Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
6 lempiras ($US3) per day, considerably more than at jobs such as weed-
ing and pruning.
61
But the arduous work was not foreveryone: oneyoung
North American supervisor who tried it reported that ''my back muscles
werenotsu
cientlydevelopedtoswingaspadefulofwetdirttherequired
distance out and away from the ditch.''
62
Little surprise, then, that some
paleros devised strategies to work less for their pay. For example, when
not under thevigilance of a foreman, workers used their machetes to hack
off small lengths of the stakes placed by company engineers to indicate
the desired depth. This sleight of hand gave the appearance that the ditch
had been dug to the proper depth when in reality it was shallower than
ordered. Another labor-saving technique used by some workers when
building dikes and retaining walls alongside irrigation ditches was to cut
stalksfromoldbananaplantsandplacetheminalinealongthecanalbor-
der. Dirt was then shoveled on top of the stalks.This trick enabledpaleros
to move less earth, but the banana-stalk berms tended to spring leaks and
collapse when water entered the ditch.
63
Iffarmsupervisorscouldnotmeasurethedepthofeveryditch,neither
couldtheymonitorhowlowweedingcrews(chapiadores)swungtheirma-
chetes.Weedingwasanotoriouslylow-paying,tedioustask:aslateas1954,
chapiadores on Tela Railroad Company farms earned two lempiras (one
U.S. dollar) peracre, an area that could be, but was not always, completed
inaday.
64
The length of time needed to clean an acre reflected both the
density of the weeds and the care with which the work was done. One
ex-employee explained that by thoroughly weeding (bienbajito) sections
nearwell-traveledroutes,areaslessfrequentlytraversedbyforemencould
beweededsuperficially.Ofcourse,workerswerenottheonlyonescapable
of manipulating the piece-wage system to theiradvantage: former United
Fruit employee Jay Soothill wrote that company overseers could reduce
labor costs by lengthening the time between weeding cycles. In so doing,
they compelled chapiadores to either move to another farm or agree to
work for less pay.
65
In contrast to the isolation and tedium associated with weeding and
ditching, the work of harvesting fruit bunches—''the most important day
in the life of a banana farm''—was fast-paced and team-oriented.
66
When
farm managers issued notice of a corte, they unleashed a frenzy of ac-
tivity—rain or shine—that lasted between 24 and 48 hours. Harvesting
teams generally consisted of nine members including mule-drivers (mu-
leros), cutters (corteros) and backers (junteros). According to one long-
time farm supervisor, a cortero was ''the skilled man of most farm opera-
tions'' who made crucial decisions about selecting which fruit to harvest
