FRUIT giant Fyffes is systematically violating workers’ rights in Central America, international food workers’ union federation IUF charged yesterday.

The transnational is the biggest importer of bananas to Europe and among the largest global suppliers of pineapples and winter season melons.

But workers in Fyffes’ subsidiaries — Anexco in Costa Rica and Suragroh in Honduras — have reported serious and systematic violations of basic labour rights, including freedom of association, the IUF said yesterday.

Reported abuses include threats, harassment and sacking of union members, blocking collective bargaining processes, failure to pay minimum wages and social insurance, exposing workers to hazardous agrochemicals and sacking pregnant workers.

The IUF said it had tried for months to engage Fyffes on the behaviour of its companies — without success.

The union joined an international solidarity mission to Honduras on Monday to meet sacked workers.

It joined calls for Fyffes to guarantee workers’ rights as it moves ahead with its takeover by Japan’s Sumitomo.

Fyffes has previously been fined by Honduran authorities for wage violations, but now claims to be obeying the law.

But the mission will hear evidence the firm is exploiting the country’s “repressive environment” following the 2009 US-backed coup against president Manuel Zelaya.

The IUF said Fyffes had exploited loopholes in Honduran law to deregister the union on the grounds that its elected officers are temporary workers — in an industry characterised by insecure labour.

“Fyffes’ legal challenge to the union’s status violates the basic right of workers to elect their own trade union leaders,” the IUF said.

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