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Dole drops Bananas!* lawsuit

Dole Foods was withdrawn its lawsuit against Swedish filmmaker Fredrik Gertten over a documentary film which the company claimed contained falsehoods which harmed the US food giant.

Published: 15 October 2009 12:28 CEST
Dole drops Bananas!* lawsuit

“It’s a really positive development. It’s thanks to the support we’ve received,” Gertten told the TT news agency.

“A court in the US was going to rule on the matter in two weeks. I suspect that Dole realized they had a weak case. They probably thought it was best to pull back before the trial.”

Gertten’s film, Bananas!*, follows attempts by a Los Angeles-based trial lawyer to help thousands of Nicaraguan fruit workers who allege Dole sprayed them with a banned pesticide.

Dole came out strongly against the film, which premiered in Sweden last week, suing Gertten for defamation in the United States in July.

Legal proceedings originally scheduled to begin in Los Angeles on October 8th had been delayed, and on Thursday morning Dole announced it was dropping the case altogether.

While Dole said it believed it had a strong case, it chose to dismiss the suit because of “the free speech concerns being expressed in Sweden”.

The company maintained, however, that the film was inaccurate.

“While the filmmakers continue to show a film that is fundamentally flawed and contains many false statements we look forward to an open discussion with the filmmakers regarding the content of the film,” C. Michael Carter, Dole’s Executive Vice President and General Counsel, said in a statement.

Support for Gertten and his film has grown steadily in Sweden ever since Dole filed the lawsuit, prompting members of parliament from opposing political parties to arrange a special screening of the film.

In addition, several Swedish food companies were considering a boycott of Dole products in response to the lawsuit.

“The support we’ve received from people who’ve sent us money and encouragement has been critical. Having members of the Riksdag take up the issue has also been great and the pressure on Dole has increased,” Gertten told the Dagens Nyheter (DN) newspaper.

News of Dole’s decision reached Gertten on Thursday as he was heading to a meeting with Sweden’s Minister of Culture, Lena Liljeroth Adelsohn, and representatives from several large Swedish grocery chains, to discuss the issue.

While thrilled with the latest twist in his battle with Dole, Gertten stopped short of claiming the matter was fully resolved.

“I haven’t spoken with my lawyer. The damage Dole caused to my film doesn’t go away because of this, and our countersuit remains. We’ll have to see how we’ll proceed,” he told TT.

But one of Gertten’s supporters in the Riksdag was more emphatic in claiming victory.

“Miracles are still possible,” Mats Johansson of the Moderate Party told DN.

Johansson, along with his Social Democratic colleague Luciano Astudillo, arranged for a viewing of Bananas!* in the Riksdag

“It’s unbelievable what we, who are sometimes portrayed as indecisive button-pushers, can achieve: to get a powerful, global multinational company like Dole to change course.”

Nevertheless, Johansson remained concerned about the lawsuit’s long-term consequences for free speech.

“That Dole has dismissed the lawsuit doesn’t change anything. Even if we’re really happy that the threat against Bananas!* is gone, what has happened isn’t an isolated case. It can still happen to others, and that’s something we obviously want to discuss,” he told the newspaper.

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FOOD AND DRINK

OPINION: Are tips in Sweden becoming the norm?

Should you tip in Sweden? Habits are changing fast thanks to new technology and a hard-pressed restaurant trade, writes James Savage.

Published: 5 April 2024 13:59 CEST
OPINION: Are tips in Sweden becoming the norm?

The Local’s guide to tipping in Sweden is clear: tip for good service if you want to, but don’t feel the pressure: where servers in the US, for instance, rely on tips to live, waiters in Sweden have collectively bargained salaries with long vacations and generous benefits. 

But there are signs that this is changing, and the change is being accelerated by card machines. Now, many machines offer three preset gratuity percentages, usually starting with five percent and going up to fifteen or twenty. Previously they just asked the customer to fill in the total amount they wanted to pay.

This subtle change to a user interface sends a not-so-subtle message to customers: that tipping is expected and that most people are probably doing it. The button for not tipping is either a large-lettered ‘No Tip’ or a more subtle ‘Fortsätt’ or ‘Continue’ (it turns out you can continue without selecting a tip amount, but it’s not immediately clear to the user). 

I’ll confess, when I was first presented with this I was mildly irked: I usually tip if I’ve had table service, but waiting staff are treated as professionals and paid properly, guaranteed by deals with unions; menu prices are correspondingly high. The tip was a genuine token of appreciation.

But when I tweeted something to this effect (a tweet that went strangely viral), the responses I got made me think. Many people pointed out that the restaurant trade in Sweden is under enormous pressure, with rising costs, the after-effects of Covid and difficulties recruiting. And as Sweden has become more cosmopolitain, adding ten percent to the bill comes naturally to many.

Boulebar, a restaurant and bar chain with branches around Sweden and Denmark, had a longstanding policy of not accepting tips at all, reasoning that they were outdated and put diners in an uncomfortable position. But in 2021 CEO Henrik Kruse decided to change tack:

“It was a purely financial decision. We were under pressure due to Covid, and we had to keep wages down, so bringing back tips was the solution,” he said, adding that he has a collective agreement and staff also get a union bargained salary, before tips.

Yet for Kruse the new machines, with their pre-set tipping percentages, take things too far:

“We don’t use it, because it makes it even clearer that you’re asking for money. The guest should feel free not to tip. It’s more important for us that the guest feels free to tell people they’re satisfied.”

But for those restaurants that have adopted the new interfaces, the effect has been dramatic. Card processing company Kassacentralen, which was one of the first to launch this feature in Sweden, told Svenska Dagbladet this week that the feature had led to tips for the average establishment doubling, with some places seeing them rise six-fold.

Even unions are relaxed about tipping these days, perhaps understanding that they’re a significant extra income for their members. Union representatives have often in the past spoken out against tipping, arguing that the practice is demeaning to staff and that tips were spread unevenly, with staff in cafés or fast food joints getting nothing at all. But when I called the Swedish Hotel and Restaurant Union (HRF), a spokesman said that the union had no view on the practice, and it was a matter for staff, business owners and customers to decide.

So is tipping now expected in Sweden? The old advice probably still stands; waiters are still not as reliant on tips as staff in many other countries, so a lavish tip is not necessary. But as Swedes start to tip more generously, you might stick out if you leave nothing at all.

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