The president of the Association of Banana Producers, Hector Castro, said that they had been unable to export at least one million boxes of bananas because of a 77-day long strike.
To date, exports amount to four million boxes of bananas, which means the country would have exported five million boxes if there hadn't been a strike.
"The transnational company - Chiquita Brands - did the right thing and always bought our fruit. Now, we have a liquidity program because the company hasn't paid on time - we believe this has happened as a result of the same situation," he said.
Castro said he hoped that this situation won't happen again, given that losses amounted to 10 million dollars, and that many people lost their jobs.
He also said Chiquita Brands' maintenance, harvest, and banana export operations had normalized.
Chiquita Honduras Company Ltd, a subsidiary of Chiquita Brands International, the successor to the historic United Fruit Company, experienced the longest strike in its history, which lasted a total of 77 days.
The workers began the protest due to the change of location of the medical center in which they had been treated for six decades. After 93 dismissals, and fearing that more employees would lose their jobs, the strikers called off the protest. The company refused to reinstate the people it had laid off.
Source: proceso.hn