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Today, 16 October is World Food Day. The right to food is enshrined in Article 25 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Ensuring this right is fulfilled requires recognition and respect for the critical role played by workers in food supply chains the world over. ETI member experience demonstrates how collective bargaining and social dialogue with workers helps advance inclusion and sustainability.
Our favourite fruit
Bananas top the list of UK shoppers’ favourite fresh fruit and veg. Since 1996, ETI NGO member Banana Link has been working with partners in banana producing regions. Colombia is the fourth largest banana exporter globally, contributing to 10% of global supply. Collective bargaining and social dialogue in the Colombian banana industry help ensure our favourite fresh produce delivers for both consumers and workers. Banana Link’s Project Coordinator, Holly Woodward-Davey and ETI’s Just Transitions Advisor, George Williams, explain how:
Colombia’s banana industry
Colombia is a banana producing powerhouse. 82% of Colombian bananas are destined for EU and UK markets. The industry generates 42,000 direct jobs and 108,000 indirect jobs. Paradoxically, although the Colombian banana industry provides a leading example of mature social dialogue between employers and trade unions, it remains one of the world’s most dangerous countries to be a trade unionist. It’s a little over a year since the Colombian government began a process of reparation to the trade union movement as a collective victim of armed conflict, in recognition of over 3,300 trade union assassinations between 1971-2023.
The history of bananas and trade union organising in Colombia is particularly violent. In 1928, hundreds of banana workers were killed by the military whilst striking for better conditions in the Magdalena region – a brutal mass murder immortalised in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’. Despite the dangers, workers continued to organise collectively, and by the 1980s their struggle had begun to yield results. Following industrial action, a strategic milestone was reached in 1988, when multiple trade unions came together to form a national trade union, SINTRAINAGRO. With a unified voice representing thousands of workers, SINTRAINAGRO was able to negotiate several important agreements leading up to a historic four-year collective bargaining agreement in 2023 with Augura, the country’s leading producer association.
Women workers and progress on inclusion
SINTRAINAGRO has been woman-led for almost 20 years, with Adela Torres as General Secretary: a fact that is all the more significant when set against the stark statistics on women’s employment within the industry. In 2015, Banana Link research found that only 7% of jobs in the Colombian banana industry were held by women (this situation has improved slightly in recent years). Across Latin America, low levels of women’s employment in the industry are attributed to a perception, on the part of companies, that women’s reproductive role represents a financial risk, and that they are less capable than men of performing physical labour on farms.
Unlike other banana exporting nations in Latin America, Colombia is remarkable for boasting almost 100% formal employment. In rural regions, where high levels of women-headed households are typical and where years of violence have left many women widowed, it is fundamental that women are able to access stable and dignified employment and support their families.
To redress the huge gender imbalance on farms, gender clauses have become a staple element of collective bargaining. In 2017 with Augura, and then in 2019 with Colombia’s second largest producer Banacol, SINTRAINAGRO negotiated agreements that stipulated that more women would be hired on farms. In 2019 Banacol committed to hiring an additional 400 women by the end of 2020 – almost doubling the number of women in the company’s workforce over two years.
2023’s collective bargaining agreement built upon this legacy. It stipulated that two more women would be employed on each of the 286 farms represented by Augura in the Urabá region, further driving up the representation of women. It also included clauses on preventing gender and age discrimination, with additional training provided to women and young workers.
In absolute terms, these numbers may appear relatively small, and there’s no denying that the banana industry remains male dominated. Nonetheless, whilst incremental, these changes represent significant steps towards a more inclusive industry. They form part of SINTRAINAGRO’s wider strategy to ensure gender is integrated in collective bargaining in the banana industry. Women workers in many parts of the world are confined to low paid, insecure work, often in the informal sector. The changes negotiated through the collective bargaining agreement of 2023 include a 25% increase in pay over two years, making bananas one of the highest paid agricultural sectors in Colombia. Improving pay and at the same time securing increased roles for women workers in formalised employment represent two major outcomes achieved through social dialogue.
Climate change
Globally, climate crisis is making weather patterns more unpredictable and extreme events more frequent and more severe. Colombia is particularly at risk from flooding, landsides and extreme heat. Agricultural producers and workers are at the sharp end of the crisis. 2023’s collective bargaining agreement included clauses to mitigate adverse occupational safety and health impacts on workers. For example, it stipulates that all workers should be provided with a four litre thermos flask to ensure adequate hydration throughout the working day. As periods of extreme heat worsen, SINTRAINAGRO is deliberating on potential changes to the structure of the working day, so workers can avoid the hottest times of the day.
SINTRAINAGRO is not alone in this: as the planet warms, other industries are also considering changes to working schedules. But any such changes must be made through dialogue with workers representatives, including women representatives. Adjusting the start or end time of the working day can have unintended negative consequences for sections of the workforce that have other responsibilities such as care work, and it can have safety implications if workers, particularly women workers, are travelling to and from work outside of daylight hours for example. It is only through social dialogue with workers representatives from at risk groups that these details and nuances can be understood and mitigated. It is this reason social dialogue is central to just transitions. Workers have a right to be part of decision-making that affects them, and outcomes will only be fair and inclusive if the process by which we get there is guided by the same principles.
Recommendations for buyers and retailers
The FAO shares good practice on how to undertake social dialogue and collective bargaining. Though aimed specifically at the banana industry, the lessons included are applicable more widely.
ETI hosts a tripartite working group focused on just transitions. Speaking to the group of ETI member companies, trade unions and NGOs, Banana Link made the following recommendations on how retailers and buyers can support social dialogue and collective bargaining in their supply chains.
- Publicly state your company support for social dialogue.
- Use buying commitments to support supply chain partners that have collective bargaining agreements and strong, independent unions.
- Build trust through responsible purchasing practices – including fair price and longer term contracts.
- Commit to working with suppliers on labour rights issues rather than taking a zero tolerance approach. (Zero tolerance only leads to suppliers being afraid to admit issues exist and unable to deal with them.)
- Support country specific programs in producing countries. From training and capacity building for workers and unions, to more ambitious multi-stakeholder programmes that include south-south learning.
So what?
Colombia’s banana industry and its structures for social dialogue and collective bargaining provide a powerful example of how these rights ensure decent work and support inclusion and sustainability, whilst enabling the world to continue enjoying its favourite fruit.
Shortly all eyes will be on COP16 in Cali Colombia, and shortly after climate negotiators will meet in Baku for COP29. As the world seeks to transition food systems in ways that preserve and regenerate rapidly declining biodiversity, and that adapt to and mitigate climate change impacts, agricultural workers, and especially those often overlooked in decision-making such as women workers, must have a seat at the table. Workers’ expertise on their own working practices and how these need to change is critical to just transitions: social dialogue provides the mechanism to achieve this in ways that are inclusive and sustainable. On World Food Day, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation emphasises that ‘food is a right, every day, for everyone, everywhere’. Ensuring that right means putting the rights of workers in food supply chains at the centre of just transitions.