Home > Chiquita Banana Workers Need Your Support
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Chiquita Banana Workers in La Lima and El Progreso
Honduras ask for your solidarity in supporting their
contract negotiations with the Tela Rail Road Company,
a subsidiary of Chiquita Brands. Please contact
Chiquita Brands, Honduras division and Ask them to be a
responsible company and sign a fair contract with the
workers in the fields and the packaging areas.
The struggle of the banana workers:
The labor union Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Tela
Railroad Company (SITRATERCO), which represents about
2000 banana workers in the north coast of Honduras, has
been negotiating a contract with the company for 12
months now without any agreement. Despite immense
profits, the company refuses to agree to a salary
increase and improvements in healthcare. Chiquita also
seeks to make drastic changes to the work environment,
which would result in the reduction of the workforce
and increased workload for the remaining workers. The
company profits are immense compared to layoffs and
speedups, low wages, poor living conditions and health
problems that the workers and their families suffer due
to low wages, pesticides and other chemicals that are
sprayed on workers and their living areas.
The workers demand a 75% wage increase above the
minimum wage of $4.91 dollars to $8.60 dollars per day
(L89.50 Lempiras to L156.97 Lempiras per day). Workers
need higher wages in order to afford the high cost of
living and the high cost of the health care, which the
company used to cover in its totality. This wage
increase will also help workers pay for the homes they
are forced to move to in the new development called San
Juan near La Lima, since the company is closing down
the worker living quarters it has maintained for many
years. The workers can now own titles to the land on
which their houses sit but the housing prices are
unaffordable to the workers. Recently the company
received the ‘2004 Corporate Citizen of the America’s
Award’ because it built these houses; unfortunately the
high cost of the houses is a great burden to workers
whose wages are too low to lift them out of poverty.
Even though union members have not totally lost the
health care service, it has been greatly reduced to the
detriment of the workers. One worker explains “if you
have to have an X-ray done they send you to another
place and one has to pay from our own pockets, before
they would take care of everything in the hospital.”
The company claims that it has sold the hospital and
this is why the benefits have been greatly reduced.
Health care is crucial for workers and their families
since there are many respiratory conditions and
dermatological illnesses caused by the same chemicals
the company sprays on the fields and uses in the
packing areas. Also, there is a large number of women
working in the packing areas that have developed cancer
form exposure. Health care is very expensive for
workers who only make minimum wage.
In addition to work restructuring, the offer from the
company was to pay ¢0.28 cents of a dollar with and
¢0.006 cent of dollar as incentive for a box (“Caja
Integral”) packed with quality (L5.25 Lempiras with
¢0.11cents of Lempira as incentive). The workers, men
in the fields cutting bananas and the women in the
packing houses, barely manage to make the minimum wage
of $4.91 dollars for 8 hours of work (L89.70
Lempiras). In spite of the fact that they fill many
containers with each with 960 boxes of 20 to 22 kilos
of Chiquita bananas every day, they do not make more
than the minimum wage.
The new work system proposed by the company is called:
“Caja Integral con Juntero y Halador” (Integral Box
with ‘Liftman’ and ‘Pullman’), and consists of
integrating the work of workers in the fields cutting
the bananas with the work of workers in the department
of packing by paying them the same amount for cutting
the fruit and for the packaging of the fruit.
Currently, the workers are paid by unit, for each stem
cut they make $0.03 cents of a dollar (L0.68 cents of
Lempira). A worker cuts anywhere between 160 (on a slow
day) to 200 (on a heavy day) stems per day. Each stem
(racimo) weighs anywhere from 70 to 100 pounds with the
stem and does not necessarily fill a box. By paying for
the box packed the workers lose because instead of
paying for work performed, or stems cut and stems
packed, they are paying for the final outcome, the
packed box and the container filled. A worker
explained, “if from one stem you only are able to fill
90% of the box then the box is worth less. Now, if I
cut a stem they give one price. Under the new plan if I
cut one stem and it does not fill one box the worker
looses, we all loose.”
The other component of “Caja Integral” proposal
involves what the company calls “Juntero y Halador, ”
with this new process the company intends a return to
the working conditions of the beginning of the last
century. ‘Liftman’ is the man that actually carries the
stem once its cut by the ‘cutter’ to the hanging cable
for transport to the packing areas and a ‘Pullman’ is
the man that operates the hanging motor that pulls the
cable with the stems into the packing areas. Chiquita
wants the worker, the ‘pullman’ to pull the product
from the field where the workers cut the bananas to the
packing areas by tying a rope around their torso and
pulling the product a distance of 3 kilometers or more.
