Guatemala, Unripe Bananas
and Threads of Struggle
by Ann Crews Melton, former Women's Advocacy Interim
Associate
I returned from Guatemala sick, happy
and determined to describe my study of women's labor organizing
in detail over Thanksgiving dinner. As I my mom and I unloaded
a last-minute round of groceries, I noticed a bunch of yellow-green
bananas, which undoubtedly would not ripen until the leftovers
were growing stale in the fridge and football scores were already
known, lamented and forgotten. I pulled the bananas out of their
plastic bag incredulously. The sticker, like the ones I used
to affix to my hand in elementary school, read "Del Monte—Guatemala
#4011." I
had visited the origin plantation of these bananas—with
all of its insects, mysterious pesticides and tropical humidity—just
a few days earlier.
I traveled to Guatemala with a delegation from
STITCH, an international
nongovernmental organization uniting women for worker justice.
We visited a banana plantation in Izabal with a (rare and yet)
successful union, where women work to wash, label and pack bananas
bound for Wal-Mart. As our delegation stepped cautiously across
the muddied, water-soaked floor of the packing plant, we saw
women in large rubber frocks with damp, chemical-coated hands
wielding sharp knives to separate bananas or packing them rhythmically
into boxes at a near-frantic pace.
While this banana plant is considered
to have "good" working
conditions, across the country maquila [sweatshop] workers struggle
to maintain their rights. We met with a number of maquila workers
in Guatemala City, whose burgeoning union SITRANB faces company
intimidation, continued harassment and death threats. As we joined
the women around a ramshackle meeting table, sipping sodas and
sharing chocolate, I watched nervous laughter illumine the dark
eyes of the workers telling their stories. Portraits of the "martyrs," eight
men who were killed during a 1986 take-over of the Coca-Cola
plant, cast a somber shadow behind the speakers. I was disheartened,
although not surprised, to discover that most of the maquila workers are in their late teens or early 20s, and supporting
two or three children while working 14 hour days. We heard how
the women—80 percent of maquila workers in Guatemala are
female—were recently betrayed by an officer of the union,
whom they suspect was bought out by the company and consequently
formed an opposing group to sabotage their efforts. Therefore,
the future of SITRANB—one of only three maquila unions
in a country with more than 230 factories—remains undetermined.
Guatemalan labor organizers continue
to operate in a "fish
bowl," forcing a clandestine strategy where they must determine
which workers indicate interest in organizing without ever openly
discussing a union. Unions are technically legal, although international
solidarity groups struggle to maintain a presence while the Guatemalan
government offers little support in enforcing existing labor
codes. Since the signing of the peace accords in 1996, the military
regime dissolved into 22 families controlling most of country's
wealth, which continues to influence neoliberal economic policies
also supported by the Bush administration. The future of the
Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) remains an imminent
concern, as does Plan Puebla Panama (PPP)—a World Bank
driven strategy pushing a Meso-American highway interchange,
fiber optic telecommunication network and privatized hydroelectric
power grid to interconnect all of Central America (with the exception
of Belize). El Salvador has already adopted U.S. dollars as currency
and other countries are expected to follow suit. Furthermore,
general anxiety is mounting with the approach of December 21,
2004, when all apparel and textile quotas of the World Trade
Organization (WTO) are scheduled to be eliminated. Economic analysts
predict an unprecedented amount of textile production to shift
to Asia—leaving Central America far behind in the worldwide
race to the bottom.
While the Guatemalan government loudly
pronounces CAFTA's
expected success—in advertisements at soccer matches and
prime-time television slots—activists maintain no hope
that CAFTA will provide good results or benefits for the majority
of the population.
Indigenous communities in Guatemala—still
the most impoverished and threatened by the emergence of a global
economy—have
not maintained the level of politicization still operative across
the Mexican border in Zapatista communities. Rather, Guatemalan
human rights workers such as Chely Azmitia note the far-reaching
impact of capitalism, as indigenous people now expect to be paid
to attend a workshop or will only give testimonies of war experiences
in return for quetzals (local currency).
In spite of these challenges, popular
educators are still pushing to build political consciousness.
Norma Maldonado, a trade activist from the Mesa Global, noted
that it's difficult to explain
globalization to people who have never seen a globe, but she
and her colleagues are building a new vocabulary to describe
macroeconomics in indigenous languages. Mesa Global teaches the
people that they are impoverished, but not poor, as their country—specifically
the biodiverse, oil-rich Guatemala/Mexico border that PPP targets—remains
rich in resources. It is only the government that continues to
hold the people in poverty, with an inequitable wealth distribution
uncomfortably mirroring the disparity that existed before a military
insurgency erupted 45 years ago.
While southern tensions continue to mount,
consumers in the United States must pick and choose what goods
to support, recognizing that union-made and fair-trade certified
markets are often in competition. Justice workers hope to eventually
integrate the two movements, but competitive markets generally
prevent the fusion of unionized plants and small-scale, worker-owned
cooperatives. Regardless, protectionist, "Buy American" impulses
lose meaning in the context of global capitalism.
As labor organizing expands into an international
struggle for rights—women's, worker and human rights—we
sit in the heart of empire, and must not lose sight of those
sacrificing their lives to support our lifestyles. Unions are
far from perfect and women maintain an added layer of struggle
in working toward equitable leadership conscious of gender oppression.
As the church, we are called to create and support viable alternatives
for organizing and new structures with equitable power distribution.
Let us continue to stand in solidarity with our sisters and brothers
around the world, as we enact and wait expectantly for the realm
of God to emerge in our global community.
Learn more:
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photo album of trip
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