From Davao to Baghdad

I am interested in documenting the lives of workers. I’m trying to see through the camera and the photographs what it’s like to be a small farmer, what it’s like to work on a banana plantation, what war feels like to the people in Iraq. In some cases, that’s wrapped up in the history of organizing unions to fight U.S. corporations… The last time I went to the Philippines, in 2019, I saw that their cooperative movement had become very strong, something that has been able to change people’s lives. The Iraq photographs had that kind of intentionality to them, too, which I don't think made them any less true or any less an accurate documentation of the reality in Iraq. We exhibited these photographs in US union halls so that working people, especially oil workers, could see people in Iraq as people in unions like them. And think about relationship besides the relationship of war … Regardless of what I am documenting it has its own logic and its own story. And I am helping to tell that story with photographs.

David Bacon

David Bacon has traveled the world documenting the courage of people struggling for social and economic justice. In the Philippines, the banana industry is a major economic engine. The work is difficult, pay is low, and working conditions are often dangerous. The workers started out as plantation workers on these plantations that were developed as a product of colonialism and then eventually fought for laws that implemented agrarian reform. They set up cooperatives and became the owners of the land, but the going was rough in the beginning.

The Iraq war started on March 20, 2003. David Bacon’s images capture life during the United States occupation of Iraq as citizens attempt to make a living in the war's aftermath. Although the war was fought for control of oil, Bacon is unique in documenting the lives of the workers who actually produce the oil wealth. His photographs show families scrambling through the detritus of violence, workers attempting to revitalize their country's unions and fight for labor rights, as well as the dire conditions during the occupation.

Workers harvest bananas in the field of the DARBCO cooperative in the Mindanao city of Panabo
Workers harvest bananas in the field of the DARBCO cooperative in the Mindanao city of Panabo
Workers in the packing shed of the DARBCO cooperative in the Mindanao city of Panabo cut, wash and box bananas for export
Workers in the packing shed of the DARBCO cooperative in the Mindanao city of Panabo cut, wash and box bananas for export
Strikers at the Checkered Farms banana plantation
Strikers at the Checkered Farms banana plantation
Benedicto Hijara ties the trunks of banana trees to supporting wires above
Benedicto Hijara ties the trunks of banana trees to supporting wires above
Banana strikers meet at night under a tarp at the edge of their plantation
Banana strikers meet at night under a tarp at the edge of their plantation
Hassan Juma'a Awad, President of the General Union of Oil Employees
Hassan Juma'a Awad, President of the General Union of Oil Employees
Workers on an oil drilling rig in the South Rumeila oil field outside of Basra
Workers on an oil drilling rig in the South Rumeila oil field outside of Basra
Ibrahim Arabi, leader of the union at the Basra Oil Refinery, at home in Basra with a picture of Islamic cleric Moqtada al Sadr in on the door
Ibrahim Arabi, leader of the union at the Basra Oil Refinery, at home in Basra with a picture of Islamic cleric Moqtada al Sadr in on the door
Workers eat together on an oil drilling rig in the South Rumeila oil field
Workers eat together on an oil drilling rig in the South Rumeila oil field
The wreckage of war in the middle of a residential neighborhood
The wreckage of war in the middle of a residential neighborhood
Hashmeya Al-Saadawi is the first woman trade union leader in Iraq's history
Hashmeya Al-Saadawi is the first woman trade union leader in Iraq's history
Union leader Falah Alwan and leather goods factory workers argue with the plant manager about their union rights
Union leader Falah Alwan and leather goods factory workers argue with the plant manager about their union rights
The gas flare at the Al Daura refinery is visible from all over Baghdad
The gas flare at the Al Daura refinery is visible from all over Baghdad
A son of a refinery worker at the Al Daura refinery sells motor oil his father receives as compensation for his low pay to passing cars on the highway outside the refinery
A son of a refinery worker at the Al Daura refinery sells motor oil his father receives as compensation for his low pay to passing cars on the highway outside the refinery
Jane Algoso cuts dead fronds from the trunks of banana trees
Jane Algoso cuts dead fronds from the trunks of banana trees
Benjamin Libron gathers bananas discarded for minor imperfections
Benjamin Libron gathers bananas discarded for minor imperfections
Deaf and mute women work at a leather goods factory
Deaf and mute women work at a leather goods factory