"I would tell him, why don't you give us our back pay and salary that is rightfully due us? I gave you 31 years of my life. Why are you paying me back this way? It is a betrayal. Don't you know what's going on down here?" - Miguel Angel Tejada Pineda, a fired Honduran union official who worked for Tela; Workers lead precarious lives in squalid camps
Chiquita television advertisements in the United States show smiling, tanned workers strolling through verdant, flowering jungles drenched in sunshine.No one ever has made a commercial about Barrio Brooklyn, a squatter's camp down the road from the seven large plantations of Chiquita subsidiary Compania Bananera Atlantica Ltda. (COBAL) at San Alberto in east-central Costa Rica.
Here Juana Isabel Guerrero Montero, 38, lives with her seven children in a 10-foot by 10-foot hovel made of castoff wooden planks, tree trunks and plastic sheeting.
Ms. Guerrero had been a contract worker on Chiquita-controlled farms on and off for the last 15 years. Last year, she was let go before her most recent contract with the company expired. Pregnant, she tried to keep working. But after the seventh month of her pregnancy, her boss refused to move her to work that allowed her to sit down. When she complained, he fired her, she said.
In a statement issued through its attorneys, Chiquita stated that it is "policy and practice not to discuss with the media - or with anyone else - its relationships with particular employees or the circumstances in which a person may leave the company."
Ms. Guerrero's job at San Alberto was to be a "selectora," selecting and cutting the huge banana stalks into the bunches sold in supermarkets. The job required her to stand and bend over constantly. On a good day, if her packing plant filled two trailer trucks for shipment, she made about $12, she said.
"I didn't mind working hard. I have worked for Chiquita for a long time," she said through a translator. "But I was getting so tired because I was pregnant. I asked my boss, please, let me do something else, but he said no."
Ms. Guerrero's story illustrates living conditions for many banana contract workers on Chiquita- controlled farms from Guatemala to Ecuador. Unlike Ms. Guerrero, other workers receive housing and other benefits from the company. But all workers interviewed by the Enquirer said that they are increasingly worried about how to make ends meet.
Even those who are fortunate enough to receive company housing lead precarious lives.
Gladys Tellez, 40, has lived for years in a four-room house in the Chiquita-owned village of Cocobola. The Nicaraguan immigrant and her family would have lost their housing six years ago after her husband, Jose Maria Altamirano Pineda, then 40, died after a leg injury while working on the Cocobola plantation. In a response issued through its attorneys, Chiquita stated that Mr. Altamirano died on May 5, 1993, while he was a worker on "Chiquita's Cocobola farm in Costa Rica." The company stated that he died of bone cancer, not a work-related injury.
Mrs. Tellez said her son was able to start work at the Chiquita's local packing plant, so they were able to stay at the house.
"The company paid for his (her husband's) coffin, transportation to (the cemetery), and 25,000 colones," she said through a translator.
At that time, 25,000 colones was worth about $175.
"If my son is ever fired, we will have to move out immediately, and we would have nowhere to go," she said.
Chiquita stated through its attorneys that it deposited an undisclosed amount in death benefits with Costa Rican judicial authorities, as well paying for the casket and the 25,000 colones.
In squalid camps and towns among the sweltering flatlands of banana territory, workers interviewed by the Enquirer said that in recent years working to produce Chiquita bananas has meant less pay (either in real money or because of inflation), fewer benefits, less union representation, unenforced employment protections and little job security.
An Enquirer investigation into Chiquita's business practices found that in the late 1980s and early 1990s, officials at the company's Cincinnati headquarters formulated policies that diminished union influence on farms controlled by Chiquita and created plans to limit workers' wages and benefits.
These business practices include:
Chiquita officials declined to comment for this story, referring all questions to their attorneys. In a statement issued through its attorneys, Chiquita officials said that it treated all workers, union or otherwise, fairly, and provided the workers and the regional economy with good jobs and other benefits.
"We believe that our record of contributions to the quality of life in Central America is unsurpassed by any corporation," the company stated.
Rotating workers
Under Honduran law, workers become permanent employees of a company after six months, entitling them to company benefits like a 13th month of pay for every 12 months worked and severance if dismissed.
Mr. Castejon, who was a records administrator for Compania Bananero Ltd., S.A. (COBALISA), a company secretly controlled by Chiquita, said the workers are fired, and then rehired shortly thereafter at another subsidiary farm of COBALISA. This rotation of workers keeps benefits down but also creates permanent instability for the workers, making it difficult to unionize, he said.
