This Is Several Years Old, But... The United States and The War on Trade Unions in Colombia

[WillyT]

Was watching Free Speech TV, and they were showing this (from 2009):



Link: http://www.cinemapolitica.org/node/1260

Then found this (from 2004):

The United States and The War on Trade Unions in Colombia: A Call for Solidarity

By Jeremy Rayner

On the morning of December 5th, 1996, a band of armed men on motorcycles rode up to the gates of the Coca-Cola bottling plant in the small rural town of Carepa, Colombia. They waited for the plant's gatekeeper to open the door, shot him ten times, climbed back onto their motorcycles and rode off. The gatekeeper, lying dead at his post, was Isídro Segundo Gil, the union's chief negotiator. His assassins belonged to one of Colombia's ruthless far-right paramilitary organizations. The paramilitaries were determined to destroy the union, which had dared to ask for $400 a month in wages, health benefits, and greater job security. Later that day they attempted to kidnap another of the union's leaders, who barely escaped with his life, and then firebombed the unions' offices that night. But what sealed the union's fate was when the paramilitaries returned to the plant a week later, gathered the workers in the company cafeteria, and forced them to sign letters of resignation from the union. Any employees who did not sign the letters would be killed. According to Edgar Paéz, one of the workers at the plant, "the company never negotiated with the union after that…. All the workers had to quit the union to save their own lives, and the union was completely destroyed."1

Scenes like this are all too common in Colombia, where organizing a union is very likely to get you killed. The numbers are staggering: more than 3,800 union leaders and labor activists have been murdered in Colombia since the mid 1980's, and more than one hundred have been killed in the first six months of this year alone. In 2000, more trade unionists were killed in Colombia than were killed in the entire world in 1999.2 And the situation is quickly getting worse: in 2001, murders of trade unionists were up by 30%.3 Beyond the obvious human tragedy that lies behind these numbers, this campaign of terror has serious implications for social justice and worker rights in Colombia and beyond.

In the face of such violent repression, the fate of Colombia's trade union movement might very well depend on the solidarity offered by people here in the United States. Support from people in the US is crucial, for two reasons: in the first place, there is abundant evidence that US-based companies are deeply implicated in the attacks on trade unionists occurring in their Colombian operations. At the same time, until the Colombian military severs its links with the paramilitary groups that carry out 90% of attacks on Colombia's trade unionists, US military aid to that country is all too likely to wind up offering indirect support for the paramilitaries' ongoing campaign against worker rights.

Negotiation by Death Squad : US-Based Corporations and Paramilitaries in Colombia

There is mounting evidence that American companies are complicit in the persecution of trade unionists at their Colombian operations. In the case of the Coca-Cola bottling plant in Carepa, where Isídro Segundo Gil was murdered, the union Sinaltrainal argues that Coca-Cola knowingly stood by and allowed the plant's manager to bring in paramilitaries to destroy the union. The workers at the Carepa plant had been asking both Coca-Cola and its bottler, Bebidas y Alimentos, to intervene on their behalf for two months before Isídro Segundo Gil's murder. The plant manager, Ariosto Milan Mosquera had announced publicly that he had asked the paramilitaries to destroy the union. His declaration had been followed by a series of death threats from the paramilitaries, which had prompted the union to send letters to both Coca-Cola and Bebidas y Alimentos asking that they intervene to secure their workers' safety.4 And this was not the first time that threats against workers had been carried out. Just two years before, in 1994, the paramilitaries had killed two trade unionists at the same plant.5 It should have surprised no one when two and a half months after the union's plea for help, Isídro Segundo Gil was murdered and the union busted.

Unionists have also been assassinated at other Coca-Cola bottling plants in Colombia, both before and after the incident at Carepa. One unionist, José Avelino Chicano, was killed at a Coca-Cola plant in Pasto in 1989. In 2002, despite the limited publicity surrounding the events at Carepa, a union leader named Oscar Dario Soto Polo was killed during the course of contract negotiations at the plant in Bucaramanga.6 Despite the remarkable courage and perseverance of Colombia's labor activists, the campaign of intimidation has necessarily taken its toll on worker organizing. The president of Sinaltrainal, Javier Correa, reported last year that the number of unionized workers at Coca-Cola plants had dropped by more than two thirds since 1993-from 1,300 workers to only 450.7

Coco-Cola is not the only multi-national company linked to the murder of union leaders in Colombia. Drummond Co., an Alabama-based coal-mining company, has also overseen a series of similar assassinations in recent years. In March of 2001, during the course of a dispute between Drummond and the union Sintramienergetica, paramilitaries took the union's president, Valmore Lacarno Rodríguez, and vice-president, Víctor Hugo Orcasita Amaya, off a company bus and executed them. As in the Coca-Cola case, Drummond had ignored open threats from the paramilitaries, circulated publicly on flyers, and had even refused Lacarno and Orcasito's plea that they be allowed to sleep at the mine for safety. Moreover, many workers, including the next union president, Gustavo Soler Mora, argued that the mine's management had helped the paramilitaries to find and identify Locarno and Orcasita.8 Seven months later Gustavo Soler Mora was also taken off a bus and murdered.9

