European Coffee Meeting Brings Together Processing, Rural Workers
(IUF News Bulletin n.3-4, 1996)
The first ECF-IUF conference for unions organizing in the European coffee processing industry was held in Hamburg, Germany from April 14-15. Participants represented IUF-affiliated unions at Kraft Jacobs Suchard, Sara Lee/Douwe Egberts, Nestl and Melita. The delegates reported on company developments and initiatives to establish European Works Councils, with job losses, new shift patterns and multi-skilling emerging as issues of common concern.
The presence of participants from the Central de Trabajadores del Campo (Guatemala), the National Union of Plantation and Agricultural Workers (Uganda), the Confederaao Nacional dos Trablhadores nas Indstrias da Alimentaao, Agro-Industria, Cooperativas de Cereais e Assalariados Rurais (Brazil), and the Articulaao Central das Associaoes Rurais de Ajuda Mtua (a Brazilian organization of small farmers) provided an opportunity to begin the process of establishing links be tween producing and processing unions.
Lenin Loarca of the Guatemalan CTC highlighted the abysmal conditions on coffee plantations, where employers frequently ignore the minimum wage requirement of USD 2.50 daily. Housing was substandard, often with no sanitation, and malnutrition was widespread. Employers in some cases charged rent for housing in excess of the wages paid, resulting in a situation of debt bondage for the workers.
A representative of the Max Havelaar Foundation reported on fair trade initiatives in the coffee sector, which have thus far been limited to arrangements with smallholders, and the possibility of extending them to include the purchase of coffee beans produced by plantation workers.
The participants welcomed the opportunity to exchange information on conditions in producer countries and in processing plants, and recommended that the initial contacts between unions in the coffee sector should be followed up and strengthened to allow unions as a whole greater influence on company policy and decision making. The meeting also agreed to explore the possibility of union action to establish minimum labour standards in producer countries as a condition of coffee sourcing.
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