Although the company has been threatening mass lay-offs for December as a tactic to get rid of union members, today's reports show that they have already started in two of the 20 plus plantations owned by the Costa Rican owned Acon Group.

The Pinafruit pineapple plantation produces for Dole/JP Fruit and the fruit is sold in both Tesco and Waitrose. A full-length feature on the Pinafruit plantation will appear in The Observer on Sunday 19th November.

The facts from Didier Leiton at SITRAP (as of Thursday 9th November):

• The organising campaign in Grupo Acon has been very successful, which is exactly why the company is now reacting.
• Grupo Acon is one of the worst anti-union employers in a very anti-union export fruit industry; the Group has supplied Tesco with bananas until 2004 and “may well do again”.
• The company has already laid off all its workers in its Banasol banana plantation and Pineras del Caribe pineapple plantation, as a taste of things to come for the 200 or so members of SITRAP in six banana plantations and one pineapple plantation; it is threateneing to lay all workers on all farms off in December (if not sooner).
• On 17th October, Victor Mata, Human Resources Manager for Acon refused entry to SITRAP General Secretary and a British delegation organised by Banana Link; on 9th November union organiser Didier Leiton was refused entry to Pinafruit by private security guards.
• Inside the plantations there is a permanent and intense campaign to intimidate and threaten workers with black-listing or plantation closure if they join SITRAP.
• On 8th November, union member Juan Carlos Obando Rios was unfairly sacked.

CEC member Cath Murphy described what she saw in Pinafruit:
“I couldn’t stop thinking about the faces of these young men, still only in their teens and twenties, but with a dullness and hollowness in their eyes. They looked totally exhausted. The plantations are so massive that they have to wake up about three am to walk to work for a five or six am start. They get paid for an eight hour day, but they usually have to work for more like eleven or twelve hours to meet the targets. Then they have to walk home again. Most do not arrive back until at least eight in the evening. They only get 30 minutes break each day and there is no protection from the sun and the rain. We saw a group huddling under a trailer full of pineapple plants just to get some shelter while eating their packed lunch. There is the odd tin hut that passes for a toilet, but it is a very long walk to get to one. The one we saw had no water, no soap, no toilet paper, no wash-basin. The boys told us that if they complain, the managers send out the police to check their papers. Many of the Nicaraguan workers are poorly educated and don’t know how to get the right work documents, so rather than get into trouble with the police, they say nothing.”
“It was like seeing Dickensian conditions, only with sunshine!” added London region organiser Bert Schouwenburg.

Plantation workers' union SITRAP is asking us to send e-mail messages to both Acon Group and Tesco requesting an immediate improvement in condtions, and insisting that Acon abides by national and international laws in all its plantations.  Sr Jorge Acon, owner of Acon group: grupacon@racsa.co.cr; and Mr Sandy Norman, Technical Adviser for Bananas and Pineapples, Tesco: sandy.norman@uk.tesco.com