Colombian banana strike averted at 11th hour
The world's fourth biggest banana exporter, Colombia has struggled to maintain almost 150,000 workers across the industry as a strong local currency made labor costs expensive and overseas sales cheap in dollar terms.
Producers at some 288 farms in northwestern Uraba wanted to slash peso-denominated costs, while workers called for their wages to be increased by 8 percent.
In a past-midnight agreement, the workers managed to get a 4 percent pay rise for the first year and an inflation-linked increase for the second, according to Sintrainagro, which groups agriculture workers including those in the banana sector.
"They say they are in crisis, they say salaries should be reduced 43 percent and that can't happen," said Guillermo Rivera, president of Sintrainagro, before the deal was reached.
The strike had been set to begin early on Wednesday. Negotiations had collapsed earlier this month between Augura and as many as 18,000 banana workers represented by Sintrainagro.
The strike would have prevented the daily export of as many as 234,000 boxes of the fruit, worth some $2.3 million, Sintrainagro said.
The agreement also improved housing and education benefits for the workers.
Colombia is the fourth biggest exporter of bananas behind Ecuador, Costa Rica and the Philippines. It sells about 80 percent of its production to Europe and the United States.
Source: reuters.com
