generation to the other.

Labor Laws ●  The law established a standard of 44

work hours per week, but agricultural workers are exempt from that.

●  By law, it is required for employers to pay for annual holidays and premium pay for overtime, but enforcement is often ineffective.

●  Workers often complained that inspectors were not well trained and did not respond to their complaints.

Wages and a Comparison to the U.S. Dominican Republic- ●  Minimum wage for Dominicans can go from $5,000

pesos (about $127 U.S. dollars) to $9,000 pesos (about $228 U.S. dollars) per MONTH for the standard 44 hours per week.

●  The daily minimum wage for agricultural farmers is $175 pesos ($4.43 U.S dollars) based on a 10 hour shift.

United States- ●  Minimum wage in Texas is $7.25 per hour ●  If the standard amount of hours are worked, which are

40, then the amount earned in the U.S. would be $290 U.S. dollars.

From our experiences in the Dominican Republic, we saw that most of the people there would work for and depend mostly on tips that tourist would give them.

Our Experiences

So What? So what about labor laws and wages in the

Dominican Republic?

●  We are trying to increase awareness about labor laws and wages in the Dominican Republic.

Journal Entry Joel

●  In the D.R. I saw that the women in families are all stay at home mothers and do all the housekeeping and take care of the children. Men are the ones who stand up for their families and go work hard to provide money and food. They are also the ones who always drive. Women in the D.R. do not drive most of the time.

Journal Entry Eduardo

●  As soon as we entered the Dominican Republic I noticed how different is from the United States. The way of life is just so different here. I would see that people’s houses were what we would consider “shacks” or houses that are breaking down. They seemed like they were satisfied with what they had and just seemed to be happy.

Sources ●  Dominican Republic. (2009). Background Notes on Countries of the

World: Dominican Republic, 1. ●  Souers, C. (2009). Global perspectives. Improving health care in an

underserved setting. AORN Journal, 89(5), 899-906. doi:10.1016/j.aorn.2009.04.011

●  The Global Road Warrior. Austria: People. Retrieved September 25, 2013, from http://www.globalroadwarrior.com/ContentInfo.asp?iso3ltr=DOM&nid=13.01&cid=42&next_nid=13.02&parent=Business%20Culture

●  The Global Road Warrior. Austria: People. Retrieved September 25, 2013, from http://www.globalroadwarrior.com/ContentInfo.asp?iso3ltr=DOM&nid=76&cid=42&next_nid=77&parent=Human%20Rights

●  Souers, C. (2009). Nursing Field Studies: Nursing Students and Service Learning in a Third World Setting.AURCO Journal, 1529-39.

Thank you