18 June 2008

On March 2nd 2008, Miguel Angel Ramirez, founder of the new SITRABANSUR union on the Olga Maria plantation in the Pacific South of Guatemala, was shot dead. In April 2008 SITRABI union member Enrique Cruz Hernandez was shot during his lunch break. In February 2008 the daughter of the General Secretary of SITRABANSUR was raped by a gang of armed men.

These are just a few of the many recent cases of violence against banana union leaders in Guatemala, which have been escalating since the murder of SITRABI union leader, Marco Tulio Ramirez in September 2007. SITRABI General Secretary, Noé Ramírez, reported that at least five banana workers were killed between February and April 2008. Union leaders and members in other sectors have also been victims of the increasingly generalized violence.

Pressure must be put on the Guatemalan government to ensure that the people responsible for these killings are brought to justice and the systematic violations of labour rights are put to a stop.  As a result of a previous international campaign led by the IUF, EUROBAN and COLSIBA, the new Guatemalan president, Alvaro Colom, promised to take action to ensure that the murder of SITRABI union leader Marco Tulio Ramirez was investigated by the authorities.  However the subsequent lack of action by the Guatemalan government on these violent and shocking cases of trade union repression now necessitates political pressure from EU governments to ensure that Alvaro Colom sticks to his commitments to end impunity and violence in Guatemala.

ACTION:

1)  Write to the British Ambassador in Guatemala, the Honourable Ian Hughes asking him, in the face of a rapidly deteriorating security situation in Guatemala, to take action to ensure a full and open investigation and the subsequent prosecution of those responsible for these acts of violence. Ask that, as representative of the British Government in Guatemala, he will be active in the fight to put an end to this pattern of rising anti-union violence and institutional impunity in Guatemala.
Email to The Honourable Mr. Ian Hughes (British Ambassador in Guatemala) at consular.guatemala@fco.gov.uk
Please CC to info@bananalink.org.uk

2)  Banana Link has also produced Urgent Action postcards to highlight the situation in Guatemala and encourage people to take action.  Please contact Banana Link to order multiple copies of the action cards for distribution amongst your networks.

Click here to read 'Guatemala: trade unions at the heart of the fight against impunity' from the ITUC (March 2008) 

Latest News - 12th June 2007 
Banana Link can now confirm that the two workers were reinstated with back pay, by agreement between SITAGAH and COBAL from 7th June.

6th June 2007 - More Than 3,500 Messages Sent to Chiquita in Response to Urgent Action Request 
More than 3,500 messages have been sent to Chiquita in response to this urgent action request. As a result,Chiquita's Senior Vice President, Manuel Rodriguez, sent an email replying to the issues raised which can be donwloaded here.  As Rodriguez points out in his email, the company has been discussing the issue with the IUF (the global union federation responsible for agricultural workers) and has agreed to work toward re-hiring the workers and resolving the issues raised by the union. Pressure from the IUF, other food workers unions around the world, and thousands of individuals have had an effect, and workers' livelihoods are being saved as a result.

Banana Link has not yet had confirmation that the workers have been reinstated but will publish further information as soon as it becomes available. 

Click here to read Chiquita's response. 

 
May Urgent Action Request: Costa Rican Workers Poisoned by Toxic Chemicals Sacked by Chiquita Subsidiary

With 115 plantations and sales in over 60 countries, Chiquita is one of the biggest fruit multinationals in the world.

In response to increasing consumer demand for ethically sourced food, Chiquita now boasts of its social and environmental standards, that a Chiquita banana is a "clean" banana, grown with less pesticides, cared for and picked by workers whose rights are fully respected. All their Costa Rican plantations have been certified by the Rainforest Alliance environmental standard.

The company furthermore boasts the SA8000 social standard which requires compliance with basic ILO labour standards. Yet on the Coyol plantation in Costa Rica, the Compañia Bananera Atlántica Limitada (COBAL), a Chiquita subsidiary, workers' most basic rights are violated and their health endangered.

Read more.....

Photos: Marco Gonzalez (left) and Alexander Reyes (right) who were sacked by Chiquita (Photos by Helge Fischer/Banafair)

21st September 2006

18th May 2006

Banana Link has joined 73 other human rights organisations in sending a letter on May 18 to the Dole Food company, charging it with failing to respect basic workers rights, including freedom of association, the right to organise and the right to negotiate a contract.

Simultaneously, Banana Link, the IUF and COLSIBA (the Coordination of Latin American Banana Worker's Unions) and three other international organisations released a special report entitled, "Dole, Behind the Smoke Screen" documenting Dole worker rights violations in Latin America.

Banana Link, the GMB and other signers of the letter called on Dole "to make a commitment not only on paper, but also in practice" and said that they "will be evaluating Dole's response against concrete indicators...measured in terms of increased numbers of workers covered by collective bargaining agreements."

The letter follows an April 1, 2006, letter sent to Dole by COLSIBA demanding that Dole respect fundamental human rights.

Click here for a copy of the organisational sign-on letter, the signatories and the report.

Also available the press release and appendix.

LabourStart: Where trade unionists start their day on the net.
Act NOW!

Over the last fortnight Albino Vargas, General Secretary of both the National Association of Public and Private Employees (ANEP) and of the Juanito Mora Social Confederation, has been receiving death threats. ANEP is the biggest independent trade union in Costa Rica. The threats have taken different forms, but the message has been the same: stop opposing, disrupting and speaking against the Free Trade Agreement between Central America and the United States (CAFTA), or

Concerning violations of trade union rights on Cahuita and Tortuguero plantations.

Latest news: SOLIDARITY SUCCESS IN COSTA RICA - THANK YOU!!

As a result of Banana Link's recent urgent action campaign (which has also been supported by LabourStart) the company concerned has finally been brought to the table after months of obstinate refusal and legal threats against the union (and Banana Link).

On Monday 11th March, banana workers who had formed a trade union at seven plantations producing for Ecuadorian banana giant Noboa were prevented from entering the plantation by private security backed up by state police and told they were fired.

Monday 25th February saw the first major strike action by Ecuadorian banana workers in over 20 years. If the registration of the new union they have formed is approved by the Labour Minister, this will be the first independent banana workers' union since the 1970s.