Because of the involvement of US-based companies like Coca-Cola and Drummond Co. in the persecution of Colombia's trade unions, Colombian labor activists have issued an urgent appeal for solidarity from the people of the United States. Some have already begun to answer that call. The United Steel Workers, along with the Center for International Labor Rights, are focusing their efforts on an innovative new strategy to hold these corporations accountable in US courts. Using the Alien Torts act, which allows non-citizens to file federal lawsuits against US citizens and companies for crimes committed abroad, they have filed two lawsuits on behalf of Colombia's trade unions and the families of the murdered trade unionists. The first lawsuit charges Coca-Cola, Bebidas y Alimentos, and Panamerican Beverages,10 with complicity in the campaign of murder and intimidation being waged against unionists at Coca-Cola bottling facilities throughout Colombia. The second lawsuit charges Drummond with responsibility for the murders of Valmore Lacarno Rodríguez, Víctor Hugo Orcasita Amaya, and Gustavo Soler Mora.

Alongside the lawsuits, a grassroots campaign is emerging in support of Colombia's embattled unionists, bringing in trade unionists, students, and others concerned with labor rights. In addition to the USWA, and the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions, the Teamsters, who represent 15,000 Coca-Cola workers in the United States, have taken a leading role. In April, they organized a spirited rally outside of the Coca-Cola shareholders meeting in Madison Square Gardens, calling attention to the killings in Colombia and demanding that Coca-Cola respect basic standards of human rights.

A US-Funded War on Trade Unions?

Important as they are, lawsuits such as those filed against Coca-Cola and Drummond are only a partial solution for Colombia's workers. Colombia's labor movement as a whole will remain vulnerable as long as union leaders and organizers face the constant threat of paramilitary violence. However, people in the United States have an important role to play here as well. The Colombian military is now the third largest recipient of American military assistance in the world. As human rights organizations, journalists, labor and civic leaders in both the United States and Colombia have pointed out, there is serious cause for concern that this steady flow of arms from the United States to Colombia is dramatically worsening the status of labor rights in the country.

Of greatest concern are the alarming links between the official Colombian military and the ultra-right wing paramilitary organizations of the AUC (United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia), who are responsible for 90% of trade union assassinations in Colombia (and a majority of political killings in general).11 In a recent report prepared for the US State Department, prominent international human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, found clear evidence of extensive military-paramilitary cooperation. The report makes sobering reading: "…military units and police detachments continue to promote, work with, support, profit from, and tolerate paramilitary groups, treating them as a force allied to and compatible with their own." The report goes on to outline the details of this working relationship, which has included everything from the sharing of equipment and intelligence, to the hosting of paramilitaries on military bases, to active cooperation on the battlefield. Active duty soldiers from the regular army serve in the paramilitary forces and are on the paramilitary payroll.12 Under these conditions, it is often difficult to find any distinction between the military and the paramilitaries, causing many in Colombia to label the paramilitaries as the army's "Sixth Division."

Because of the extensive paramilitary-military cooperation in Colombia, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that US aid to the Colombian military is facilitating the persecution of Colombia's trade unions. Investigations have revealed "links between active-duty and retired members of the security forces, known paramilitaries and professional killers, and attacks on trade unionists."13 The broad pattern of paramilitary/military cooperation shows that this is not just a matter of a few isolated extremists. In fact, many in Colombia's labor movement believe that the destruction of unions is their government's policy. The CUT, Colombia's umbrella trade union organization, points to absurdly low budget allocations for the protection of threatened trade unionists. Nor does the government bother to prosecute these crimes once they occur; the last 3,500 murders of trade unionists in Colombia have resulted in only six convictions.14 The ongoing violence against unions furthers the governments' neoliberal economic policies, which have met stiff resistance from organized labor. A chilling example is the call from the head of the Ministry of Labor for "unions who face labor conflicts to negotiate and avoid worsening the violence in Colombia."15

Unfortunately, the situation is likely to get worse under the president-elect, Alvaro Uribe Vélez. As governor of Antioquia Province from 1995-97, Uribe presided over a hotbed of anti-union violence, including the destruction of the Coca-Cola union in Carepa with which we began. His presidential campaign was enthusiastically supported by the paramilitaries of the AUC.16 All indications are that the paramilitaries will continue to thrive under his leadership-clearly they think so. Under these conditions, further US military assistance to Colombia will only contribute to the campaign of terror now being waged against Colombia's labor movement.

We in the United States can stand in solidarity with Colombia's embattled unions by calling for a moratorium on arms shipments to Colombia, while supporting the efforts of Colombia's unions to achieve justice in our courts. Fortunately, increasing numbers of people in the United States are responding to this call. We may not be able to afford not to. As the economic linkages between the United States and Colombia continue to deepen, it is becoming increasingly evident that the conditions faced by Colombia's unions set the floor for our own. For example, Drummond has laid off thousands of coal miners in Alabama to take advantage of the cheaper labor in Colombia. If the unions at Drummond in Colombia cannot freely organize to better their lives, the situation in Alabama will be that much bleaker. The survival of our own unions tomorrow might ultimately depend on how many are willing to stand in solidarity with Colombia's unions today.

Link: http://henningcenter.berkeley.edu/gateway/colombia.html

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