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Colombia’s Workers Risk Lives to Gain Their Rights
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Four U.S. union leaders report on a recent trip to Colombia, sponsored by the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center. The delegation included Benjamin Field and Jeremy Ray from the South Bay Labor Council, Jennifer Jannon, a Working America regional director, and Richard Shaw, executive secretary-treasurer of the Harris County (Texas) AFL-CIO.
The figures speak for themselves. Colombia is the deadliest place in the world for trade union members. There have been 2,837 murders of union members since 1986 and 564 murders under President Alvaro Uribe, whose term ended Aug. 7. These numbers don’t include the “displacements,” people who were forced to leave or were driven away. The murderers, who most often are members of paramilitary groups, escape prosecution about 96 percent of the time.
Our delegation met with union and community leaders in several areas where workers harvest the palm fruit from African palms. Areas like the Magdalena Medio region, where workers began organizing unions in the late 1960s and 1970s. In the 1980s, thugs terrorized and attacked the union members and the government enacted new restrictive labor laws that eliminated workers’ ability to bargain collectively.
And then there’s Puerto Wilches, a town so poor it has no sewage treatment system and no potable water. The people who live there face flooding, a polluted river and lack of health care. We were told how families had been driven off their land by the palm oil growers, labeled as “radicals” for organizing. Their community has no police protection, leaving families at the mercy of paramilitary thugs hired by the growers. In the union hall, the names of murdered union leaders are displayed on a wall as a constant reminder.
Throughout the country, we learned about the ways Colombia’s elected leaders prevent workers from having a voice on the job. Leaders from the two major labor federations—the Central Unitaria de Trabajadores (CUT) and the Confederación de Trabajadores de Colombia (CTC)—explained that few workers are actually covered by the labor law. Colombian government leaders have stigmatized unions as guerilla sympathizers or terrorists and have criminalized many legitimate forms of protest.
We also were briefed on so-called associated labor cooperatives. Cooperatives are supposed to be voluntary, worker-managed associations that distribute their collective gains to their members. In Colombia, some 2 million workers are in such arrangements. Workers in cooperatives are responsible for their own payroll taxes, including health insurance and pension payments. They must purchase or rent their own work tools and safety equipment and can be fined for any number of work rule infractions. They often finish work with as much debt as their take home pay.
Finally, CUT spoke about the massive environmental degradation of Colombia’s land and water caused by the multinational corporations’ plundering of Colombia’s vast mineral wealth. The CUT leaders told us they do not want the U.S. government to pass the Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA) and asked us for our help in stopping it.
In Bogota, we presented our findings to two officials in the Colombian Vice President’s Office on Human Rights. We told them we found:
- Unchecked violence from the paramilitaries, with no police force in place to counter it.
- Impunity—offenders not being found and punished.
- Fear.
- Exploitation of workers through cooperatives and the subsequent decline of unions.
- Environmental degradation.
- Lack of sewage treatment and potable water.
- Lack of services for the elderly.
We all agreed that the proposed U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement must not be passed until conditions for all workers in Colombia improve dramatically and there is genuine change. We must put pressure on the Colombian government and the multinationals that are repressing workers’ rights and systemically exploiting and abusing workers.
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2 Comments
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We should be proud of the fact that our unions here in the US have recognized these horrible crimes against workers by a corrupt regime supported by U.S. tax dollars, at a time when half of Congress says we can’t afford to help working people. By speaking out loudly, together with Labor organizations around the world, against the murderous repression of Labor in Colombia, we have made the difference so far in preventing the Free Trade Agreement that Bush pushed so hard for with these murderers. Of course, we will really know we are getting somewhere when we get Labor candidates into Congress who can demand an end to all U.S. aid to these Labor-hating assassins, and use the 5 billion dollars/yr saved to help fund jobs programs.
Every member of a union in Colombia is not walking around with a big bullseye on his back and going home each night in fear of his life. There are many living normal lives. If you visit Bucaramunga, Cartagena or the North of Bogota you will not see the poor as described in the article talking about the town of Puerto Wilches. There are many nice places in Colombia.
But some U.S. congress members have looked at Colombia only with blinders and rose colored glasses on. There is little doubt that Colombia has for over ten years and continues to be a terrible place for workers. The country has led the world in the murders of union members for over a decade. The U.S. congress members in favor of the FTA like to say that under past President Uribe that murders of union members were reduced. But independent journalist, Garry Leech, took a hard look at the numbers eliminating the political spin and came to a different conclusion. http://www.bilaterals.org/spip.php?article10650&lang=en
And there has been no consistent and sustained reduction. Murders increased 25% in 2008 over 2007 and at the rate they are going this year it will surpass the number murdered in 2009.
Pro FTA’ers like to spout the number of how many people are convicted of murdering union members. The number as presented is appears large, but the percentages is still below the fingers on one hand. And as a U.S. congressional committee hearing discovered, only material authors (the ones who pulled the trigger) are convicted and the intellectual authors (ones who ordered the murders) are not even sought out.
Proponents of the FTA like to say how Colombia deserves the FTA as how much foreign investment has increased. Most of the foreign investment is in the mineral area. What is not being told is that in order to entice that investment royalties that went to help the people of Colombia were reduced from sometimes a high of 40% to as little as 2%. The people suffered, but the rich got richer. I have followed three multinational companies that purchased Colombian companies. Each of them not only eliminated or reduced the workforce where the product was previously made, but they reduced the workforce in Colombia as well putting as much as 25% to 30% of previously employees out of work. That foreign investment actually cost jobs in one or more countries.
The article states that the majority of murders of union members is done by the paramilitary. According to one report 75% of the murders of union members has been perpetrated by, not the left wing guerillas that the U.S. gives money to fight, but by right-wing paramilitary and government security troops. The paramilitary has been connected to the Colombian government and the country’s rich on many levels. And yes, the very Colombian troops the U.S. taxpayers have been financing has been found, according to a United Nations report, of murdering civilians.
One member of the U.S. congress in 2009 cited the Colombian city of Medellin as a fine example of the progress Colombia is making. Too bad he did not wait until the end of that year. When the total number of murders in Medellin more than doubled its number of murders in 2009 over 2008 and we are not talking hundreds here, but thousand. The government sent in 1,500 more police to help things. But reports have come in stating that some of the lowly paid police are moonlighting as hitmen.
Some of the agreement supporters claim the FTA will reduce the drugs from Colombia. They cite things about farmers. Without investigation and knowledge of what Colombia is really like their statements sound plausible. But let’s consider history. Since the USA passed the FTA with Peru, the drugs in that country have increased significantly and the country is expected to soon surpass Colombia in coca plantings.
One of the biggest problems in Colombia is corruption. Since Plan Colombia has began, some International surveys show that corruption in the country has increased 50%. FTA supporters state that with labor laws written into the FTA that human rights abuses will decrease. The truth as shown by history and even from the U.S. union leaders trip is that the laws in Colombia because of the massive corruption are often not even worth the paper they are written on. The truth is that until Colombian brings it massive corruption that allows impunity for murderers of union members and laws to be constantly skirted that the country is far from ready for an FTA with The United States.