Speaker tours form a key part of Banana Link's Union-to-Union educational and awareness raising activities. They are an important way of encouraging new, and strengthening existing, solidarity between Latin American banana worker’s unions at one end of the international supply chain, and British trade union activists at the other. Speaker tours enable trade union activists to gain a greater understanding of the working and living conditions faced by plantation workers and, in particular, the struggle to organise in the Latin American banana industry. Visits also enable Latin American trade unionists to experience first hand the support and solidarity extended by their British conterparts.  

Our most recent speaker tour, held in March 2007 brought a representative from SITRAP Executive Committe a Costa Rican Trade Union to speak with UK Trade Unions about workers justice and raise awareness of the consequences of banana pricing wars in supermarkets.

 Mireya Rodriguez Rodriguez

In March 2007 Mireya Rodriguez, a representative of the SITRAP Executive Committee and Women’s Committee, and Coordinator of COLSIBA – CR (Costa Rican Banana Workers Union Coordinating Body) Women’s Committee,  visited the UK during International Women’s Week to raise awareness of the struggles faced by female workers and trade unionists in Costa Rica. During her two week speaker tour Mireya spoke at a number of trade union events including the TUC International Women’s Day Celebration and the Northern TUC International Trade Union Conference and met with STUC Women’s Committee, GMB London and GMB Midlands. Mireya was also reunited with the British trade union delegates, who visited Costa Rica and Ecuador in October 2006 to discuss how to develop international solidarity relationships between the Latin American and British trade unions.  Mireya’s participation in these events not only increased awareness of the trade union persecution, low wages and poor working conditions faced by workers in Costa Rica, the biggest supplier of bananas to the UK, but also helped secure sustainable solidarity commitments from our British trade union partners to help increase the capacity of SITRAP to organise and educate banana workers.

Mireya also addressed the “Supersized Supermarkets” public forum, organized by Action Aid, Friends of the Earth, Tescopoly and War on Want, to highlight the negative impact that supermarket buying power is having along international supply chains. You can listen to Mireya speak in a podcast from the forum by visiting the Action Aid website.

Click here to download an interview with Mireya on the conditions faced by woman workers on Costa Rican banana plantations and the work of the SITRAP Women’s committee.

Gilberth Bermudez Umana

Gilberth is the General Secretary of the Costa Rican trade union, SITRAP, the Deputy Coordinator of COLSIBA (the Regional Coordination of Latin American banana workers' trade unions) and the Latin American Coordinator of our 'Union-to-Union' project. He visited the UK in June 2006 as the guest of the GMB. Gilberth addressed the GMB Congress and uodated members on the situation facing plantation workers in Latin America and the significant contribution that the solidarity relationship with the GMB has made to the organising capacity of SITRAP in Costa Rica. Whilst in the UK, Gilberth met with a wide variety of actors along the interntaional banana supply chain to lobby for improved social and evironmental conditons for workers and thier communtities.

 Elias Arias Santana

In Spring 2006 we were delighted to host a visit from Elias Arias Santana.  Elias is the Secretary for Youth Affairs and an organiser with FENACLE. He was sacked from his job in a banana plantation for trying to organise a trade union and is now working full time for FENACLE in his home province of El Oro, where he is responsible for organising banana workers. Click here to download an interview with Elias in which he explains the difficult conditions facing banana workers and Fenacle's drive to recruit young members, who make up 75% of the 300,000 strong workforce.

Download an edited report detailing the main activities of the speaker tour.

 Didier Leiton Valverde

Didier, a trade union organiser for Costa Rican plantation workers' trade union, SITRAP, had a packed timetable during his two and a half week tour of the UK in June 2005. His flight was generously funded by AMICUS to enable Leiton to address the Leftfield (trade union organised site) at Glastonbury. He spoke alongside leading political campaigner, Tony Benn, and the leaders of UNISON and Amicus trade unions. Leiton participated in two fringe meetings at, and the rally of, the Make Poverty History event held in Edinburgh.

Other trade union activities included a TUC Young Member’s Summit at Edinburgh, the NTUC International Forum, a meeting to update Usdaw, the union organising within Tesco, about conditions for workers that he organises in Costa Rica who produce bananas for Tesco and meetings with both Amicus and the GMB London region. Leiton also attended the Agribusiness Accountability Initiative European Conference. In addition to valuable awareness-raising, one of the most positive outcomes of the visit was the GMB London agreeing to fund a proposal to support the work of two SITRAP organisers and purchase two vehicles as part of their long term solidarity relationship with the Costa Rican union.

Carmen Banegas

In February 2005 Carmen  Banegas, a FENACLE organiser, visited Scotland and the North of England to raise awareness of the fight for decent labour rights on Ecuadorian banana plantations. She explained that the main obstacle to achieving membership on plantations was quite simply fear, 'only some have the courage to join, or even listen to what the union has to say. If a plantation owner sees me talking to a worker, that worker may simply be sacked.'

Other challenges include the widespread practice of subcontracting labour, a lack of awareness about the benefits that union membership can bring and the poor implementation of labour laws.  A complete account of her testimony and report of the speaking tour is available here.