Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
(shirts, pants, and shoes) cost the equivalent of several days' wages. Some
workers found ways to boost earnings by working faster under a piece-
rate system, but any savings that individuals were able to accrue could
quickly disappear during periodic layoffs. Finally, most workers were no
more inclined to asceticism than their North American managers: young
menandwomenindulgedinanynumberof ''vices,''includingfood,drink,
sex, and stylish footwear.
The Second World War and its aftermath would bring a number of
economic, political, social, and technological changes to Honduras and
the United States that would affect North Coast landscapes and liveli-
hoods. Fruit company employees would play a major role in fomenting
change by organizing a massive strike in 1954 that precipitated a wave of
social reforms in Honduras—reforms that would be monitored closely
by both banana companyexecutives worried about dwindling profits and
U.S. State Department o
cials preoccupied with containing communist
''threats'' in Latin America. Meanwhile, in the United States,World War II
introducedtheconsumingmassestoyetanotherseductiveimageoftropi-
cal exoticism.