"The jobs are not permanent. They are only for six months," said Mr. Castejon, who said he spoke to the Enquirer because he was angry at Chiquita's policy. "How are they (workers) going to have anything to do with the unions if every six months they are changing over the personnel? That's exactly why they are doing it, to avoid the unions."
According to company executives who spoke to the Enquirer on a condition of anonymity, Chiquita and its subsidiaries save money in benefits every year by terminating Honduran workers and "flipping" them from one secretly controlled Chiquita farm to another.
"Once many of those workers get close to the six month deadline to become permanent, we fire and then later flip them to our next farm," said an official of the Tela Railroad Co., Chiquita's main subsidiary in Honduras, who provided documents to the newspaper.
The main use of this policy in Honduras is with farms under COBALISA, which employ about 15,000 workers. Workers are shunted from one farm to another in COBALISA to avoid payment of benefits, according to Mr. Castejon, as well as sources within Chiquita and Tela. The officials requested anonymity. COBALISA has employed thousands of non-union workers while Chiquita's directly-owned farms have been cutting thousands of union jobs in recent years.
"Chiquita neither has a 'fire or rehire' policy nor does it engage in the 'mass firing' of workers," Chiquita stated through its lawyers to the Enquirer. "The countries where Chiquita operates are heavily unionized (or operate under analogous collective bargaining structures) and, as a practical matter, such a policy or practice would not be tolerated by these associations or the constituent labor force."
However, a high-level Chiquita official has provided the Enquirer with tape recordings of Chiquita internal voice-mail messages that discuss rotating workers on the COBALISA farms.
In an April 7 voice-mail message to Robert Olson, Chiquita's general counsel and others, Chiquita attorney David Hills stated: "COBALISA does have a permanent staff, a corporate staff of employees. But the workers that actually work on the banana farms are not employed by COBALISA. Instead they are employed on a rotational basis by the underlying farm companies."
Computerized printouts the Enquirer obtained from a high-ranking Chiquita official, list COBALISA subcompanies and workers.
The printouts, all in Spanish, also list date of entrance, date of termination and the "parameter date," time remaining before they reach the six-month period. While many workers on the printout passed the six-month date, others were being let go just prior to the six- month period. The Enquirer could not determine the exact number of workers being rotated.
In a statement issued through its attorneys, Chiquita did not address the issue of rotating its workers, but said it did pay high salaries.
The statement said: "Wage scales for Chiquita's workers are substantially higher than those for other agricultural workers in Central America. A chart showing Chiquita wages in various Central American nations is attached."
The chart, dated Oct. 15, 1997, listed minimum salaries by law in Honduras, Panama and Costa Rica, then listed "Chiquita's Actual Average Salary." In all cases, the chart shows Chiquita was paying substantially higher than the minimum wage. However, the chart did not detail salaries by job category or whether the employees were management or union.
The company's response also did not include any reference to workers on any of its secretly controlled banana farms throughout Latin America, including its COBALISA operations in Honduras.
By not including in its salary chart the lower, non-union wages of its secretly controlled farms, Chiquita's average wage figures appear higher than they actually are.
While helping to prepare Chiquita's response to the Enquirer, Magnes Welsh, Chiquita's director of communications, in an Oct. 31 voice-mail message, asked an executive of the Tela Railroad Co. - Chiquita's main Honduran subsidiary - if Tela's financial figures included those of the secretly controlled farms.
"Does that number include COBALISA payroll, COBALISA worker social security, workers compensation, that sort of thing?" she asked. "If it does, we need to be able to subtract that number out."
Besides many workers bringing home less money because they work on non-union farms, all workers in Honduras have seen a real loss in buying power through substantial inflation.
Honduras - one of the poorest nations in the Western Hemisphere - has seen double-digit inflation throughout the 1990s, according to statistics from the Honduran Central Bank. In January, the Central Bank reported a inflation rate of 12.8 percent, down from 25.3 percent in 1996. Costa Rica and Panama also have experienced high inflation.
In a statement issued through its attorneys, Chiquita said its main subsidiary in Honduras, the Tela Railroad Co., has good relations with its union, SITRATERCO (Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Tela Railroad Company), through a "Together Is Better" program of mutual cooperation.
But officials of COSIBAH (Coordinadora de Sindicatos Bananeros de Honduras), an umbrella organization of banana unions that includes SITRATERCO, told the Enquirer that they didn't agree with Chiquita's view. They said the relationship has been combative, much like relationships between unions and companies in the United States. Battles often have ended up in court.
