FYFFES/COBSA WORKERS' BREAKTHROUGH IN GUATEMALA
(Banana Trade News Bulletin, October 1996)
For the last 15 months, the unions in the 11 farms belonging to Corporacion Bananera s.a. - COBSA (owned by Fyffes) - have been suffering intense repression by the company's representatives on the ground in Izabal. In their efforts to prevent all attempts by the plantation workers to form unions, COBSA has sacked many workers (including trade union activists); there have been death threats, the houses of unionised workers have been flattened and management has set up an in-house workers' association.
Despite the onslaught from the company, the workers maintained their determination to resist eventually culminating in an almost 100% stoppage by workers on all of the farms. The strike lasted from the last week of July to 10th August, when a major breakthrough came for the workers: COBSA agreed to reinstate the sacked workers along with compensation for the work foregone since being sacked, the trade union was to be officially recognised in the Grano de Oro and other plantations, wages are to be paid for strike days, and the company has promised to open negotiations on a whole range of demands for improvements in the economic and social conditions of the plantation workers.
(Source: Report by Comision de Solidaridad Intersindical/ UNSITRAGUA, Puerto Barrios, Izabal, 19/08/96)
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