Dole, world leader in fruit

Success story...

Dole is the "success story" of a firm founded in the mid-nineteenth century for pineapple production, which has become an agri-food multinational selling over 200 types of fruit, vegetables and flowers throughout the world, with 36,000 permanent employees and 23,000 seasonal workers. This giant corporation is world leader and third in Europe in the production and commercialization of bananas - a market from which its annual earnings are over one billion euros.

Dole is a private company in which David H. Murdock, one of the world’s richest men, has owned a majority share since 2003. This billionaire also has a long anti-trade union history behind him. He has been the target of one of the biggest unionization campaigns in the US textile industry, in the firm Cannon Mills. Murdock nevertheless managed to get rid of the union, after which he declared: "I’ve fought the union and I’ve won...".

Control over an entire industry

Like its two main rivals, Chiquita and Del Monte, Dole is a vertically integrated firm. This enables it to absorb most of the total added value of the product and to derive profits from service activities which are more lucrative than production itself.

A vertically integrated firm is one which controls the different steps in the chain. In the case of banana multinationals, this includes production, packaging, shipping, exporting/importing and ripening.

In the past few years Dole has been withdrawing from the production stage. This reflects a change in the balance of power in the industry: it has become more important to control the end of the chain, closest to the consumer, thus enabling the firm to disengage from its social responsibility towards plantation workers.

Dole procures bananas from its own plantations, from those in which it has shares, and from sub-contractors in Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Ecuador, Columbia, Cameroon, Ivory Coast and the Philippines.

Banana plantations: purely virtual trade unions

"Dole pays wages and benefits that are competitive within its industry and that allow workers and their families to have a good standard of living commensurate with the societies in which they live and work [...] Dole respects the freedom of the individual worker to join the union of his or her choice or to refrain from such membership."
Excerpt from the "Labor Policies" section of Dole’s commitment regarding CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility).

In reality Dole practices and supports an anti-union policy on its banana plantations. The right to organize and to collective bargaining are not mentioned in its Code of Conduct. The multinational is constantly cutting production costs, which means low wages and difficult working conditions. Of the three banana multinationals, Dole has the fewest trade unions in Latin America. Two countries have become the focus of its operations in the banana trade: Costa Rica and Ecuador.

Costa Rica

Dole owns about 30 plantations in this country and is furthermore supplied by some thirty independent plantations.

Working conditions on banana plantations are very difficult, largely due to the anti-union policy of Dole and its suppliers.
Wages are insufficient to cover basic needs, working hours are extremely long, wages are paid per task and in reality overtime is never paid.
According to SITAGAH and UTRAL (plantation workers unions in the Sarapiqui and Valle de Estrella areas), seven collective labour agreements were signed with Dole in the 1980s. Yet the multinational managed to eradicate unions in these plantations, to scrap the agreements and to institute a system that favours employers.

In October 2000 in Costa Rica, Dole dismissed its entire labour force and proposed to reemploy them the following day at a wage 30-40% lower.

In 2005 and 2006, in the Las Perlas plantations, Dole endeavoured to force workers to disaffiliate from SITRAP (plantation workers’ union in the Siquirres area) when the union was recruiting new members. Union members received a visit from a promoter of solidarismo. Along with their families, they were threatened with dismissal, wage cuts and having their names placed on a black list, and were qualified as "enemies of the company". One of the workers had his working day paid with a bus ticket and a meal in exchange for his disaffiliation.

Solidarismo: founded by a conservative Catholic group, solidarismo has enjoyed government support in Costa Rica. The state amended its labour laws to facilitate its establishment and to turn it into an "alternative" to trade unionism, with the financial support of the multinationals Dole, Chiquita and Del Monte and the US government. The aim of solidarismo is "social peace"; it neither defends workers’ rights nor negotiates collective labour agreements, and has been condemned by the ILO.

Ecuador

Most of Dole’s commercial and banana production operations are now concentrated in Ecuador, the Latin American country with the lowest banana production costs.

There are few trade unions on the independent plantations in Ecuador which supply Dole and none at all on the plantations belonging to Dole. Attempts to organize are consistently thwarted.

Many long strikes have been held by the plantation workers who supply Dole, to protest against harassment of union members, rapid deterioration of the environment, repression by paramilitary brigades in the pay of plantation owners, child labour, absence of rights to social security, threats of dismissal, overdue wages, long working days, refusal to pay overtime, and sexual harassment. These violations of human and labour rights are in total contradiction with the multinational’s Code of Conduct and with the SA 8000 certification that Dole has obtained on almost all its plantations.

On the Josefa plantation, which supplies Dole, 12 union leaders and four other workers were refused entry to the plantation in January 2006, even though a provisional collective labour agreement had been signed. They were informed of their dismissal and asked to collect their final pay.

Honduras is the only country in which Dole plantations have trade unions and collective labour agreements. In Guatemala, repression of any attempt to organize is particularly severe, especially on the Pacific coast where Dole procures large quantities of bananas.