In July 1994, after a month of labor unrest following Chiquita's announcement that it would close four farms and cut more than 800 jobs, Chiquita fired 58 union leaders. Several took severance packages, but 43 filed suit, claiming Chiquita had unlawfully fired them for their union activism. In 1996, Honduran courts ruled that the firing was improper and ordered the company to rehire the 43.
The court also ordered Chiquito give workers back pay for their time off, according to court records and press accounts. The company did rehire the workers. But a few months later, it fired all 43, citing economic reasons. The group has sued again, but the case remains unresolved in the courts.
In a statement issued through its attorneys, Chiquita said Tela has made efforts to improve relations with workers in recent years and the company "encourages open communications between employees and management."
Strikes and union complaints against Chiquita and its subsidiaries also have occurred in recent years in Guatemala, Costa Rica and Panama.
In Guatemala, recent labor disputes severely disrupted production at two farms under exclusive contracts to provide bananas to COBIGUA, a company secretly controlled by Chiquita. On Feb. 12, 22 workers - all members of a union executive committee attempting to organize on the farms Finca Arizona and Finca Alabama - were fired. The unions alleged the firings were illegal and filed complaints with the courts, because the company did not have a court order to override an injunction against taking such action. The U.S. - Guatemala Labor Education Project, a Chicago-based group concerned with labor issues in Guatemala, has written a letter of protest to Chiquita but has received no response.
The Guatemalan Embassy in Washington D.C. issued a statement this month that "the Ministry of Labor is committed to continue mediating to bring the parties to an agreement through dialogue." In a statement issued through its attorneys, Chiquita said that it had no connection to the farms and "it is inappropriate for Chiquita to comment as to the cause of any labor unrest at these farms."
In Costa Rica, the banana workers union has several court cases against the company for alleged illegal firings of union activists.
In Panama, 4,600 workers in the Pacific Coast division for Chiquita's subsidiary, the Chiriqui Land Company, have been on strike since February.
Miguel Angel Tejada, 52, one of the fired Honduran union officials who is suing Tela, said he wished Chiquita's top official would come down to Honduras to meet with the fired union officials.
"I would tell him, why don't you give us our back pay and salary that is rightfully due us?" Mr. Tejada, who has worked for Tela for 31 years, said through a translator. "I gave you 31 years of my life. Why are you paying me back this way? It is a betrayal. Don't you know what's going on down here?"
Solidarismo in Costa Rica
Many banana workers in Costa Rica criticize a burgeoning labor movement that has supplanted unions on many plantations, including Chiquita farms. The movement, called Movimiento Solidarista Costarricense (also known as Solidarismo) is funded in part by companies, including Chiquita.
Solidarismo officials say the nationwide movement is intended to foster a better working relationship between workers and employers through more informal discussions, cooperative planning and implementation of employee job improvement recommendations.
More than 1,000 companies and 150,000 workers participate in Solidarismo associations throughout Costa Rica, according to Solidarismo records.
Critics of Solidarismo, including traditional labor unionists, call the movement an attempt by big business to eliminate the strong unions in place in Costa Rica.
Banana workers with ties to traditional unions said Solidarismo chapters on Chiquita farms often are controlled by the company since it helps fund the organization. Chiquita executives, along with worker representatives, jointly hold top positions in the movement's local chapters.
Soldiarismo officials said they get money from Chiquita, but denied they are beholden to the company. Those officials also say, however, they have no authority to force Chiquita to institute any corporate changes, retain any employee or provide lawyers or financial assistance to a Chiquita employees who believe they have been wrongly fired or forced to resign.
"Solidarismo is nothing more than a front for Chiquita to control or eliminate workers who dare to speak out for better wages or working conditions," said Gilbert Bermudez, general secretary of Sindicato de Trabajadores de Plantaciones Agricolas and founder of a coordinating committee of banana unions. "It can do nothing to protect the workers. It has no power; only what Chiquita allows it to do."
Ms. Guerrero of Barrio "Brooklyn" said she paid dues to Solidarismo while working for Chiquita. She said she doesn't think the organization will protect her: she found that out when she was let go.
Because she had no rights, no union representation, no money to hire a lawyer, Ms. Guerrero said she left her job. Now living in extreme poverty without an income, Ms. Guerrero said she would try to sign up with Chiquita again when her baby was old enough.
"We need the money," she said.
(Copyright 1998)
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