International Centre for Trade Union Rights

Unions persuade multinationals to dialogueAuthor(s): ALISTAIR SMITHSource: International Union Rights, Vol. 7, No. 4, Struggling for a social wage: Focus on socialsecurity (2000), p. 19Published by: International Centre for Trade Union RightsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41935885 .

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The union delegation that met with Chiquita, Dole and Del Monte, Miami, May 2000

OPINION □ BANANA WORKERS

Unions persuade

multinationals to dialogue

JL way bananas are grown now ; it's " ■ more like a factory" These were not ■ the words of a critic of the industry or

a trade unionist or a journalist visiting a planta- tion for the first time. This was the Chairman of the International Banana Association and execu- tive Vice-President of Chiquita's North American sales and marketing, Fred Heptinstall. Given his brief to make bananas as attractive as possible to consumers this seems a strange statement to Europeans, but maybe this is what North American consumers want to hear.

The world's banana factories to which Mr Chiquita refers are in fact in deep trouble from Ecuador to Belize and from Ghana to the Philippines. For nearly two years now the banana economy has been seeing a price free-fall, with overproduction by the cheapest producer, Ecuador, at the root of the problem. Even when prices started to fall, big growers there kept planting more and more high-yielding tissue cul- ture banana plantations. At the same time, share prices of the three biggest banana companies - Dole, Chiquita and Del Monte - have been falling as never before and have hit all-time lows since the beginning of October. In Costa Rica 7,000 direct jobs have been lost in recent months as the big companies have cancelled contracts with independent suppliers or cut back production in their own 'banana factories'. Tens of thousands more are at risk as the crisis shows no signs of going away.

Ecuador's cheap production is based on the labour of several hundred thousand men and women who live on low wages, have no job secu- rity or social benefits, and are scared of joining an independent trade union. The length of the queues of workers in Guayaquil at 5am every morning bear witness to the fact that employers have no shortage of workers to choose from in a country with over 50 per cent unemployment. The average Costa Rican plantation worker costs nearly four times what an Ecuadorian worker costs to employ. Accusations of 'social dumping' levelled at Ecuador by the Costa Rican industry ring true, although union rights there are even more controversial than in Ecuador. The reality is that the right to freely join a trade union without fear of persecution is not respected in the two countries responsible for producing 60 per cent of the world banana market.

But banana workers' unions have not been despairing and awaiting the inevitable. In May 2000, the Latin American Banana Workers' Union Coordination (COLSIBA) which unites the efforts of some 40,000 workers in 40 unions across eight countries, together with the International Union of Food and Agricultural Workers (IUF), invited the four biggest banana companies to come to

Miami and discuss how to tackle the crisis in a way which would not put the burden of down- sizing on workers. Six senior executives from the three biggest companies responded and agreed with COLSIBA and IUF to establish a permanent Joint Industry Committee which would meet at least twice a year to continue the dialogue started in Miami. Talk was of 'past mistakes' and 'chart- ing a new course'. In September, at the first meet- ing of this committee, although only Chiquita and Del Monte participated on the company side, an agreement was signed committing them to a series of ILO conventions (including trade union freedom explicitly) and recognising that the banana crisis had been falling on the backs of the workers. The agreement also referred to "unfair competition by countries with low labour and environmental standards".

This common recognition of the existence of a 'race to the bottom' in the banana sector could prove to be an important basis for bringing the Ecuadorian government and industry to the table as a next step. The fact that the world's biggest banana company, Dole Food, is very active in Ecuador and is so clearly benefiting from the cheap bananas it can export from there means that the company is one of the keys to progress in this new multilateral, mould-breaking forum. The Joint Committee's power to co-opt govern- ment representatives too, especially from Ecuador, could prove crucial in the quest for social justice in the world's leading banana exporting countries.

AUSTAIR SMITH is from the British based NGO Bananalink www.bananalink.org 34-40 Exchange Street Norwich NR2 1AX

Page 1 9 Volume 7 Issue 4 2000 INTERNATIONAL union rights

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