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LABOUR-COLOMBIA: Unions Press for Local ILO Office

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Sep 20 2006 (IPS) - International labour associations have publicly expressed their support for the call by Colombian trade unions for faster progress towards the establishment of a local office of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in that civil war-torn South American country.

Janek Kuczkiewicz, director of human and trade union rights at the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), announced that organisation’s support for the nationwide protests that unions in Colombia are planning for next Tuesday.

“We are determined to step up the pressure” on the Colombian government and business to make them live up to the commitment assumed with the ILO, Kuczkiewicz told IPS by telephone from Brussels, where the ICFTU is based.

The trade unionist was referring to the tripartite agreement signed Jun. 1 in Geneva, in which the Colombian government and workers’ and employers’ representatives agreed to a permanent ILO office in Colombia.

The local ILO office will be in charge of technical cooperation to promote decent work and the basic rights of workers and their representatives, with a particular emphasis on protecting the lives of trade unionists, trade union freedom and freedom of association and expression, and collective bargaining, as well as free enterprise for employers.

Kuczkiewicz pointed out that labour rights continue to be routinely violated in Colombia. A total of 74 trade unionists were killed in 2005 alone, he said, although the government put the number at 25. “But there are always discrepancies between the government’s figures and ours,” he added.

“The Situation Regarding Human Rights and Humanitarian Laws”, a report released Wednesday in Geneva by the Colombian Commission of Jurists (CCJ), also states that “Attacks against labour-union organisations continue.”

Between January 2003 and December 2005, 271 labour activists were killed, an average of 90 a year, CCJ representative Andrés Sánchez Thorin told IPS.

These abuses occur in the context of more than four decades of armed conflict between leftist guerrillas and the military, who were later joined by the ultra-right-wing paramilitary militias, which are currently in the midst of a controversial partial demobilisation process.

Added to the mix are the drug cartels sustained by demand from the United States, the world’s largest market for drugs.

But besides the violence against trade unionists, there is “structural anti-trade unionism” on the part of the Colombian government and business, which deny the rights to strike and to collective bargaining, while carrying out major restructurings and downsizing that are apparently only motivated by one goal: to curb trade union activity, said Kuczkiewicz.

That includes the restructuring carried out by the state itself, through, for example, the privatisation of the postal system and the subsequent dismissal of more than 1,000 public employees, Freddy Pulencio, with the Unión Sindical Obrera de la Industria del Petróleo (USO) – Colombia’s oilworkers’ union – told IPS.

Then there is the imminent dismantling of the Social Security Institute, and the public tender of 20 percent of the shares of the state-run Ecopetrol oil company and 50 percent of the shares of the Cartagena refinery, Colombia’s second-largest after the refinery in the northeastern province of Barrancabermeja, said Pulencio.

The privatisation initiatives are among the causes of the strike planned for the morning of Sep. 26 and the protest marches to be held that afternoon in Bogotá and other large Colombian cities.

Another reason is the workers’ opposition to the free trade treaty that the Colombian government of right-wing President Álvaro Uribe is negotiating with the United States, said Pulencio.

Free trade treaties of this kind have a heavy impact on agriculture due to the surge in imports of subsidised farm products from the United States or the European Union, which local producers cannot compete with, said the trade unionist.

With respect to intellectual property, the free trade agreement would extend the patent rights of foreign drug companies by an additional seven years, thus effectively eliminating generic drugs from the market, and driving up pharmaceutical prices three-or four-fold, said Pulencio.

Besides their support for next Tuesday’s strike and protests in Colombia, the international trade union associations will press the ILO Administrative Council, which meets Nov. 2-17 in Geneva, to speed up the designation of a representative in Colombia, said Kuczkiewicz.

“We are going to demand urgent compliance with last June’s agreement, the appointment of a representative, and the opening of an office in Colombia,” he said. “It has to be headed by someone of stature, who is worthy of the confidence of the regional and international communities.”

Kuczkiewicz said an office will have to be established in Colombia, because the representative will not be able to do all the work on his or her own.

The ICFTU representative also said the office must dedicate itself to the decent work programme that the ILO defines as “productive work in which rights are protected, which generates an adequate income, with adequate social protection.”

“That is why we are talking about a team,” he underlined.

He noted, however, that Colombian trade unionists have complained that the Uribe administration has expressed on several occasions its opposition to the opening of an ILO office – a position that is shared by employers.

Colombian trade unionists argue that the resistance put up by the government and business runs counter to the tripartite agreement reached in June.

An office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights already operates in Colombia, to oversee the country’s compliance with international human rights conventions and recommendations.

Kuczkiewicz said that despite complaints from the international community that the UNHCHR office’s observations “could be more severe,” the office at least provides a measure of international oversight in Colombia.