Peru project sets up potential for progress

TUC Aid’s project to develop trade union strength in Peru’s thriving agricultural exports industry, where the harsh realities of supply chains and squeezed profit margins leave workers vulnerable to poor wages and inadequate health & safety, has finished with challenges remaining but positive progress in place. 

Working through regular partners Banana Link (despite banana plantations specifically not being covered by the project) as well as local unions SITAG and FENTAGRO, TUC Aid implemented an ambitious training scheme to prepare workers to take part in representative committees – particularly on health & safety - in workplaces across the Peruvian provinces of Puira, La Libertad and Ica, as well as working to recruit new members and develop social dialogue models with employers.

Peru, which broke ranks with other Latin American nations to join Colombia in signing a Free Trade Agreement with the EU, is a hostile environment for trade unions, but the project has had a number of breakthroughs with some local employers, with committees established, collective bargaining agreements signed and proper social dialogue established. Thousands of workers were trained by the scheme, and hundreds more recruited to the unions, leaving the local movements well placed to capitalise on progress.

Future development of the project’s aims will depend on pressure applied via the supply chain, with the purchasing power of UK supermarkets key to pushing local employers into real social dialogue across the region.