Chile’s US$2.2 billion fresh fruit export sector is bracing for increased labor turmoil in coming weeks that could threaten the success of the 2007/2008 export season.
Labor activists in mid-December successfully organized fruit workers in the Region III city of Copiapó, home to Chile’s first-of-the-season table grape deal. Fruit growers were pressured to sign an agreement with the striking workers or face the possibility of not getting their fruit harvested, packed and exported.

The success of the Copiapó organizing effort led to creation of a "round table discussion group" that includes both fruit industry and labor leaders. The group met for the first time on Thursday, Jan. 3, and includes the nation’s three most important fruit related associations: Fedefruta (fruit growers), ASOEX (fruit exporters) and the National Agricultural Society, SNA, as well as representatives from labor groups.

"By forming this group our aim is to promote social peace in our country", ASOEX President Ronald Bown told the business daily Diario Financiero. "We want a frank dialogue and want to work towards the future, to develop our country with justice, providing opportunities for everyone so we can build a better future." National Campesino Confederation (CNC) President Segundo Stelin, also a member of the new round table discussion group, said regular meetings to bring workers and fresh fruit industry leaders together were a good step forward, but he would not rule out further labor difficulties in the fresh fruit sector.

"I don’t want to scare anyone", Stelin told The Santiago Times, "but I wouldn’t rule out anything at this point, if we are not able to resolve the needs of the people who are working in the fields throughout this country. Things could get serious." Stelin said he had been taken surprised by the success of the Copiapó organizing effort: "It all began when a very unfair deal was offered a group of 52 migrant workers, leading them to decide to go on strike. Within a matter of days the entire Copiapó fresh fruit work force had joined in with them, thousands of people. We brought the entire fruit industry in Copiapó to a standstill and forced the fruit growers to guarantee a minimum monthly wage for temporary field hands of 251,000 pesos (US$500).”

The Copiapó strike received scant coverage Chile’s conservative national media, with the exception of the Diario Financiero. Stelin said he has been invited to visit with fruit worker groups later this month in the northern fruit growing community of Ovalle, where this year’s early table grape deal is just beginning to reach its peak harvest time. He said he would not surprise him if labor strife dogged the entire fresh fruit growing season as the harvest proceeds southward from northern Chile.

"Fruit growers in Copiapó were forced to negotiate, or they risked losing their entire crop", complained SNA president Luis Schmidt. Chile’s table grape deal is very labor intensive, with labor costs currently accounting for about 70 percent of table grape production costs. Schmidt was shaken by the Copiapó experience, which he linked to other labor unrest in the agriculture sector, including a strike in late December at MaxAgro, the nation’s largest pork producing business, and continued strife between southern farmers and Mapuche indigenous groups.

Schmidt said he met last week with Chile’s Interior Minister Belisario Velasco and with Labor Ministry Undersecretary Zarko Luksic to plead for greater government involvement in keeping labor organizing work within the limits of Chilean law. Schmidt was especially upset that in Copiapó labor organizers successfully negotiated with the entire fruit sector and were not limited to negotiating on a company by company basis as is required by Chilean law.

“The rural labor situation in Chile is not getting any better, rather, it is getting worse and worse,” Schmidt told the Diario Financiero. Fruit industry leaders also expressed concern that Agriculture Ministry officials helped facilitate the negotiations in Copiapó between labor unions and fruit producers. Agriculture Minister Alvaro Rojas, however, insisted that officials from his office had been invited to the negotiating table as guarantors of the negotiated agreement, and had not taken sides or promoted the strike in any way.

Chile’s fresh fruit industry is especially vulnerable to pressure from organized labor because of the limited shelf life of fresh fruit. This is the first time in recent history that farm laborers have successfully organized to improve their salaries. Labor conflicts in past years have usually centered on demands by port workers for better wages and benefits. Chile’s early table grapes come from the northern valleys of Copiapó, Elqui and Limari/Ovalle, and account for between 15 and 18 percent of the nearly 800,000 boxes of table grapes Chile exports abroad each growing season – mostly to market in the northern hemisphere. As the season advances, the fruit harvest shifts from north to south.

Chile’s booming economy has tightened the labor market, leading fruit industry leaders recently to lobby for government approval to invite Bolivian and Peruvian fruit harvesters to Chile.