Reynolds, Del Monte, Chiquita Top List of Worst Companies for Freedom of Association

by James Parks, Dec 14, 2010

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Last Friday, International Human Rights Day, the International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF) named R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. as one of the world’s worst companies of 2010 for workers’ freedom of association. Of the top five worst companies, three are headquartered in the United States: R.J. Reynolds, Chiquita Brands International and Fresh Del Monte Produce.
According to the ILRF, R.J. Reynolds’ annual profits top $2 billion, but the workers who pick the tobacco that goes into the company’s products barely make $8,000 a year, just one-third of the official poverty level for a family of  four.
Executives of the nation’s second-largest tobacco company continue to refuse to meet with workers to discuss working conditions. The Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) reports that the tobacco workers suffer from racism, harassment, lethal pesticides, nicotine poisoning and lack of labor and human rights as well as poverty.

Although R.J. Reynolds does not hire its workers directly, it has the clout to change the terms under which the laborers work, directly impacting their living and working conditions.
RJ Reynolds cigarettes also are on the AFL-CIO’s boycott list at the request of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM).
Another ILRF ”honoree,” Fresh Del Monte Produce, moved its port operations from Camden, N.J., to Gloucester, N.J., earlier this year, saying goodbye to a 22-year relationship with Longshoremen (ILA) Local 1291 and leaving 200 workers without jobs. In Gloucester, the company hired members of an independent union and now pays cheaper wages.
Fresh Del Monte—based in Coral Gables, Fla.—also has moved processing plants in Hawaii to areas with cheaper labor after workers voted for a union, ILRF says. Fresh Del Monte is not affiliated with Del Monte Foods, the maker of packaged food products.
Cincinnati-based Chiquita’s subsidiary in Guatemala, Cobigua, has been using a combination of threats and intimidation to repress its banana farm workers for years, ILRF says. In fact, the Guatemalan banana unions say Cobigua has used blackmail dating back to 2003.  Since 2007, 43 union members and leaders have been killed in Guatemala for their union activity, according to the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC).