A school building in Ghana funded by the Fairtrade Premium (Photo: James Robinson)

One year ago, Oxfam launched its international campaign to tackle the human suffering faced by the women and men that produce our food – with a call to action for both supermarkets and governments to acknowledge this problem and act to address it. The last year has shown that progress is possible through companies strengthening policies and practices on human rights in food supply chains and governments strengthening policy frameworks or regulations.

However, new evidence published today by Oxfam shows that workers’ rights continue to be violated across all continents, including in Europe itself.

Interviews with pineapple, banana and horticultural workers in Costa Rica, Ecuador and Peru conducted by Banana Link’s partner trade unions confirm that most workers do not earn living wage and over two thirds fear the consequences of joining an independent trade union. More than half of workers report not being treated with respect at work – or experiencing abusive treatment or harassment in the workplace – yet were not confident that they could raise a concern or grievance without problems.

‘There is a clear and direct link between workers earning poverty wages and not being protected from harm at work, and their freedom to join a union and collectively bargain for better working conditions. Supermarkets need to ensure that they only buy from plantations that respect the rights of their workers to organise.’ Jacqui Mackay, National Coordinator, Banana Link

Although some retailers continue to make good progress – Oxfam cites Tesco, Sainsbury and Morrisons in particular – many have barely started the journey towards real corporate responsibility.

In 2018, Aldi South scored just 1% on Oxfam’s Supermarkets Scorecard. After public campaigning in multiple countries, the German-headquartered retailer published its first international human rights policy, committed to respect human rights, and adopted measures to identify risks and prevent harm to people. These statements, among others, increased the company’s score by 18%, more than any other company. It has also joined the Ethical Trading Initiative in the UK which helps companies address workers’ rights issues.

However, Aldi’s sourcing of bananas demonstrates a disconnect between the company’s human rights commitments and its business practices. Around the time it was developing its human rights policy, the company told banana suppliers they had to cut prices, even though prices had already fallen by 50% in 15 years. In response, over 40 producer organisations across all the major banana exporting countries said enough was enough and urged other retailers not to follow Aldi South’s lead. This did not stop Aldi going ahead with a lower price for its global banana supply this year. It remains to be seen whether the lessons have been learned when it comes to negotiating banana prices for the 2020 contract.

As members of the Costa Rican banana and pineapple workers’ union SITRAP told Oxfam last November, “We banana workers are very worried because day by day our working conditions get more difficult. Right now, we are negotiating a collective bargaining agreement, but when we asked for a wage rise the company refused point-blank, arguing that they are selling bananas for a very low price and that means they are not able to increase our wages”.

One year on, as well as well as publishing an updated supermarket scorecard and new case studies from India and Brazil, highlights how the retailers’ relentless drive to cut costs and maximise profits, is fuelling poverty and abuse in their supply chains.

Following a campaign launched in 2016, members of the executive committee of the SITETSA union in Peru have won their legal battle against unfair dismissal by Peruvian agribusiness, TALSA.

The Labour Court in the provincial capital Trujillo, Peru, ruled last year that the union executives had been dismissed unfairly, and that TALSA reinstate the workers. This latest judgement made last week, comes in response to an appeal by the company against that ruling. The Labour Court dismissed TALSA’s appeal, ruling that the company reinstate within five days the workers: Santos Celestina Carranza Ruiz, Francisco Mamerto Sánchez Luján, Francisco Esperanza Amaranto Alvarado, Nelson Jhoel Sifuentes Sánchez.

The original dismissal of these workers in 2016 had occurred at a time when negotiations should have begun to renew the collective bargaining agreement between the company and the union. The company accused them of criminal and labour rights offences which were always rejected by the workers. Union members maintained that the company had criminalised trade union activities in order to destroy the union organisation and stop it from defending workers’ rights.

