““A much more serious labor dispute was the two-year struggle in the late 1940s between the company and stevedores at Puerto Barrios over the issue of mechanization and a change in company pay policy from hourly to "piece" wages. As a result of intense lobbying in Washington by United Fruit officials, members of Congress denounced the strife. From that point on, all efforts by workers to confront the fruit company were reported in the United States as purely political disputes, the result of deliberate government or "Communist" intrigues to harass the company rather than of genuine worker complaints.””