Philippines: Banana growers protest wage cuts
Sumifru (Philippines) Corporation is in the business of sourcing, production, shipment and marketing of fresh fruits. It mainly exports quality Cavendish bananas, pineapple and papaya. Its investment in Mindanao began on 1970, and, to date, it has plantations in three regions covering 14,000 hectares. It has a totally integrated system of production with a research center, a cold chain, packaging plants, loading port and shipping facilities.
Sumifru exports to China, Japan, Korea, Middle East, New Zealand and Russia. The Davao City Chamber of Commerce and Industry regards Sumifru as the number one player in its chosen markets in quality and volume. The company is trying to expand further its plantations in Mindanao.
In its Compostela packing plants, Sumifru was paying its thousands of workers an hourly rate before it implemented their piece-rate system. With the shift to piece-rate, the workers’ income was slashed by half and in some cases, it went even lower than the mandated minimum wage of P307.00 ($6.88) for agricultural workers in the region, the spokesman of the workers’ group said. Affected are some 5,000 regular and contractual workers in SUMIFRU’s 2,700-hectare area in the province.
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