TALSA had attempted to deny the legal existence, not only of the union committee, but also of the FENTRAIR federation (Federacion Nacional De Trabajadores Del Sector Agrario, Industria, Riego y Similares Del Peru) to which SITETSA belonged. After more than three years of court trials, public mobilisations and a failed mediation process, the workers have finally succeeded in winning a return to work. The Court also ruled that TALSA must pay the union members the wages due since the illegal dismissal in 2016. Five other board members had already negotiated individual severance pay with TALSA.

International support from trade unions and civil society organisations in Europe, North America and Latin America, and the Make Fruit Fair campaign played an important role in publicising the plight of the sacked workers, and supporting the workers in their fight, including contributions towards their legal costs.

The Europe-wide Make Fruit Fair! Campaign, in which Banana Link played a key role, called on the European Union to take action to prevent supermarkets abusing their buying power, to ensure they treat their suppliers fairly, and pay prices that cover the costs of sustainable production.

The EU has today announced new rules designed to address the problem:

European ministers meeting in Luxemburg today (9 April) will formally approve new European rules that ban abusive trading practices by supermarkets and large buyers in the global food supply chain, writes Marissa Ryan.

Marissa Ryan is Oxfam International’s deputy director of advocacy and campaigns, and head of Oxfam’s EU office.

This could help transform an industry where exploitative practices are commonplace – from the demand for ever-cheaper produce to late payments or last-minute cancellations of orders, refusal to provide written contracts, or charging unjustified fees for selling a producer’s product.

The suffering in supermarket supply chain

Tomato pickers from the region of Puglia in Southern Italy, including many migrant workers, told Oxfam that they start their days as early as 3:30 am and work up to 11 hours, often with little or no break. Filling a box with 300 kg of tomatoes earns them an average of just €3.50 to €4.50 resulting in pay as low as €4.20 an hour.

Many live in slums with no running water or electricity. The tomatoes they pick end up on supermarket shelves across Europe, bought by consumers who have no idea they are contributing to the misery of workers in the EU.

In the wider Italian fruit and vegetable sector, Oxfam has reported practices of gender discrimination and sexual harassment and violence, where for example women may be paid 20–30% less than men for the same work and are much more likely to be subject to blackmail, in a system where gaining and maintaining employment may entail sexual exploitation and harassment.

Multiple cases of sexual assault and labour exploitation have been documented, for example, in the province of Ragusa in Sicily, Europe’s third largest producer of vegetables, where more than 2,000 female Romanian farm workers may be subject to practices that amount to forced labour, and risk horrendous abuses.

These are not isolated examples; thousands of women and men working in farms and factories around the world have similar stories to tell about their work supplying the food retail industry, a sector worth trillions of dollars a year.

Shrimp from Indonesia and Thailand, pineapples from Costa Rica, bananas from the Philippines and Ecuador, and grapes from South Africa – many of the products in our shopping carts are produced by a system built on human suffering.

Confronting a climate of fear

The new European legislation is an important step towards ending the unfair trading practices that cause this suffering. Exploitative practices are widespread but difficult to document because of the pervasive climate of fear in retail supply chains.

Suppliers are reluctant to complain about fear of retribution by supermarkets who control access to the vast majority of consumers.

The fear of speaking out reflects the increasing power inequality in food supply chains. As the supermarkets’ control has grown, they have become more and more brazen in dictating conditions to their suppliers.

At the same time, clampdowns on trade unions and pressure on producer cooperatives have steadily eroded the bargaining power of small-scale farmers and workers in many of the countries from which our food is sourced.

The impact is devastating. Recent Oxfam research on a sample basket of 12 everyday products including orange juice, coffee, bananas and rice, sourced from countries around the world, revealed that none of the farmers or workers involved in their production earned enough to support a decent standard of living.

Putting an end to unfair trading practices

The new European legislation will protect producers from all around the world and cover all food products bought by retailers based inside the EU, wherever these products come from.

But this will only happen if the European Commission, national governments, and civil society organisations seize the opportunity and do their part.

