Structural Crisis

For many years, the Costa Rican banana industry has come to repeatedly and systematically confront “crises.” Most of the time these crises are associated with the changes in the world market, whose rules are determined in respect to the economic interests of the rich countries, and whose economic consequences are converted into the economic gains of the three large companies that monopolize the banana trade (Dole, also known as Standard, Del Monte, also known as Bandeco, and Chiquita, also known as Cobal). The interests and needs of the plantation communities, workers, and families who live in the banana plantations are never taken into consideration in the national policies, and much less at the international level. In this sense, in order to hold on, it is almost impossible to avoid a state of “permanent crisis” at the local level, since there will always be the expectation of a change in the markets or international policies, which will translate into the reduction of salaries, layoffs, and increases in the practice of subcontracting and many other forms of exploitation and labor discrimination, all in order to protect the profits of the large corporations and the wealthy countries. All of this translates into uncertainty, social and labor instability, environmental insecurity, etc., all of which comprise a permanent state of non-development that affects the human beings living in the banana plantation areas.