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Article: The Global Sweatshop: For bananas costing pounds 1, the labourer gets 3p
- Article from:
- The Independent (London, England)
- Article date:
- September 30, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 1999 The Independent - London. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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PEDRO MENDOZA was pruning leaves from the top of a tall banana
plant when his bamboo ladder teetered beneath him. He fell eight feet
to the ground and, landing on the blade of his machete, severed a
tendon in his left forearm.
The supervisor took him from Chiquita's Caceles Sarapiqui farm to
a clinic in San Jose, the Costa Rican capital two hours away, where
doctors stitched together his lacerated arm and put it in plaster. Mr
Mendoza, aged 28 and with three children, is worried because once his
19-day annual leave is over he will be docked pay while his injury
heals.
"If I speak to you freely, I face persecution," he said. "We are
prevented from talking directly to outsiders without ...