General Strike

A general strike, the first in its history, last week paralyzed Honduras' north coast, home of the banana industry. More than 40,000 workers were out, and 40 million bananas a week were ripening and rotting. At one banana company compound, strikers switched locks on the gates and made U.S. managers ask permission to go in or out.

A petty dispute set off the strike late last month at the U.S.-owned United Fruit Co.'s port of Puerto Cortes. Because there are no recognized unions (they are banned by law), no one expected the strike to spread. But laborers quit first at United Fruit Co., then at Standard Fruit & Steamship Co., finally in most of the area's shops, factories and mines. With breathtaking efficiency they organized local strike committees.

Was the hand of Honduras' neighbor, Communist-infiltrated Guatemala, showing in the strike? Said Secretary of State John Foster Dulles in Washington last week: "There is at least an interesting coincidence in the fact that the strikes have occurred principally in an area to which the Guatemalan government recently sent three consuls who have subsequently been declared persona non grata by the government of Honduras because of their activities."

Guatemalan Communists, in recent years, have roughed up United Fruit with labor demands and land expropriation, and have exacted such labor concessions as pay for unworked Sundays, improved housing, free medical care, severance pay and paid vacations. None of these provisions are yet in force in Honduras, although United Fruit workers are the highest paid in the country. The difference gave Guatemalan Reds fuel for propaganda denouncing United Fruit and "im-perialismo Yanqui." The result was the current strike.

President Juan Manuel Galvez, onetime United Fruit lawyer, does not want to lose the labor vote for his candidate in next October's presidential election. Last week, therefore, he privately asked United Fruit to negotiate even before the strikers go back to work, and to start talking turkey on higher wages, paid vacations, double overtime pay. The company agreed. "Viva Galvez!" cried the strikers.

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