Tres Hermanas – Honduran workers rights to be respected?
15. 7. 2013:
In February Make Fruit Fair launched an urgent action campaign in response to the failure of the owners of the Tres Hermanas plantations in Honduras to recognise the legality of the SITRAINBA union. Over 400 workers are affected by a failure to pay the minimum wage, unpaid overtime, and the illegal firing of workers attempting to exercise their right to organize. The company, a Chiquita supplier, has even set up a parallel (yellow) union in spite of an order from the Labour Ministry to initiate collective bargaining with SITRAINBA.
The campaign has succeeded in that both Chiquita and the Rainforest Alliance (who certify the plantation) have called on the company on several occasions to end the crisis. Rainforest Alliance named a commission to investigate the denunciations. However, the company has told the SITRAINBA leadership that they prefer to stop producing bananas and have threatened to abandon the farms and plant oil palm elsewhere!!
In a workers’ assembly on 20 April, SITRAINBA members decided to continue with the campaign for recognition of their union and to start collective bargaining, calling on Chiquita to apply the principles set out in the framework agreement with IUF and COLSIBA, on the Rainforest Alliance to enforce their own social standards, and on the Labour Ministry to enforce national labour law. The Ministry has ordered the company to sit down with government nominated mediators to resolve this conflict.
‘SITRAINBA and COSIBAH would like to convey special thanks for the solidarity shown by MAKE FRUIT FAIR supporters. This is what encourages us to carry on struggling against the impunity over workers’ rights violations that exists in countries like ours. We’d also like to thank the individuals who have taken seriously their role as responsible consumers and are prepared to ensure that laws are fairly enforced in the banana exporting countries’.