Before reading this week’s selection on the United Fruit Company, I knew of its dominating power over Guatemala. However, I did not in fact realize the extent to which the United Fruit Company treated Guatemala in a colonizing fashion. United Fruit Company obtained a monopoly on banana production and trade and enormous economic control over the country. By owning and controlling every mile of railroad and the only Atlantic port, Guatemalan exports were reliant on the United Fruit Company. Thus Guatemala’s economic independence was prevented by this United States run company. Even American politics shaped Guatemala’s state of economic freedom.
Most terrible of all to me is the United Fruit Company’s denial of labour rights. By establishing low wages and preventing labour unions from forming, farm workers were kept in a poor state. The discrimination against indigenous people and people of color contributed to unequal conditions. As is referenced in the reading, “nobody could dispute the fact that the United Fruit Company had taken out of Guatemala far more in excessive profits than it had ever put into that poverty-stricken nation.” The United Fruit Company amplified impoverished conditions, and the company’s past involvement in Guatemala’s food production and land use has contributed to Guatemala’s state of insecurity and childhood malnutrition today.
The denial of labour rights by the United Fruit Company was something that caught my attention as well. As we were discussing in class, and Jon was saying (facetiously) that the United Fruit Company was good! because it provided housing and education for its workers and their children. I'm sure many American United Fruit Company employees slept better at night, knowing how great they were treating their Guatemalan workers. However, just because a company deigns to provide amenities for its workers does not a good company make. As you pointed out, wages were kept extremely low (better to profit off of my dear!) and labour unions disallowed (easier to exploit my dear!), proving that the United Fruit Company was really doing no one any favours, except for the profiting owners and stockholders of the company, safely nestled in their comfortable New York apartments and suburban homes, miles away from the exploitation.
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