Leaders and union members of IUF agricultural affiliate El Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Agroindustria y Similares (STAS) gathered on-line recently with IUF affiliates and allies from around the world to release a new report entitled Honduran Melon Workers Fight to Grow Justice at Fyffes Farms. The report shows that while workers have made meaningful gains in this long fight, violations of fundamental labour rights persist. On the same day the IUF, STAS, IUF Latin America/REL-UITA, UFCW Canada, 3F from Denmark and Global Labor Justice launched a new website, Growing Justice which details Honduran melon workers’ fight for good jobs and a union on Fyffes farms.
The new report and website document ongoing violations of labour rights including:
- The right to organize and collectively bargain
- The right to a safe and healthy workplace
- The right to a workplace free of harassment
Tomas Membreño, Organizing Secretary of STAS, stated: “For nearly a decade, the predominantly women seasonal farmworkers who plant, harvest, and pack melons for Fyffes in Choluteca, Honduras, have been courageously fighting against child labour, unsafe working conditions, gender-based violence and harassment, and discrimination.”
IUF General Secretary Sue Longley added: “We have seen that Fyffes’ parent company, Sumitomo, can work productively with independent trade unions as they have done in Canada. If advancing workers’ rights through union recognition and collective bargaining is possible in Canada, it is also possible in Honduras.”
