“In Honduras and El Salvador, “trade union leaders are vulnerable to possible assassination at any moment””, 4^th March 2020

…In Honduras and neighbouring El Salvador particularly, the strife people are fleeing is borne of converging factors that include corruption, street gangs, the drug trade, repressive security policies and a long history of violence ingrained in social relations.

An additional factor is poverty and remarkable inequality: Honduras is the sixth most unequal country in the world and the most unequal in Latin America, while in El Salvador, 70 per cent of workers do not have stable, salaried work, and are constantly scrambling to survive. Union organising brings Honduran and Salvadoran workers into contact with all of those factors. It is risky work…

One sector in which such violence is particularly common is agroindustry. The harvesting and processing of palm oil exemplifies the problem. Systematic injustices are rife. Most companies don’t meet even the Honduran minimum wage, which ranges from US$269 to US$327 per month…

As palm oil becomes increasingly lucrative in the global economy, union organising has been one of few levers to pull to intercede in the situation. Workers at two palm companies are currently unionising. Yet, for the past two years, the Ministry of Labour in the ruling administration of President Juan Orlando Hernández has refused to approve the unions…