Chiquita Brands International, Cincinnati, Ohio, US

Chiquita (formerly known as the United Fruit Company, founded in 1899) was until recently the biggest banana company in the world, controlling about one third of world trade. However, in the second half of the 1990s the company lost market share to Dole and from 2000 into early 2001 Chiquita was close to bankruptcy. Since then it has rallied and by 2005 had the second biggest world sales figures (after Dole).

Chiquita grows bananas on its own plantations in Panama, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and Colombia, has established new operations in Australia and is exploring setting up a new operation in Angola. The company also buys bananas from 'national' producers in the Ivory Coast, Martinique, Honduras, Guatemala, Ecuador, Colombia, Costa Rica, Panama and Nicaragua. 

Although Chiquita has more collective agreements with trade unions than its competitors, its historical record on labour relations in all Latin American countries has been notoriously bad. There were signs of a change in attitude at the turn of the century but developments in Honduras in 2006 have led unions to question once more how sincere Chiquita’s apparent change of heart really is.

On 12 November 1998, in Guatemala City, the company met a delegation of plantation workers unions from all five Latin American countries where it has plantations, the first such meeting in nearly 100 years.  Following a second meeting in April 1999, the Chiquita workers' unions presented a proposal for a Regional Workers Rights and Environment Agreement as part of the international campaign to draw attention to Chiquita's workers' rights record.  However, the company did not appear to see the need for such an Agreement and in September 1999 sent a response which more or less said 'no'.

In September 2000, Chiquita unilaterally published its own Code of Conduct (on Social Responsibility), without first consulting plantation workers. The Code of Conduct allows for Solidarista Associations as well as independent trade unions. Copies of the Code (in English or Spanish) are available from Chiquita.

When the company was on the point of bankruptcy in late 2000/early 2001, and following the dialogue initiated by the Coordination of Latin American Banana Workers' Unions (COLSIBA) and International Union of Food and Agricultural Workers (IUF-UITA) during 2000, it was the company itself which asked COLSIBA to sit down and negotiate an International Workers' Rights Agreement. As a result of a two-day negotiation in San Jose, Costa Rica, COLSIBA, the IUF and Chiquita Brands International signed an international framework agreement on minimum labour standards and trade union rights. The agreement was signed provisionally by the three parties on May 11th, but was formally signed in Geneva on June 14th in the presence of the Director-General of the International Labour Organisation. Significantly, the agreement also applies to Chiquita's suppliers and its enforcement is monitored by a joint union-company body. The Agreement can be read on the IUF website. In Costa Rica, where trade union persecution remains prevalent on the company's plantations, a special 'Conciliation Procedure' has also been negotiated.

In the early 1990s, Chiquita entered into a relationship with US-based Rainforest Alliance to certify plantations under their Better Banana Project (see Alternatives for the future). According to the company, 'Chiquita's vision is to create state-of-the-art banana farms that become models within the industry'. In November 2000 Chiquita announced they had received certification under the Better Banana Project for all of their own plantations in Latin America. However, testimonial evidence on some farms showed that workers knew nothing about it. Whilst the Better Banana Project is clearly better than the company doing nothing, and whilst environmental improvements have been made, the company could be doing more. There are also questions about the close relationship between the company and the certifying organisation.

Whilst Chiquita was seen by many as being one of, if not the worst, offender as regards social and environmental impacts in the early 90s, it showed signs of a radical shift of attitude, following its financial crisis in 2000. In addition to embracing a number of voluntary standards, its framework agreement with the unions was seen by many, especially the unions themselves as ground-breaking. Up until the end of 2005, Chiquita was showing signs of being serious about trying to reverse the race to the bottom.

However, its behaviour in Honduras in late 2005 and early 2006 has raised fears that the company may be reverting to its old style of operation. The Honduran banana workers' union coordinating body COSIBAH reports that union members, opposed to the use of the chemical Chlorphirifos, have been harassed, and that the company tried to exclude the union from a 'joint body' (see Fair trade section) being set up to manage the fairtrade premium on the SURCO plantation which was about to be certified by FLO CERT when Tropical Storm Gamma destroyed the farm in November 2005. COSIBAH alleges that the reason for the subsequent closure announcement was to destroy a growing process of unionisation of plantations in Honduras. After interntional pressure, the company then sold SURCO to three former Chiquta staff (Hondurans) and announced that the plantatio nwould be rehabilitated after all! The SITRASURCO union, wiped out with Gamma, now has to start from scrtach and negotiate with a division of Chiquita which has shown an increasngly hostile attitude to trade unions.

On 16 March 2007, a Chiquita subsidiary in Costa Rica sacked two workers without warning after they complained of being exposed to pesticides whilst picking.  Chiquita received more than 3,500 messages of support for the workers which led to the reinstatement of the two workers and promises of negotiations between the company and union to resolve underlying issues of concern, within the Chiquita/IUF/COLSIBA framework agreement. 

Trade policy
Since 1993, Chiquita has been the main opponent of the EU banana regime, conducting a successful campaign to persuade the Clinton Administration to back its cause in the newly formed World Trade Organisation. Chiquita's influence on its home government is well-documented, by amongst others Time magazine (see link below). This led to the longest and most complex international trade dispute in history... and one which is not over yet.

The constant uncertainty over policy caused by this war has proved very destructive to other parties such as the Windward Islands and has distracted all players from the quest for corporate responsibility, sustainable production and genuinely fair trade. The European Commission's reform of 2001 enabled Chiquita to boost its market share in the EU, leding the company to change its position over 'free trade' established a new regulation for the import of bananas.

By 2005 Chiquita had re-evaluated the likely impacts of a shift to a tariff only import regime and began to lobby – too late as it turned out -  for a continuation of the status quo.
 
Further Reading

Corporate Social Responsibility in Latin America: Chiquita, Women Banana Workers and Structural Inequalities by Marina Prieto-Carron, University of Bristol, UK 2006

Analysis: Chiquita's path from pariah to paradigm, by Dr Jem Bendell, http://www.lifeworth.com/ , March 2003 (available by subscription only)

How To Become A Top Banana from Time magazine, Feb 7 2000: Looking at Chiquita and the EU/US Trade War (full article available by subscription only-abstract online)

Text of Cincinnati Enquirer Articles May 1998

Websites

Chiquita

US/LEAP (US/Labor Education in the Americas Project)