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Background
web.jpg) Ecuador exports twice as many bananas as any other country in the world. Yet the estimated 300,000 or so banana workers see few of the benefits of this production. Conditions for these workers are amongst the worst in the banana industry.
The low-wage, non-unionised banana production in Ecuador is driving down conditions for banana workers around the world as companies relocate their own production and seek out the cheapest possible sources from which to purchase.
Child Labour
A Human Rights Watch
report in 2002 found widespread child labour in the Ecuadorian banana
industry; although it is against the law, under-age young people work
on plantations instead of attending school to help increase family
income to a decent level. Despite the establishment of a national forum
to tackle the issue and encourage children into education, under-age
workers are still employed. A September 2005 worker rights petition
from Human Rights Watch to the US Trade Representative concluded that
very little has improved in terms of enforcement by the Labor Ministry.
Labour Rights
 The
banana workers' union and small farmers' organisation FENACLE is
leading a drive to organise banana workers so that they can increase
their strength to negotiate with employers to put an end to years of
exploitation.
Only 2% of Ecuador's banana workers are unionised. The widespread use
of the sub-contracting system, where plantation owners do not directly
employ workers, means that owners deny responsibility for working
conditions. These workers have no job security at all and are not
entitled to social protection or paid leave. Even the government now
admits that these labour sub-contractors deliberately keep the number
of workers employed by each one of them to less than 30, which is the
required number to form a trade union. In this way the organisation of
a workplace-based trade union has become next to impossible. The trade
union federation, FENACLE, has been campaigning against this system
since 2003; in recent weeks, the Labour Ministry has recognised the
extent of the problem – which goes well beyond the banana sector – and
is promising to legislate.
Violent attacks newly organised workers at the Noboa
owned Los Alamos plantation in 2002 sparked an international solidarity
campaign to work for the respect of core labour standards in the
Ecaudorian banana industry. Listed below are a campaign history and
resources. For further information and news please contact info@bananalink.org.uk.
Subcontracting Finally Got Its Legislation:
After three conflicting parliamentary sessions, four failed votes and
much lobbying and delays on the part of the subcontracting companies,
the Ecuadorian Congress finally approved on 29/06/06 the whole text of
the new legislation on labour subcontracting (terciarisation). The
final text of the legislation fixes the percentage of workers who can
be subcontracted on a plantation to 50% maximum of the total of
workers, 50 of them maximum can be employed on a subcontracting basis.
The new law also details the basic labour rights that subcontracted
workers can have and contains a paragraph which says that labour
subcontracting "can be used for all activities under the same
conditions that currently apply to permanent, occasional, seasonal,
hourly or short-term contracting." It is this paragraph 8 of the new
legislation which has provoked the fiercest reactions from the
subcontracting companies which have lobbied for weeks and delayed the
vote in the congress.
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