Bob

bepah, you're not going to find a less left leaning source than myself. I've done 2 articles on this for Bananas Quarterly and have done countless hours of hopefully unbiased research prompted mainly by my desire to once again eat the famous Gros Michel before I sign off for the last time.
I agree whole heartedly that governmental pressures play a prominent role in affecting the overall lives of the workers. Some of the sources I checked out were in fact written by left leaning grandstanders with an agenda, most notably one by an English author I won't name publicly because I won't give him or his book any publicity.His was clearly biased and just an attack on any form of capitalism. Still those pressures are generated by the deep pockets and less than honest business practices. Some of the Central American native population was literally forced in to labor of an industry forced upon them by the brutal and often murderous practices of the installed governments on behalf of their corporate benefactors. They literally just wanted to be left alone to the lifestyle they were comfortable with,even if that meant living in what we'd consider squalor. However that same populace was violently uprooted and forced in to the service of the government/company.
In the earliest days UFC went as far as to import Jamaican labor in to other countries simply because of their genuine willingness to EARN their living.

"Its an ugly fact, but no less real. To improve the economy for the workers, it would be in the interest for the government to help in expanding the numbers of swaetshops; with the labor pool shrinking as a result of competition, wages would rise, conditions would improve and thenational economy would expand."

Ideally this would work if those same sweatshops were able to fairly compete. The reality is far more complicated.
To me the best solution and it ties in with another thread going here ,would be to diverisify the crop and the promotion of regionaly grown varieties allowing for real capital gains for all involved. It would benefit the consumer, I'd love to try 10 varieties of banana at any given time. It would benefit the environment not to have the vast monocultures that could have ended the industry altogether had they not found the relatively bland Cavendish as a replacement. There would certainly be no loss for the big corporations as the market could potentially expand.Finally, there would be incentive for real competition among the regional growers.

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