Pineapples and flowers - something of a déjà-vu

Banana plantations are not isolated cases of Dole’s and its suppliers’ practices. The same failure to observe trade union freedom and extremely arduous working conditions are also found on pineapple plantations in Costa Rica and Ecuador, and on flower plantations in Colombia and Ecuador.

"In Dole’s ideal world, workers have the right to join a union of their choice, but they refrain from doing so" commented Ron Oswald, general secretary of the international union of workers in the agri-food industry.

Ananas Fruit and Pina Tica in Costa Rica

In 2005, workers in these two firms, both suppliers of Dole, decided to create a trade union. Their main aim was to fight against the employment of minors and women in unacceptable, exhausting conditions with unpaid overtime, among other things. The union SITRAPINA was founded on 4 December 2005. Persecution started immediately with the dismissal of two workers. The chairman of the union was then also sacked, followed by ten other workers end-January.

Dole, less communication and more actions!

SA8000 certification, simply a communication gimmick?

Dole insists that negotiations with the unions are underway and maintains its communication on its SA 8000 certification. The multinational has used this private certification for a long time as a response to questions on its anti-union policy and respect for trade union freedom on its plantations.
The unions claim that this certification does not guarantee their freedom. The number of plantations which have been certified even though no unions are present on them bears witness to this, as does the fact that everything is done to maintain the status quo. Moreover, in most cases the workers observe no improvements in the situation, regarding both their environment and their working conditions.

Few firm commitments and no change in the field

After several years of dialogue and meetings, without any concrete results, COLSIBA (the Coordination of Latin American Banana Workers’ Unions) and EUROBAN (the European Banana Action Network) decided to publish a report on the situation. This report, entitled "Dole, behind the smoke screen", which contains contributions by people in the field, plantation workers and unionists, denounces the multinational’s anti-union practices.
When it was published in May 2006, an open letter was sent to the CEO of the company, signed by over 70 organizations in Europe and the US. Since then, true to habit, the multinational has made few firm commitments and the unions have noticed no change in their conditions.

"The multinational has shown no real wish to provide solutions to the problems raised in the report ’Dole, behind the smoke screen’, neither on its own plantations nor on those of its suppliers", commented Anne-Claire Chambron, EUROBAN Coordinator.

In September 2006, on Dole’s 50th birthday in Costa Rica, police expelled a union member from a plantation owned by the ACON group, Dole’s main supplier in that country.

"We are still facing the same rhetoric by Dole. On the one hand you have what the company reports to the media, and on the other what’s actually happening on the plantations", explained Gilberth Bermudez, general secretary of the union SITRAP in Costa Rica.

For further information:

The report “Dole, behind the smoke screen" can be consulted on our website at: http://www.peuples-solidaires.org/

For further information on this subject, you can consult the Peuples Solidaires’ website at: www.peuples-solidaires.org/rubrique160.html

Other educational tools, books and games on the banana trade and multinationals are available from:
Orcades, 6 bis, rue Albin Heller, Zone République II, 86000 Poitiers, France.Tel: (33) 5 49 41 49 11 • Fax: (33) 5 49 52 22 66
infos@orcades.org

CGT
www.cgt.fr
www.indecosa.cgt.fr

To write...

By email: Richard_dahl@na.dole.com
By letter: copy the proposed letter or change the wording.

Important: Message of solidarity: send COLSIBA a message of solidarity to let them know of your support, by mail or by e-mail: accion-urgente@colsiba.org

Reaction time: on reception, and until 28th February 2007.

Protest letter:

Mr. Richard J. Dahl
President
Dole Food Company Inc.
One Dole Drive
Westlake Village
CA 91362-7300
USA

Dear Sir,

At the request of trade unions in Latin America and throughout the world, I am writing to you to express my deep concern about the violation of labor rights on your plantations. Your company claims - mainly through its SA8000 certification - to fully observe workers’ rights (as recognized by international law) on your plantations and those of your suppliers. However, trade unions have provided extensive evidence of Dole’s opposition to the creation of independent and democratic unions. Thousands of workers on your banana, pineapple and flower plantations are thus denied the right to negotiate for better working conditions. I expect your company to take practical steps towards guaranteeing the observance of trade union rights, as recognized by ILO conventions, on all your plantations and those of your sub-contractors. I furthermore demand that you immediately put a stop to the violation of trade union rights, especially the right to form trade unions and to collective bargaining.

Yours sincerely,

Full name:
Address:
Signature:

Support message to COLSIBA:

COLSIBA
Apartado Postal 4128 SPS
Honduras

Estimados amigos de COLSIBA,

Acabo de escribir a Dole con el fin de exigir que esta compañía:

  ponga fin inmediatamente a las violaciones de las libertades sindicales, en particular al derecho de formar un sindicato y de entablar negociaciones colectivamente
  se comprometa en la práctica, a garantizar el respeto de los derechos sindicales tales como son reconocidos por las convenciones de la OIT en todas sus plantaciones y en las de sus subcontratistas.

Quisiera manifestarles mi solidaridad con sus reivindicaciones y campañas.

Full name:
Address:
Signature:

Translation of the solidarity message:

Dear friends at COLSIBA,

Full name:
Address:
Signature: