Latest U.S. Trade Partner Most Dangerous Place for Union Members

by James Parks, Dec 3, 2006

Last week, we described how once again the Bush administration signed a trade agreement that ignores workers’ fundamental rights, this time with Colombia. The White House ignored urgent calls from leading Democrats to renegotiate the agreement to strengthen labor protections.

The portion of the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement on worker protections is insufficient to ensure respect for labor rights, particularly in light of the extreme conditions in Colombia—where industrial conflicts are at times “resolved” by torture or murder.

Now a new report by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) shows Colombia still holds the sad record of being the country in which the most men and women have been murdered as a direct result of their trade union work. According to the report, 70 trade unionists were assassinated last year in Colombia. This year, 53 trade unionists had been killed through the end of October.

But that’s just one part of Colombia’s bloody record. The ITUC report and a study by the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center point to routine acts of violence against trade unionists that include kidnappings, attempted assassinations, disappearances, threats, detentions, tortures and forced displacement.

Ironically, Colombia’s constitution allows workers to form and join a union, bargain collectively and strike. But as ITUC General Secretary Guy Ryder points out, few workers in Colombia can enjoy their fundamental rights:

The systematic and selective violence against trade unionists in a climate of impunity remains the largest obstacle to workers’ rights in Colombia today.

The report outlines various actions by Colombia’s government that include:

• Allowing employers’ illegal anti-union acts to go unpunished.
• Privatizing public companies in ways that deliberately weaken unions.
• Actively trying to convince workers not to join unions.
• Inadequately fighting gender and race discrimination.
• Failing to eliminate the worst forms of child labor, which affects about 500,000 children in Colombia.

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