Thread: BOYCOTT Chiquita Banana!!!!!!!!!

Anyone see the most recent episode of Undercover Boss?
The CEO of Chiquita Banana paid for U.S. Citizenship for one of his employees. Chiquita knowingly employs illegal aliens, and they flat out admit it. I will never buy from them again.

Here's a story on it:

'Undercover Boss': Chiquita's 'Top Banana Doesn't Peel Back Enough Layers

The plight of America's underpaid, overworked laborers is a recurring theme on Undercover Boss, but Sunday's episode of the popular CBS (CBS) show will take the issue to a whole new level. Shadowing Chiquita Brand International's (CQB) CEO Fernando Aguirre, the popular program will give viewers -- and Aguirre -- a ground-level look at the lives of some of the country's undocumented Mexican agricultural workers.
Picking lettuce in Salinas, California, Aguirre posed as "Manuel," an immigrant worker. Speaking of the experience, he noted that "If I'd known how grueling coring lettuce was I probably would have tried to lose some weight and get in better shape." Yet he also argued that complaints about his company's use of illegal immigrants are unfair: "Clearly not everyone wants to be out at four or five in the morning in the fields, bending over picking lettuce and doing all that physical labor. At Chiquita, we pay competitive wages and are very pro-union ... but there still aren't enough people out there who want to take those jobs."

Aguirre immigrated to the U.S. at the age of seventeen, and he enjoyed interacting with Mexican migrant workers: "Clearly, the family values and work values are there, and we really can connect on that level ... It was really natural to speak Spanish and talk about families back in Mexico." Apart from his field work, Aguirre also drove a forklift and processed some produce. He even got involved with the company's trademark product, scheduling banana shipments into the U.S.

While Aguirre's ability to bond with his workers is impressive, this Undercover Boss episode has a fairly large hole in its narrative. Chiquita is most famous for its tropical produce, which is largely grown outside of the U.S. However, the show doesn't feature any of the Latin American plantations where its farmers cultivate bananas, pineapples, and other popular fruits.

While Chiquita is a respected, familiar brand in the U.S., its reputation in Latin America is fraught with scandal and bad blood. In its original incarnation as the United Fruit Company, the company supported dictatorships in Guatemala, Colombia, Honduras, Costa Rica and Chile. More recently, it came under attack for helping to finance AUC, FARC and ELN, a trio of Colombian terrorist and paramilitary groups. Found guilty of giving $1.7 million to AUC in 2007, Chiquita paid a $25 million fine to the U.S. government. Government officials in Colombia asked the U.S. to extradite some of Chiquita's execs so that they could stand trial in the country, but the request was denied.

In recent years, Chiquita has worked to clean up its act: once attacked for union-breaking, using toxic pesticides, dodging taxes, and oppressing workers, the company was sued by some of its shareholders for gross mismanagement. Since then, Chiquita has vastly improved its environmental record, but it is still cited for abuses against workers in Guatemala and Costa Rica.

One thing is for certain: while being an agricultural worker for Chiquita may not pay well, running the company is quite lucrative. Aguirre, who has headed Chiquita since 2004, currently brings home more than $7.6 million per year.


http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/compa ... /19695461/

Here is their contact information if you wanna blast a message off to them:

http://www.chiquitabrands.com/CompanyIn ... actUs.aspx

I boycotted at the store today and bought Del Monte bananas. I'm not supporting any company that I know hires illegal aliens, tries to demean the work, tries to say Americans won't do the work, and then tries to defend itself with some distorted bull crap about Spanish family values.

Gak.

If things don't get better soon, I'll be boycotting food pretty much all together. "JUST EAT MEAT!"

I would expect an audit of this company who knowingly hires illegal aliens. Don't know how much clearer it can get than parading it on national TV!

If you pay people enough, they will come to work at 4am, so don't give me that tired BS Aguirre. No reason for his excessive salary either, pay your LEGAL employees with that money! Spread the wealth amigo!

It is almost impossible to avoid buying any fruits, vegetables, and meat that is not picked or processed by illegals. One way you can avoid it is to buy imported produce from South America or Canada. It would be nice if they had labelling that informed you who picks the produce. I know after meat packing raid of the Kosher factory some Jewish people were discussing having and using companies that were ethical. That was their politically correct way of saying not hiring illegals. They were even thinking of putting a stamp stating it was ethically made or processed.

Originally Posted by swatchick

It is almost impossible to avoid buying any fruits, vegetables, and meat that is not picked or processed by illegals.

Get to know your regional "small" and small farmers, farmer's markets are great for this. There are also, if you are in a region that has a climate for it, plenty of "pick your own" orchards and fields out there for many fruits and vegetables, and a group of friends or neighbors can take turns being the one that goes out and does the harvesting for the group and then split the bounty. (plus it can be fun for kids )

There are ways around even this one for many, not all, granted, but many.

