2023 Laws of Puerto Rico › TITLE TWENTY-NINE - Labor (§§ 1 — 3004) › PART VI - Guaranteed Income (§§ 2001 — 2109) › Chapter 81 - Workers of the Agricultural Phase of the Sugarcane Industry (§§ 2001 — 2009b) › § 2003 - Advances by farmers; reimbursement

(a) The sugarcane farmers shall pay from their own private resources the wages in force by virtue of federal decrees, by decrees of the Minimum Wage Board of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, or those fixed, directly or indirectly, through contractual obligations, whichever is the highest, and shall likewise advance, the payments of the income supplement. The Government of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, through the Department of Agriculture, shall compensate the approximate additional expense incurred by the sugarcane growers by virtue of the said advance.
(b) Before the difficulty of determining the exact additional amount of the incomes guaranteed to the workers imposed by this act to each one of the thousands of sugarcane growers existing in Puerto Rico, the Secretary of Agriculture is hereby empowered to classify the sugarcane growers of Puerto Rico in different groups, taking into consideration the different needs of manpower required for the production of each ton of sugarcane, on the basis of the grade of mechanism reached by each grower, the average wages paid in Puerto Rico in each work classification for green and burned sugarcane, as the case may be, the extra wages due to the increase in the price of the sugar and any other factor which, in the judgment of the Secretary, should be taken into consideration. For each one of these groups the Secretary shall fix a rate of reimbursement per ton of sugarcane. Said rates may be changed for each sugar crop. The regulations containing these rates, as well as the standards and procedures to be followed in this program, shall be filed annually by the Secretary in the office of the Secretary of State of Puerto Rico not later than June 30 of each fiscal year.
(c) The Secretary shall establish by regulation effective July 1, 1969, the appropriate criteria which shall govern the determination of which workers shall be eligible to receive the benefits of this chapter. Within said criteria, the Secretary may consider the number of hours to be worked weekly by the workers during the harvesting of the sugarcane and during the off-season, the number of workers employed by each employer, and any other matter which may be favorable in obtaining the purposes of this chapter, giving special consideration to the fundamental objective that the reimbursements made correspond as far as possible, to the payments made to the workers.
(d) For the computation of the data on which shall be based the reimbursements that the Government of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico pledges to make in order to compensate the sugarcane growers for the approximate additional expense, the sugar factories of the Island shall furnish to the Secretary or the subaltern officer in whom he may designate, when each grower completes the delivery of his sugarcane and not later than thirty (30) working days after finishing the said grinding, a report on the tons ground by each sugarcane grower, as well as information in regard to the cutting and harvesting method of each one, if by machine or by hand, and if the cane was cut green or after it had been burned, and in case of mixed deliveries, in what proportion the sugarcane was delivered which had been harvested either mechanically or by hand, as well as the proportion of the green and burned sugarcane.
(e) The reimbursement payments to sugarcane growers shall be made not later than sixty (60) days after the Secretary, or the subaltern officer whom he may designate, has received from each sugar factory the report referred to in previous subsection (d).
History —June 29, 1969, No. 141, p. 462, § 3; June 7, 1972, No. 5, p. 347, § 4; July 24, 1974, No. 245, Part 2, p. 236, § 3, retroactive to July 1, 1974.