Dead unionists no hurdle to free trade

The US government is not only a step away from ratifying a new free trade agreement, but also from rewarding persistent and severe human rights abuses in Colombia, where each year more trade union leaders are murdered than in all other nations put together, a new report charges. "Having a free trade agreement with a country that allows trade unionists to be murdered with impunity is outrageous," said Bob Perillo, author of the report by the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center in Washington, titled "The Struggle for Worker Rights in Colombia." According to the 84-page report released on June 15, only 376 of the more than 3,000 murders of Colombian trade unionists that occurred between 1986 and 2002 were investigated by the authorities. A total of five have resulted in guilty verdicts. Although the Colombian government claims that it has successfully prosecuted 19 cases involving the murder of trade unionists since 1992, independent data indicate a prosecution rate of less than one percent. Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson in a June 15 editorial called the proposed trade agreement "ridiculous," "Kill a unionist in Colombia and you have about as much chance of doing time as you do of being hit by lightning." Last year alone, 70 trade unionists were killed, while 260 received death threats, 56 were arbitrarily detained, seven survived attacks in which explosives or firearms were used, six were kidnapped and three disappeared. In 2004, 99 trade unionists were murdered, mostly in connection with collective bargaining disputes or strikes. "While it is not always possible to establish a motive for the attacks on union members, analysis of these violations demonstrates that most are directly linked to the victims' participation in a labor dispute," the report says. It then quotes Carlos Castaño, the notorious former head of the AUC paramilitary umbrella group: "We kill trade unionists because they interfere with people working." The report says that many anti-union businesses have been accused of using the armed conflict as a cover for attacks on workers, and there are credible allegations that they have hired paramilitaries to intimidate or physically harm labor activists. According to the International Labor Organization's (ILO) Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, adopted in 1998, freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining are unequivocal human rights. However, in Colombia, "legal, political and administrative state procedures act as tripwires to impede union organizing and offer little or no support or legal recourse in labor disputes. The law severely limits workers' rights to bargain collectively and strike," says the AFL-CIO report. In addition, more than half of the country's workers earn less than the minimum wage, and 85 percent earn less than twice the minimum wage. In 2005, unemployment was estimated at 12 percent. As a consequence, "almost 59 percent of the workforce labored in the informal economy, where only about 45 percent of workers were affiliated with Social Security health plans and only 12.5 percent participated in pension programs," the report says. The ILO Declaration, which Colombia has ratified, also mandates that all forms of compulsory labor, including child labor, be effectively abolished, as well as discrimination in respect to employment and occupation. But the Solidarity Center report says that at least 2.5 million children were working in Colombia last year. Only 38 percent of these children attended school, and almost 15 percent of all Colombian children work outside the home. Additionally, according to a 2005 study by Colombia's labor college, the Escuela Nacional Sindical, women earn an average of 30 percent less than their male counterparts. The same study reported that last year there were 15 murders of female trade unionists, in addition to two attempted murders; 102 women were threatened with death; 10 were arbitrarily arrested; and there were 15 cases of harassment and persecution for union activity, seven displacements and one kidnapping.