Workers at Ecuador’s Los Alamos banana plantation have mobilised to try to set up a union nine years after their first attempt to secure improvements in working conditions ended in violence.
Banana Link reports that on 18 April, more than 1,000 workers downed tools in protest at unpaid overtime, unpaid profit-sharing bonuses and other grievances.
The workers said they were threatened by armed security guards and so most returned to work but a group of them applied to register a new trade union on 21 April. The Noboa company allegedly dismissed those who had been elected as officials of the new union and on 27 April sacked another 17 workers in the union.
A group of workers has maintained a presence at the gates of the plantation. The company could not be reached for comment.
