Banana Initiative

On April 23, the AFL-CIO and Guatemalan trade unions filed the first CAFTA worker rights complaint since the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement came into effect in 2006.

The September 23 murder of Marco Tulio Ramirez, a leader of the Del Monte banana union SITRABI in Guatemala, sparked international protests joined by USLEAP and local charges of possible Del Monte com

Banana unions continue to support an international campaign against Chiquita’s chief rival, Dole.

In September a U.S. judge accepted a plea agreement under which Chiquita will pay a $25 million fine for having paid protection money to Colombia’s leading paramilitary group between 1997 and 2004.

Chiquita, its Latin American banana unions, and the International Union of Foodworkers (IUF) engaged in a series of high-level meetings in June and August that both company and some union participants