A report just published by Swiss global justice organisation, Public Eye, alleges glaring abuses of plantation workers’ rights by Swiss based multinational Chiquita’s suppliers in Guatemala, including long hours, low pay and exposure to hazardous chemicals, while workers can only get through their working day with a cocktail of medication.
Public Eye’s research found that the reality on the plantations run by Chiquita’s suppliers in Guatemala is very harsh. Their report – Toxic bananas: Chiquita’s broken bodies – details 12-hour shifts in sweltering heat and under immense productivity pressure. And all for a wage that falls below the (already low) legal minimum. Workers are also exposed, without protection, to the aerial spraying of pesticides, including mancozeb, which is banned in Europe and Switzerland because it is a known endocrine disruptor and hazardous to human health. To meet their extreme yield targets, many farmworkers resort to “bomba”: a homemade mixture of the opioid-based painkiller tramadol and energy drinks.
However, anyone who criticises these exploitative working conditions or even gets organised in a trade union is risking dismissal and ending up on a blacklist that bars them from other jobs on banana plantations.
Chiquita has so far failed to respond to the allegations. The complete reorganisation of production to the detriment of trade unions, as recently in Panama, is fresh in many minds. In Guatemala, production in the company’s own plantations in the North (where there is a collective bargaining agreement) is now hugely outweighed by production in subcontracted farms in the South. A 2021 report – What Difference Does a Union Make?: Banana Plantations in the North and South of Guatemala – published by the Center for Global Workers Rights at Penn State University in the United States, documented a stark difference in pay and working conditions for unionised workers north and non-unionised workers in the south of the country, with workers in the unionised North earning an average of $586 a month for 54 hours a week, while workers in the non-unionised South earned just $308 for 68 hours per week.
Almost all of Chiquita’s production is certified by Rainforest Alliance. According to their standards, the grievances documented by Public Eye should not actually be happening there. For example, any use of the highly toxic pesticide mancozeb is explicitly banned by the label with the green frog. Yet Chiquita’s suppliers have had “temporary” exemptions for spraying it by aircraft for years.
Virtual protest
On 21st April Public Eye organised a virtual protest to remind Chiquita of its responsibility towards plantation workers in Guatemala, demanding legal minimum wages, a ban on pesticide spraying during working hours, and freedom of association.
Should Chiquita fail to respond to these requests, Public Eye stated that it will take their peaceful protest directly to the company’s headquarters in Etoy, Switzerland.
Call to retailers
Consumers want to know that companies have moved beyond the unbridled globalisation model of the 20th century. They expect that the fruit they buy meets real decent work standards and that living wages are paid. Banana Link is calling on retailers, particularly in North America where 80% of Guatemalan bananas are sold, to respond proactively to the new age of consumer awareness and social responsibility that has Chiquita in the spotlight. Buying bananas at a fair price and working with local partners to develop solutions to complex issues is good for business. Retailers can use their influence to promote collective bargaining and, above all, real freedom of association on plantations. This is a matter of due diligence.
Banana Link International Coordinator, Alistair Smith, said,
“We are very concerned by the findings from plantations supplying Chiquita in the South of Guatemala where the pressures on workers, including the pressure not to organise independently, mean that living wages and decent work are a distant dream. We trust that the company whose brand appears on the fruit produced will take the findings seriously, in the knowledge that there are trade unions and NGOs keen to help improve the situation.”
