Our Work In Ecuador

One of the achievements of the initiative to-date has been the development and consensus reached to produce a Manual on Occupational Health and Safety in the banana industry, which was developed as a result of collaborative tripartite efforts. When launched in 2018, the Government also issued a decree making its use mandatory for the sector.

In Ecuador, the manual could help achieve transformation on health and safety practices in the banana industry. The manual and accompanying legislation making its use mandatory were the result of the strong involvement and cooperation of key actors including the Ministries of Labour and Agriculture, the Ecuadorian Institute for Social Security (IESS), AEBE (Ecuadorian Banana Exporters Association), private sector partners and civil society organisations (including COLSIBA – Coordinating Body of Latin American Banana and Agro-Industrial Workers Unions), amongst others.

The official launch of the National Manual on Occupational Health and Safety for the Banana Industry by the Ecuadorian Ministry of Labour and Ministry of Agriculture took place on 21 May 2018 in Machala, Ecuador (pictured right). The Ministerial Agreement (No. MDT-2018-0108), signed on 16 May 2018, establishes the compulsory status of the Manual and the legislations included in it. The event was followed by training sessions for public and private sector actors.

Thanks to support from Banana Link, the new banana workers’ trade union in Ecuador, SINUTRABE, was able recently to hold its first workshop for women worker representatives.

Women represent only 6 to 7% of the workforce because they are viewed as ‘high cost, high risk’ employees. Women workers face discrimination, harassment, and multiple health and safety risks, and are often unaware of their rights and how to defend them. This is exasperated by trade union discrimination; only 2 to 3 % of Ecuadorian agro-industrial workers are organised.

The workshop, attended by representatives of the Association of Banana Workers in Pasaje Canton (El Oro Province) and from the Association of Workers in Guayas, Los Álamos and Pechichal, discussed labour issues facing women on the plantations, along with the new ministerial agreements on working practices in Ecuador’s banana industry.

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Building an unconventional banana program

Equal Exchange bananas are unconventional. It’s not just that they are organic and fair trade. The Equal Exchange banana supply chain is a genuine departure from the conventional system – from the small farmer cooperatives directly exporting bananas to the alternative, independent retailers making them available to conscious eaters. Together, step-by-step, we are building a real alternative to conventional bananas.

Find out how fair trade ensures healthy working environments and fair working conditions for producers and workers in banana plantations through the example of Equifruit’s organic and Fairtrade bananas from the Small Producers Association El Guabo, Ecuador.

“I don’t like unions. I will fight them.”

This short film tells the story of what happened to banana workers on the Los Alamos plantation in Ecuador when workers decided to organise and strike to gain basic labour rights.

When Scottish artist, Jan Nimmo, travels to Ecuador, the world’s largest exporter of bananas, to gather workers’ testimonies, she observes the formation of the first trade unions in the banana sector for 30 years. The Los Alamos banana workers decide to go on strike for the most basic of rights. But the company which owns the plantation, Bonita Brands, is owned by Alvaro Noboa, Ecuador’s richest man and serial presidential candidate. Alvaro Noboa doesn’t like unions. Bonita is the world’s fourth largest banana company yet the workers earn a pittance, are exposed to a cocktail of toxic agro-chemicals and their living conditions are appalling. Bonita is a powerful eyewitness account of what happens to workers who dare to stand up against a powerful oligarch…..