A GlobalPost 'Special Report.'
- [/Antler]

Flor Elba Sanchez cuts palm fruit off a tree near Puente Sogamoso. A co-op member, she says that palm oil companies insist that workers join co-ops and that those who refuse are refused jobs.
- [John Otis/GlobalPost]

Eusebio Rodriguez, a co-op worker, gathers clusters of palm fruit on a plantation near Puente Sogamoso, Colombia. He earns about $15 a day but would like to join a union to receive better pay and benefits.
- [John Otis/GlobalPost]

The yellow pulp of the palm fruit contains oil which is used in many baked goods and to make biodiesel.
- [John Otis/GlobalPost]

A palm oil worker takes a mid-morning break from cutting and gathering palm fruit near Puente Sogamoso.
- [John Otis/GlobalPost]

Palm fruit ready to be processed at the Las Brisas palm oil plant near Puente Sogamoso.
- [John Otis/GlobalPost]

Carlos Daniel Ardila, president of the local Sintrainagro farm workers union, talks to co-op members at the cavernous union hall in Sogamoso. The co-op members would like to join the union but are legally barred from doing so because they are considered small business owners.
- [John Otis/GlobalPost]

Miguel Conde, an official with the local Sintrainagro farm workers union, says just 1 in 10 palm oil workers in the Puente Sogamoso region belong to unions.
- [John Otis/GlobalPost]

A Las Brisas workers holds up flasks of palm oil. Colombia is the world's No. 5 producer of palm oil and the top producer in Latin America.
- [John Otis/GlobalPost]