FEATURE - Chile's Fresh Fruit Boom Not So Sweet For Workers
Date: 15-Apr-05
Country: CHILE
Author: Ignacio Badal
Some 200,000 seasonal workers like Hidalgo pick and pack fruit for less than the minimum wage of $200 a month during the Southern Hemisphere summer.
Chile, a nation of 16 million people nestled between the soaring Andes mountain range and miles of Pacific coastline, has become Latin America's model economy due to fiscal austerity combined with soaring exports of copper, wood pulp and fresh fruit.
"The treatment of us seasonal workers is bad, and the wages are bad, too," said Hidalgo, a resident of rural town San Felipe, 60 miles (100 km) northeast of Santiago.
Chile's grapes, plums, pears, apples, peaches, apricots and peaches are in demand during the Northern Hemisphere winter and the country makes some $2 billion a year on fruit exports, the second-biggest export sector after mining and forestry products.
Fruit exports shot up 11 percent between the 2003-2004 season and the 2004-2005 season thanks in part to Chile's free trade pacts with the United States, the European Union and South Korea.
But while many mining and forestry workers earn more than minimum wage and get health and pension benefits, fruit pickers have reaped little benefit from Chile's participation in the global economy.
"Most of the companies do not meet minimum conditions. They transport people stuffed together in trucks. They don't give them breaks. They don't pay them overtime or any kind of health or pensions. And some don't even give them water to drink," said Carla Gonzalez, a Labour Department inspector.
Pickers work in conditions akin to those of transient workers around the globe. Here pickers often earn less than the minimum wage because they get paid per box of fruit, about 20 US cents per box, which means they must fill 40 boxes to make the minimum wage, working shifts that can run from noon to midnight.
A box of Chilean fruit fetches an average of $10-$12 in Europe, Asia or the United States but can sell for as much as $25.
Government inspectors say they are too thinly staffed and lack resources to enforce the rules adequately because violations are so widespread.
SMALL GROWERS SELL TO BIG COMPANIES
Most fruit pickers in Chile work for medium-sized growers that sell fruit to big exporters who work for global fruit giants such as Chiquita, Del Monte and Dole, who finance the producers and sell the fruit abroad. They also have big packing plants here. There are also big Chilean packers and exporters.
"There is not much difference between the big and the small in their treatment of workers and their compliance with labour codes," said Olga Gutierrez, president of the Worker-Peasant Unity union, which represents seasonal workers.
Business groups say things have improved.
"In recent years there's been a major improvement in work conditions for temporary workers," said Ronald Brown, president of the Exporters Association. "You can't paint everyone with the same brush because of what a few do."
Members of the fruit growers' business association a year ago adopted a code of "good agricultural practices" that includes better conditions for seasonal workers.
"There are still violations. The businesses do not follow the rules and the workers are still demanding respect for their rights," said Rodrigo Vergara, regional secretary for the labour ministry in the central-southern O'Higgins region.
STUDY CITES PESTICIDE DAMAGE
Seasonal workers say they also are poisoned by pesticides, a claim that at least one study backs up.
The University of Concepcion in Chile's second-biggest city studied 64 seasonal workers in the central-south zone of the country and detected damaged cells that could lead to chronic illnesses, cancer, spontaneous abortions and genetic malformations in their children.
"When we are working, they spray liquids on the plants. They say they don't do anything, but we are breathing this stuff. There are people who get poisoned, and they
