Globalization, Labor, and Violence in Colombia's Banana Zone

Abstract

This article examines how globalization and violence have shaped workers' organizations in the Urabá banana zone in northern Colombia from the 1960s to the present. Early unions found allies in leftist political and guerilla organizations. The banana growers relied on the neoliberal state and rightist paramilitaries to unleash an extraordinary wave of violence to crush the leftist unions. They also wooed the right within the unions by pleading a set of common interests in reforming the global banana trade to the benefit of Colombian producers. By the 1990s, a newly right-dominated union in Urabá proved adept at labor-management collaboration in the interest of their joint regional stake in the industry, but it also promoted international labor unity aimed at pressuring banana transnationals to accept minimum labor standards.