Organising workers in banana plantations in Guatemala

TUC Aid has joined hands with BananaLink in an initiative to improve the reach and effect of collective bargaining in the banana sector in Guatemala by providing training for men and women shop stewards. The Project launched early this year aims at promoting unionisation in plantations in both the Caribbean province of Izabál and in the Pacific South of Guatemala through organising and advocacy campaigns and encourages social dialogue. Enhanced capacity in the unions representing workers in the banana sector is expected to increase the coverage and effectiveness of Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBAs).

Activities and impact so far

The training programme is well under way. A total of 69 members of the executive committees of SITRABP, SITRABAT, SITRAFTSA, SITRAGSA and SITRABI have so far attended training workshops under the theme 'Workers' Rights and Responsibilities'. Ten of the trainees are women and nearly all trainees are aged 25-40. In addition to formal workshops, organising activities are in progress in seven Bobos plantations where there are workers who have not joined the union. At this stage, the strategy is to develop the current work and consolidate the progress made so far with the five unions and the unions in the nearby Chiquita plantations before embarking on organising workers in the South.

The first participants in the training programme came from the four unions in nationally owned plantations selling produce to Del Monte. SITRABI notes that, for the first time, the four smaller unions are starting to feel a common destiny and to recognise that a united approach with SITRABI will be of benefit to all.

The workshops, with the help of experienced external facilitators selected by SITRABI have helped improve capacity for dialogue and for making proposals on behalf of workers. « Currently we feel that we are coming together much more than in the past, trust each other more and are exchanging experiences. What people have learned is already feeding through and improving social and economic benefits through the collective bargaining process that has been stalled in several companies. », said Noé Ramirez, SITRABI's General Secretary in the union's most recent report to Banana Link.

Inter-union meeting

The first-ever meeting of representatives of all 12 banana workers' unions in Izabal took place on 6 May at SITRABI headquarters. Unions were able to evaluate the conflict in the Bobos district where producers are threatening to abandon banana production. SITRABI informed other unions of the training programme funded by TUC Aid through BananaLink.

Wider social dialogue

Following meetings in 2012 and early 2013 with the Deputy Minister, SITRABI, together with colleagues from Colsiba based in Honduras, met the Labour Minister for the first time and presented their proposal for a tripartite dialogue process in Izabal and the Pacific South. The Minister stressed that the hesitation of producers in the South to engage in dialogue was due to the conflicts in the Bobos district in Izabal, that any process towards dialogue would have to be very well prepared and that it should involve the resolution of the conflict in Izabal. He offered weekly meetings with the unions to prepare the ground. The training programme, inter-union processes and preparations for industry dialogue must therefore be seen as inextricably inter-linked and proceed in parallel.

Some obstacles

• In the Bobos district of Izabal there is still a problem of blockades (a physical barrier that stops entry and exit from all the nine nationally owned plantations that supply Del Monte) put up by groups of workers whenever there is a problem of rights violations in one of the companies.

• The Labour Minister has not yet convened the first Banana Industry Roundtable despite the promise to do so before the ILO conference in June 2013.

• BANDEGUA (Del Monte) has so far not agreed to a meeting to discuss the process under way to unblock the tripartite dialogue and start capacity-building in the South). SITRABI wants the company to be the « guarantor of the good relations that SITRABI has with the other four trade unions in their supplier plantations ».