Festival goers like Annie have contributed indirectly to Banana Link

Festival goers like Annie have contributed indirectly to Banana Link

Organisers of the Glastonbury festival have donated £74,000 to pressure group Banana Link.

Glastonbury’s Michael Eavis and Melvin Benn said the money was to help secure a fair deal for plantation workers in Latin America. They made the presentation yesterday at the Paddington Hilton in London with Bert Schouwenburg from Battersea & Wandsworth trades union council (BWTUC).

“This gift is one of the donations to good causes from Glastonbury festival 2007,” said Eavis. “The money to Banana Link will be used to fund the Union to Union programme which meets the costs of employing and deploying 14 trade union organisers in the banana

industry in the six Latin America countries of Ecuador, Peru, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Honduras. The aim of the programme is to assist the banana workers to unionise so that they can represent themselves in talks with their employers and the supermarkets in the EU that buy their produce.”

The cheque was presented to Banana Link’s Jacqui Mackay, national co-ordinator at the NGO and Alistair Smith, the group’s international co-ordinator.

The BWTUC, which owns the Workers Beer Company that runs the bars at the festival, identified Banana Link to receive the gift. “This generous gift from the Glastonbury festival will be used by trade unions in six countries in Latin America to unionise workers in the banana industry,” Schouwenberg said. “[It will help] to secure an end to their exploitation and help them negotiate with the supermarket chains in Britain to ensure that the prices paid for bananas are fair and enable them to have a decent standard of living.”

Jacqui Mackay of Banana Link said: “This is an extraordinary act of international solidarity between people at either end of the banana supply chain illustrating the key role that British trade unions have to play in poverty alleviation in Latin America and the rest of the developing world.”