The EU should advertise the new legislation in producer countries, particularly in developing countries. And member states must ensure that the national authorities tasked with enforcing the rules across the EU are able to investigate and impose sanctions on companies that fail to comply.

Only when the law is enforced will it put an end to practices that force food producers into poverty, whether they are small dairy farmers in Belgium or grape pickers in South Africa.

An important, hard-won feature of the new legislation is the right of Non-Governmental Organisations to file complaints on behalf of suppliers. Non-governmental organisations and civil society organisations now have an important instrument to fight the fear factor in global food supply chains.

They have a responsibility to stand up to exploitation and help workers and producers to submit complaints where needed.

The new directive is a powerful tool in the fight against unfair trading practices – governments, civil society organisations, and the European Commission must now use it to protect the people behind the barcodes.

Reproduced from: https://www.euractiv.com/section/agriculture-food/opinion/protecting-the-people-behind-the-barcodes/

The Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) has published a statement (reproduced below) on the latest developments in the dispute between Fyffes and Honduran plantation workers. It recognises that Fyffes is now in dialogue with the national union STAS (Union of Workers in Agroindustry and Allied Trades), and have signed an agreement officially recognising STAS as the legitimate representative of workers employed at the company’s Honduran melon subsidiaries. Collective bargaining negotiations between Fyffes and STAS are now due begin on 5 February, while Fyffes has also agreed to rehire all the non-rehired union members.

STAS say this represents “an important step toward improving working conditions at Fyffes subsidiaries” and they hope that it “will mean that any and all anti-union retaliation will come to an immediate end”. They have expressed their gratitude for the “indispensable effort and support of allied organizations in the United States and Europe in this process, given that without their contribution in different aspects, hundreds of melon workers in Honduras would not have this hope of justice”.

Banana Link welcomes this progress. Our Freedom & Fairness for Fyffes Workers campaign has long asked for STAS to be recognised as the legitimate independent trade union at Suragroh, with the right to collective bargaining on behalf of members. We hope, therefore, that the terms of the agreement will be respected and implemented by local management in Honduras.

Our campaign also calls on Fyffes to establish and implement a global company wide policy to ensure the respect of workers’ rights throughout its global supply chains. We believe it is imperative that Fyffes respects the rights of workers and their independent unions and will enter into collective bargaining agreements at all other subsidiary operations including at Anexco in Costa Rica.

The ETI statement:

“ETI member, Fyffes, has been under suspension since May 2017 following complaints by Banana Link and the International Union of Foodworkers.

The ETI board met on January 17th in regular session and revisited the ongoing suspension of Fyffes. The board noted with appreciation the positive progress that is now being made and that dialogue has started at the farm level between Fyffes and national union STAS. The board reconfirmed that it is vital for local management to commit to this process, while recognising that it can take time to develop trust and work through specific issues. The board offers its full support for the process of dialogue to continue leading towards full collective bargaining.

While recognising progress, there remains a need to ensure that normalisation of union management relations is fully established. So while not minded to act on the previous recommendation to dismiss Fyffes from membership, the board has decided that the suspension should remain in place at this time. It is hoped that by the next meeting in March there could be a joint presentation on progress and lessons learned. Continued positive progress would enable a discussion on the steps Fyffes would need to take to re-establish membership of ETI.”

Read more:

Fair Trade USA suspends certification of Fyffes’ melon plantation in Honduras

Continuing reports of anti-union practices and health & safety violations, while Fyffes’ ETI suspension extended

Ethical standards body, Fair Trade USA (FTUSA), has this week suspended the certification of the Fyffes owned Suragroh melon plantation in Honduras, in response to evidence of labour rights violations.

The suspension followed an open letter to FTUSA from twenty five human rights and labour organisations from North America, Europe and Asia, including Banana Link, calling into question their certification of Suragroh.

