The global banana trade is working towards a new concept of a ‘living wage’ after the value of working in the industry has been eroded, according to one body.
At a recent meeting of the World Banana Forum’s working group on value distribution along the chain, the proposal to focus on the issue of inadequate remuneration at the very first stage of the chain was welcomed by a group of players including major firms, retailers, trade unions, fair trade organisations and NGOs.
According to human rights body Banana Link, a common methodology for calculating ‘living wages’ that gives consistent information across a wide range of producing countries is needed.
No international institution is understood to have proposed anything in this area as yet. A study will be prepared by an NGO in the region for a meeting of the working group in Ecuador in November.
The methodology will then be trialed in two unconfirmed major Latin American exporting countries.
Alistair Smith, international co-ordinator of charity Banana Link, told FPJ: “There is a new consensus emerging in the banana industry that plantation workers do not earn - by anybody’s definition - a living wage. The fierce competition between producers and, more recently at the top of the chain between retailers, has been to the detriment of wages and benefits.
“A generation ago, banana workers jobs were regarded as some of the best available in rural Latin America, but the so-called ‘race to the bottom’ of the last two decades has changed all that."
One plantation workers' leader involved in the multi-stakeholder discussions in the World Banana Forum said: “We should not have to spend years deciding exactly how to calculate a living wage scientifically. The fact is that we do not live well. The issue for workers is about a wage that allows them to eat meat more regularly, buy a pair of shoes, take a holiday and receiving decent treatment.”
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