New York & Santo Domingo Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit ------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the November 20, 1997 issue of Workers World newspaper ------------------------- EDITORIAL: NEW YORK & SANTO DOMINGO The Nov. 11-12 general strike in the Dominican Republic was fueled by deepening social unrest. Conditions of life in the Dominican Republic have become increasingly unbearable. The Dominican community in the U.S. is bearing the brunt of poverty and unemployment as well. A new study, reported in the Nov. 10 New York Times, reveals a direct link between the social crisis facing both populations. The study revealed that the biggest single sector of the Dominican Republic's economy is the money Dominican workers based in the U.S. send home--bigger than tourism, sugar cane or manufacturing. Cutbacks in social services, factory closings and runaway shops are exacting a heavy toll on Dominicans in the U.S. There were large numbers of Dominican workers among the UAW members at the now-closed Ford Mahwah, N.J., assembly plant and GM Tarrytown, N.Y., operations. Those wages had supported families here and in the Dominican Republic. These factory closings are typical of a trend among manufacturers to relocate to South Jersey, South Carolina, south of the border, and south Korea. Some plants were closed as a result of NAFTA. Other closings were part of the larger trend of capitalist restructuring that pre-dated NAFTA. This leaner, meaner economy rests on a growing number of low-wage, no-benefit sweatshop jobs. The epidemic of closings of small and medium-sized industrial operations laid waste to the livelihoods of many Dominican families. The sharp downward turn in living conditions among Dominicans in the U.S. has a direct impact on the economy in Santo Domingo, where families in the poorest neighborhoods need money from relatives in the United States in order to survive. Per capita income in the Dominican Republic has declined 23 percent in real dollars since 1989 and the poverty rate has soared to 46 percent from 37 percent. This social crisis is developing in the midst of the expansion of the capitalist economy. What can be expected when the capitalist economic cycle goes bust? As those at the summits of power in the U.S. watch the general strike in Santo Domingo, they would do well to remember the 1992 rebellion of the Dominican community in New York. The streets of New York then looked much like those in Santo Domingo do this week as the community blocked traffic in most of northern Manhattan, burned bonfires in the major intersections, and crowded around television reporters to denounce the police murder of a Dominican youth, Kiko Garcia. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted if source is cited. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: ww@workers.org. For subscription info send message to: info@workers.org. Web: http://workers.org) ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytrc-11.15.97-03:13:28-24122