After a long struggle with the sub-contracting company, SERAGRO SAC – which was set up by Dole to avoid direct labour relations on their plantations – the new agricultural workers union, SITAG, have won their battle for the payment of proper wage rates, which the company had refused to pay until now. The workers have been working on Sundays and outside of normal hours for some time without any overtime pay, as well as not receiving any extra payment for days of rest. SITAG have now negotiated an agreement where workers receive payment for weekend work and days of rest from October 15th, as well as receiving full back payment of the wages owed before this date.

 

This is not the only success the new union has had since its official registration early this year: SITAG Peru, which is a new partner in the Banana Link Union to Union programme, is growing fast in SERAGRO SAC and other exporting companies that hire workers to harvest and pack organic bananas, and is starting in recent weeks to penetrate other agro-industrial sectors. The union is about to sign an agreement with the Education Ministry to facilitate secondary school sessions on trade union and labour issues with teenagers who are about to enter the workplaces where they are seeking to organise and bargain. In July, SITAG took part in a one-day national strike with a broad front of other social organisations to press the new Garcia government to tackle very weak labour laws put in place under Fujimori.

SITAG has quickly built very good relations with small organic banana farmers organisations and in September, together with AMPBAO and CEPIBO, has facilitated a formal investigation by FLO-Cert of allegations of manipulation by Dole of small farmers' organisations certified to sell Fairtrade in Europe and North America. Current funding through the Union to Union programme is the first major external support that Peruvian banana workers have received.