For more than a decade, workers at Suragroh have reported to the trade union STAS-FESTAGRO that Fyffes has failed to pay minimum wages or any statutorily mandated benefits such as healthcare, social security, maternity leave, education vouchers, overtime, sick leave or vacation. Workers have reported illegal firings of pregnant workers, exposure to hazardous agrochemicals, and systematic threats and harassment from their supervisors for speaking out to protect their rights.

In response to the open letter, FTUSA stated that “given the severity of the allegations and the weight of the evidence, we moved quickly to suspend Suragroh’s Fair Trade certification while the reported issues are investigated. During the suspension, Suragroh is prohibited from selling under Fair Trade (USA) terms or with the Fair Trade Certified seal.”

In 2017, a global alliance of civil society organisations and trade unions, including Banana Link, launched the Freedom & Fairness for Fyffes Workers campaign, calling on Fyffes to respect the rights of workers in its global supply chains, including at Suragroh.

While, in response to the evidence of labour rights violations at Suragroh, Fyffes was suspended in 2017 from membership of the Ethical Trade Initiative (ETI), a UK based alliance of companies, trade unions and NGOs that promotes respect for workers’ rights around the globe. The ETI asked Fyffes to prepare a remediation plan to deal with the issues, to be agreed with the International Union of Foodworkers (IUF), before they could be readmitted to membership of the ETI. Fyffes’ negotiations with the IUF have yet to reach a conclusion.

Gabriela Rosazza, campaigner at International Labor Rights Forum, which coordinated the open letter, welcomed the suspension, saying that Fair Trade USA’s decision to certify Suragroh had “violated the trust that consumers put in the Fair Trade label” adding that “Fair Trade USA’s suspension of Suragroh is promising.”

Read more:

Fruit firm’s plantation ‘abused staff’ in Honduras – The Times (subscription required)

Melon plantations in Honduras: Employees without rights (Fresh Plaza)

Fair Trade USA Certifies Labor Violations as “Fair Trade” in Honduras (Vending Marketwatch)

Fyffes rejects allegations of abuse at Honduran plantation (The Irish Times)

The recent announcement by Aldi that it plans to cut the price it pays for its bananas, threatens the sustainability and livelihoods of small-scale famers and plantation workers.

Average retail prices for bananas have fallen by more than 50 % in real terms over the past 15 years, as a result of supermarket price wars, exacerbating poor incomes for the people who grow the UK’s most consumed fruit. This “race to the bottom” has also amplified significant social and environmental impacts in most banana producing countries, including the denial of basic human rights, notably the freedom to join an independent trade union. Aldi’s action will likely make the situation worse.

The charity Oxfam say that Aldi’s proposed price cuts, would challenge the ability of small-scale farmers, workers and their families to work their way out of poverty and has launched a campaign to persuade Aldi to think again.

Take action

You can read more about the Oxfam campaign here.

Click here to visit the Oxfam website, where you can download a letter to hand in to your local ALDI store, calling on the company to:

• Demonstrate it’s serious about its new human rights policy by not pushing down the amount paid to banana producers in Latin America.
• Implement its new human rights policy and by when.
• Ensure that the human rights of workers and farmers in its supply chain are not violated.
• Listen to the concerns of the workers in its supply chains.

Supporting trade unions

Banana Link has, for many years, worked to support trade unions in the banana industry, including the right of plantation workers to collectively bargain with employers over pay and working conditions. This includes solidarity from Unison, which has enabled the Costa Rican union SITRAP (Union of Agricultural Plantation Workers) to strengthen its organising and collective bargaining work. Despite SITRAP being in negotiations, the employers say that actions like that of Aldi, in cutting prices, mean they cannot afford pay rises for already struggling workers.

Eduardo Monge of SITRAP explains in this video how the pressure on prices from European supermarkets means low wages and poor standards of living and working conditions.

Producers’ anger

Additionally, producers’ associations from Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador and Guatemala have all expressed anger, saying the move could cause serious issues. This included a letter from the Ecuadorian banana industry, signed by 31 organisations, slamming the retailer’s plans, saying it would “directly affect the workers, the environmental practices, and negate any profits to the growers as it would revert all the sustainability efforts to date“.