Currently, the hanging fruit is transported by an
electrically powered hanging motor. A member of the
union explains it this way: “the fruit is pulled by a
hanging motor; now they (the company) want the men to
pull the fruit with a rope wrapped around the abdomen
we consider this proposed change backward technology
because first we used a machine and now the strength of
man. They (the company) think that this way there will
be better quality.” The worker refers to the company’s
tactic of putting the responsibility for the quality of
the product solely on the workers by using this
rudimentary system of transport the objective is to
protect the banana stems from damage when transported
to the packaging area. The process of transporting the
fruit with the use of human strength is another example
of the long history of exploitation that this company
has in the north coast of Honduras. The company wants
to negotiate “Caja Integral” and replace the motorized
transport system only to have human beings pull more
than 20 stems of bananas each weighing up to 100 pounds
with their own backs. Chiquita Brands seeks to
eliminate its social responsibility towards the workers
and the Honduran community, as it has been their
practice for more than 100 years. Some believe the
company is taking advantage of the dire conditions left
by Hurricane Mitch (1998) to win concessions from the
workers. The conditions the workers faced after
Hurricane Mitch, including flooding, lack of food and
water, destroyed fincas and a decline on union
membership, gave the company the advantage it needed to
introduce to the negotiating table of this contract the
pay per box system, or “Caja Integral” (Integral Box
with ‘Liftman’ and ‘Pullman’).
The workers admit that great improvement has been
achieved in their lives thanks to their own struggle
and efforts. Yet much remains to be accomplished, for
example two weeks the union went on a two day strike
asking for the reinstatement of five workers unjustly
fired by the company when they protested the lack of
transport to their work, a responsibility of the
company. One worker in one of the fincas remarks, “it
is by our own efforts that we have won many
improvements, they (the company) do not give us
anything.”
Now the company and the union, SITRATERCO will be
negotiating with the aid of a government mediator to
see if the negotiations advance from the impasse. The
workers ask that the mediator be from the proximity of
San Pedro Sula and not from Tegucigalpa (hundreds of
miles away) because this will insure that the mediator
be present all week and help the negotiations advance.
Many have worked here for more than thirty years and
their parents and grandparents have left their lives in
the fields of the Municipios of La Lima and El
Progreso. Now, the same workers ask Chiquita for fair
wages, wages representative of the life and work
performed with sacrifice. They want a better life not
just for them, but also for their children. The
Chiquita workers also ask you for your support in their
struggle, one phone call, fax or e-mail from you or
your organization will let the company know that the
international community is watching their international
labor practices.
Chiquita Banana Workers in La Lima and El Progreso
Honduras ask for your solidarity un supporting their
contract negotiations with the Tela Rail Road Company,
subsidiary of Chiquita Brands. Please contact Chiquita
Brands, Honduras division and Ask them to be a
responsible company and sign a fair contract with the
workers in the fields and the packing houses.
Solidarity Action Solidarity Action
Solidarity Action Solidarity Action
What can you do to help the workers of the banana
industry in Honduras?
* Call or Fax the Chiquita Brands and tell them
that you support a just and speedy resolution to
the labor contract in Honduras. * Tell them you
support 75% wage increase for workers and their
families * Ask for a fair price for “Caja
Integral” (Integral Box Proposal) * No to the
elimination of the motorized cable to transport
the fruit. No to the inhumane treatment of
workers! * Better Health care for workers and
their families * Stop the antiunion tactics!
Please Respect the "Freedom of Association,
Minimum Labour Standards and Employment in Latin
American Banana Operations" agreement signed by
the IUF, COLSIBA and CHIQUITA in Geneva in 2001
guaranteeing basic Labor rights and respect to
labor codes in those countries it does business
in.
In Honduras contact:
Alexander Vallecillo, Manager of Labor Relations for
Tela RRCo (Chiquita Brands)
Tel. (504)-668-2521 ext.6 ó ext. 7
(or call and ask to be transferred to Alexander
Vallecillo’s extension) Fax-(504)-668-2435
In the United States:
Chiquita Brands International, Inc. Michael Mitchell
(U.S.), 513-784-8959, mmitchell@chiquita.com George
Jaksch (Europe), +32-3-203-9135, gjaksch@chiquita.com
(They can answer questions about the signing of the
"Freedom of Association, Minimum Labour Standards and
Employment in Latin American Banana Operations"
agreement)
You can also send a message via their website telling
them you support the SITRATERCO) workers in Honduras
(look for the button that says “Contact Us” or “Send E-
mail”):