Background on the Naboa Campaign

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Banana workers in Ecuador who have been organizing for their basic rights and a decent wage faced violent attacks on two different occasions on the night of May 15 and evening of May 16th by men who identified themselves as hired by the Noboa Corporation. Violent intimidation of workers fighting for a union on a plantation owned by a Danish company raises concerns of an industry-wide plan of intimidation and violence.

While the Danish owners have come to a preliminary agreement with the union, the Noboa Corporation has taken measures to end the negotiations with the workers on the Los Alamos plantations and has refused agreements presented in negotiations.

In perhaps the most important struggle in the Latin American banana sector in over a decade, Ecuadorian banana workers walked off seven plantations on May 6, 2002 to protest the firing of three union activists. The firings came shortly after the workers achieved a major victory when the Ecuadorian Labor Minister approved legal recognition for three unions representing the workers on these plantations.

The best way to protect the standards of union plantations in Central America and Colombia is to raise the standards of all the plantations in the region, especially in Ecuador. The struggle to form a union on eight of the Noboa plantations is the beginning of the fight to do just that