Colombia Workers: Keep Fighting Against Free Trade Agreement
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Over the past 24 years, more than 2,800 trade union members have been killed in Colombia and the government’s highly publicized efforts to bring the killers to justice are just a public relations spin to try and convince the United States to sign the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement, Colombian workers said today.
International solidarity is “fundamental,” said Tarsicio Muñoz, director of education for the Central Unitaria de Trabajadores (CUT). Speaking during a brown-bag discussion today at the AFL-CIO here in Washington, D.C., Muñoz said workers in the United States must continue to publicly fight against the agreement and help create the political will necessary to prevent it from being signed.
Four of the Colombian unionists spoke last night at Georgetown University, in an event sponsored by the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.
Chavez-Thompson Running for Lt. Gov. of Texas
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Big shout out to AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Emerita Linda Chavez-Thompson who yesterday announced her candidacy for lieutenant governor of Texas, her home state.
The “Draft Linda” movement swept through Texas, pulling our much-admired former executive vice president out of semi-retirement and onto the Democratic Party slate for state leadership. The first hurdle is the March 2 primary, where she will run against Democratic candidates Ronnie Earle, a former county district attorney, and Austin delicatessen owner Marc Katz.
Ed Sills, communications director of the Texas AFL-CIO, says at her campaign launch, Chavez-Thompson’s campaign made it clear she is running to make changes in Texas, not against the Democratic opponents:
Chavez-Thompson discussed her journey from the cotton fields of West Texas to national office in the labor movement and how the hard work and leadership skills that drove her will translate to a state leadership role. She spoke of the need to emphasize education, health care and other basic priorities.
Labor, Human Rights Groups Urge Colombia to Respect Unionists
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Eight labor and human rights groups, including the AFL-CIO, Teamsters and Human Rights Watch, this week called on the Colombian government to respect the work of trade unionists and human rights defenders in Colombia and to retract statements that put these workers at risk.
Colombia is the most dangerous country in the world for trade union members. Over the past 23 years, some 2,697 trade union members have been killed in Colombia. That’s a rate of one every three days. Many other attempts to kill Colombian unionists failed, and there has been a notable increase in forced removals, arbitrary arrests, illegal raids and threats, especially in agriculture, health and education.
BushWatch: 3.5 Days and Counting…
More than 20,000 AFL-CIO union volunteers are planning to heed President-elect Barack Obama’s call to pay tribute to Martin Luther King Jr.
In our retrospective of eight years of BushWatch this week, we’ve looked back at the outgoing president’s more egregious vetoes, executive orders and decisions on the economy, workplace safety, health care, workers’ rights and other issues. Click here, here, here and here for parts one through four.
Today we present a potpourri—a grab bag of sorts—of randomly bad actions highlighted on BushWatch:
- As part of a last-minute push to implement a slew of new federal regulations before leaving office, the Bush Labor Department issued new rules that make it more difficult for workers to use family and medical leave.
Ignoring Murders of Colombian Unionists, Bush Set to Honor Uribe
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| President Bush couldn’t reward murder with a trade deal. Now he’s rewarding Colombian President Uribe with a medal. |
In a final flip-off to human rights activists, international trade unionists and Colombian workers, President Bush will award the United States’ highest civilian honor—the Presidential Medal of Freedom—to Colombian President Alvaro Uribe. Colombia is the deadliest nation in the world for trade unionists.
White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said Bush was awarding Uribe and two other honorees for:
their work to improve the lives of their citizens and for their efforts to promote democracy, human rights and peace abroad.
How’s this for Uribe’s work for “human rights and peace”?
Nearly 500 trade unionists have been murdered there since he took office in 2002. Since 1986, more than 2,600 Colombian trade unionists have been murdered: however, only a small fraction of those responsible for the crimes have been arrested, prosecuted and convicted.
Bush has long sought to win a U.S. Colombia-Free Trade Agreement for his close ally Uribe. But the AFL-CIO and a broad coalition of unions, human rights, environmental, religious and other groups have been able to mobilize enough opposition to derail Bush’s plan to Fast Track the agreement through Congress.
We all agree there should be no trade agreement until real progress is made to protect the rights and lives of trade unionists. In other words: Don’t Reward Murder.
