Big Sugar Not So Sweet for Workers
Includes Background on a Marco Rubio Sugar Daddy
In this documentary, filmmakers go undercover to expose the conditions on sugar plantations in the Dominican Republic. Haitian cane cutters are treated like slaves and make $2 per day. The beneficiaries are American sugar barons and even one Republican presidential candidate.
Big Sugar tells the story of an industry that has managed to fly under the radar despite its role in the American obesity epidemic and its shocking treatment of workers on plantations in the Caribbean and elsewhere in the Americas.
Among those benefitting from the exploitation of cane cutters who live in slave-like conditions: Republican presidential hopeful Marco Rubio. One of his top donors is sugar baron Jose “Pepe” Fanjul.
This must-see documentary also exposes the efforts of Big Sugar to prevent Americans from living more healthily by cutting down on the sweet stuff.
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Part 1
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Part 2
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Related frontpage panorama photo credit: Cake (US Air Force / Flickr), Sugarcane Workers (Albert Axon / YouTube)
