Del Monte: Friend or Foe?
Del Monte is one of the leading producers of bananas in the world, and the world has a staggering appetite for bananas. Del Monte does what it needs to fill that market, and it does that well: supermarkets across the globe receive a steady supply of bananas nearly every morning. And why not? Bananas are healthy, nourishing and inexpensive. They come perfectly encased in an “easy-to-go” wrapper provided by nature herself: not even a zip-loc bag required by Mom.
Children, athletes, health-nuts, executives – most everyone grabs a banana even multiple times a day. And more-over, companies like Del Monte offer employment to thousands of workers, and especially workers that may not have employment in their own country. They offer many of these families a chance out of poverty, food scarcity, and homelessness. It seems like a no-brainer; it seems like there could be no reasonable down-side to these magical offerings to the world.
But what about these migrant workers: do the consumers of Del Monte’s bananas know the whole story? And if they did know the whole story, would they still be so happily eating up their bananas? There is startling evidence that these migrant workers are not treated fairly, they are exploited, and there are few organizations in place to protect them.
Jan Luis is a migrant worker from Haiti working for the banana industry in the Dominican Republic. Workers like Jan make up nearly 90 percent of the work force producing bananas across the globe (Levitt). After 30 years of working in the industry, however, he is still classified as an “illegal” worker. By not legalizing workers like Jan, large corporations like Del Monte do not need to offer them benefits, a minimum wage, guaranteed hours, vacation, vacation-pay, or even notice of termination (Levitt).
In an interview with Jan, The Guardian learned that with his daily wage he "cannot afford to live in anything more than a corrugated iron hut, with no water, toilet facilities or electricity. Lying hidden off a main road, around 1,000 Haitian migrants live crowded together” (Levitt). Their working contract is for eight hours a day, but they mostly work more than ten or twelve hours. There are no rest-breaks and no overtime paid. They earn approximately 250 pesos a day, which is barely enough to even feed a family (Levitt). It may seem like Del Monte is offering their workers a way out of poverty, but the truth is that they are perpetuating the cycle.
Exploitation of workers is a serious concern: it makes them feel helpless, vulnerable, and powerless, which perpetuates the cycle of mistreatment. Padre Regino, director of the Solidarity Association of Migrant Workers, says that the big companies of the banana industry “don't want to know about workers or bother themselves with how much they earn, where they live or what they eat” (Levitt).
The Sustainable Food Trust conducted an interview with Carlos, another migrant worker in the banana industry. Carlos has no job security, and he has no voice: he states that if a worker complains, they will find themselves without a job, and they are not protected by any employment laws (Smith). Women are dismissed when they become pregnant, and verbal abuse by employers is common (Smith). Carlos says directly: “My boss is a tyrant,” and his coworker has had a gun pointed at his head (Smith). Lucia was also interviewed by the Food Trust and relates that she has never had a day off, and when she complained to her boss she was told that "if she didn’t want to work, she knew where the door was” (Smith). By perpetuating the hiring of employees without legal documents, the big corporations like Del Monte save incalculable amounts of money, allowing them to continue turning a profit in an industry famous for its low-profit margins.
Exploitation and mistreatment of employees would not be as serious of a threat if there were organizations in place to protect the workers. The Human Rights Watch investigated the banana industry, including Del Monte, and found an emerging classification of workers called “permanent temporary” (66-67). This classification allows for strings of “temporary” contracts to be created back to back, thereby working around any form of labor laws that have been created to protect workers. There is nowhere and no one to fight: they are not true employees.
In fact, temporary works are hired specifically so that the big corporations will not have problems with unions; the moment a temporary worker tries to unionize, they are fired (70). The Human Rights Watch found, however, that these workers should be receiving the same benefits and security as other workers and ultimately concluded that the banana producers, including Del Monte, have “failed to ensure respect for workers’ rights … these corporations have therefore benefited from…and are complicit in labor rights abuses…” (80). There are laws in place to protect the workers, but it is up to the corporations like Del Monte to ensure the laws are kept. Unfortunately, this is not currently happening.
Bananas are nourishing, nutritious, tasty and sweet. They are a quick pick-me-up and an instantaneous energy boost. They are cheap and convenient. The problem is that there is a dark side to the banana industry that the world knows little about: who is growing, picking, and packing up all these bananas? It has been proven in multiple investigations that most of these workers are migrant, and they are being pushed to work too many hours, without adequate shelter or provisions, and without an adequate rate of pay.
Worse than all of that, there is nobody to fight for the workers' rights, and if they do try to fight for themselves, they are fired. The world needs to understand that when they bite into their banana, they are biting into an industry that has pulled the wool over their eyes: just because the sticker on the banana says “fair-trade” does not mean the migrant workers were actually treated fairly.
Works Cited
Levitt, Tom. “How Fairtrade Bananas Are Failing Migrant Workers.” The Guardian, 28 May 2012, www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/may/28/fair-trade-food. Accessed 1 June 2019.
Pier, Carol. “Tainted Harvest: Child Labor and Obstacles to Organizing on Ecuador’s Banana Plantations.” Human Rights Watch, April 2002, www.hrw.org/reports/2002/ecuador/2002ecuador.pdf. Accessed on 31 May 2019.
Smith, Rachel. “How Ethical Are Your Bananas?” Sustainable Food Trust, 24 April 2015, sustainablefoodtrust.org/articles/how-ethical-are-your-bananas/. Accessed 1 June 2019.