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Deadly Week for Union Members Around the Globe
In less than a week, four union members in two countries—Guatemala and the Republic of Guinea—were murdered or kidnapped for standing up for their freedom. And in Iraq, two trade unionists were killed and seven kidnapped in the ongoing violence.
In Guatemala, Pedro Zamora, general secretary of the Dockworkers Union (STEPQ), was gunned down Monday by unknown assailants who used methods reminiscent of those by paramilitary forces during Guatemala’s 36-year civil war.
Zamora had been leading efforts to stop privatization of the country’s major port of Quetzal and was demanding decent working conditions for dockworkers. He also stood with workers when they were locked out of their workplace and when the military took over the ports.
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, in a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, described what witnesses say happened to Zamora:
On his way to pick up his children from an appointment at the health center located in the Port of Quetzal grounds, Mr. Zamora was gunned down…. His killers fired over 100 shots, 20 of which hit him, and fired one final shot to the face to further degrade and underscore the message of his murder. Mr. Zamora’s three-year-old son was seriously injured in the attack.
It is unacceptable that as our countries grow closer and closer in trade and immigration that Guatemalans who have taken on the honorable responsibility of representing their co-workers in what should be civil, peaceful labor-management negotiations, should fall victim to brutal acts of violence at their workplace. Achieving justice in the murder of Mr. Zamora represents one small step in the path toward the primacy of rule of law over impunity and toward the support of real democracy in Guatemala.
Guatemala is one of the nations that signed the Dominican Republic—Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA). Its growing textile industry is well-known for its sweatshop working conditions and lack of workers’ rights.
Ellie Larson, executive director of the AFL-CIO’s Solidarity Center, says:
Over the last year, we worked with Pedro Zamora and his union to ensure that the rights of dockworkers are protected under international conventions and Guatemalan labor law. We mourn his loss, and we condemn his murder.
(You can read the Solidarity Center press release on Zamora’s murder in Spanish by clicking here.)
Guy Ryder, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), which represents 168 million workers in 153 countries and territories, says Zamora’s murder
was planned and premeditated, and appears designed to send a message to those who dare to stand up for fundamental rights.
The International Transport Federation (ITF) also expressed outrage over Zamora’s murder. David Cockroft, ITF’s general secretary, said:
This is an outrage, pure and simple. It could not have been a more dirty and cowardly attack. It’s a filthy little act that makes the blood of any decent person boil. The Guatemalan government will never be forgiven if it doesn’t investigate and then bring the murderers to justice.
The ITF protested in October to the Guatemalan government and the United Nations’ International Labor Organization that Zamora was being followed in response to his role in defending workers’ jobs at Quetzal.
Click here to take action to demand a full investigation of Zamora’s murder and that his killers be brought to justice.
The ITUC also condemned the killing of at least three civilians, the wounding of many others and the detention of several top union leaders in the West African country of Guinea. The country’s security forces opened fire on a peaceful demonstration Jan. 10. Guinea’s national trade unions organized the strike to put pressure on Guinean President Lansana Conte to improve the country’s faltering economy and other issues.
Meanwhile, in Iraq, militia groups Jan. 16 killed Mohammed Hameed, an organizer for the Federation of Workers’ Councils and Unions in Iraq (FWCUI). Hameed was among a group of 15 civilians randomly gunned down in an open marketplace in southern Baghdad. Hameed was out on a walk when he was caught in the gunfire.
A second incident occurred five days earlier, when militia gunmen abducted eight engineers of the Iraqi Oil Ministry as they were traveling in a vehicle to a FWCUI press conference on fuel price increases. Four of the kidnapped victims, all union members, were released. One was later found dead, after being tortured. The other three still are missing.
Falah Alwan, president of FWCUI, says he is disappointed with the response from the government and the lack of information on these heinous crimes.
The Iraqi government must take responsibility for the lawlessness that has become so prevalent in the oil industry, as well as for the obvious security deficiencies that has allowed ordinary workers to be killed every day.
The Brussels-based International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers’ Unions, which represents 20 million workers worldwide, called on the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to fully investigate the abductions and killings of the engineers and to make serious efforts to apprehend the drive-by gunmen responsible for the random shootings that took Hameed’s life.
In December, Abdullah Muhsin, the international representative of the General Federation of Iraqi Workers (GFIW), told a group at AFL-CIO headquarters that Iraqi workers are caught in the crossfire between the insurgents and Iraqi and U.S. soldiers.
Iraq’s workers and the union movement are under attack by forces sowing chaos in the country, he said. Every day, thousands of workers desperate for jobs risk their lives in war-torn Iraq to feed their families and eke out a living. Muhsin said:
People are lining up to go to work, and a crazy suicide bomber comes into the crowd, and they all die. These people are not supporting any cause, any religion, any political agenda. They’re just trying to make a living.
Muhsin says many people are afraid to go out of their homes for fear of being killed, but they have no choice. They must go out and find work or go to the market.
Muhsin and Alan Johnson are co-authors of Hadi Never Died: Hadi Saleh and the Iraqi Trade Unions, a book about the life of the prominent Iraqi union leader who was brutally tortured and murdered in January 2005 by enemies of democracy in Iraq.
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