Blog: Honduras

Honduras: Fyffes escalates against melon workers with retaliatory firings triggering government investigation

September 5, 2023

Blatantly disregarding national laws and international labor standards safeguarding workers’ right to organize, Japanese-owned billion-dollar multinational fruit company Fyffes has terminated all permanent worker-members of the independent farmworker union and IUF affiliate,

Honduran Melon Pickers Decry Fruit Giant Fyffes Refusal to Sign Agreement and Demand No Retaliation in Hiring

November 16, 2022
STAS agricultural workers protesting Fyffes abandoning negotiations for a fair contract

Choluteca, October 26, 2022 – Honduran farmworkers on marched on the melon fields in Choluteca demanding that multinational fruit giant Fyffes engage with them in good faith after the company walked away from negotiations with their union and stopped hiring union members, making it impossible for them to feed their families. 

The workers, members of El Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Agroindustria y Similares (STAS), called out Fyffes for turning their back on workers and negotiations, demanded an end to discrimination in hiring and called for intervention from the Honduran government to enforce the law and protect their rights. 

As Castro takes office, Hondurans continue to fight for democracy, workers’ rights

January 27, 2022
Image of Melon Workers Protesting Outside of Fyffes Offices in Choluteca, Honduras

This week international attention is on Honduras as U.S. Vice President Harris visits the country for the inauguration of Xiomara Castro, Honduras’ first woman President, elected on a platform of tackling the enormous inequalities that have historically plagued the country. Much of the attention will be focused on Honduras’ relationship with the United States, and the Biden administration's desire to address root causes of migration. Castro’s presidency offers tremendous hope for Hondurans on many levels but key to the question of migration is in their fight to expand labor rights and raise their standard of living in a country where nearly half the population lives below the poverty line.

Fyffes’ Claims of Farm Safety in Honduras Should Not be Taken as Accurate

January 30, 2020

In the ongoing controversy about violations of labor rights and worker health and safety at its suppliers in Honduras, the multinational Fyffes fruit company has told The Progressive magazine “our farms have passed SMETA audits for safety, health, and worker wellbeing.”

This claim by Fyffes should not, and cannot, be taken as good coin, true and accurate. 

Sedex, the London-based consulting company that runs the SMETA program, states very clearly in the “FAQs” on its website the following:

Honduran Union Leader Threatened with Imprisonment

January 18, 2020

A union leader whom we work with in Honduras could be imprisoned for 30 years on bogus charges, pending a decision at a trial next Wednesday. Moises Sanchez is the Secretary General of the STAS union on Fyffes' melon farms in Honduras, where he worked from 1993 until 2016, when he was blacklisted for his union activity. In 2017, Moises was kidnapped, viciously attacked and threatened with death if he did not abandon the union fight.

Now he is facing spurious charges from a landowner – who also leases to Fyffes – after being part of a group of 450 community members who voted to build a road in their community, which the mayor supported and said was on public land.

Our Own Best Defense: How Unions Can Stop GBV at Work

June 14, 2019

Even with every effort being made to prevent gender-based violence at work, it’s not possible to eliminate it entirely in a world that prioritizes the desires of men over the safety of women and people of other/no genders. As the International Labour Organization prepares to adopt a Convention on Violence and Harassment in the World of Work, it is paramount that it identify that unions and collective bargaining are critical to preventing gender-based violence. Whether it be global, national or local labor unions, worker centers, or any organizations that genuinely represent the interests of workers, labor must be an integral creator and implementer of any programs to address violence and harassment.

How President Trump is Fueling Honduran Migration North

January 30, 2018
Honduran woman at anti-fraud protest in Tegucigalpa (December 2017). © Giorgio Trucchi / Rel-UITA.

Today, Juan Orlando Hernandez takes the oath of office as President of Honduras with the full support of President Trump – despite overwhelming evidence of election irregularities and allegations of fraud in last November’s presidential election in Honduras. This past week, Hondurans young and old took to the streets in a nationwide strike to denounce their stolen democracy, determined to liberate their country from what they call a de-facto dictatorship. Hernandez’s National Party came to power in a 2009 military coup d’état and continues its violent reign today, supported and funded by the United States. 

How Anti-Sweatshop Activists and Unions Made Severance Pay Mandatory

September 27, 2017

In August last year Iris Montoya came to work at the Rio Garment factory in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, where she had worked as a sewing machine operator for 11 years. At 11 a.m., the factory lights shut off and management escorted the workers outside, locking the doors behind them.

Management announced that the factory was shutting down operations that very day. Panic broke out. Workers were told to go home, barred from retrieving their belongings, and left without their last week’s pay.

Three weeks later, when Montoya went to the hospital for foot surgery, she was denied coverage. Management had been deducting insurance from workers’ paychecks for the past five months but had not been depositing the money into the health care system.

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