Ahead of upcoming negotiations on banana contracts for 2024, the Ecuadorian Banana Cluster highlights the importance of ensuring social sustainability and underlines their pioneering role in guaranteeing living wages within the banana industry, an issue that demands immediate attention and united efforts from all stakeholders involved including retailers. “…the Ecuadorian Banana Cluster demands that European retailers take a more proactive stance on the application of shared responsibility, by paying a fair price for bananas and recognise the different situations of each producing countries regarding living wage,” the industry said in a statement after meetings in Madrid.
(left) José Antonio Hidalgo, AEBE and (right) Richard Salazar, Acorbanec.
Ecuador’s commitment to ensuring a living wage for banana sector workers is legally binding and constitutionally enshrined. The industry recently demanded the Ecuadorian Ministry of Labour to establish a new Official Living Wage Compliance Verification. It specifically checks that wages paid to banana industry employees align with living wage criteria in line with international market requirements.
José Antonio Hidalgo, Executive Director of AEBE and Coordinator of the Ecuadorian Banana Cluster, driving the setup of the Multi-stakeholder Working Group on Living Wages of the World Banana Forum highlights: “The total salary of a banana worker in Ecuador (base salary + additional benefits) surpasses the living wage threshold set by the Global Living Wage Coalition and the Anker Living Wage Income Research Institute. Ecuador banana sector’s compliance with living wages is stated by Rainforest Alliance, which exempt compliant farmers from providing additional information on living wages under the certification scheme. At the beginning of this year, a report from GIZ showed that 99,36% of workers in Ecuadorian banana fields received a living wage. It is essential to highlight the advanced situation of Ecuador and foresee exemptions for compliant farmers in any of the living-wage initiatives when discussing a harmonised approach to the topic under the World Banana Forum.”
Richard Salazar, Executive Director of Acorbanec stresses ahead of upcoming 2024 contract negotiations. “The matter of living wages in Ecuador cannot be discussed separately from the issue of a fair price for bananas. Retailers have the chance to show commitment to a true shared responsibility. This requires long-term contractual engagements on the volume of products, based on fair prices developed with a well-recognised sustainability certification scheme which is Fairtrade, taking into account the peculiarities of each producing country. Farmers who comply with the living wage policy – as in Ecuador – should be exempt from the salary matrix, homologating the information already presented to their national labour authority in order not to overload producers with more administrative processes and costs of audits. Negotiations should be focused on long-term contracts, increased volumes, as incentive for and acknowledgement of a country that is in full compliance.”
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