Sender: owner-imap@webmap.missouri.edu
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 97 13:40:31 CST
From: rich@pencil (Rich Winkel)
Organization: PACH
Subject: ICFTU: Bananas Workers Lose Out
Article: 22820
To: BROWNH@CCSUA.CTSTATEU.EDU
/** labr.global: 268.0 **/
** Topic: Bananas Workers Lose Out **
** Written 12:11 AM Nov 26, 1997 by labornews in cdp:labr.global **
Brussels, November 5 1997 (ICFTU OnLine): The World Trade Organisation
(WTO) has ordered the European Union to remove its quotas on banana
imports. Since 1992, the fruit has been allowed free entry into
Europe if it came from Africa, the Caribbean or the Pacific (ACP),
while Latin American bananas, the so-called dollar bananas
, had
to pay high entry tariffs. The purpose of this was both to protect
Europe's own produce (from the Canaries, French overseas
territories, Madeira, Crete?) and apply the Lomé Convention, the
agreement that grants trade preferences to 70 ACP countries.
The countries in the dollar zone
, for whom trade with Europe is
vital—Europe represents about 38 per cent of world
imports—strongly objected to the EUs measures.
They adopted different strategies, some negotiating with Europe to increase their quotas (in some cases successfully) while others chose confrontation. Ecuador, Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala chose the second route, and were joined by the United States whose multinationals (Dole, Del Monte, Chiquita) control many plantations and 80 per cent of world trade. They won their case at the WTO.
The European Union has announced it will abide by the decision, to the
anger of the ACP producers and their governments. Edwin Laurent, the
eastern Caribbean ambassador to the EU, stated at the beginning of
October 1997 We thought we were supported by the Lomé Convention.
The European Commission has brains; let's see whether it has any
ideas to go with them
. For these countries, and the countries of
Africa, the decision is catastrophic: it will lead to job losses,
bankruptcy and closures. Their bananas will be more expensive and
unable to withstand competition.
For the workers, the WTO decision is a defeat. Not because priority should be given to the ACP, after all, there were closures in Latin America too, after the European Union set quotas. The union of (Latin American) banana exporting countries estimates that in 1993 some 174,000 jobs were lost in the continent owing to European preferences. At the same time, the European banana growers' association claims that 160,000 jobs and 50,000 small plantations depend on this fruit in Europe and in the ACP countries. However, such statistics are both hard to verify, and can be meaningless, given that plantations can close for other reasons.
The workers lose out first of all because the WTO does not take any
social considerations into account. Neither the multinationals nor
our governments wish to discuss a social clause in the WTO,
they're not interested
explained Gilberto Bermudez, head of
the Latin American banana workers' association, in 1995.
The workers also lose because the WTO has ratified the exploitation of
both nature and labour. The lower cost of Latin American bananas is
due not only to the efficiency of the plantations but the greater
exploitation of their workers. In 1992, a worker at the Limn
plantation in Costa Rica explained Our wages are acceptable, but we
work a 14-hour day, and are exposed to toxic substances spread from
aeroplanes
. The workers are paid two to six times less than in
the ACP countries: in Martinique and Guadeloupe, where the French
social security system is applied, labour accounts for 38 per cent of
the price of a banana. Euroban, a network of European NGOs and
producers' organisations explains that on the plantations owned by
the big companies there are problems concerning payment, day to day
contracts, working hours, leave, workplace health and safety,
housing—and all these problems are even worse for women.
In Colombia the ICFTU recorded in its annual survey (June 1997) a total of 80 assassinations of trade unionists in 1996, pointing out that many of them had been committed on the banana plantations and targeted in particular the Sintrainagro trade union. Representatives of this union were killed while negotiating for better working conditions.
The banana plantations, particularly those in Costa Rica, are also in
the front line in the fight against solidarismo
, the so-called trade
unions manipulated by the employers. The health and safety conditions
are very bad. The ground is over-cultivated, thanks to chemical
fertilisers and pesticides which are damaging workers' health, as can be
seen from the many fatal cases of poisoning.
Behind the commercial interests at stake lies an economic and social
challenge. Euroban has asked the European Union to reserve part of the
market for bananas produced under conditions that respect ILO
conventions and environmental standards. British Prime Minister Tony
Blair, mindful of the future of the Commonwealth's banana trade, has
asked Europe to award a fair trade
label to fruit produced under the
right, but therefore more expensive, conditions. Then it will be up to
the consumer to choose.