Urgent Support Needed for Ecuadorian Banana Workers

and for ALL workers' rights in the Global Economy!

May 30, 2003

Summary:

Ecuadorian banana workers need your urgent support for a U.S. congressional initiative.

The initiative urges the Administration to maintain strong pressure on the government of Ecuador to address violence against workers in the banana sector and to reform its labor law to remove obstacles to organizing. Ecuador is the world's largest exporter of bananas and a leading exporter of flowers. Workers are effectively denied the right to organize; there are virtually no banana or flower worker unions in Ecuador. Ecuador, because workers aren?t free to organize against low wages, is leading the race to the bottom in the global banana industry, bringing down wages and benefits of unionized banana workers throughout Latin America.

Requested Action:

Before June 5, Wednesday, please contact your member of the U.S. House of Representatives or his/her foreign policy aide. Urge him/her to co-sign a letter being circulated by Rep. George Miller to the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) on Ecuador worker rights. The letter asks USTR to enforce U.S. trade laws requiring progress on worker rights as a condition for receiving U.S. trade benefits. The main switchboard for Capitol Hill is 202-225-3121. For e-mail contact information, visit the http://clerk.house.gov/members/index.php.

BACKGROUND: Ecuador and Bannana Worker Rights

The banana industry is Ecuador's largest employer, making Ecuador the world's largest exporter of bananas. Workers are paid a fraction of what most banana workers in the rest of the region are paid and have virtually no benefits. Ecuadorian banana workers are effectively prohibited from exercising their basic rights, including their right to organize. Last year, in the first serious effort to organize in the banana sector in years, workers on the Alamos plantations were attacked by armed thugs brought in by Ecuador's richest man and two-time Presidential candidate, Alvaro Noboa. A dozen workers were wounded, one of whom lost his leg. Labor courts later rejected the workers efforts to negotiate. A year later, no one has been prosecuted for attacking the workers.

In April 2002, Human Rights Watch produced a report, Tainted Harvest, documenting the use of child labor on banana plantations and the deficiencies of Ecuadorian labor law which falls well short of international standards in protecting freedom of association. The report, coupled with the attacks on the Alamos plantations, led to a front-page July 2002 story in The New York Times. In February 2003, The New York Times did another front-page story on worker rights violations in Ecuador, this time focusing on the flower sector.

USTR and Ecuador

The battle over CAFTA (Central America Free Trade Agreement) and FTAA (Free Trade Agreement of the Americas) is producing selected opportunities for worker rights advocates to push the Administration for specific advances in Latin America especially since the Administration needs to appear publicly to be responsive on worker rights concerns even while it negotiates trade agreements that will ignore worker rights. Nowhere is that more evident than in Ecuador, where international attention on worker rights abuses in the banana sector and, more recently, in the flower sector have led USTR to press the Ecuadorian government to address labor law reform in general and the right to organize in the banana sector in particular.

Last fall, the Administration delayed granting Ecuador new U.S. trade benefits provided under the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act (ATPDEA) in part, it said, because of concerns about worker rights. The government of Ecuador promised to review labor law deficiencies, especially obstacles to the exercise of freedom of association, to improve enforcement of child labor law, and to form a high-level commission to investigate by late February 2002 the May 2002 violence at the Alamos plantations.

As of May 1, 2003, the commission had not issued a report and no steps had been taken to address labor law reforms. While the Ecuadorian government has increased the number of inspectors covering child labor the Ecuadorian labor movement and worker rights advocates in the U.S., including Human Rights Watch, the AFL-CIO, and US/LEAP, argue that the government's overall response has been woefully inadequate. The Ecuadorian government says it needs more time because a new President, Lucio Gutierrez, and Congress took office in January. This letter intends to ensure that a short deadline is set by USTR.

Current Congressional Initiative

On May 30, 2003, Rep. George Miller, D-CA began circulating a letter to his colleagues asking other House members to co-sign a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick urging that USTR set a short deadline of July 1, 2003 by which to measure progress on worker rights under the new government of President Lucio Gutierrez. Rep. Miller and Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-IL, both sent aides to Ecuador last May shortly after the attacks on the Alamos workers. It is important to demonstrate to USTR that there is growing support in Congress to address worker rights violations in Ecuador. Deadline for co-signing the letter is the end of the day on June 5, 2003. (Go back to the top for the requested action.)

Website information: Human Rights Watch and US/LEAP. Background on Ecuador worker rights, ATPDEA comments, and press links available.