Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
imports. Forexample, between April and June 1942—historicallya period
of high market demand—Standard Fruit cut its payroll from some 7,000
to 4,400 employees.
40
Many idled workers ''drifted back'' to family fincas;
those without land were reportedly ''loafing'' around the company's
camps. Standard Fruit o
cials allowed some of the jobless to remain in
company housing, but the commissaries refused to extend credit.
41
Indi-
viduals who were lucky enough to retain their jobs endured severe pay
cuts.
42
In 1943, ''large numbers'' of workers migrated to southern Hon-
duras to work on the Pan American highway. Still others found jobs on
local public works projects or growing produce for area markets.
43
The temporal and spatial fluctuations that characterized export ba-
nana production during the first half of the twentieth century, then,
forced farm workers to endure frequent periods of unemployment. They
often responded by migrating both within and beyond export banana
zones.''Farm-hopping''enabledfieldhandstoavoidcyclicallayoffs,harsh
bosses, or boredom, but this strategy was less viable during periods of
sustained, widespread slowdowns in production. Of course, geographical
mobility should not be conflated with social mobility; the lack of stable
employment, along with stagnant or even declining real wages rendered
the accumulation of capital dicult. Assessing the status of the ''average
worker'' on the North Coast during the 1930s and early 1940s, a U.S. o-
cial based in La Ceiba painted a mixed picture: ''Generally he [the average
worker] may be said to be about as well off now [1944] as at most any time
in the last ten years but at best his condition is not an enviable one.''
44
Of
course,wagesalonereveallittleaboutthehistoricalexperiencesofworkers
on export banana farms. Daily life in the fields involved carrying out tasks
that required manual dexterity, stamina, and knowledge about banana
cultivation. It also meant living and working in environments that posed
both short- and long-term health hazards.
working environments
The ''work day'' began during the middle of the night in banana
camps. As one retired worker recalled, ''around three in the morning they
would begin shouting at the cook to get up and make breakfast.'' Aside
from disrupting their sleep, cooks' predawn start exposed them to one of
the most insidious threats to human health found in export banana zones:
the malaria-transmitting anopheles mosquito. Ángela Coto-Moreno re-
called contracting malaria when she was a child helping her mother pre-
pare food in an open-air kitchen: ''The camps were breeding grounds for