It doesn’t have to be this way

Lidl, another Germany-based discount retail chain which also has around 10,000 stores worldwide, seems to be taking a different approach. Just days before Aldi’s plans came to light, Lidl announced it would soon start selling only Fairtrade bananas in its German and Swiss stores.

Consumer action can make supermarkets think again

Lidl’s actions came after 75,000 people signed a petition, as part of the Make Fruit Fair! Campaign, calling for fair wages, health protection and trade union rights for plantation workers in Lidl’s tropical fruit supply chains.

Please take action to support the work of Banana Link by downloading and sending the letter produced by Oxfam to your local Aldi store.

A coalition of unions, farmworkers, fair trade advocates, ethical businesses and retailers (including Banana Link) is confronting Fair Trade USA (FTUSA), a US-based fair trade certification agency, for ignoring human rights abuses and its own standards in certifying a Honduran melon grower with a long history of violations. In an open letter sponsored by the International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF) published through Fair World Project (FWP), the coalition is calling on FTUSA to adhere to its own standards and take immediate action to decertify Suragroh, a fully-owned subsidiary of multinational fruit company, Fyffes.

Fyffes is one of the largest fruit companies in the world and the top supplier of winter-season melons to U.S. supermarkets, sold under the “SOL” label. They employ 8,000 workers on their Honduran melon plantations. FTUSA certified Fyffes’ Honduran melon subsidiary, Suragroh, in April 2018, despite a long list of serious human and labor rights violations.

The open letter, which identifies the FTUSA standard’s shortcomings and lack of commitment to farmworkers, is the result of months of engagement and correspondence by ILRF.

The well-documented violations have been reported for more than a decade and include failure to pay minimum wages, exposure of workers to hazardous agrochemicals, illegal firings of pregnant workers, blacklisting, harassment, and illegal dismissal of union members. In January 2016, workers decided to organize a union in order to address their longstanding grievances and bargain for improved working conditions. In response, Fyffes local management began engaging in violent union busting activities: intimidating, threatening, illegally firing and blacklisting union members. One prominent example is when Fyffes fired all 65 of its security guard personnel in February 2017, days after it found out they had affiliated to the union.

“FTUSA’s weak standards and 100 percent lack of accountability translate to ‘fair washing’ of human rights abuses,” says Dana Geffner, Executive Director of FWP. “FTUSA is actively undermining the farmworkers’ organizing efforts on the ground and eroding the spirt and integrity of fair trade.”

“Fyffes in Honduras has perpetuated anti-union repression from the very first moment that melon workers decided to organize an independent trade union. When workers have exercised their universal right to freely associate and organize, they have faced violent retaliation from Fyffes local management,” says Judy Gearhart, Executive Director of ILRF. “Despite overwhelming evidence and worker testimonies, Fair Trade USA is allowing Fyffes to continue bulldozing workers’ rights with impunity and giving the global brand a shiny, profitable stamp of approval.”

Read more:

Serious abuses of labour rights in Costa Rica and Honduras

German discount supermarket Lidl has announced that they will only sell Fairtrade bananas in their German and Swiss stores. They have said they will change to 100% Fairtrade bananas in their stores in Germany starting with 330 stores in the South of the country in October 2018 and then expand it to other regions. They will sell a mix of conventional and certified organic Fairtrade bananas.

Lidl has over 10,000 stores in Europe and the US, with over 3000 of them in Germany and around 100 in Switzerland. By comparison, they have around 700 stores in the UK, where their current policy is to sell a mix of Fairtrade and Rainforest Alliance certified bananas. The Co-op, Sainsbury’s and Waitrose are the only UK supermarket chains that currently sell only Fairtrade or organic bananas.

