Trade unions make a big difference for Guatemalan banana workers
According to a new report – What Difference Does a Union Make?: Banana Plantations in the North and South of Guatemala – published by the Center for Global Workers Rights at Penn State University in the US, there are stark differences in pay and working conditions for unionised and non-unionised workers in the Guatemalan banana industry.
Guatemala is currently the third largest exporting country of bananas in the world, and by far the largest exporter of bananas to North America, with two exporting areas: one on the southern Pacific coast, which is non-unionised and represents 85 percent of employment in the sector, and the other in the north where nearly all workers employed in banana plantations are unionised.