Essay Case Report: Blood Bananas: Chiquita in Colombia

We as business owners, management and or in a role of authority must set, address and comply with a solid foundation of ethics. “A code of conduct is the single most important element of your ethics and compliance program. It sets the tone and direction for the entire function. Often, the code is a standalone document, ideally only a few pages in length. It introduces the concept of ethics and compliance and provides an overview of what you mean when you talk about ethical business conduct.”

John Soluri 's Banana Cultures: Agriculture, Consumption and Environmental Change in Honduras and the United States, (Which for spatial and repetitive purposes, I will refer to as Banana Cultures for the remainder of the paper), introduces the reader to a world of corporate greed, consumption, and environmental change using the history of the common, everyday fruit, the banana. He explores the various political occurrences, health problems, and changes in mass media through the rise of the consumption of the banana in the United States, and around the globe.

The Banana Wars began with injustices, corruption, lawless societies and labor abuse in Latin America. Banana workers began what was comparable to a civil rights movement in the tropical fruit trade. Warring tropical countries stemmed from maltreatment [clarification needed] and abusive working conditions gave rise to one of the earliest and most militant labor movements in early Latin America. The discourse and corruption facing Latin American people and governments is what prompted the United States influence.[clarification needed]

We eat bananas almost every day; however, most of us do not really know where these fruits come from. In Banana Cultures, John Soluri focuses on the relationship between banana production in Honduras, especially in the North Coast between roughly 1870 and 1975, and banana consumption in the U. S.. He focuses on growing, protecting, transporting, and mass marketing of bananas. John Soluri integrates Agroecology, anthropology, political economy, and history in order to trace the symbolic growth of the banana industry. The author admits that his work is highly interdisciplinary, as a desirable trait in the academic world. The study incorporates a wide range of sources, including manuscript census data from Honduras, fruit company records, published scientific records, Honduran and U.S government correspondence, oral testimonies, and ephemera from U.S mass culture. Throughout his work, he combines elements of geography, biology, social history, foreign affairs, and environmental history. Soluri also looks at labor practices and worker’s lives, changing gender roles on the banana plantations, and the effects of pesticides in the Honduran environment and people. His central argument is that United States consumption of bananas causes major social, political, and environmental change in Honduras. In addition, he looks at the banana pathogens, the ways the United States treated these fungal diseases, and the terribly detrimental effects these new treatments had on the farmers on

A code of conduct and a statement of formal statements describe and explain what an organization expects from its employees and a code of ethics generally consists of statements that serve as principles and basis for rules of conduct. Leaders and managers must be role models for organizational success. If employees see leaders and management demonstrating the organizational values then it adds to the commitment and credibility of leadership and reinforces the importance of the organization’s values which leads to employees who are more engaged and committed to the organization. Also turnover among employees tends to be lower and productivity tends to be high. On the other hand, if leadership demonstrates behavior that is inconsistent with the code of conduct then a negative message is sent to the employees. Therefore, employees may disengage and compromise company standards as seen in the

Historically, the relations between U.S and Colombia have been marked the foreign policy and the international trade. Nevertheless, the civil war in Colombia have shifted this relation. In Colombia, the establishment of The Revolutionary Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the leftist National Liberation Army (ELN) during the 1960s created the beginning of an era of terrorist and drug trafficking. The FARC began forming in 1966 inspired by the Cuban Revolution with a left-wing nationalism and Marxism-Leninism. FARC’s actions trough the history has been involved with terrorist against of the population in Colombia. As well, thousands of peasant farmers that have been obligated to produce illicit drugs in their own properties controlled by the guerrillas. Nowadays, the FARC has been the largest and oldest insurgent group in the Americas. The FARC has been roundly criticized for initiating

We found that although a code of conduct, ethics hotline, and newsletter exist, none were consistently used, enforced, or reinforced by company employees or management. For example, upon joining the company, employees must sign a code of conduct; however, management has not made a sustained effort to implement or reinforce the code.

