Honduras

In Honduras, the pervasive climate of repression, physical violence and intimidation against workers and trade unionists was compounded by the government’s failure to pursue the many historic cases of murders and other violent crimes. The labour justice system remained broken and only a handful of the hundreds of murder cases were resolved, usually many years later.

In Honduras, several employees of the maquiladora Gildan Mayan Textiles were dismissed after having formed a trade union.

Since 2016, Fyffes has repressed any attempt by the Agro-industrial and Similar Workers' Union (STAS) to organise melon plantation workers in southern Honduras.

In November 2022, José Espinal Maradiaga and Óscar Gadea Vásquez, two leaders of the STAS section at Melon Export SA (Melexsa), a Fyffes subsidiary, were arbitrarily dismissed, a week after notifying the employer of the formation of the trade union. Workers in Melexsa had decided to organise to demand permanent contracts. Some of them have been working for Melexsa under short-term contracts for more than two decades.

For more than five years, the Union of Workers of the Beverage and Similar Industry (Stibys) in Honduras has been fighting to reach a collective agreement with the Honduran subsidiary of the multinational Pepsi, La Reyna bottling company (CBC-PEPSI). Despite an international solidarity campaign in 2022, the company continued to deny workers’ demands and refused to engage in collective bargaining.