Alongside this, the project is also seeking to attract more women from the local community to work on GEL’s expanding organic banana farm.
‘We are very happy to be working with companies that have so openly and proactively engaged with their workers and their unions to identify how to improve working conditions for women and increase the opportunity for local women to secure Decent Work’ – Jacqui Mackay, Banana Link
Workshop participants were responding to the findings of independent research into both the barriers to women’s employment and the challenges facing women already working at GEL. Interviews were conducted with men, women and leaders in the local community, as well as women workers at GEL, and the neighbouring banana plantation, Volta River Estates Limited (VREL).
The first of the workshops was for GEL management, including their Managing Director, Olivier Chassang, and Compagnie Fruitière’s Corporate Social Responsibility Manager, Christelle Lasme, and the second was for workers’ representatives. The third and final workshop then brought both groups together, to collectively discuss and agree priorities for improving women’s employment.
The workshop also agreed the composition of an Advisory Committee, which would take forward activities to implement these initiatives, consisting of union representatives, women workers, IUF, Fairtrade Africa and management.
The priorities agreed on included:
exploring task rotation to reduce repetitive strain injuries;
an outreach programme involving women workers to raise awareness of work opportunities at GEL;
consultation with and empowerment of women to be actively engaged in Collective Bargaining;
and a gendered review of plantation tasks.
Organic Opportunity
GEL is currently expanding its organic banana production which, because of the absence of agro-chemicals, presents less of a risk to women’s health, particularly new and expectant mothers. This presents an opportunity to attract more women to work on the plantation, while GEL has already been improving working conditions for women, including the provision of separate changing rooms for women workers. In January, Banana Link visited a packhouse managed by a woman supervisor and saw the support she was providing for a number of pregnant workers, offering them a range of tasks to alternate between, including those that enabled them to work sitting down.
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