The Europe-wide Make Fruit Fair campaign, in which Banana Link is a leading partner, had, in 2016, called upon Lidl to ensure fair salaries, health protection and respect of trade-union rights on its suppliers’ plantations. 75,000 EU citizens signed a petition in support of this call.

Banana Link National Co-ordinator, Jacqui Mackay said:

“Lidl’s 100% commitment to Fairtrade bananas in Germany and Switzerland is a fantastic step towards better livelihoods for thousands of farmers and workers, and a great response to the 75,000 consumers who called on Lidl to ‘Play Fair’ as part of our Make Fruit Fair campaign. We are keen for Lidl to now become the fourth supermarket in the UK to offer only Fairtrade bananas in its stores!”

And in another welcome move, Lidl in Ireland announced recently that they are to remove the plastic packaging on the 2.5 million Fairtrade Organic bananas they source from the Dominican Republic.  Plastic packaging will be replaced with biodegradable banding, with a natural adhesive, completely eliminates plastic and holds the product in bunches. This follows a similar initiative announced recently by the Iceland supermarket chain in the UK.

Following the recent launch of an “Ethical Banana” campaign in Tokyo to promote environmental protection and social justice for the Filipino farmers, civil society organizations (CSOs) and consumer groups in Japan have initiated a system to monitor bananas exported from the Philippines.

The campaign, launched by the Interface Development Interventions (IDIS), seeks to encourage Japanese consumers to buy bananas produced by companies that observe good agricultural practices and promote the welfare of the banana farmers.

Bananas are the third largest food commodity in the Philippines in terms of production volume, after rice and coconut, grown mostly in plantations in Mindanao in southern Philippines. 30% of bananas consumed in Japan come from big banana plantations and other organic banana suppliers in Mindanao.

The groups behind the campaign, the Asia Pacific Resource Centre, Alter Trade Japan, and Alternative People’s Linkage in Asia (APLA), are planning to come up with scorecards on Filipino banana produce and to provide consumers with information on the agricultural practices of the banana companies in the country.

IDIS will also conduct a study on the environmental hazards and follow up monitoring for the best agricultural practices of banana plantations in the regions and in other parts of Mindanao. Chinkee Peliño-Golle, IDIS executive director, said the multinational Japanese corporation Sumitomo Fruits Corporation (SUMIFRU) uses the banned aerial spray method for pesticides, which poses a hazard, such as increasing toxic exposure for people and the environment.

Photo: IDIS

“We will urge banana companies to adopt and practice Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) in their farms to ensure food safety and assured quality of banana in Mindanao,” said Atty. Irvin Sagarino of the Initiatives for Dialogue through Empowerment and Alternative Legal Services (IDEALS). “GAP are particularly important in the banana industry, not only for sustainability of production and minimization of environmental impact, but also to ensure that harvesting, packaging and transport activities are conducted in hygienic conditions in order to deliver safe and good quality fruit to consumers”.

Poor working conditions and negative environmental impacts of the Filipino banana industry have been well documented, including this 2016 video report by Radio New Zealand which painted a poor picture of the working conditions and respect for labour rights on plantations in the Philippines.

Sumifru is a subsidiary of the Sumitomo Corporation, who last year bought the Irish multinational fruit giant Fyffes, which is currently suspended from the UK Ethical Trading Initiative as a result of evidence collected in 2016 of labour rights violations at the company’s subsidiaries in Costa Rica and Honduras.

Banana farmers pushed into poverty

Meanwhile, a 2018 case study by Oxfam – Land but no freedom: Debt, poverty and human suffering in the Philippine banana trade – explains how many banana farmers in the Philippines are being pushed deeper into poverty by the companies, like Sumifru who buy their bananas for export.

IDEALS has been working in partnership with Oxfam to support farmer cooperatives in their efforts to renegotiate unfair contracts or have them nullified. They have recently published this short video to show the suffering of banana farmers, exploited and abused, full of debt and mired in poverty.

Sources

http://www.mindanews.com/
http://edgedavao.net/