"Blog: Trade union repression in the Costa Rican bananera"

Despite industry and national commitments to protect Freedom of Association in the Costa Rican banana sector, recent fieldwork suggests collective rights remain precarious due to cost-cutting pressures of the global supply chain combined with conflictual local industrial relations.

Costa Rican bananas are widely, cheaply available in European and North American supermarkets. A core food basket item, some large supermarket chains now sell bananas at a loss to entice custom. A small number of large multinational fruit producer-exporters control around 40% of this market, and all claim to produce commodities under socially and environmentally sound conditions through their participation in various private supply chain governance programmes ...

All workers interviewed had worked on plantations either wholly-owned by or sole supplier to multinationals. All plantations were covered by at least one ethical code of conduct, and many were covered by multiple private governance initiatives. This includes programmes with household recognition, such as Rainforest Alliance and Fairtrade, as well as other certifications such as SCS Sustainably Grown and SA8000, and other more direct agreements with workers’ representative organisations. All of these contain supposed provisions for the protection of workers’ Freedom of Association rights on banana plantations. There are also provisions in Costa Rica’s national regulatory framework. Despite this ... these rights remain precarious on Costa Rican bananeras.

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