Workers' lives in the banana republic
What is she painting on the bananasthat require her to use a respirator?
Photo: La Prensa, Honduras
Sharon (A cup of coffee blog) from New Zealand wrote about an interesting article about Honduras from Ireland of all places. Called "Life in the banana republic," it not only discusses workers in the banana industry but also workers in the maquilas (factories) in the ‘free-trade zones’:
"The country’s sweatshop-friendly industrial culture helps to ensure that Honduras remains one of the poorest countries in impoverished Central America."
"Sweatshop-friendly" is the right term. New businesses operating in Honduras pay no taxes for the first 10 years. Just recently the government of Honduras agreed to reduce the minimum daily wage by L.20 for the next ten years for companies who want to operate new maquilas in the southern part of the country.
The government, despite protests, agreed to a minimum wage of L.86 per day (US$4.55). Some of the companies who have indicated interest in the new Pacific Free Zone are Lovable, Fruit of the Loom, Bay Island, and Dickies. The area involved includes Choluteca, Valle, El Paraíso, Olancho y Santa Bárbara.
13 comments:
Maybe the women with the respirator just came from making some cheese and didn't have time to change before tendin' to the bananas. : )
kman
This free trade thing has me in an uproar. We have lost countless good jobs here because of it. I never gave much thought to the sweat shop mentality in the 3rd world countries being caused by this. Here we beat up Kathy Lee Gifford (some years ago) for producing a line of clothing made in foreign sweat shops when our government's policy creates the same thing. All in the name of greed! Yesterday we were watching the "Cinderella Man" on TV. About an Irish Immigrant during the depression. In various instances there was mention of the labor movement and a display of how violent it was. I wonder if we will ever see that kind of passion in this country again.
We have huge communities of Central Americans working in the fields of South Florida who are exposed daily to pesticides, unbearable working conditions, etc. They have an exagerated incidence of birth defects, respiratory problems, kidney disease, cancer, "unexplained death" and all the other dangers of working in fields that are loosely overseen by government officials. All things considered, they aren't paid much more than the workers in the Cental American countries.
The farm workers in Central American countries have even worse conditions. The large agricultural companies use chemicals that have long been banned in the US, simply because they are cheaper. Honduras has the greatest incidence of cleft lip and cleft palate in the Americas, in part caused by prenatal exposure.
Funny, you never see the Americans complaining about the free trade agreements working in these fields.
Patty
Heh, heh, heh, Kman. All I know is if the company is providing a respirator, that must be some pretty bad stuff. And then you all hand those bananas to your kids in the US as a healthy snack. Yikes.
Pokey, I don't know if we'll see that kind of passion in the US but I wouldn't be surprised if we don't see it here sooner or later. BTW most of Kathy Lee Gifford's clothing line was made here in Honduras!
It's funny you should mention The Cinderella Man because we just saw that last weekend. I had to explain to El Jefe about the depression. He was amazed and thought that those pictures of people standing in line for jobs looked like the maquilas. Even as bad as they are, they have no end of applicants because jobs are so hard to find.
Patty, I didn't know that Honduras had the highest incidence of cleft palate although I have read many accounts of missionary doctors operating on the children who have them. I also read one doctor's account who said she saw more children with catastrophic birth defects in 4 days in Honduras than she did in a year in her US practice.
I got my information on cleft palette from Operation Smile when they were in Trujillo repairing both cleft lips and cleft palettes several years ago.
http://www.operationsmile.org
They operated on about 10-15 patients a day for two weeks. These babies not only carry a social stigma (somebody in the family must have sinned!) but they are unable to suck from a bottle effectively, and many of them die from malnutrition or choke to death.
If they survive childhood, they are doomed to a life of poverty due to the stigma and also the inabiity to speak clearly.
Pesticides are a big suspect in this, along with maternal malnutrition.
Patty
I guess I'd be a little more concerned if my family ate bananas... we don't. But i will pass along to others who do.
Does Honduras export apples to the US?
kman
Thanks for the link! I'm glad to see you sharing the article, I thought it was very well written.
I have long been concerned about sweatshops and about the plantations. Patty- I have worked with medical teams in Honduras and wondered about the high rates of abnormalities, yet never really put it together with the use of agricultural and industrial chemicals. Something that is worth some research I'm sure.
Very sad state of affairs for most of the world's poor, many have little opportunities for progress.
That spraying thing is scary-that's why I only buy fresh local produce from the farmers. Of course its costs twice as much, but what is your health worth?
Free trade isn't the cause of this-consumers in North America simply want the cheapest produce,and either don't know or don't care what is the real cost. I found most tropical produce in the supermarkets in the US are actually much lower in price than what we pay for produce in the Caribbean. Often Americans complain about the prices here, and I tell them-that's the actual price of production. The abnormally low prices in the US come with a real price tag-in terms of human suffering and exploitation and environmental damage.
The WTO banana ruling is a prime example of this. As you may know,it was ruled that the island of Dominica could not sell bananas to Europe at a higher preferential rate. Chiquita Dole lobbied for this, and highly educated people actually told me that if Dominica cant produce bananas economically then they shouldn't be producing them. I informed them that the bananas produced there are produced at real cost, not with slave labour/wage slavery. Well what is the result of the lobbying? Total economic devastation for the island of Dominica, and workers in central America continue to be exploited.
Patty, thanks for the information.
KMan, no, we import apples from the US. Apples need a period of cold weather that we don't have here.
Sharon, thank you for posting the article in the first place. I found another really interesting banana article that I'm going to link to tomorrow.
Nicole, thanks for your comments. Bananas and pineapples are produced with slave labor here in Honduras. I really think Americans would have plenty to say if they knew the conditions of the workers and the terrible chemicals they are exposed to.
This conversation has reminded me of an interview I did in the course of my research in Honduras 2 years ago. I was interviewing a pastor in El Pino (near La Ceiba!)about the medical teams that had visited his church and community, but all he really wanted to talk about was the pineapple plantations. He talked about how he blamed them for a lot of health problems in the community, and about their powerlessness in the face of the company. I wish I had had more time to talk to him about this but we only had one afternoon and I had questions I needed to get through. And we discovered that he had actually grown up playing football in the streets of Danli with my husband so we lost a lot of time with their reminiscences!
I will try to find the transcript of that interview and maybe write about that on my own blog soon.
Sharon, I'll look forward to reading that article in your blog. The people are powerless and don't have anywhere else to go for jobs so these companies keep getting away with murder.
I think it is interesting the big uproar that was caused by the exposure of Kathy Lee Gifford's sweatshops when things like that and worse are going on all over Latin America everyday to produce "perfect" chemical laden fruits and vegetables and cheap clothes for North America and Europe.
The research on the relationship between birth defects, cancer, lung disease, etc, etc, has already been done, and is still ongoing. That is precisely why these chemicals are banned in the US. Even the chemicals that are allowed for use in the US are not safe. We have a case now in Miami-Dade County against a large agrochemical user because of high incidences of birth defects and leukemia among the fieldworkers and their children. Apparently, these after effects of exposure are not just to the fetus, but to the ova and spermatozoa of potential parents. Remember Agent Orange?
The "safer" chemicals cost a lot more than the others. This is one reason why the large agribusinesses work outside the US. There is another big reason, as we know, cheap labor. One of the reasons the labor is cheap is because the workers are intimidated. We live in a society where we can demand better conditions, better salaries, etc, and be heard. In Third World countries, the nail that pops up gets hammered back down into place. It extends beyond the banana fields. I have heard of incidences, not confirmed by me, in some of the maquilas where birth control is mandatory, or you don't get hired. After all, there is always somebody standing in line to take your place.
Patty
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