Last night, we had a small clip of our visit to Maya King Farm after 6 days of absolutely no production. The Irish company Fyffes International, abruptly terminated all business arrangements with Maya King because it wants to put distance between itself and John Zabaneh, who still has the Drug Kingpin designation.
That forced an immediate, no-notice shutdown of all operations at Belize's biggest banana farm since Fyffes is the sole purchaser of all Belizean bananas for export. Apart from the demise of this lucrative company, and cutting off production from a full quarter of the country's Banana industry, the Fyffes embargo on Maya King forced the immediate termination of hundreds of workers.
They're angry and jobless. Yesterday, they told Daniel Ortiz why they want Fyffes to reconsider:
Daniel Ortiz reporting
This is the company's Packing Shed #25, one of 4 facilities belonging to Mayan King Banana Farms. The purpose is to prepare fully grown bananas, that have been picked off the trees, to box them for export.
The final destination is Europe where Fyffes will market them. Normally, this packing shed - like the other 3 - would be bustling with activity where just under 100 workers should have been washing and sanitizing the bananas, and packing them into boxes to transport to the BGA. At Mayan King of about 600-800 workers are usually hard at work from about 8 a.m to 5 p.m. on the weekdays to produce boxes upon boxes of exportable bananas at all 4 sheds.
Miguel Monroy - Packing/Field Manager, Mayan King
"We use to do 1,500 - 1,600 boxes for each packing shed and the 4 shed are working 4 days a week. 1,500 per boxes per day is 4,600 boxes per day and that is what we produced."
Daniel Ortiz
"How much does a box of bananas cost?"
Miguel Monroy - Packing/Field Manager, Mayan King
"Right now the price is very low, about $14 per box. In January it goes up to $20 per box."
Daniel Ortiz
"That's several thousand dollars that you are losing because no productivity is happening today right?"
Miguel Monroy - Packing/Field Manager, Mayan King
"Definitely. Lots of money is losing."
To be more specific, that's approximately 84 thousand dollars per day being wasted in non-productivity. But, since Thursday, it's been like this shut down, and forlorn, a foreshadowing of what may come since the company is in danger of going under.
Miguel Monroy - Packing/Field Manager, Mayan King
"On Thursday when they told me, I got a shock when they told me that everything is closing down, because they are not taking any fruit from us. Right away I had to call the captain and I told him no packing, no work. And he ask why and I told him that is the message that I got. Up today I don't know what is happening because hundreds of people are in the compound and we are feeding all of them."
There, meaning the Maya King Housing area, where we found a few hundred of employees frustrated, emotional and ready to demonstrate against what they believe is the injustice being committed against them. They suddenly find themselves out of a job.
Their children cannot go to school because the parents cannot afford to send them, much less feed them.
Leonora Rol - Banana Farmer, Mayan King
"I have children here and we want food for our children and I want them to give back all our jobs."
Joseline Carolina - Daughter of a Banana Farmer
"Our father need to work and we want to go to school and that is not fair because we need things for our school and if we don't go to school, that is not fair. Our father needs money to pay our school."
Carlos Villanueva - Banana Farmer, Mayan King
"We are starving. Everybody needs their job. Watch how many children are here already. Everybody want their job, so please."
Amelia Tzar - Banana Farmer, Mayan King
"We need our job. That is important. We need the job. This is not right. We need the job, because lots of people are not eating."
Marcos Bac - Banana Farmer, Mayan King
"Please I need a job."
Teodolfo Cho - Banana Farmer, Mayan King
"Men and women are right here. You could see a crowd of people. They need jobs. I need a job."
General Manager Jose Gonzalez says that he and his employees were blind-sided by the severity of Fyffes actions.
Jose Gonzalez - General Manager, Mayan King
"I want to retract or to go back 3 years ago when things were really hot for Mr. John Zabaneh. That was the time that they designated him as a king pin and obviously everyone was paranoid to deal with him - everyone. Myself included obviously. But at that time Fyffes did not put this drastic measure. They did not call up this drastic measure of cutting us off completely. It's really baffling that 3 years later, when everything has cooled down. I mean you have not heard his name. Now they are paranoid that okay, we have to cut ties and so it doesn't add up. We can speculate basically that they might have ulterior motives and they are just really washing their hands by saying oh Mr. John Zabaneh is king pin, so we can't do business. But like I said, it does not add up and it does not compare to what they did 3 years ago when things were really bad."
The company's staff is hoping that the rest of the world will take notice of their sudden suffering, shake their heads at Fyffes International, and that they will get a international black eye. That, they hope will force their hand in rolling back this sudden embargo.
Daniel Ortiz
"Are you all worried that you will never recover from this?"
Jose Gonzalez - General Manager, Mayan King
"It's getting to the point of no return. I think practically speaking we are still about 2 weeks from that point of no return. Every day that passes that we do not take care of the bananas represents probably a week of recovery time. I would say within 2-3 weeks it's going to be monumentally difficult to recover the farms. The only last hope that we have is that this message of this atrocity towards to the people will resonate around the world, because if there is one thing that a multinational corporation like Fyffes fears, that is the devaluation of their shares and so if this message hopefully is picked up by other media nationally and internationally, preferably the European area, I think that will have to give in to public pressure to do the right thing. Because honestly the right thing and it's a no brainer - the right thing should have been look Meridian, we can no longer purchase your bananas, because of Mr. John Zabaneh's involvement, you have 6 months to wind down operations. That is the responsible and ethical and socially responsible and I mention that because Fyffes is a big champion of socially responsible practices and in fact they are a member of ETI, which stands for Ethical Training Initiative. Honestly those organizations should really peep in here and see that they are not practicing what they are preaching."
Until such time, the everyone involved in Maya King can only look on. Right, now, it's tough for the bosses, seeing the employees suffer blamelessly.
Miguel Monroy - Packing/Field Manager, Mayan King
"This is the hardest days in my life, because I really have to try talk to the people so that they could understand the situation that we are in. Let's get together and have them understand. I don't them to be mischievous in the farm and things like that. Because that is the first thing that people think, 'I'm hungry and so I am going to do something bad out of the way.' That is what I try to talk to the workers and also the workers respond well up to now."
Jose Gonzalez - General Manager, Mayan King
"We are fine. We are big boys. We can take the lick. But the individuals, it's just sad."
