Solidarity Center Supports, Extends Workers’ Efforts to Build Unions
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Through its work in more than 60 countries on five continents, the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center is supporting and extending workers’ efforts to gain a better life by helping them to build strong unions. In its 2009 Annual Report, the Solidarity Center highlights its wide range of programs to help workers form unions.
The Solidarity Center is helping African journalists in Rwanda and Burundi create full-fledged democratic unions and joining with national unions in those countries to fight HIV/AIDS.
- In Pakistan, where teachers unions are banned, the Solidarity Center, with support from AFT, brought together 45 teacher associations to form the Teacher Consortium of Pakistan (TCOP). The 150,000 members of TCOP fight for issues important to all teachers in the country.
- The Solidarity Center supports an association of women workers in the Dominican Republic, comprised of both Haitian migrants and Dominican nationals, and conducts advocacy to ensure they know their rights as workers.
- With the support of the Solidarity Center, the Confederation of Free Trade Unions of Ukraine launched a campaign for quality health care and education. Members collected more than 50,000 signatures on a petition calling for adequate funding for medical and school supplies and other needs.
You can download the Annual Report here.
Colombians Mourn Colleagues Killed in Past Two Months
When 14 Colombian trade union members were in the United States for a training program, they were unable to forget just how dangerous it is to support unions in their home country. During the two months they were here, four of their colleagues were assassinated.
In a memorial service at AFL-CIO in Washington, D.C., yesterday, we joined the Solidarity Center and the Colombian workers to honor those who were killed and to reaffirm our determination to fight for workers’ and human rights in that country.
AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler told the group:
We want our Colombian sisters and brothers to know that as we fight for basic trade union rights in this country, we are totally dedicated to their struggle to organize and collectively bargain in an atmosphere free of fear, terror and violence.
Colombian Activist Yessika Hoyos Receives AFL-CIO Human Rights Award
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Seven years ago, Colombian union leader Jorge Dario Hoyos was assassinated. But his death did not silence his family’s search for justice. His daughter, Yessika, followed in her father’s steps, risking her life in pursuit of workers’ rights and challenging the power of corporations and a government that does little to protect the rights and lives of workers.
Today, the AFL-CIO presented Yessika Hoyos with the 2008 George Meany-Lane Kirkland Human Rights Award for “her extraordinary courage, her dedication to the cause of workers’ rights in Colombia and her commitment to ending impunity for those responsible.”
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, a friend of Dario Hoyos, praised Yessica as “an incredible woman.”
As a lawyer, she has fought tirelessly to bring her father’s killers to justice and to end the cycle of violence in her native land. Even though the low-level trigger men responsible for her father’s death have been prosecuted, the masterminds who ordered Dario Hoyos’ death have not been found—an all-too-common scenario in the deadliest country in the world for union members.
Paramilitary Members Face Justice in Murders of Two Colombian Union Leaders
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Eight long years after Colombian trade union leaders Valmore Locarno Rodriguez and Victor Hugo Orcasita Amaya were assassinated, those directly responsible for these heinous crimes are being punished.
Just yesterday, Alcides Maneul Mattos Tavares, alias “el Samario,” confessed to having participated as one of the gunmen. The other assassin, Jairo Charris Jesus, was sentenced Aug. 7 to 30 years in prison for his role in the murders. Both men were members of the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC), the umbrella paramilitary organization.
Two other paramilitary leaders, Rodrigo Tovar Pupo, alias “Jorge 40,” and Oscar Jose Ospina Pacheco, alias “Tolemaida,” also face trial for their involvement in these crimes. Tovar’s case is complicated, however, by the fact that he was extradited to the United States on drug-trafficking charges earlier this year.
Locarno and Orcasita, president and vice president, respectively, of Sintramienergica, the mine and energy workers union, were killed in March 2001. Both worked for the U.S.-based mining multinational, Drummond.
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.
Colombian Workers’ Rights Activist Nominated for Meany-Kirkland Award
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Seven years ago, Colombian union leader Jorge Dario Hoyos was assassinated. But his death did not silence his family’s search for justice. Today, his daughter, Yessika, is following in her father’s steps, risking her life in pursuit of workers’ rights and challenging the power of corporations and a government that does little to protect the rights and lives of workers.
Today, the AFL-CIO Executive Council, meeting in Miami, nominated Yessika Hoyos for the 2008 George Meany-Lane Kirkland Human Rights Award. Click here to read the resolution.
Hoyos, a lawyer, has been fighting tirelessly to bring her father’s killers to justice and to end the cycle of violence in her native land. Even though the low-level trigger men responsible for her father’s death have been prosecuted, the masterminds who ordered Dario Hoyos’ death have not been found—an all-too-common scenario in the deadliest country in the world for union members.
The Colombian government has not vigorously investigated or prosecuted the killing of trade union members. At the current pace of investigations and trials, it would take 37 years to prosecute the backlog of cases. And the caseload is growing—the rate of killings, which had fallen for a few years, jumped sharply last year by 25 percent, says José Luciano Sanin, director of Escuela Nacional Sindical (National Union School), a leading Colombian think tank.