Chiquita, the oldest banana transnational in Latin America was the primary target of banana worker rights and environmental activists until 2001. The company has since teamed up with the Rainforest Alliance to roll out the Alliance’s standards to its banana farms in Latin America.6 Chiquita prides itself on its recent changes, which have involved revamping the company to promote “The Chiquita Difference”; this includes a philosophy of social responsibility, sustainability, community involvement and food safety.7 These changes arose from the use of political activism by consumers in response to poor workers rights, thus exemplifying the fact that people do realize where their food is coming from and are willing to fight for those who create it. This shows that the process of defetishization has begun for many. Production

According to Johnson (2012) leaders are powerful role models, and policies will have a little effect if leaders do not follow the rules they set. In Enron case, corruption and ethical misconduct were deeply embedded in their business culture where profitability was more important than ethics. In this paper, I will address the factors that had led to the development of the culture of profit before principle at Enron. Also, I will create my personal code of ethics that will guide me in my professional and personal decision making and doing the right thing when faced with ethical challenges.

In the book, Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World (2008), Dan Koeppel talks about the historical background of banana. He also talks about its’ importance to African farmers and its’ importance to Latin America and Asia in economic terms. He describes that a disease called blight has caused serious threats to banana crops, as it is rapidly destroying the banana crops around the world (Koeppel, 2008). In this book, the author describes the role of two mega companies; Dole and Chiquita. They are committing massacres in the name of producing cheap banana. In Latin, America Chiquita is exploiting the labor. It also supports

population of Brazil has experienced an epidemic problem known as Chagas disease, where outbreaks are most common in underdeveloped countries. Shikanai-Yasuda and Carvalho (2012) concluded the etiologic agent of the disease forms in the blood and fluid of infected animals and humans and is transmitted at the bite sites of the triatomine bugs feces. The Amazon Basin in Brazil has experienced another form of transmission, orally, which is now considered the principal form of Chagas disease in the country. The outbreaks of orally transmitted Chagas in Brazil have been linked to food, sugar cane juice, water, acai, and soup all contaminated with the triatomine feces. Studies suggest contamination occurs during the warmer months and time of harvest. Oral transmission presents with a variety of symptoms that must be ruled out through differential diagnosis. A few of those symptoms include: fever, headache, myalgia, jaundice, digestive bleeding, heart failure, and infectious mononucleosis. If performing an oral inspection or a dental cleaning, this form of transmission often shows no external signs orally, so it often goes undiscovered.

Chiquita Brands International seems to have an autocratic leadership style locally but laissez-faire at headquarter level. In the 1960s, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and National Liberation Army (ELN) was founded and this cause guerrilla warfare. The FARC was against “the United States influences in Colombia, neoimperialism, monopolization of natural resources by multinational corporations, and paramilitary/government violence” (Schotter & Teagarden, 2010). They was aware of problems involving “farm workers labored long hours in dangerous conditions, agrochemical runoff contaminated water, and tropical forests were cleared for expansion” (Schotter & Teagarden, 2010). Furthermore, the drug cartels were within the country and providing illegal drug trades; which is when the United States backed the War on Drugs. Somewhere between late 1980’s and beginning of 1990’s, Chiquita paid “taxes” to the illegal drug trade while hoping to keep employees safe. No changes were made until 1992 when Dave McLaughlin, Managing Director and

While globalization is a relatively new phenomenon in theory, but not necessarily in history, as of 2009 it has created transnational corporations linked to government, international economic institutions, and non-government organizations. (Steger 67). With this definition bananas are a textbook example of the globalization of tropical fruit commodities. The transnational corporations of the United States, most notably Chiquita, Dole and Del Monte, have been linked to the governments of Latin and South America, the World Trade Organization, and the “organic” fruit movement. By tracing the path from banana plantations to supermarket it becomes clear how the “morals” of capitalism have permeated

* Some of the objectives of creating this union is to create a better flow on the circulation of goods, capital, people and services within the union. Once a good or service is accepted within the union it is protected from customs, taxes and import quotas as long as they remain within the union.

This report details several international management problems that Chiquita has been faced with over the past two decades. Many of these problems are to do with the company’s previously poor image when it came to Corporate and Social responsibility. Over the years Chiquita faced many accusations about the conditions workers were faced with at many of their facilities in Latin America and have also had their environmental policies questioned many times in the press. The company has made great strides in recent years in improving their public image with regards to corporate and social responsibility. In particular Chiquita’s commitment to the Better Bananas Project has helped improve their public image along with the