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STUC and UNISON Scotland Support Trade Union Organising in Ecuador. |
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October 2007
In October this year the STUC and UNISON Scotland donated a generous £3,000 to Banana Link’s Ecuadorian trade union partner, FENACLE. This support is the outcome of important solidarity links which have been strengthened since the STUC’s former President, Katrina Murray, visited Ecuador on a Banana Link coordinated Youth Delegation Visit in October 2006.
This support was given to increase FENACLE’s capacity to organise and
train workers on the ground, in a region where only 2% of workers are
organised and over 70% of the population are living below the poverty
line. FENACLE will be working specifically on increasing their capacity
to provide legal support to workers whilst also lobbying for changes in
Ecuadorian labour laws, which currently act as a major obstacle to
organising labour. Work will also be done to develop the FENACLE Youth
programme, organising and training young workers, who make up 75% of
the banana workforce and suffer appalling conditions of wages well
below the cost of living and daily exposure to toxic chemicals.
Banana Link would like to take this opportunity to thank STUC and
UNISON Scotland, and in particular Katrina Murray, on behalf of
FENACLE. As Guillermo Touma, President of FENACLE, states “thank you to
our trade union friends at the STUC and UNISON Scotland for this
continued solidarity and support, increasing both our morale and
organisational strength so that we can ensure that workers of all ages
are no longer exploited. With this support we can continue organising
and defending our companeros, the agricultural workers in the world’s
major banana exporting country, Ecuador.”
We hope that solidarity links between FENACLE and STUC/UNISON Scotland
will be developed in the future to ensure a sustainable exchange of
moral, political and economic support between the trade unions and
workers at either end of the international banana supply chain.
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