Solidarity
Network
(ESN) strives for social, economic, and environmental
Justice in Ecuador and the rest of the Andean Region.
The ESN was created in conjunction with grassroots
organizations in Ecuador. Our goal is to operate as a
tool for grassroots efforts; to help maintain and/or create
the social and political space from which they define and
create a more equitable, alternative paradigm.
-Junior Ruiz, Intag Cloud Forest
To be included in ESN's weekly news updates, send an email to david@ecuadorsolidarity.org
"The Bananas We Eat and the Labor that Produces them"
For more information email: David Kneas, david@ecuadorsolidarity.org
& Glen Kuecker, gkuecker@depauw.edu
For background information on the banana industry and the labor sector in Ecuador please visit U.S. Labor Education in the Americas Project, www.usleap.org
The Ecuador Solidarity Network, in coordination with FENACLE (one of Ecuador's leading labor federations), invites you to travel to Ecuador in solidarity with organizing banana workers. The focus of the delegation will be the labor situation for banana workers and grassroots efforts to improve that situation. However, we will also meet with other labor sectors, such as the powerful Electrical Workers Union, who have been active, and successfull, in resisting privatization of the electrical sector.
Investment in Ecuador by transnational banana producers, such as Del Monte, Dole, and Chiquita began a few decades ago as these corporations searched for new production areas free of organized labor (as they were beginning to find in Central America) and free of the fungus and pests that plagues such uniform monoculture. Ecuador's large coastal plain seemed ideal. Investment only increased after the fall of the Soviet Union with the promise of vast new markets. However, the great markets never materialized and banana production far exceeds demand.
Ecuador is now the world's largest banana exporter with an estimated workforce of 365,000. However, this workforce is largely non-union and the labor conditions on the banana plantations are some of the worst in the world. Workers do not make enough to meet their basic needs. Child labor is rampant. Labor organizing is met with harsh oppression. More on the delegation...
Due to a World Bank and Ecuadorian Government program, over half of Ecuador's territory is now open for large scale mining projects. The ESN works with environmental organizations (national and grassroots) and communities who are resisting those projects. More...
When U.S. officials mention Plan Colombia and the FTAA they talk about the War on Drugs (and now War on Terror) and Democracy, Development, and Prosperity, respectively.
When Ecuadorian Civil Society talks of Plan Colombia and the FTAA (ALCA in spanish) they use phrases like interventionism, violation of sovereignty, escalation of violence, militarism, violation of human rights, escalating insecurity, and Ecuadorian involvement in war. They speak of refugees (Colombian and Ecuadorian), injustice, uncertainty, repression, and fear. They refer to the War on Drugs as a mere pretext and equate fumigations using round-up ultra to Biological Warfare. They see the connection between Plan Colombia and the FTAA as revolving more around strategic geopolitical interest and control of limited natural resources and markets.
Repeatedly Ecuadorian Civil Society has taken to the streets to declare: Plan Colombia ALCArajo!!