I had to turn the TV off.

Yes, he was in this country illegally for some time until he became a citizen last year. But yes, he was also the CEO of Chiquita for almost a decade.

The show was basically one big cheerleader fest for illegal aliens. And this aired 2 days before our elections! They portrayed the one illegal worker as some modern day hero, and this scum bag CEO kept patting himself on the back for hiring illegal aliens so they could "live the American dream."

How disgusting to think that a NATIONAL TELEVISION STATION COULD GO PARADING A COMPANY THAT KNOWINGLY HIRES ILLEGAL ALIENS!

I am also sending a letter to ICE.

This CEO openly admitted he hires illegal aliens.
This company needs to be investigated and heavily fined.

Originally Posted by orchid_noir

Originally Posted by swatchick

It is almost impossible to avoid buying any fruits, vegetables, and meat that is not picked or processed by illegals.

Get to know your regional "small" and small farmers, farmer's markets are great for this.

I agree. Luckily here in Maryland we have some Amish Farmer's Markets to choose from, and they are always so gracious, polite, and appreciative of each and every customer.

Google it and see if you have some Amish markets in your area! You won't regret it!!

An older article showing the disgusting actions of Chiquita, (but not too old of an article, it was only from 3 years ago!!!)

How can this company be GLORIFIED on a National Television show?

Chiquita's Slipping Appeal
Want to help finance terrorism? Buy a Chiquita banana.
March 21, 2007 |

What do Osama bin Laden and Chiquita bananas have in common? Both have used their millions to finance terrorism.

The Justice Department has just fined Chiquita Brands International $25 million for funding a terrorist organization ... for years. Chiquita must also cooperate fully with ongoing investigations into its payments to the ultra-right-wing Colombian paramilitary group Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia. Chiquita made almost monthly payments to the AUC from 1997 to 2004, totaling at least $1.7 million.

The AUC is a brutal paramilitary umbrella group, with an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 armed troops. It was named a terrorist organization by the United States on Sept. 10, 2001. Among its standard tactics are kidnapping, torture, disappearance, rape, murder, beatings, extortion and drug trafficking.

Chiquita claims it had to make the payments under threat from the AUC in order to protect its employees and property. Chiquita's outside lawyers implored them to stop the illegal payments, to no avail. The payments were made by check through Chiquita's Colombian subsidiary, Banadex. When Chiquita executives figured out how illegal the payments were, they started delivering them in cash. Chiquita sold Banadex in June 2004 when the heat got too intense.

While the AUC was collecting U.S. dinero from Chiquita, it was butchering thousands of innocent people in rural Colombia. Chengue (pronounced CHEN-gay) was a small farming village in the state of Sucre. About 80 AUC paramilitary members went into the town in the early hours of Jan. 17, 2001. They rounded up the men and smashed their skulls with stones and a sledgehammer, killing 24 of them. One 19-year-old perpetrator confessed, naming the organizers of the mass murder, including police and navy officials. To date, he is the only one who has been punished. This is just one of hundreds of massacres carried out by AUC.

Chiquita has had a long history of criminal behavior. It was the subject of an extraordinary expose in its hometown paper, The Cincinnati Enquirer, in 1998. The paper found that Chiquita exposed entire communities to dangerous U.S.-banned pesticides, forced the eviction of an entire Honduran village at gunpoint and its subsequent bulldozing, suppressed unions, unwittingly allowed the use of Chiquita transport ships to move cocaine internationally, and paid a fortune to U.S. politicians to influence trade policy. The lead reporter, Mike Gallagher, illegally accessed more than 2,000 Chiquita voice mails. The voice mails backed up his story, but his methods got him fired. The Enquirer issued a front-page apology and paid Chiquita a reported $14 million. The voice-mail scandal rocked the Enquirer, burying the important exposé.

Chiquita was formerly called the United Fruit Co., which with the help of its former lawyer, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, and his brother Allen Dulles' Central Intelligence Agency overthrew the democratically elected president of Guatemala, Jacobo Arbenz Guzman, in 1954. And you can go back further. Colombian Nobel Laureate Gabriel GarcÃÂ*a Márquez wrote in his classic "One Hundred Years of Solitude" about the 1928 Santa Marta massacre of striking United Fruit banana workers: "When the banana company arrived ... the old policemen were replaced by hired assassins."

While the U.S. is seeking extradition of Colombia-based Chiquita executives, the administration of President Alvaro Uribe in Colombia, with its own officials now linked to the right-wing paramilitaries, has countered that Colombia would seek the extradition of U.S.-based Chiquita executives. Colombian prosecutors are also seeking information in Chiquita's role in smuggling 3,000 AK-47 rifles and millions of rounds of ammunition to paramilitaries in November 2001.

READ MORE BY FOLLOWING THIS LINK:

http://www.alternet.org/story/49588/chi ... ng_appeal/