Banana Background
The banana industry, like the industries of many primary commodities such as coffee and cocoa, is in a crisis that is being fought on the backs of workers. The three largest companies, Del Monte, Dole, and Chiquita, are cutting jobs, lowering wages, and closing plantations, while production in low-wage non-unionized Ecuador is on the rise. An 'banana war' is being fought between the US- and EU-based companies for market domination through the World Trade Organization.
In 1996, after Chiquita Banana's CEO Carl Lindner and his associates gave more than $5 million to both Republican and Democratic parties, the US Trade Representative challenged the European Union system that gave preference for bananas from former European colonies. The US charged that the rule, intended to serve as partial reparations for centuries of colonialism, constituted a "barrier to free trade". The WTO ruled, not surprisingly, that Chiquita's right to make a profit trumped EU preferences for bananas from small farmers in the Caribbean.
The EU then developed a trading system, called "first come, first served," that abolishes country quotas and forces Latin American countries -- and workers -- to compete against each other. Competition with Ecuador, however, is based on the fact that Ecuadorian banana workers are paid poverty-level wages that are a fraction of those in neighboring countries and are also denied benefits that many banana workers have been able to secure in other countries, including health care, housing and schooling for their children. Environmental standards are also lower than in many other banana-producing regions. And Colombian trade unionists feared that more unemployment could lead to increased violence.
Dole, based in California, was the largest supporter of the FCFS system because it has significant interests in low-wage Ecuador. In the spring of 2001 the Coordination of Latin American Banana Unions (COLSIBA) asked us to organize a campaign to pressure Dole to drop its support of the FCFS system. For statements by COLSIBA, US/LEAP, banana farmers in the Caribbean, the International Union of Foodworkers and others (see our FCFS section).
GX, along with our partners US/LEAP and the European Banana Action Network, organized a letter of protest to Dole signed by over 170 organizations around the world.
On April 11, 2001, however, the U.S. and European Union reached an agreement on the banana trade war that set aside FCFS before the Dole campaign could begin. The EU and Ecuador also issued an agreement on April 30, 2001. The new system offers quotas for companies instead of countries, and is opposed by the Caribbean small farmers.
However, the struggle for worker rights in the banana industry is far from over.
In June 2001, Chiquita signed a path-breaking agreement with its unions and the International Union of Foodworkers to respect worker rights. The agreement could go a long way to protecting unions in the industry and their wages and benefits, since Chiquita is the most heavily unionized of the banana transnationals, with 20,000 unionized workers in Central America and Colombia. See US/LEAP's website for a history of and updates on this important struggle.
In October 1999, leaders of the SITRABI (Sindicato de Trabajadores Bananeros de Izabal) banana union representing Del Monte workers in Guatemala were forced at gunpoint to flee for their lives with their families. This violent intimidation was an effort to thwart a legal walkout that the union was planning for the next day to protest the illegal firings of 900 workers from the Bobos plantations who were then replace by non-union workers who are paid less without benefits. After massive international pressure, the Guatemalan government finally scheduled a trial. On March 24, 2001 twenty-two men were convicted of coercion and false imprisonment. The workers were able to buy their way out of serving jail time.
A US Trade Representative investigation into rescinding trade benefits with Guatemala due to these worker rights abuses was dropped allowing a culture of impunity to continue in Guatemala.
Background Articles
